Physicist, Explosives Engineer, Soldier, Comedian, Astronaut Candidate, Cave Diver - one thing Josh Richards can never be accused of is being boring.
After a decade of picking up booby traps with the Australian Army, slogging through mud with British Commandos, being science adviser to the richest artist in the world, and performing comedy wearing a giant koala suit to confused audiences around the world, Josh decided to take on the final frontier - applying for a one-way mission to Mars. Selected from over 200,000 initial applicants to the Mars One project, Josh was shortlisted as one of 100 astronaut candidates launching to the red planet in 2031.
Current Work:
As an in-demand professional speaker and comedian, Josh’s storytelling makes for compelling & entertaining corporate keynote presentations on leadership, small-team dynamics, and the challenges of life in space that are certain to leave any audience with plenty to think about. With a natural talent for sharing science through stand-up comedy, he’s a passionate and highly-visible ambassador for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM) education, and his public science events and school visits inspire people of all ages to engage with science and discover the sky is not the limit.
With the shuttering of the Mars One project in late 2021, Josh’s focus shifted to another lifelong dream - exploring inner space by crawling over rocks, through mud, and swimming kilometers underground to explore and survey the water-filled karst systems of Australia as an exploration cave diver. His passion for discovering more about the universe remains only equalled by his desire to share it on stage and on paper. Besides regularly writing articles on space science, engineering, psychology and culture on Patreon, he’s also the author of Becoming Martian (a humourous look at how colonising Mars will change our species in body, mind and soul), Cosmic Nomad (an uncomfortably personal but deeply funny exploration of how signing up for a one-way mission to Mars will ruin your life), and an upcoming book on the weird and wonderful ways humans try to come to terms with death.
Talking Points
Objective-based Leadership/Followership and Teambuilding
Drawing from expeditionary leadership training provided to astronauts as well as the experience of selecting astronauts for a non-conventional mission (eg. permanent settlement over exploration), this session looks at how the common perception of an astronaut’s “right stuff” is precisely the wrong approach to take for both long-duration space exploration and sustainable high performance teams on Earth.Objective-based Leadership/Followership and Teambuilding
Key takeaways include maintaining a fluid organisational command structure, forming flexible yet resilient teams, objective-based decision-making in high-risk environments, project management from first-principles, and risk mitigation.
The Future of Work
This session delves into the rapid changes already occurring in the modern workplace, how those changes are only the very beginning, and how we as a species need to re-examine the role that employment plays in defining our growing global culture.The Future of Work
Key takeaways include the exponential growth of automation, the future of money and data as the new global currency, the role of Universal Basic Income, why we have every reason to be optimistic about the future if we embrace change, and how we define ourselves as a species in a post-work future.
Sustainable Innovation Through Diversity and Gender-Equality
This session focuses on creating highly effective teams with the greatest diversity possible to tackle old problems in innovative ways, and aims to demonstrate that workplace diversity isn’t just a “nice to have” - it’s a necessity for all industries that wish to succeed.Sustainable Innovation Through Diversity and Gender-Equality
Key takeaways include how nationalism sparked humanity’s first forays into space but today it’s preventing us going further than Low-Earth orbit; how the most effective & sustainable teams are also the most diverse in terms of culture, age, gender, and sexuality; balancing communication between diverse groups; innovation through multiple perspectives; and how having a woman be the first to step on Mars will benefit humanity exponentially more than having a man be first.
Video
Josh Richards - Halogen
Physicist, Explosives Engineer, Soldier, Stand-Up Comedian and Astronaut Candidate - one thing Josh Richards can never be accused of is being boring. In the last decade he’s picked up booby traps for the Australian Army, slogged through mud with the British Commandos, used napalm in a music video for U2, been a science advisor to the richest contemporary artist in the world, and performed with some of the world’s top comedians while wearing a giant koala suit to confused audiences from Los Angeles to Edinburgh. Josh found his true calling in late 2012 when he discovered the Mars One project. Selected from over 200,000 initial applicants, Josh is now one of 705 worldwide astronaut candidates short-listed to leave Earth forever and become the first to colonise Mars in 2025.I had the pleasure to work with Josh when planning the ACS WA Gala Dinner in Perth, WA; where Josh was our Keynote Speaker and highlight of the night. Josh was not only delightful to deal fr ... keep reading Australian Computer Society
