WEBVTT

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I was 17 when I chose my career.

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I was standing outside

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on a hot summer night in Florida,

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and just a few miles from the ocean.

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I was waiting for a miracle to happen.

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That summer I was privileged
to work as an intern

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at NASA's Kennedy Space Center,

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and the miracle I was waiting for

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was the launch
of the Columbia Space Shuttle,

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carrying the Chandra X-Ray Observatory,

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a telescope that would allow scientists
to peer into the edge of black holes.

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The entire sky filled with light.

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And it was as if it was daytime
in the middle of the night.

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Soon, we could feel the rumble
of the engines vibrating in our chests.

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And it wasn't a miracle;

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it was the combined effort
of a team of thousands of people

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who worked together

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to make was seemed impossible a reality.

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And I wanted to join that team.

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So I decided to apply to a university
where I could study aerospace engineering,

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and the following year,

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I started at MIT
in my engineering training

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and joined a student project
building space robots.

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And everything was going as I planned,

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except I was confused
about something important.

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Now, my confusion arose
in my summer breaks.

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I traveled to a school in Kenya,

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and there I volunteered
with girls ages five to 17,

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giving them lessons in English
and math and science.

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And they taught me songs in Swahili.

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And mostly, I just spent time
getting to know the girls,

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enjoying their presence.

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And I saw that these girls,

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and the leaders in their community,

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they were overcoming important barriers

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to allow these girls to have
the best possible chances in life ...

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and I wanted to join that team.

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I wanted to be part of a team
that would help break down barriers

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and improve the lives
of girls around the world,

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but I was worried that studying
aerospace engineering

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wasn't the most useful.

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I was worried this team in Kenya

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couldn't use the technology
I was learning about space.

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But thankfully, I still learned
that I was wrong.

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I came back and interned at NASA again,

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and this time,

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a mentor taught me

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that countries like Kenya had been
involved using space technology

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for decades

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to improve the lives
in their own countries.

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And then I knew that I could have
a career in space and in development.

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This idea is not new.

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In fact, in 1967, the nations
of the world came together

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to write the Outer Space Treaty.

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This treaty made a bold statement,

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saying that "the exploration
and use of outer space

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should be carried on
for the benefit of all peoples,

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irrespective of their level
of economic or scientific development."

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We have not truly lived up to this ideal,

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although people have worked for decades
to make this a reality.

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Forces such as colonialism and racism

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and gender inequality

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have actually excluded many people
from the benefits of space,

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and caused us to believe
that space is for the few,

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or the rich or elite.

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But we cannot afford this attitude,

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because the world is engaged
in a vital mission

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to improve life for everyone.

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Our roadmap for this mission comes from
the 17 Sustainable Development Goals

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of the United Nations.

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All the member states
of the United Nations have agreed

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that these are priorities
between now and 2030.

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These goals give us our key moments
and opportunities of our time --

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opportunities to end extreme poverty,

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to insure that everyone has access
to food and clean water.

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We must pursue these goals
as a global community,

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and technology from space
supports sustainable development,

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and in fact there are six space services

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that can help us pursue
the Sustainable Development Goals.

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Over the next few minutes,

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let's explore these six services,

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and see examples of just a few
of the goals they help support.

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You ready?

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OK.

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Communication satelites provide access
to phone and internet service

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to almost any location on earth.

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This is particularly important
during times of disaster recovery.

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When Typhoon Haiyan
struck the Philippines,

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the local communication netwworks
needed to be repaired,

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and teams brought in inflatable
communication antennas

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that could link to satellites.

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This was useful during the time
of repair and recovery.

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Positioning satellites
tell us where we are

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by telling us where they are.

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Scientists can use this technology
to track endagered wildlife.

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This turtle has been fitted with a system

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that allows it to receive location
information from positioning satellites,

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and they send the location information

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to scientists via
communication satellites.

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Scientists can use this knowledge
to then make better policies

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and help determine how
to keep these animals alive.

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Earth observation satellites.

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They tell us what's going on
in our environment.

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Now right now,

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there are about 150 satellites
operated by over 60 government agencies,

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and these are just
those observing the earth.

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And meanwhile, companies
are adding to this list.

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Most of the governments provide the data
from the satellites for free online.

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Some of these satellites
provide images like this,

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that show what you
would see from a camera.

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This is an image showing
agricultural land in Kansas.

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However, the majority
of the earth observation satellites

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don't take pictures at all.

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They take measurements.

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And they combine these measurements
with complex computer models

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and make beautiful, global visualizations

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such as this one,

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showing the ocean currents

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and the temperature
of the ocean, globally.

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Or we can look at the salt and smoke
and dust in the atmosphere.

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Or the rainfall and snowfall, globally.

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As well as the annual cycle of vegetation
on land and in the ocean.

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Now, scientists can take this information
about the rainfall and the vegetation,

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and use it to understand
what areas on earth are in danger

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of a famine or a drought,

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and provide that information
to aid organizations

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so they can be prepared with food aid
before the hunger becomes severe.

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In space, we have an orbiting laboratory
on the International Space Station.

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The vehicle, and everything inside,
are in a form of freefall around the earth

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and they don't experience
the effect of gravity.

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And because of this,
we call it microgravity.

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When astronauts are in
the microgravity environment,

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their bodies react
as if they're aging rapidly.

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Their bones and muscles weaken,

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and their cardiovascualar system
and their immune system change.

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As scientists study how to keep
astronauts healthy in space,

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we can take the exercises
and techniques we use for astronauts

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and transfer them to people on earth

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to improve our health here.

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Often as we develop technology
for astronauts and exploration,

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or for spacecraft,

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we can also tranfer those inventions
to improve life on earth.

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Here's one of my favorites.

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It's a water filtration system,

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and a key component of it
is based on the technology

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to filter wastewater on the space station.

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It's now being used around the world.

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Space is also an infinite
source of inspiration,

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through education,

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through research and astronomy,

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and that age-old experience of stargazing.

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Now, countries around the world

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are engaging in advancing
their own development

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by increasing their local knowledge
of engineering, and science and space.

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Let's meet some of the world's
newest satellite engineers.

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This is Elyka Abello from Venezuela.

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Elyka is training as a satellite engineer

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as part of her national
satellite program in Venezuela.

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She has designed a software tool

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that allows her team to better design
the power systems for engineering.

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This is [Adele Castillo-Doran],

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from the Philippines.

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Adele is both a meteorologist
and a satellite engineer,

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and she uses data from satellites
in her weather forecasting.

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And finally, meet [Toula.]

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[Toula] is from the Sudan,

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and as she was studying electrical
engineering as an undergraduate

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in Khartoum,

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she and several students decided
to build their own satellite.

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And later, [Toula] earned a scholarship

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to study satellite engineering
at the graduate level.

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These stories that I've shared with you

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all illustrate that space truly is useful
for sustainable development

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for the benefit of all peoples.

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But we have more work to do

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because there are still barriers
that exclude people from space

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and limit the impact of this technology.

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For many people,

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earth observation data is complex.

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And satellite communication
services are too expensive.

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And microgravity research
just appears to be inaccessible.

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This is what motivates my work
as a professor at MIT's Media Lab.

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I've recently founded a new research group
called Space Enabled.

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We are working to tear down these barriers
that limit the benefits of space,

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and we're also going to develop
the future applications

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that will continue to contribute
to sustainable development.

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We'll keep on this work

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until we can truly say that space
is for the benefit of all peoples,

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and we are all space enabled.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)