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Speaker 1: Elon Musk recently announced that SpaceX is shifting its focus

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Speaker 1: away from a self sustaining city on Mars and will

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Speaker 1: instead build a self growing city on the Moon. Musk

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Speaker 1: explains that building on the Moon makes sense because you

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Speaker 1: can launch a rocket to leave for the Moon every

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Speaker 1: ten days and it only takes two days to get there.

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Speaker 1: But for Mars, because you have to wait for the

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Speaker 1: planets to align nicely, you can only leave for a

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Speaker 1: trip every twenty six months and it takes six months

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Speaker 1: to get there. So he argues, you can go to

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Speaker 1: the Moon more often and more quickly, so it makes

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Speaker 1: more sense to start there, But orbital mechanics hasn't like

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Speaker 1: recently changed. These facts that Musk is stating have been

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Speaker 1: true for the history of SpaceX, and of course for

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Speaker 1: much longer than that, so why the change in heart

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Speaker 1: and fickle human hearts? Aside, how feasible are these plants,

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Speaker 1: we'll chat about how difficult it will be to create

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Speaker 1: a self growing or a self sustaining city on the

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Speaker 1: Moon or Mars, and we'll chat about Musk's plans to

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Speaker 1: build AI satellites on the Moon and launch them into

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Speaker 1: deep space using a mass driver. Welcome to Daniel and

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Speaker 1: Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.

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Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I want

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Speaker 2: humanity doccupy the stars, but I want to stay here

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Speaker 2: on Earth.

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Speaker 1: Hello. I'm Kelly Wainer Smith. I study parasites and space,

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Speaker 1: and I'm also cool with humanity occupying the stars as

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Speaker 1: long as we do it like ethically and carefully. But

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Speaker 1: I am also staying down here on Earth with the

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Speaker 1: goats and the moths and my kids and my husband.

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Speaker 2: All Right, Well, if neither of us are going to

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Speaker 2: Mars or the Moon or the Belt, then my question

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Speaker 2: for you today, Kelly, is what is the most dangerous

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Speaker 2: or uncomfortable place you'd be willing to visit.

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Speaker 1: I'd be willing to visit.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you're not taking a ride to the moon.

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Speaker 2: Would you take a trip to the bottom of the

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Speaker 2: ocean or to Antarctica?

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Speaker 1: I would maybe go to Antarctica. It would be it's

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Speaker 1: kind of like beautiful there. I could maybe be convinced.

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Speaker 1: I would like to visit a desert. The desert has

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Speaker 1: a sort of beauty all its own, especially if I

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Speaker 1: could ride a camel. That'd be fun.

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Speaker 2: Visit the desert. There is the desert such an exotic

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Speaker 2: place for you. I mean I live in the desert.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, I mean I like a real desert.

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Speaker 2: Oh you're looking down your nose at the southwest. Huh.

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Speaker 1: I mean you turn a tap and you've got water,

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Speaker 1: And so I mean like a desert where like everywhere

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Speaker 1: you look their sand dunes, like in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the desert.

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Speaker 2: You know you heard it here first, folks, Death Valley

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Speaker 2: doesn't qualify as a desert. According to Kelly Winersmith.

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Speaker 1: All right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Well what about you?

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Speaker 1: What's your answer?

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Speaker 2: Having just experienced international business class for the first time,

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Speaker 2: I think the answer is nowhere. Like, I really just

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Speaker 2: don't want to go anywhere uncomfortable. It's just not fun. Yeah. No,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to be a total whimp about it.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I have to stay alive for my kids.

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Speaker 1: Otherwise my answer could be a bit more exotic. But uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I got to stay alive from my kids right now.

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Speaker 2: Like, I even have plausible scientific reasons to go to Antarctica,

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Speaker 2: and I know a guy who goes quite often. I

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Speaker 2: could probably go if I wanted to, But yeah, just

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Speaker 2: no interest in going to Antarctica. It seems miserable.

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Speaker 1: I have friends who go to Antarctica and they're like,

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Speaker 1: you have no desire to go, And I'm like, oh, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: no, no no. I have friends who jumped in the water

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Speaker 1: in Antarctica. Scott and Joe, you two are nuts. Nuts.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry.

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Speaker 2: Wow. Well, speaking of nuts, today, we're talking about to

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Speaker 2: settle the Moon. And if you didn't already pick up

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Speaker 2: on it, And if this is your first episode of

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Speaker 2: this podcast and you have no idea how Kelly feels

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Speaker 2: about settling space, then you might have gotten a hint

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Speaker 2: about where this is going.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. We are talking today about Elon Musk's

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Speaker 1: about face. He has for a long time been talking

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Speaker 1: about settling Mars. You can see him wearing his Occupy

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Speaker 1: Mars shirts all the time. He's well known for saying

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Speaker 1: that he wants to have a self sustaining settlement on

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Speaker 1: Mars with a million people in the next twenty to

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Speaker 1: thirty years.

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Speaker 2: What's his most outrageous prediction for when he's going to

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Speaker 2: start sending people to Mars? That like didn't come true?

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think not that long ago he was

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Speaker 1: predicting that he was going to try to get like

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Speaker 1: some people heading Mars word in like I think I

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Speaker 1: think we're in a launch window in twenty twenty six,

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Speaker 1: so you know, like sometime in the next couple of years,

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Speaker 1: Starship would be bringing people Mars word. But I don't

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Speaker 1: pay too much attention, you know, Like Musk is well

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Speaker 1: known for saying that SpaceX turns impossible into late.

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Speaker 2: That's catchy, that's good.

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Speaker 1: I like that is good. And SpaceX has done absolutely

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Speaker 1: amazing things. Like Zach and I were very frustrated when

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Speaker 1: we were writing Soonest, which was a book about emerging technologies,

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Speaker 1: and we had this chapter about lowering the cost of

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Speaker 1: sending masks to space and SpaceX just kept doing one

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Speaker 1: absolutely amazing thing after another, and we kept having to

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Speaker 1: update that chapter because we were like, holy cow, they're

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Speaker 1: like revolutionizing space launch. As we're writing this chapter.

