Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, whatnot the stuff to Blow your Mind?
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and Julie Douglas. Julie, what
Speaker 1: is What is your relationship with the moon? Hell about it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Don't you? Well no, maybe I should. Maybe it would
Speaker 1: you could do to get in touch with my primal
Speaker 1: self when never when you see a full moon, you
Speaker 1: just ever scream up at the sky la la la,
Speaker 1: and then start howling. No, I guess when I see
Speaker 1: the see the full moon, I my hit just runs
Speaker 1: with some of those uh you know, logical theories about
Speaker 1: the moon making everyone crazier and bringing out the teen wolves.
Speaker 1: Well possibly between wolves. Yeah, pregnant ladies going to the
Speaker 1: labor teenager is turning into wolves. It's weird. I don't
Speaker 1: actually buy into any the supernatural ideas about the influence
Speaker 1: of them of the moon over human behavior, but I
Speaker 1: still kind of buy into it at an almost subconscious level.
Speaker 1: Like I end up, it ends up moving around in
Speaker 1: the back of my mind anytime I see a full moon.
Speaker 1: I think it's because it's one of those really primal
Speaker 1: things where that relationship where you look up and you're like, Wow,
Speaker 1: it's just it's, you know, this big luminous light in
Speaker 1: the night sky, and you know, our ancestors thought a
Speaker 1: lot about it, and we'll talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about that, but um, we're kind of looking at this
Speaker 1: topic the moon and thinking of it in terms of
Speaker 1: of a corporation. You know, we're we're Earth Ink and
Speaker 1: we've got that moon. It's one of our subsidiary. Because
Speaker 1: we're jerks like that, right, we think that we are
Speaker 1: just the center of everything, and so we're looking at
Speaker 1: all of our assets here in the milky Way and saying,
Speaker 1: you know, what can we do here to increase our
Speaker 1: earthly profits? And of course we set our sights on
Speaker 1: that glowing orb in the night sky to say, I
Speaker 1: hope you're not thinking of letting the men go, because
Speaker 1: it's it's a very important subsidiary. If we're going to
Speaker 1: discuss it's it's not just it's we're not we're not
Speaker 1: losing money on this investment, the totally delivering. It's more like,
Speaker 1: how could we make the moon more productive for us?
Speaker 1: And what sort of resources and outputs could we nudge
Speaker 1: from it? Right, And when we can talk more about
Speaker 1: we can kind of review its resume here in a
Speaker 1: minute and kind of see what it's been doing for us,
Speaker 1: and then maybe what else it could produce for it.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about this idea that the Moon is
Speaker 1: really our companion in orbit. Well, first of all, where
Speaker 1: the Moon come from? Right, what's the the origin story
Speaker 1: on the Moon. Well, the leading origin theory right now
Speaker 1: is that a Mars sized body collided with her at
Speaker 1: approximately four point five billion years ago, and then the
Speaker 1: resulting debris from both the Earth and this uh alien
Speaker 1: sphere accumulated all right to form this big molten Moon,
Speaker 1: which um over the course of time cools down um
Speaker 1: most of the magma ocean crystallizes, with the less dense
Speaker 1: rocks floating upward and eventually forming the lunar crust. Okay,
Speaker 1: so essentially like a big glob of the Earth came
Speaker 1: off and then combined with other materials out there to
Speaker 1: form the Moon. Yeah, and the Earth is unique among
Speaker 1: terrestrial planets and having a large satellite. This Moon, which
Speaker 1: relative to the Earth, has the largest mass of any
Speaker 1: satellite parent system. And this is really important because we'll
Speaker 1: talk about this relationship between the Moon and the Earth.
Speaker 1: But it has really set us up for success here
Speaker 1: on this planet because as a result of its orbiting
Speaker 1: around us and it's coming it's materials coming from the Earth. Uh.
