‘Space travel is queer’: the unstoppable film-maker skewering Bezos and Musk’s macho fantasies

She founded Nasa's orchestra and has bounced heartbeats off the moon. Now Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stepanian has made a hilarious film taking issue with the tech bros' dreams of celestial conquest

She's a great inspiration," says Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stepanian, picking up a photo she keeps in her wildly decorated office of the scientist Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel prize and also the first person to win one twice. I pick people that really inspire me. Partners in crime. When a project is difficult, I think, What would Marie Curie have done? What would Hannah Arendt have done?' Hahaha."

She talks mile-a-minute, finishing sentences with a laugh as she speaks to me in her office, which could well be the best one in London: an old, graffiti-covered tube carriage plonked on top of the roof of a Shoreditch nightclub, with views over the city. Its interior is loud and colourful: posters and flyers plaster the walls, while the floor is a trippy swirl of purples and pinks. And, propped up on her desk, is that photo of Curie.