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Speaker 2: They're catching rockets with chopsticks.

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Speaker 1: You no, No, it is absolutely amazing. And so I

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Speaker 1: every once in a while I'll talk to someone who

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Speaker 1: will be like, oh, Musk and SpaceX haven't done anything amazing.

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Speaker 1: There have been reusable rockets before, and to me, this

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Speaker 1: like borders on conspiracy theory. Ye, Like, yeah, clearly this

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Speaker 1: has been revolutionary. You can argue about whether or not

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Speaker 1: you're excited about their being more satellite in space, for example,

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Speaker 1: But anyway, I think it's been very impressive.

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Speaker 2: No, it's important to be clear eyed and to be

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Speaker 2: fair about it, and you give credit where credit is due.

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Speaker 2: Otherwise you have no credibility. You're just out there to

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Speaker 2: bash on a rich nerd. Yeah, but do you have

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Speaker 2: any insight into why Mars was the target? I mean,

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Speaker 2: Mars has always been further and harder. Why did he

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Speaker 2: focus on Mars?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So my sense is that Musk has always been

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Speaker 1: into science fiction and he's always been sort of excited

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Speaker 1: about big space goals. After he got his money from

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Speaker 1: what's now called PayPal, he was excited about Mars. Even then.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to send something like a little like greenhouse

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Speaker 1: to Mars and then take a video of like a

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Speaker 1: plant growing on the Martian surface, and he thought that

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Speaker 1: would be really inspirational for people to see a plant

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Speaker 1: growing on Mars and like, yes, absolutely, yeah, And so

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Speaker 1: my guess is that why he's excited about Mars is

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Speaker 1: because Mars actually is one of the best play in

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Speaker 1: the Solar System to have a self sustaining settlement for

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Speaker 1: humans if you were gonna do it anywhere.

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Speaker 2: We hold on that's like it is one of the

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Speaker 2: best in the sense that there's only one good one,

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Speaker 2: and Mars is like, you know, a distance second. It's

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Speaker 2: like saying eating garbage is some of the best food

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Speaker 2: you can eat. It was like, yeah, but there there's

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Speaker 2: a better option just right here.

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Speaker 1: Well, yes, we're so everything else in space sucks so

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Speaker 1: much worse than Mars. I mean, like, so Earth is

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Speaker 1: perfect and then Mars is then like least bad.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, next, right, and we think garbage is better than

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Speaker 2: eating sewage, and and that's basically the argument. All right,

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Speaker 2: So tell us about their recent news about Musk pivoting.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's there's been this recent surprising pivot where

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Speaker 1: where now Musk is saying that they're going to have

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Speaker 1: a self growing or self sustaining depends on what you know,

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Speaker 1: whether you're talking about a tweet or a speech he

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Speaker 1: gave recently. And the tweet he said self growing, but

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Speaker 1: in a speech I listened to, he's and self sustaining

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Speaker 1: city on the Moon in you know, maybe even less

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Speaker 1: than ten years. And when you ask him why, he

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Speaker 1: says that it's because you can get to the Moon faster.

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Speaker 1: So the Moon you can leave every ten days a

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Speaker 1: window opens, whereas you can only leave to get to

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Speaker 1: Mars once every something like twenty six months, because you

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Speaker 1: have to wait until Mars and Earth are like aligned

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Speaker 1: in a nice way where you can like make that

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Speaker 1: journey the shortest.

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Speaker 2: And that's because the Earth and Mars don't orbit the

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Speaker 2: Sun in a coordinated way, so sometimes they're like on

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Speaker 2: opposite sides of the Sun. It makes no sense to

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Speaker 2: try to get to Mars. And sometimes they're lined up

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Speaker 2: like one car passing the other one or on a race.

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Speaker 1: Truck exactly right. And the Moon is nice enough to

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Speaker 1: always be about the same distance away from us at

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Speaker 1: all times.

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Speaker 2: The Sun never comes between the Earth and the Moon.

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Speaker 2: That's amazing.

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Speaker 1: I know, it's very convenient. It's very convenient.

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Speaker 2: That would be very cool to see though, But yeah, celestially,

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Speaker 2: that just never, that's right.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And when that window does open up and

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Speaker 1: you leave for the Moon, it takes you like about

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Speaker 1: two days maybe a little more to get there, whereas

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Speaker 1: if you leave for Mars, it takes you between six

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Speaker 1: to nine months to get there. Yeah, And so you

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Speaker 1: can leave for the Moon a lot more often, and

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Speaker 1: you get there a lot quicker.

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Speaker 2: But clarify for us the distinction you made between self

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Speaker 2: sustaining and self growing. It's one of them like a plant,

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Speaker 2: and the other one's what's a distinction?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been trying to figure that out as well.

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Speaker 1: So self sustaining is the word that he tends to

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Speaker 1: use for Mars, and what he means by that is,

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Speaker 1: if something catastrophic happens to Earth, Mars would be fine

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Speaker 1: on its own. Makes sense, and I, you know, so

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Speaker 1: I wrote this book called A City on Mars where

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Speaker 1: I sort of critique his timeline for how long it

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Speaker 1: would take to get to self sustaining. I don't think

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Speaker 1: you could do that in twenty to thirty years. But

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Speaker 1: he first started using this word self growing on the Moon,

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Speaker 1: And when we start talking about the Moon in a

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Speaker 1: little bit later in the show, I want to dig

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Speaker 1: into why I think he may have used self growing

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Speaker 1: initially instead of self sustaining, because the Moon lacks a

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Speaker 1: lot of things that I think that you would need

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Speaker 1: to have a self sustaining society, because it turns out

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Speaker 1: the Moon is a really bad place to live and

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Speaker 1: it's lacking stuff like carbon. It's got some carbon, but

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Speaker 1: not a lot, and we're carbon based like organisms, and

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Speaker 1: so like even just the basic building blocks that you

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Speaker 1: need to make humans, we're gonna have to bring with

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Speaker 1: us to the Moon. And so I'm guessing that's why

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Speaker 1: he used self growing initially. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe

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Speaker 1: you could grow businesses there, but self sustaining would take

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Speaker 1: a lot of work. What's interesting to me is that

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Speaker 1: Musk is saying, like, oh, we can get to the

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Speaker 1: moon faster, and that's why we got to start there.