Speaker 1: The subsequent evolution of the Earth and the emergence and
Speaker 1: development of life has been strongly influenced by the presence
Speaker 1: of the Moon. But certainly it's not the only moon
Speaker 1: in our solar system. Jupiter has a number of moons,
Speaker 1: but but none of the Jovian moons, even several of them,
Speaker 1: are incredibly fascinating and important to our understan evolving understanding
Speaker 1: of of the cosmos. They're not as essential, uh in
Speaker 1: their relationship with their host planet. And uh and and
Speaker 1: that's really to your point. The remarkable thing about our
Speaker 1: moon is that it's a very important subsidiary. It is,
Speaker 1: and of course the Sun is as well, but we're
Speaker 1: not discussing the Sun today, and the Sun talking about
Speaker 1: egos and this corporate structure of the Sun is pretty
Speaker 1: big there. Um. But you know, we often overlook the moon.
Speaker 1: And let's take out the the resume of the moon,
Speaker 1: because there's some really very powerful stuff here. A stabilizing
Speaker 1: factor for the axis of rotation of the Earth, basically
Speaker 1: ensuring that the difference and heating between the poles of
Speaker 1: the Earth and the equator is sufficient to promote healthy
Speaker 1: and diverse range of climates without veering off into one
Speaker 1: extreme or another. So if you look at Mars, for instance,
Speaker 1: and you see that that rotational access has um changed
Speaker 1: and spanned from thirteen to forty degrees over the last
Speaker 1: tense twenty million years, this causes really unpredictable swings and
Speaker 1: fluctuations of climate. And this instability, of course is not
Speaker 1: good for life. Right. So the Moon basically brings a
Speaker 1: lot of stability. In fact, you could say as a
Speaker 1: as a a corporation kind of speak, it brings a
Speaker 1: a a culture of stability to the overall Earth environment. Exactly.
Speaker 1: It is a stabilizing force and hippie speak, it is
Speaker 1: our big satellite of love out there. Now. The other
Speaker 1: big area, of course, is it's it's impact on the tides,
Speaker 1: and this is something that we've creates tidal patterns that
Speaker 1: promotes the the alteration and the migration of organisms from
Speaker 1: one environment to the other. It, I mean, just the
Speaker 1: remarkable aspect of the tides to both reveal and then
Speaker 1: uh and then flood areas, you know, creating these Uh,
Speaker 1: these transient areas for life to flourish in. It is
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable in and of itself, right, is basically seeding life,
Speaker 1: spreading it over the planet. Now, as I look at
Speaker 1: the Moon's resume, I see a third point here, a
Speaker 1: third bullet point, and it's pretty huge. Um. It says
Speaker 1: it helped to establish a twenty eight day period of
Speaker 1: observable differences in light emittance, establishing a reliable rhythm for
Speaker 1: early humans to create complex systems by which depend the
Speaker 1: concept of time too. And it says my existence ability
Speaker 1: to reflect the Sun's light in orbit helped to create
Speaker 1: conceptual calendar systems, seasons, best agricultural practices, not to mention
Speaker 1: greatly influencing navigation explorations, and mythology, including the one about
Speaker 1: the Moon being made out of cheese. Yeah, you really
Speaker 1: can't overstate the importance of the moon for uh, just
Speaker 1: our basic understanding of celestial mechanics of our even earliest
Speaker 1: stages of beginning to understand that the cycles in our
Speaker 1: immediate universe. I was actually reading a little bit about
Speaker 1: eclipses the other week. Espectually, I was interested in uh,
Speaker 1: in ancient Indian ideas of eclipse as well as as
Speaker 1: ancient Indian astronomy, because you see this, you know this
Speaker 1: sort of on one hand, you have religious and and
Speaker 1: mythic ideas of what's going on with an eclipse is
Speaker 1: perhaps the decapitated head of a fallen ostra trying to
Speaker 1: consume the sun and or the moon. Um well, there's
Speaker 1: that idea. But then also you had early Indian astronomers
Speaker 1: who were really figuring out exactly how eclipse has worked
