And this, my good people, is what I was really doing in France last week (apart from counting aeroplanes at the Paris Air Show):
Smuggling... uh, *couriering* grains from asteroid Ryugu to Cité de l'espace in France. They will be on public display from this autumn!
Do I look IMMENSELY HAPPY to be handing over that case in Toulouse? Let's talk about the behind the scenes adventure... 📦 🏃♀️
📷:
https://www.isas.jaxa.jp/gallery/feature/isas/isas_20230628_en.html
Despite the fact JAXA has delivered grains for scientific study all over the world, this particular permutation had not been attempted before. These Ryugu grains were for outreach, not science, so they could pass through the x-ray scanner without issue.
As you can imagine, this vastly simplifies the paperwork needed to clear airport security but... to what?
The scientific container looked very official, potentially resembling soil (bad), cultural heritage (bad), horrifyingly expensive (bad)...
After several calls to the airport, I was carrying a couple of worryingly brief customs papers that basically said:
NOT SOIL.
NO COMMERCIAL VALUE.
DO NOT EAT.
I cautiously joined the line for the customs desk at the airport, and tried to distract myself with the "customs quiz" that was playing inside a cute little display shaped like a dog.
It informed me that customs officers were allowed to carry weapons 😐
Reaching the front of the line, I flexed my fingers and wondered if I should start with my 40 minute or 60 minute talk on the Hayabusa2 mission.
Of course, the customs officials would doubtless need the big picture, so we should follow this up with the five lecture course I was preparing on 'water in the Universe'.
STAMP.
After a brief check of the box I was carrying, my customs forms were inked and I was shoo'd out.
Before leaving the astromaterials curation building, I had been warned to keep the sample container vertical at all times.
Why? (I was promptly to regret asking)
Because the grain might fragment.
YOU WHAT NOW?
We travel 6 years through space, pull off two near-autonomous landings to return the world's first sample from a C-type asteroid…
…and I might dust it on the way to France.
It would be worse than when I got our mission twitter account banned days before the Earth return (yes, really)
@elizabethtasker I have to admit that I'm curious about the Twitter account ban story, but that may be one you can't tell.
@internic It's fine, it was quite a public affair as I had to shout for help on my personal twitter! 😅
I'd entered the launch date as the "birthday" of the Hayabusa2 English twitter, but as soon as I hit "confirm", twitter said: "You're only 6. That's too young for twitter." and blocked the account.
VERY fortunately, twitter support (possibly influenced by many science journalists I'd reached out to who kindly also contacted support) unblocked us within a day.