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Speaker 1: But this has always been true.

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Speaker 2: It's not like the moon was recently moved to get

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Speaker 2: easier to.

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Speaker 1: Get to right right, And I don't think that Musk

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Speaker 1: like woke up ten days ago. We're recording this in

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Speaker 1: like mid Febuerbruary, and he, you know, he said this

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Speaker 1: in like early ish February. I don't think that Musk

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Speaker 1: woke up like ten days ago and was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, the moon is closer, and like I

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Speaker 1: don't and so like why the shift? And so there's

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Speaker 1: loads of people who are speculating on the cause of

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Speaker 1: the shift. I don't think we should speculate a ton

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Speaker 1: I don't want to spend a lot of you know,

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Speaker 1: breath on guessing. But many people have noted that Blue

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Speaker 1: Origin is finally starting to catch up to SpaceX after

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Speaker 1: being behind for a long time. Blue Origin is now

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Speaker 1: starting to talk about doing more activity on the Moon

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Speaker 1: and having like a lunar lander. And this is at

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Speaker 1: a time when there's rumors that SpaceX is going to

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Speaker 1: want to start doing their initial public offering, so becoming

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Speaker 1: a public company. And so maybe Musk is looking for

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Speaker 1: some way to do something impactful in the near term,

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Speaker 1: and maybe the Moon is looking like something that that

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Speaker 1: he can do something exciting sooner than he can do

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Speaker 1: something exciting related to Mars. I don't know, what do

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Speaker 1: you think.

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Speaker 2: I think the probably unfair and least charitable interpretation is

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Speaker 2: that after the movie The Martian, he knew everybody was

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Speaker 2: excited about Mars, and so he rode that wave and

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Speaker 2: now everybody's thinking about the Moon, and he's got a

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Speaker 2: public offering coming up, and he's got to pump that stock.

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Speaker 2: And that's probably unfair, but that's like the least charitable interpretation.

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Speaker 2: But as you said, we can't get into his head,

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Speaker 2: so instead, let's just think about the science first tell

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Speaker 2: us how feasible was the plan to go to Mars anyway?

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Speaker 1: Not super feasible or you know, so maybe he would

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Speaker 1: have been able to get starship there. So I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to dig too much into the rocket plan. But

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Speaker 1: what really got me frustrated was this plan that we're

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Speaker 1: going to have a self sustaining settlement in twenty to

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Speaker 1: thirty years, which implied that you were going to have

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Speaker 1: a million human bodies on Mars way before we knew

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Speaker 1: if that was safe or not.

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Speaker 2: Why do you need a million for self sustaining Why

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Speaker 2: is that a requirement?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so a million is the number that Musk came

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Speaker 1: up with, not me. Oh, I guess you thought that

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Speaker 1: a million was the number that you would need to

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Speaker 1: have enough people to do all of the jobs that

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Speaker 1: would be necessary to have a self sustaining like economy,

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Speaker 1: and enough people to have enough genetic diversity. I would

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Speaker 1: note that when we were doing research, we felt like

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Speaker 1: a million was an underestimate for all of the different

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Speaker 1: kinds of jobs you would need if you were going

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Speaker 1: to have the kind of economy that would also be

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Speaker 1: making things like computer chips, which you would need to

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Speaker 1: keep a complicated habitat that runs on technology on an

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Speaker 1: alien planet running This is a.

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Speaker 2: Really fascinating thing to think about, because the number of

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Speaker 2: people involved in like your daily life is huge. You know,

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Speaker 2: the number of people who like make pencils and like

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Speaker 2: make toilet paper and transport all that stuff. Like, the

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Speaker 2: number of people who touch your life is enormous. But

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Speaker 2: we've sort of build our society that way. We've assumed

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Speaker 2: that everybody's here and then we can transport stuff. If

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Speaker 2: you intentionally built a society that had like fewer choices

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Speaker 2: of pencils and only one kind of toilet paper because

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Speaker 2: you wanted to simplify it, you're saying even then you

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Speaker 2: couldn't winnow it down to less than about a million people.

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Speaker 1: Maybe, but like I guess you'd have you could say,

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Speaker 1: you know, we want fewer medical specialists and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: But you know, on Earth you can make some winnowing

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Speaker 1: because you can like walk outside and take a deep

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Speaker 1: breath and you don't have someone who needs to manufacture

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Speaker 1: the air, for example. But there are some you know,

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Speaker 1: additional things that you absolutely have to have in an

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Speaker 1: environment where technology is required to keep you from dying,

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Speaker 1: where like you need a spacesuit in order to walk outside,

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Speaker 1: because otherwise the nitrogen is going to boil out of

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Speaker 1: your blood and kill you.

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Speaker 2: So you need, for example, somebody who can fix a spacesuit,

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Speaker 2: and somebody to manufacture their pair patches for the space

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Speaker 2: suits and all that stuff. All right, somebody, let's start

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Speaker 2: with the pros, right, what are the advantages of going

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Speaker 2: to Mars. Let's steal man this case?

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, okay, So you wanted to know why it

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Speaker 1: is Musk excited about Mars, and it's because Mars actually

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Speaker 1: has a lot of pros if you exclude the Earth.

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Speaker 1: So Mars has plenty of water. It's got lots of

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Speaker 1: water at the poles. It even has a lot of

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Speaker 1: water at the equator if you're willing to dig down

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Speaker 1: a little bit.