Speaker 1: and uh and and exactly how the Sun and the
Speaker 1: moon and the Earth are are are playing with each
Speaker 1: other in these in these amazing phenomena. Yeah. So you
Speaker 1: have all of these um this mythologies, these narratives that
Speaker 1: are just rich tapestries of different cultures. And then you
Speaker 1: have something like the Farmer's Almanac, which is at a
Speaker 1: very basic level just this this sort of like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is how you grow your crops the best way,
Speaker 1: but it is absolutely dedicated to the moon, this almanac. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you have all theseferent cycles of the moon and
Speaker 1: uh and the not not only I mean you get
Speaker 1: into all the weird moons too, because there's there's the
Speaker 1: there's the basic full moon and half moon, etcetera. But
Speaker 1: then you get into. Yeah, then you get into all
Speaker 1: these like strangely colored moons and the different harvest uh,
Speaker 1: you know, letting you know it if a sailors should
Speaker 1: take warning or not. We just get really rich in
Speaker 1: our attempts to just almost psychoanalyze what the moon is
Speaker 1: doing and what the Moon is trying to do to
Speaker 1: the planet. All we're gonna take quick break and we
Speaker 1: get back. We're gonna talk about harnessing the energy of
Speaker 1: the Moon, changing some of this duties. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: We are reviewing the Moon. We're reviewing its potential to
Speaker 1: the Earth Corporation, all the stuff that it is doing already,
Speaker 1: but also the places in its schedule where we could
Speaker 1: conceivably insert more duties, more work to make us an
Speaker 1: overall stronger company. Yeah. I was just looking at the
Speaker 1: review that Earth Inc. Handed down, and it says the
Speaker 1: candidate has proven over billions of years to be a
Speaker 1: stabilizing influence for the foreseeable future, at least for the
Speaker 1: next two billion years. Candidate is expected to continue supporting
Speaker 1: efforts to maintain life on Earth in a fairly consistent manner.
Speaker 1: As a result, candidate may have extra time and resources
Speaker 1: to offer. Yeah, we get into this area of things
Speaker 1: that we have done to the moon, things that we
Speaker 1: are doing to the moon, and things that we would
Speaker 1: like to do to the moon. Uh, to get more
Speaker 1: out of it. Now. Of course, we've been through the
Speaker 1: phase of lunar exploration where we've send sent machines there,
Speaker 1: we've sent men there, we put a flag on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we uh. At one point with Project A one nineteen, Uh,
Speaker 1: this is pretty amazing, we actually considered detonating a nuclear
Speaker 1: weapon on the lunar surface in order to see how
Speaker 1: the mushroom cloud would expand and contract in a low
Speaker 1: gravity setting. And even more interesting, this was a United
Speaker 1: States Air Force planned by the way cold war scheme.
Speaker 1: Even more interesting, though, a young Carl Sagan was a
Speaker 1: part of the project. Uh, the very man who would
Speaker 1: go on to champion nuclear disarmament and the dangers of
Speaker 1: nuclear winter. And he even tried to use his research
Speaker 1: from the project to acquire an academic fellowship, possibly breaching
Speaker 1: natural national security in the process. Wow. So you know,
Speaker 1: he gotta wonder if he tried to get involved in it.
Speaker 1: So he'd be like, hey, guys, this this terrible idea.
Speaker 1: I know it shows the sort of pyrotechnics that we can,
Speaker 1: you know, put forth towards the Soviet Union and try
Speaker 1: to scare him during the Cold War. But really bad,
Speaker 1: bad idea, I think. I think that's possible. Also, I
Speaker 1: can't help but but but think it might be a
Speaker 1: situation where saying his thinking that is a horrible idea.
Speaker 1: But if we're gonna do it, it's pretty cool. So
Speaker 1: I would like to be a part of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: if someone's gonna nuke the moon and it'll then at
Speaker 1: least let me get in on the science of it.
