We're back for a second season! With NASA's Artemis missions (hopefully) returning humanity to the moon in the near future and space exploration entering a new golden age, the realities of human beings existing in space are more pronounced than ever. So what is lunar psychophysics and how will it affect astronauts' ability to function in non-Earth environments? And why do things look different on the moon than they do on Earth? We chatted to NASA scientist Katherine Rahill about all of this and more. 

Dr. Katherine (Katt) Rahill is the Senior Scientist for the Office of the Chief Scientist of NASA's Human Research Program (HRP) at Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX. She provides direct support and expert recommendations to the Chief Scientist relating to all scientific elements of the HRP program. She leads assessments to inform NASA’s decisions concerning approaches and strategies to mitigate the risk of deleterious physiological effects associated with long duration spaceflight. 

You can email us at DataFest@thedatalab.com or keep up to date with DataFest at https://datafest.global and on Twitter @datafest_

Your hosts are Gordon Johnstone - Head of DataFest at The Data Lab, Scotland's innovation centre for data and artificial intelligence hosted by the University of Edinburgh - and Lily Higham, Senior Automation Engineer at the BBC World Service.

Music provided by Post Coal Prom Queen.