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Speaker 2: And this is cool science.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: We didn't know that Mars had water on it until

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Speaker 2: pretty recently. That's exciting.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we thought Mars had loads of water and

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Speaker 1: that there were canals shuttling the water around for a while.

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Speaker 1: But but yes, once we dispelled ourselves of that illusion, Yes,

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Speaker 1: we did recently learn that Mars had plenty of water.

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Speaker 1: Mars has some atmosphere, and it has a lot of

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Speaker 1: carbon dioxide, and that you know, kind of sounds like

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Speaker 1: a bummer as an organism that doesn't love breathing carbon dioxide.

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Speaker 1: But plants like to breathe carbon dioxide. That's good news

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Speaker 1: for our plants.

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Speaker 2: And I like to eat plants.

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Speaker 1: And I like to eat plants too, and you can,

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Speaker 1: you know, break it up. And there's oxygen in there,

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Speaker 1: which is a gas that we do like to breathe.

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Speaker 1: There's also lots of there's lots of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon,

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Speaker 1: and nitrogen on Mars. Those are all good things that

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Speaker 1: we can use for you know, for us and for

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Speaker 1: our plants. The climate is okay relative to other places

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Speaker 1: in space. So the equator at summertime is about twenty

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Speaker 1: one degrees celsius, which is about room temperature. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: you know that's okay, we can work with it.

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Speaker 2: Still not sunbathing though.

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Speaker 1: No, no, you're not sunbathing. And you know that one

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Speaker 1: percent of Earth's atmosphere that we talked about, like that's

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Speaker 1: still thin enough that you can't step outside without a spacesuit.

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Speaker 1: As we talked about, you you would die. And it's

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Speaker 1: got a day that's kind of earth like. So about

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Speaker 1: twenty four point seven hours, So that's kind of nice.

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Speaker 2: And it's got a red sky with blue sunsets. That's

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Speaker 2: pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, so it's got some some pros.

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Speaker 2: All right, we're doing our best here to make the

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Speaker 2: positive case.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, but it also has some cons.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So we've already talked about the fact that it's really

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Speaker 1: far away. It also has only forty percent of Earth's gravity,

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Speaker 1: and we don't know how big of a problem that's

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Speaker 1: going to be for human muscles and bones. There's some

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Speaker 1: reason to worry that that might not be enough for,

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Speaker 1: you know, to keep for example, moms muscles and bones

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Speaker 1: strong enough to get her through labor, and that might

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Speaker 1: not be enough for a fetus to develop normally. We

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Speaker 1: just really don't have enough data to answer questions like that.

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Speaker 2: And what about childhood, right like, what happens to a

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Speaker 2: child who grows up in low gravity? Did their bones

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Speaker 2: develop weirdly? Do they get cancer? Does something else happen?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Right, And we've talked about this in past episodes,

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Speaker 1: so I'm not going to be labor it too much.

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Speaker 1: Folks can go back through our archive to find those episodes.

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Speaker 1: But you know, in my mind, we need to do

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Speaker 1: a lot of additional research before we send a million

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Speaker 1: people to Mars to figure out the answers to those questions, which,

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Speaker 1: to be honest, is one of the reasons why I'm

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Speaker 1: sort of excited about this pivot to the moon. We

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Speaker 1: could use it as an opportunity to get those data

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Speaker 1: before we start sending people to Mars to do repert

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Speaker 1: and stuff. We you know, we could like slow down

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Speaker 1: and make this transition a little bit more ethically in.

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Speaker 2: What scenario is raising children in low gravity to see

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Speaker 2: what happens ethical? Like, how do you figure that out?

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Speaker 1: So? Okay, So if you slowed down and you decided,

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Speaker 1: in addition to the AI satellites that Musk wants to

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Speaker 1: be making, which we're going to talk about a little

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Speaker 1: bit later, you also tacked on a biological research station.

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Speaker 1: You could start with a colony of rodents, and you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe you give those rodents a decade, and if the

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Speaker 1: rodents all seem super healthy, maybe then you could let

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Speaker 1: people bring their dogs, and maybe you could let some

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Speaker 1: of those dogs have puppies, and if they seemed fine,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe you could very carefully monitor some pregnancies

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Speaker 1: of humans, and if anything looked bad at any point,

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Speaker 1: you could send those people back to Earth immediately. But

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Speaker 1: if the pregnancy seemed to be developing normally, you could,

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Speaker 1: you know, let it progress and very carefully watch how

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Speaker 1: things were going on the Moon, and you could, you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of scale up that way.

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Speaker 2: But even in that scenario, you are experimenting on fetuses,

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Speaker 2: or on babies or on children. But I guess that's

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Speaker 2: just standard protocol. Right. We do that also here on

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Speaker 2: Earth when we're testing out new medications or new.

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Speaker 1: Treatments, right, yeah, right, And I agree, But I do

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Speaker 1: feel like there's a gradient of risk. And if you've

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Speaker 1: done a lot of experiments on animals, you can at

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Speaker 1: some point say we have reduced, yeah, the risk to

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Speaker 1: a point that we feel comfortable with. But I agree,

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Speaker 1: you are still taking a risk at some point.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So reproduction is tricky. What else is hard? On Mars?

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Speaker 1: Growing food is hard? So the surface of Mars is

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Speaker 1: covered in a jagged dust called regolith, and that jagged

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Speaker 1: dust also has a chemical called perchlorates, and those perchlorates

397
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Speaker 1: mess with your thyroid and the hormones produced by your thyroid,

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Speaker 1: and it messes up nervous system development in fetuses and

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Speaker 1: things like metabolism in adults. And if you try to

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Speaker 1: grow food like plants in that dirt, the prochlorates get

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Speaker 1: sucked into the plants, and so we're gonna have to

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Speaker 1: be very careful about that. And we we in general,

403
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Speaker 1: need to learn more about how we would grow food

404
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Speaker 1: in space, and how we would grow food in a

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Speaker 1: way that would also like generate oxygen and create sort

406
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Speaker 1: of like loops that would recycle our waste while growing food,

407
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Speaker 1: and closed loop ecosystems is what it's called, and we

408
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Speaker 1: need more research there.