Speaker 1: Let's at least nuke it, right people. Yeah, And you know,
Speaker 1: I can't help but think about him in a turtle
Speaker 1: kneck as a young man and m now I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about him as a baby, the turtleneck, like he was
Speaker 1: born with the turn neck, like a baby saging like
Speaker 1: a muppet baby Sagan. Yeah, all right, that is completely irrelevant.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to this moon. How do we put
Speaker 1: it to work? Well, one of the big areas, of course,
Speaker 1: is can we get energy from the moon. That's and
Speaker 1: there are a few different answers to that, but one
Speaker 1: of the the more readily available ideas here is we
Speaker 1: have the Moon up there in orbit, and it's exposed
Speaker 1: to a lot of sunlight, so we're just reflecting it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not really doing anything. It's just sunlight bouncing off
Speaker 1: the Moon. But what if we could harness that energy,
Speaker 1: use the Moon to harness sunlight, and then send it
Speaker 1: back to Earth. It's brilliant, right because here here on
Speaker 1: Earth we're having problems with us, right, like how are
Speaker 1: we going to really service our future energy needs? And
Speaker 1: we do need to think about this in creative ways.
Speaker 1: So someone came up in an extremely creative way to
Speaker 1: deal with this, and it's called a solar belt. And
Speaker 1: this was or this is a plan as being championed
Speaker 1: by the Shimizu Corporation. We're talking about installing on the
Speaker 1: surface of the Moon via a massive twelve mile wide,
Speaker 1: six hundred mile long lunar ring of solar panels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing looking. Essentially, you would look up into
Speaker 1: the night sky and on a on a good night
Speaker 1: when you could really see the Moon, you would look
Speaker 1: like it's wearing a crazy disco belt. Because because this,
Speaker 1: the strip of solar panels would go all the way around,
Speaker 1: uh the equator, and it would and and The idea
Speaker 1: here is that you'd have a thirteen thousand tara wats
Speaker 1: of continuous energy sent to from the Moon to receiving
Speaker 1: stations around the Earth, and then it's distributed to the
Speaker 1: power of you know, the power the population to power
Speaker 1: all the stuff that we have to charge up. And uh,
Speaker 1: they think that we could begin construction on this by
Speaker 1: five if we if we really wanted it. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: the plan here in addition to this is that um,
Speaker 1: the corporation can develop robots that will mind the Moon's
Speaker 1: natural resources to produce the concrete and the solar cells
Speaker 1: some of the materials that they're going to use there.
Speaker 1: So that gets into this whole idea of like, well,
Speaker 1: that's right, the Moon does have a couple of resources
Speaker 1: to mine, doesn't it. Yeah. The building material thing alone
Speaker 1: is interesting because because, as as they point out, water
Speaker 1: can be produced by reducing a lunar soil with hydrogen
Speaker 1: that is imported from the Earth, and then submitting material
Speaker 1: can also be extracted from the lunar sources resources. So
Speaker 1: suddenly you have concrete, you have bricks, you have you
Speaker 1: can essentially build yourself all the buildings and infrastructure you
Speaker 1: need right out of the lunar surface. Right, you don't
Speaker 1: have to bring your legos with you. The legos are
Speaker 1: there essentially. Yeah, of course you're gonna need machines to
Speaker 1: do that, and you're gonna need machines to continue to
Speaker 1: care for what you've built, because the Moon is a
Speaker 1: pretty harsh and bombarded surface for a reason. So so
Speaker 1: if you build a massive disco belt, you're gonna need
Speaker 1: not only the robot to build it, throw us to
Speaker 1: maintain it and uh and deal with any of the
Speaker 1: holes that emerge there over time. Indeed, now, one of
Speaker 1: the things that NASA is working on is a little
Speaker 1: plan with private corporations because as we know, they have
Speaker 1: a mandate not to spend any more money on the Moon, right,
Speaker 1: so how are they doing this? Uh, they are working
Speaker 1: with Bigelow Aerospace to develop a commercial sector which would
Speaker 1: be involved with them, and is especially focused on plans
Speaker 1: to build a lunar base and mind the moon for
Speaker 1: helium three as well as rare earth metals. Yes, the
Speaker 1: helium three, of course is important, not because we need
Speaker 1: to fill up a bunch of balloons here on Earth,
Speaker 1: but by because mainly because helium through would play a
Speaker 1: vital role in nuclear fusion power. Helium three, just to remind,
Speaker 1: everybody has two protons but only one neutron, and when
Speaker 1: it's heated to really high temperatures and combined with deuterium,
Speaker 1: which is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen, the
Speaker 1: reaction really just an incredible amount of energy. So just
Speaker 1: two point two pounds or one of helium three combined
Speaker 1: with one point five pounds or zero point six seven
Speaker 1: kilograms of deuterium produces nineteen megawatt years of energy. Roughly
Speaker 1: twenty five tons of the stuff could power the United
Speaker 1: States for an entire year. That's nuts, right, Yeah. The
Speaker 1: other side of that is that the Moon has tons
Speaker 1: of it, not so with Earth. Indeed, actually there are
Speaker 1: seventeen chemicals in the periodic table that are an increased
Speaker 1: demand because they're heavily using everyday electronics. So if you
Speaker 1: look at that lunar soil, it is rich in these
Speaker 1: coveted rare Earth elements and the moon could provide those.
Speaker 1: So again it makes sense to kind of look at
Speaker 1: and say, so you're up there, you're stabilizing us, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, but we're not just gonna step on you
Speaker 1: and and take a peek at what some of your
Speaker 1: soil is composed of. We're actually going to put you
Speaker 1: to work here. Yeah. And the really the great thing
Speaker 1: about about some of these plans we're discussing here is
Speaker 1: that ultimately the goal of NASA and sort of the
Speaker 1: goal of humanity's efforts in space, it's to get that
Speaker 1: foothold on the Moon, to explore Mars, to get to Mars,
Speaker 1: to get more robots and hopefully people on Mars and
Speaker 1: then bring them back again. But to do that, you've
Speaker 1: got to you've got to build up, and you've got
Speaker 1: to build out. And what better way to get boots
Speaker 1: on the ground, on our boots on the lunar ground, uh,
Speaker 1: than to have there be a profit in the mix
Speaker 1: their minerals energy. Yeah. And uh, NASA is not just
Speaker 1: looking at the actual Moon itself, but also asteroids. And
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before a couple of ideas about
Speaker 1: how to ensnare an asteroid one because it could be
Speaker 1: a threat, it could be in the orbit orbit and
Speaker 1: coming right out of us UM. But in this scenario,
Speaker 1: NASA is looking at building a robotic spacecraft to grab
Speaker 1: a small asteroid and then place it in a higher
Speaker 1: lunar orbit where they can kind of look at it
Speaker 1: a little bit more of the asteroid itself and um,
Speaker 1: and then kind of dock it over on the Moon
Speaker 1: after they put a huge bag around it. I'm not
Speaker 1: kidding this. These are the descriptors, like, we're going to
Speaker 1: take this giant bag and then bag it and haul
Speaker 1: it over to the Moon where they can mind the
Speaker 1: asteroids as well. Yeah, it's it's This is a great
Speaker 1: idea because in the same way that the the ultimate
Speaker 1: goal is to say, explore the cosmos, get to Mars, etcetera,
Speaker 1: the larger goal here would be let's develop and perfect
Speaker 1: a way to deal with near Earth objects that pose
Speaker 1: a risk to our planet. Uh. But in the to
Speaker 1: get us there, well, let's harvest the asteroids and and
Speaker 1: then in the process we're also studying and we're learning
Speaker 1: more about them, we're developing our means to catch them.