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Speaker 2: All right, So jagged poisoned dust in everything bad and.

410
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Speaker 1: Dust storms that kick it up and cover the whole

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Speaker 1: planet in it for weeks sometimes at a time, which

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Speaker 1: is going to make solar panels a difficult way to

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Speaker 1: power your settlements.

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Speaker 2: I saw that in the Martian.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you did see that in the Martian, which means

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Speaker 1: we probably want to figure out portable nuclear reactors before

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Speaker 1: we get out there, which folks are working on, but

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Speaker 1: it's not quite ready yet.

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Speaker 2: Although some of the rovers on Mars are nuclear powered,

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Speaker 2: yes they are. So we have done nuclear power on Mars,

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Speaker 2: which is amazing as a species.

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Speaker 1: Like wow, Yes, so they're not nuclear reactors. They're like

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Speaker 1: thermo couples or something. So they've got like a little

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Speaker 1: piece of nuclear decaying material which provides warmth and a

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Speaker 1: little bit of energy. I think they often also have

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Speaker 1: some solar panels coupled to the system. But this is

427
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Speaker 1: not like a nuclear reactor that you can like turn

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Speaker 1: up to get more energy and down to get less energy.

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Speaker 1: It's not the kind of thing that could power an

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Speaker 1: entire habitat.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more like a nuclear battery than a nuclear

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Speaker 2: power plant.

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 2: We have a whole episode on nuclear space ships and

435
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Speaker 2: nuclear power in space. Check that out.

436
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so that is like a subsample of the many

437
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Speaker 1: challenges we need to overcome to have a self sustaining

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Speaker 1: settlement on Mars. Let's not be labor the point too much.

439
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Speaker 1: There's a lot of work that still needs to be done.

440
00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:48,560
Speaker 1: I don't think we could do it in twenty to

441
00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:51,439
Speaker 1: thirty years. But let's take a break, and when we

442
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:55,880
Speaker 1: get back, let's talk about the feasibility of Musk's new

443
00:21:56,280 --> 00:22:19,320
Speaker 1: Moon plan, his new lunar ambitions. All right, we're back,

444
00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 1: and we are talking about Musk's lunar ambitions. Musk is

445
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 1: now heading to the Moon instead of Mars, or at

446
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,280
Speaker 1: least he's going to the Moon first. He still plans

447
00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:31,560
Speaker 1: on going to Mars. I noted in the last segment

448
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:34,159
Speaker 1: that I'm actually kind of excited because going to the

449
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:37,880
Speaker 1: Moon first gives us some time to learn some good

450
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:41,879
Speaker 1: skills and practice with some technology before we go to Mars,

451
00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:45,159
Speaker 1: which is a much more like dangerous, far away place.

452
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:47,600
Speaker 1: Whether or not will make the most of this opportunity

453
00:22:48,359 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 1: remains to be seen, because it seems like Musk does

454
00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:52,600
Speaker 1: sort of want to rush through things. But we could

455
00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:53,760
Speaker 1: learn from this.

456
00:22:54,359 --> 00:22:56,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the big arguments in your book essentially

457
00:22:56,800 --> 00:22:58,560
Speaker 2: is that we're not ready to go to Mars and

458
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:00,280
Speaker 2: we need to fill in a lot more staff to

459
00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:03,280
Speaker 2: get there, and experiments on the Moon and in near

460
00:23:03,320 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 2: Earth are part of those steps. So in that sense, hey,

461
00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:07,800
Speaker 2: maybe you must read your book and he's listening to

462
00:23:07,840 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 2: your advice.

463
00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:13,800
Speaker 1: H I doubt it, highly doubt it, but you know,

464
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 1: if so, that'd be great. Yeah, So the Moon does

465
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 1: have some pros, and this is what Musk is pointing out.

466
00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:22,720
Speaker 1: He's pointing out that you know, the moon is celestially speaking,

467
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 1: pretty close. It's three hundred and eighty five thousand kilometers

468
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:30,800
Speaker 1: away and pretty much always the same distance away. That's

469
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:31,440
Speaker 1: pretty nice.

470
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:33,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's always available right.

471
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:37,119
Speaker 1: Year round, yep. And so you can get resupply ships

472
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:41,640
Speaker 1: there quickly. You can get medical advice almost in live time,

473
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: whereas Mars is so far away that there's a three

474
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:48,200
Speaker 1: to twenty two minute communication delay depending on how far

475
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: away Mars is from Earth at the time. And that

476
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:54,639
Speaker 1: also means that you can like control robots from Earth

477
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 1: in like pretty much lifetime. That's pretty great.

478
00:23:57,960 --> 00:23:59,919
Speaker 2: In fact, I think about the service of the Moon's

479
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 2: sort of the same way I think about Antarctica, because

480
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 2: like you can get to Antarctica, but you can't get

481
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 2: there like this afternoon. Yeah, you know, there's like a

482
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 2: few planes and a few boats, like it takes a

483
00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:12,240
Speaker 2: couple of days. And if you're in Antarctica and you

484
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 2: need to get home like asap, you can't like be

485
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:18,160
Speaker 2: home for emergency surgery that evening, right. It's a lot

486
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 2: of planning, and so in the same way, like, yeah,

487
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 2: you can get there, it's just not easy.

488
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 1: With the Apollo thirteen crew, like things went wrong and

489
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: they were able to like get help and turn around

490
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:32,880
Speaker 1: and get back in time, and everyone survived. And then

491
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:35,960
Speaker 1: in Antarctica, there was like a woman who figured out

492
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:38,800
Speaker 1: that she had breast cancer. She was a doctor and

493
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 1: she was able to like do a biopsy. She realized

494
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 1: she had breast cancer, and she ended up getting like

495
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 1: saved by a rescue mission that was able to come

496
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 1: like towards the end of the season.