Speaker 1: And somebody can make a buck or two off of me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's always kneel the grass. Tyson's argument for going
Speaker 1: to the moon right, like, hey, don't abandon it. This
Speaker 1: is a really great set up for us to try
Speaker 1: to figure out best practices elsewhere in the universe. And
Speaker 1: also to have resources. Yeah, I was really thinking about
Speaker 1: our past conversations of Neil yesterday because I heard part
Speaker 1: of a Fresh Air interview with him um during a
Speaker 1: Pledge drive for NPR yesterday, and I was thinking back
Speaker 1: to our conversations with him, And then I thought about
Speaker 1: our recent episodes about Future Shock, uh by the book
Speaker 1: by Alvin Toffler, which which really of course drives home
Speaker 1: the idea that that no technology happens in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: When new technology comes around it it changes us. It
Speaker 1: changes culture, that changes the way we think about things
Speaker 1: and the way we think about ourselves and what and
Speaker 1: what we're going after and uh and Tyson seems to
Speaker 1: to really push that idea as well, that that it's
Speaker 1: not just it's not just about oh, let's develop this rocket.
Speaker 1: It's in developing that rocket, other technologies spin off of it.
Speaker 1: It changes that the mindset of the people who build it,
Speaker 1: the mindset of the culture responsible for exploration and innovation.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I mean half of home Depot's items wouldn't
Speaker 1: exist without NASSA. If you think about the cordless drill,
Speaker 1: you know it did not come about because people were like, hey,
Speaker 1: it would be great if we had this cordless thing.
Speaker 1: It was really trying to figure out pragmatically how to
Speaker 1: do things um in space and do them in a
Speaker 1: way that made sense. So yeah, I mean there's all
Speaker 1: these sort of benefits, these indirect benefits that flow out
Speaker 1: that you don't really have a grasp of what those
Speaker 1: are going to be until that technology is in place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and with a lot of these efforts, it's it's more
Speaker 1: about that. It feels like it's more of a definitely
Speaker 1: a dangled carrot as opposed to residual effects. It's instead
Speaker 1: of like a bunch of little residual effects saying here's
Speaker 1: the big one. Look at all this energy to be gained.
Speaker 1: Let's get up there. Yeah, and any sort of moon mining,
Speaker 1: asteroid mining, of course you're gonna have to and we
Speaker 1: had a whole episode on this, but you're still going
Speaker 1: to have to consider space junk and the removal of that.
Speaker 1: So in a way, this could be a boon to
Speaker 1: those concerns that people have that mining uh the Moon
Speaker 1: would just create more and more debris or stripping of
Speaker 1: resources as we have seen here on Earth. The actual
Speaker 1: pursuit of mining really does necessitate a pretty big degree
Speaker 1: of responsibility on our part. You know, as we're reviewing
Speaker 1: the moon's performance here, I do have one critique. I
Speaker 1: think the moon could dress it up a little bit more.
Speaker 1: We do have a dress code here at ear. Think, uh,
Speaker 1: could the moon lighten its appearance a bit, make itself
Speaker 1: a little more shiny in the night sky and thus
Speaker 1: a little more illuminating. You know what's crazy about that
Speaker 1: is that when the moon is only it's full brightness,
Speaker 1: it appears to our eyes as being like half is bright.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I think the moon, to play
Speaker 1: devil's advocate, might turn around to us and say, ah,
Speaker 1: but if you guys could just enhance your visual systems,
Speaker 1: you could see how hard I am working to be
Speaker 1: bright for you. Well, that's all well and good. But
Speaker 1: the Fourio Institute they have another idea, of course, and
Speaker 1: this is this is why you know, I started looking
Speaker 1: at this. I was awfully skeptical, because the idea is,
Speaker 1: let's make the moon brighter so that there's more so
Speaker 1: that our nights are brighter, that we can cut down
Speaker 1: on our energy usage of or street lamps and what
Speaker 1: have you. So, I mean, you think about natural sunlight
Speaker 1: streaming into your windows, right, and how you don't have
Speaker 1: to always put on the lights. Yeah, basically that this
Speaker 1: is directly from the four Other Institute's pitch for this.
Speaker 1: They say the four Institute has found an extremely smart
Speaker 1: and feasible solution that can deliver enormous results to address
Speaker 1: the global energy crisis. Nobody has ever considered that a
Speaker 1: small transformation of the moon face is possible by increasing
Speaker 1: the reflectivity of sunlight, that can bring the equivalent of
Speaker 1: four extra nights of having a full moon. Combined with
Speaker 1: smart street lighting sensors are used to dim or completely
Speaker 1: power off lights when not needed. Uh. This will dramatically
Speaker 1: cut the world's energy consumption. And so the ideas you're
Speaker 1: using materials already on the moon. You just make um
Speaker 1: portions of the moon uh more reflective and overall the
Speaker 1: moon becomes brighter. Now that just makes me think that
Speaker 1: I have to get a really massive blackout shade, get
Speaker 1: like a serious one. Well, because you're thinking about it,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be able to sleep. It's gonna have
Speaker 1: an effect on my health, right. Well, they they thought
Speaker 1: of that. They argued that it should not be an
Speaker 1: issue because we would have a gradual process here. This
Speaker 1: would this brightening of the moon would take place over
Speaker 1: thirty years, so you have time to adjust. But they
Speaker 1: do admit that additional scientific studies are required. Likewise, Um,
Speaker 1: as far as the environment goes, they state, because moonlight
Speaker 1: is four hundred thousand times less potent than sunlight, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a negligible impact on the environment. But
Speaker 1: research is on going. I'm shaking my head because I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you, on the full moon nights, I mean,
Speaker 1: besides the fact that I get, you know, tons of
Speaker 1: hair all over my face and grow fangs. Um, I
Speaker 1: do seem to wake more often and perceive that light.
Speaker 1: And maybe I'm just a really sensitive sleeper, but that
Speaker 1: kind of drives me a little bit nuts. I feel
Speaker 1: like they need to do a little bit more research that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, there is certainly tons of light pollution
Speaker 1: issues to wonder about here. You have to wonder about
Speaker 1: the effects and all the various animals that depend on
Speaker 1: the moonlight for navigation. UM. It is interesting though that
Speaker 1: only they state that only point one percent of the
Speaker 1: Moon's surface, a chunk about the size of Switzerland, would
Speaker 1: need to be transformed to reach of the desired brightening effect. Well,
Speaker 1: that is impressive, but again, we're talking about billions of
Speaker 1: years of evolution in in animals responding to the environment
Speaker 1: that has been you know, fairly constant. Right. Uh so, okay,
Speaker 1: well it's it's an it's incredible idea. They also have
Speaker 1: an electric toothbrush they're working on. By the way, if
Speaker 1: they visited their website, Um so if you're not down
Speaker 1: with brightening the moon, then maybe you would like to
Speaker 1: try out a fancy silicone electric toothbrush to brighten you're
Speaker 1: pearly white. Yeah. I think if they funded both projects,
Speaker 1: but the toothbrush I think has a little more potential
Speaker 1: to hit the market. Uh here, I feel like the
Speaker 1: toothbrush gets a lot of play out there in the
Speaker 1: corporate world because I remember that there was when we
Speaker 1: were looking at robots and machine um creativity that there
Speaker 1: was one program that created something like eight hundred designs
Speaker 1: for Oral b H to choose like the best design
Speaker 1: for the toothbrush. Really, are they that important? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, they don't change much. I mean you just
Speaker 1: brush your teeth. Yeah, And it's not one of those
Speaker 1: things where it's like, all right, we've perfected the toothbrush,
Speaker 1: and now we go out of business, so you have
Speaker 1: to continually buy new toothbrushes or new parts for your toothbrush,
Speaker 1: and then replace the electric after a while. But I
Speaker 1: don't know that's I guess that's that's one word to
Speaker 1: analyze what the four Institute is doing here. You kind