497
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 2: Right, do you know this story, Yeah, this is amazing.

498
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 2: This is Jerry Nielsen, and she like did a biopsy

499
00:24:55,320 --> 00:25:00,919
Speaker 2: on herself in Antarctica and like started treating herself with chemotherapy.

500
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:04,439
Speaker 2: She was then evacuated, but like they couldn't get her

501
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 2: out very easily because like you can reach Antarctica much

502
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:10,160
Speaker 2: more easily during some parts of the year than others.

503
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,639
Speaker 2: And so they sent a plane several weeks ahead of

504
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 2: schedule in this crazy weather to bring her back and

505
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 2: they were able to evacuate her back to the US

506
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 2: for surgery.

507
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, like it's difficult, but you have some options,

508
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: whereas it like for Mars, you're just one hundred percent

509
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: out of luck. Yeah, although there was that one Russian

510
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: surgeon who did his own appendectomy in Antarctica. Because he

511
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 1: couldn't get out on time like that is pretty hardcore.

512
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 1: I would just be dead anyway, all right. So the

513
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 1: Moon also has some cool stuff like silicon, aluminum, magnesium, iron, titanium,

514
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:51,160
Speaker 1: things that might be helpful for building stuff like solar panels.

515
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 2: It's also helium three on the moon, isn't there.

516
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:54,400
Speaker 1: Yeah?

517
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 2: Correct, You don't sound excited about that. Why not, Kelly?

518
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:00,879
Speaker 2: Everybody talks about helium three a fusion fuel.

519
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: That, yes, and maybe one day helium three will be

520
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 1: a helpful fusion fuel on the Moon. I don't think

521
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 1: it's worth digging through tons of regolith on the Moon

522
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:15,400
Speaker 1: to collect helium three for nuclear reactors that we aren't quite.

523
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 2: Using yet or don't know how to build.

524
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: Or don't know how to build. But some people disagree.

525
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 2: With me, and quick primer there. Helium three is a

526
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 2: fuel for fusion. Fusion is not a technology we've made

527
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 2: to work here on the surface of the Earth with

528
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 2: all of our infrastructure. We might one day get it

529
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 2: to work, and we might one day be able to

530
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,479
Speaker 2: do it on the Moon. But helium three based fusion,

531
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 2: although it has some advantages, is also harder to get

532
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:43,919
Speaker 2: to work. So we're talking about an extra hard version

533
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 2: of fusion that we haven't made work here on Earth yet.

534
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 1: Even when we're doing the easy version.

535
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

536
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: The Moon also has lava tubes, and lava tubes are

537
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:55,119
Speaker 1: kind of cool because when you're underground, that protects you

538
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:59,239
Speaker 1: from space radiation. It also protects you from impacts from like,

539
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:02,639
Speaker 1: you know, space debris that might fall onto the surface

540
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 1: of the Moon and could maybe puncture your habitat, and

541
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 1: temperature swings are a little bit less extreme in lava tubes.

542
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:13,159
Speaker 1: And speaking of those temperature extremes, let's go ahead and

543
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 1: jump to the con because the Moon has a lot

544
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: of them.

545
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,520
Speaker 2: I love how you put lava tubes as a positive,

546
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 2: like lava tubes, Like, who wants to live in a

547
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 2: lava tube? That doesn't sound like cozy or appealing or

548
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:28,919
Speaker 2: attractive to me at all. So like the fact that

549
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 2: you have to put it in the pro category just

550
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 2: tells you, like there's not a whole lot of pros

551
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 2: in that category.

552
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 1: No. No, I mean I think it would be cool

553
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: to go in a lunar lava tube to like explore once,

554
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't want to live there.

555
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I don't even like going in caves.

556
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 1: I'm claustrophobic. I went in a cave once and I

557
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: was like, I need to get out of here.

558
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 2: And then once you read the story by the guy

559
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 2: who like crawled into the cave of the wrong direction

560
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 2: and got stuck upside down.

561
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: Oh no, stuff, Yeah, you don't want to see. Moving on,

562
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 1: Moving on. So the temperature at the lunar equator swings

563
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: from negative one hundred and thirty degrees celsius to positive

564
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:10,639
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty degrees celsius.

565
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 2: Wait, by the fundamental theorem of calculus, that means at

566
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:15,200
Speaker 2: some moment it must be room temperature.

567
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, there is a moment where you'll be like, oh,

568
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 1: that's comfortable before you either freeze to death or like

569
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 1: overheat to death.

570
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:24,120
Speaker 2: Nice.

571
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:27,160
Speaker 1: Yes, so sorry, it could kill you in either direction,

572
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:32,160
Speaker 1: which is lovely. The daytimes last the equivalent of two

573
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 1: weeks here on Earth, and the night times also last

574
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:36,919
Speaker 1: the equivalent of two weeks.

575
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 2: Why is that two weeks? Is that because the moon

576
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 2: is tidly locked to the Earth.

577
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: Probably, how about you explain that physicist friend of mine.

578
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 2: So the reason a day lasts for two weeks on

579
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 2: the moon is that the moon takes four weeks to

580
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 2: orbit the Earth, and it's timely locked to the Earth.

581
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 2: And so what that means is that essentially takes four

582
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 2: weeks for the Moon to spin relative to the Sun.

583
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 2: And so that's why day lasts for two weeks because

584
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 2: relative to the Sun, the moon spins once every four

585
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 2: weeks because it's connected to the Earth, and it takes

586
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 2: four weeks to orbit the Earth.

587
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: Excellent. That's a long time though to be at negative

588
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty degrees celsius, yes, or at a

589
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 1: positive one hundred and twenty degrees celsius. It's a long

590
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: time to be at either of those temperatures. Sounds real bad.