Speaker 1: of feel like maybe they said, all right, let's choose
Speaker 1: two projects that are gonna get us a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of attention. Uh, let's get get into this
Speaker 1: toothbrush business. Designers are going crazy. There's so many designs
Speaker 1: out there. If we can actually create a design that
Speaker 1: sets ourselves apart for the rest of the of everyone
Speaker 1: that we're doing, we've done a great job. And likewise,
Speaker 1: let's figure out something kind of crazy that people will
Speaker 1: overreact about. Let's talk about doing something to the more. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I see that. Let's let's focus on this super industrial
Speaker 1: tooth brush complex. Oh and the Moon. Alright, so what's
Speaker 1: your final uh corporate analysis here? What what does the
Speaker 1: Moon need to do to to fit into the new
Speaker 1: corporate environment. I think it needs to think dynamically. I
Speaker 1: think that it really needs to show us that um,
Speaker 1: even though it doesn't have many resources other than its
Speaker 1: own right now, that it can provide to us a
Speaker 1: long range plan in which it can really deliver and
Speaker 1: impact to the Earth, one that doesn't actually smash into
Speaker 1: us and obliterate us, but one that really enhances life
Speaker 1: here on Earth in a way that is fiscally responsible
Speaker 1: and in a way that I think lifts humanity to
Speaker 1: its highest degrees um you know, really just sort of
Speaker 1: feeding the better angels among us, better angels of among
Speaker 1: us who are trying to gain more band with more
Speaker 1: energy and really trying to bring this synergy to focus
Speaker 1: in a sort of singular point of light. Alright, So
Speaker 1: there you have it. Some some ideas for the moon, uh,
Speaker 1: ways that we can we can take more advantage of
Speaker 1: its positioning and uh and take advantage of its energy potential.
Speaker 1: I do wonder this is a question I'd like to
Speaker 1: toss out to our listeners. Imagine a time in the
Speaker 1: future decades from now. Does it does it frighten you,
Speaker 1: does it terrorize you? Does it just kind of amuse
Speaker 1: you or excite you even to to envision yourself looking
Speaker 1: up at the night sky and then turn on a
Speaker 1: full moon, and then turning to a young child and saying,
Speaker 1: I remember when the moon didn't look like that. Believe
Speaker 1: it or not, the moon that hasn't always had a
Speaker 1: big shiny belt and it always has hasn't always been
Speaker 1: that bright in this scenario, is the the older human
Speaker 1: being and the young child are the outfitted with up packs? Um? Yes,
Speaker 1: that makes it different then? Okay? Alright, so hey, you
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us, you want to
Speaker 1: see what we're up to, see what our latest podcast
Speaker 1: episodes are, head on over to stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. That is the mothership. That's where all
Speaker 1: the podcast episodes are located. You you won't find them
Speaker 1: all on iTunes, you won't find them all on various
Speaker 1: other sides, but you will find them all at stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Along with our blogs,
Speaker 1: our videos links out to our social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Tumbler. Also our YouTube account and mind stuff Show.
Speaker 1: You'll find the link there as well. And Julie House
Speaker 1: can they get in touch with us? All right, let's
Speaker 1: see you guys have some thoughts you want to share
Speaker 1: with us about maybe the moon showing up in UH
Speaker 1: culture like songs? Right, moon is goodying and looked at
Speaker 1: my playlist the other day, and I had like two
Speaker 1: hundred songs that contained Moon in the title moon Shadow,
Speaker 1: Moon River, Nico cases, Uh, Moon song, I Wish I
Speaker 1: was the Moon. Anyway, point is, do you want to
Speaker 1: share your favorite move a song with us or your
Speaker 1: moon thoughts? You know you want to answer Robert's question
Speaker 1: about staring up at the moon forty years from now
Speaker 1: and discussing it with young lingk. You can do so
Speaker 1: and blow the mind at Discovery dot com for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics because it how
Speaker 1: staff works. Dot com