591
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 1: Another thing that sounds real bad is that if you

592
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 1: are trying to create a self sustaining settlement, then you

593
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 1: are going to need carbon and nitrogen and phosphorus. And

594
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 1: the surface of the Moon is low on all of

595
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: those things.

596
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 2: Why do you need nitrogen and phosphorus. I don't like

597
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 2: buy those at the store every day.

598
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: Well, that's because Earth has plenty of those things, and

599
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: plants suck those things up and you get those from plants.

600
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 1: And if you want to grow plants, which you probably do,

601
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 1: because we like eating those things. You're going to need

602
00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: to bring tons of that stuff with you to create

603
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 1: your self sustaining settlement. And right now, probably the most

604
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: concentrated source of carbon on the Moon are the ninety

605
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 1: six bags of feces, vomit, and urine that were left

606
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: behind by the Apollo astronauts on the surface of the Moon.

607
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: But those belong to NASA.

608
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 2: Oh, the misfertilizer.

609
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: No, you are not supposed to grow tomatoes in Neil

610
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 1: Armstrong's Long Lost Bowel movements.

611
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 2: Wait, so we need fertilizer to grow any food on

612
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 2: the Moon, which means we need to bring all that

613
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 2: fertilizer with us.

614
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: Yes, or you could import it. You could import it.

615
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: You could you know, you could put it on a rocket,

616
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: or you could find it somewhere else in space and

617
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 1: bring it from there to the Moon. But the Moon,

618
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 1: the Moon ain't got it. Like you know, there's there's

619
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:50,520
Speaker 1: some ammonia in the water at the poles, which we're

620
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: going to talk about. Ammonia has nitrogen, and so you

621
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: can get some nitrogen, but it's not going to be

622
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: enough to create a self sustaining settlement. It's not going

623
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 1: to be enough to make up for the fact that

624
00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 1: you're going to need to grow a whole lot of

625
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 1: plants to support people.

626
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 2: So in the spirit a steel manning Musk's plan, has

627
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 2: he elaborated or even hinted on how he's going to

628
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 2: solve any of these problems.

629
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: No, not as far as I've seen. But let's go

630
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 1: ahead and dig into a few more of the things

631
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: that are going to make living on the Moon difficult,

632
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: and then we'll get into some of the plan that

633
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: he has elaborated on so far. All right, First of all,

634
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: I want to note that those temperature swings are going

635
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: to be bad for equipment as well as people, so

636
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 1: building factories on the Moon is going to be difficult.

637
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: Another thing that's going to make building on the Moon

638
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: difficult is going to be that regolith. So, just like

639
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: on Mars, the Moon has jagged regolith, but on the

640
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 1: Moon it also tends to cling. So the solar wind

641
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: makes it electrostatic, and it also makes it sort of

642
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: levitate a little bit, and it sticks to stuff, and

643
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: one the stuff it sticks to gets a little bit darker,

644
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: so it tends to absorb heat and make things overheat

645
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: a little bit. We think that one of the Soviet

646
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 1: rovers lunicod overheated because it got some regolith on top

647
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 1: of its solar panels, and then everything overheated and it's

648
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 1: super abrasive, and so the astronauts would complain that if

649
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 1: they got it on, like they had these little watches

650
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 1: that also had their like instructions for stuff they were

651
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,479
Speaker 1: supposed to do for the day, and if they wiped

652
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: the regolith off of it, it scratched it so they

653
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 1: could no longer read what was written on their watches,

654
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: and so that's also going to be bad for equipment,

655
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: also bad for humans. There's concern that if you breathe

656
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: it in, it's going to scratch your lungs and cause

657
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 1: stone grinder's disease, which essentially means you get scars in

658
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: your lungs until you can't breathe anymore. Bad. Bad. The

659
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:44,959
Speaker 1: Moon has pretty much no atmosphere. We call it an exosphere.

660
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: It's like essentially a negligible atmosphere. Although physicists would be like,

661
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: it still exists.

662
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 2: Bah, physicists, Well, there is a distinction there. An atmosphere

663
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 2: is dense enough that the particles interact, they bounce off

664
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 2: each other, et cetera exosphere the particles are there, but

665
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 2: there's such low density that they basically never interact with

666
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 2: each other.

667
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, there you go. So they're there, but

668
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:12,720
Speaker 1: they're sort of negligible from the perspective of human health.

669
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 1: You're you can't breathe out there.

670
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 2: For sure, and there's no protection from cosmic rays.

671
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yes, right, yeah, so you are getting hit by

672
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: all the radiation space has to offer. The Moon has

673
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 1: one sixth of Earth's gravity, so your bones and your

674
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: muscles are probably degrading, which over time could be a

675
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: big problem. But again we don't really understand that very well.

676
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: And the Moon has water but not yeay, but not much,

677
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: not much, and that water is very concentrated. So like, yes,

678
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 1: there is technically some water all over the surface tied

679
00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 1: up in that regolith, that dirt that's all over the surface,

680
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 1: But technically concrete also has some water in it, and

681
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 1: concrete is wetter than regolith.

682
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 2: Concrete doesn't seem very wet to me.

683
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, So you're probably not gonna want

684
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: to be extracting water from the regolith. But at the poles,

685
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: you have these areas where there are craters and on

686
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,600
Speaker 1: the rims of the craters you could set up solar panels,

687
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 1: and that's great because you might remember that at the

688
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 1: equator you've got this two week stretch of darkness in

689
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 1: the middle of the night, so that's probably not a

690
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:22,359
Speaker 1: great place for solar panels. But if you are at

691
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: the poles, over eighty percent of the time, you get

692
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: sunlight at the poles, especially if you're up on these rims,

693
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: so that's good for solar panels. And then inside of

694
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 1: the craters you get these areas that are permanently dark,

695
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: and there's water inside of those permanently dark craters. That

696
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 1: water has some stuff in it like methane, hydrogen sulfide,

697
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 1: and ammonia. Well you don't want to drink those, but

698
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:51,839
Speaker 1: there's some carbon in there and some nitrogen in there,

699
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 1: so those are things that you could extract and use.

700
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 1: There's not going to be enough to sustain like a

701
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 1: million person settlements with the carbon and the nitrogen in there,

702
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 1: but you know you could you could still use some

703
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 1: of it. But once you extract it, then now you've

704
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 1: got water to drink or you could break it up,

705
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: and you've got some oxygen to breathe at that point.

706
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,279
Speaker 1: But there's not a lot of water in there, So, like,

707
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of Sardis Lake in Mississippi?

708
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 2: No?

709
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 1: No, Yeah, no one has because this is like a

710
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: tiny lake that's not worth knowing about. All.

711
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 2: What if we have listeners who live next to Sardist

712
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 2: Lake and now you're insulting them.

713
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I'm sorry to people who enjoy Sardis Lake.

714
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: I hear there's bass there, and I like bass a lot,

715
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 1: But this is a human made lake that most people

716
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: haven't heard of because it's nowhere near as big as,

717
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 1: for example, the Great Lakes. Yeah, and the amount of

718
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 1: water that's estimated to be in all of the craters

719
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 1: is ten percent of the water that's estimated to be

720
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 1: in this lake that most of us haven't heard of.

721
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 2: So it's the point.

722
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 1: Okay, Yes, so it's not a lot of water.

723
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:54,359
Speaker 2: So you're saying if you took all the water on

724
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 2: the Moon and put it somewhere in Michigan, it would

725
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 2: be smaller than a lake nobody's ever heard of except

726
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 2: for the wonderful people who live next to it.

727
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's Mississippi, but I may have I used the

728
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 1: wrong abbreviation in our outline Mississippi. But anyway, yes, that's

729
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:12,880
Speaker 1: that's the point I was trying to make, right.

730
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 2: Okay, So there's not a whole lot of water on

731
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 2: the moon.

732
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: Not a whole lot of water on the Moon. And

733
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 1: these craters of eternal darkness, which is what we call

734
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: these craters that have the water, they make up zero

735
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:27,240
Speaker 1: point one percent of the lunar surface, so very small percent.

736
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 1: And those peaks, those rims where you can put your

737
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 1: solar panel. We call these the peaks of eternal light,

738
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:35,560
Speaker 1: which is over selling it a little bit because they've

739
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: got light like eighty percent of the time. But they

740
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: are one one hundred billionth of the lunar surface, so

741
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: about two tennis courts. And these are the best places

742
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: on the moon because you've got, you know, water in

743
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 1: the best places for solar panels. And the reason you

744
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 1: want to know that is because this is probably where

745
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 1: Musk is going to want to go. And I was

746
00:36:56,640 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 1: watching a Chinese news channel and what they were talking

747
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 1: about was, hey, this is where we want to go.

748
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: Do we have to worry about Musk going there now too?

749
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 1: And this is also where NASA wants to go. And

750
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: so now you have this very small surface area that

751
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: is where everybody wants to go. And you know, this

752
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,200
Speaker 1: program that I was watching was saying, like was part

753
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:23,399
Speaker 1: of this new space race, and so you know, now

754
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: we've got this new space race and everybody trying to

755
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 1: go to the same places on the Moon, and that

756
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: is a little bit concerning to me in particular.

757
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:32,719
Speaker 2: All right, so there are a few places where you

758
00:37:32,719 --> 00:37:34,719
Speaker 2: can get silli power eighty percent of the time. How

759
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:38,759
Speaker 2: does that reconcile with your physicist explanation for why the

760
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 2: moon is in darkness for two weeks of time?

761
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, great question. So if you are at

762
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,359
Speaker 1: the equator, you get two weeks of night and then

763
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 1: two weeks of daytime. But at the poles, the Moon

764
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:53,240
Speaker 1: has a different tilt than you get with the Earth,

765
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 1: and so the sun sort of glances off of it

766
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 1: in a slightly different way. And you know, and on

767
00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 1: Earth you get like different day lengths. At the poles,

768
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,760
Speaker 1: then you get at the equator, and these rims also

769
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: lift you up off the surface a little bit, and

770
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:09,920
Speaker 1: so you've got solar panels up on poles, up on

771
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: top of the rims, and in that way you can

772
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 1: catch the sunlight as it glances off of the poles

773
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 1: about eighty percent of the time.

774
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 2: All right, So solar power is tricky. There's only a

775
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:22,719
Speaker 2: few places you really want to do it. Fusion is

776
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 2: maybe impractical even here on Earth. What about good old

777
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:28,359
Speaker 2: nuclear power. We know how to do that, We've been

778
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 2: doing it for decades. Can't we build small modular reactors

779
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:32,399
Speaker 2: and send them to the moon.

780
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 1: Yeah? Sure, those portable nuclear reactors would be helpful on

781
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: the moon as well. We don't quite have those ready

782
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: to go to the moon yet, to power like factories

783
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 1: like Musk is talking about, but people are working on

784
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:48,799
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and that would be helpful. And so

785
00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: I guess the question is, do we imagine that we

786
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: could have a lunar city that would be self sustaining

787
00:38:56,640 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 1: in ten years? I think ten years? Is it really optimistic? Because, like,

788
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 1: I mean, when you are talking about temperature changes that

789
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:07,560
Speaker 1: are like two hundred and fifty degrees celsius, I mean

790
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 1: the amount at which metal like expands and contracts at

791
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:14,400
Speaker 1: those temperature swings, and like, you know how difficult it

792
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 1: is to get lubricants that don't like boil off at

793
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 1: that high temperature or like freeze at that low temperature.

794
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of engineering challenges when you're working

795
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: at those sorts of temperature swings. I think we're not

796
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:28,280
Speaker 1: going to overcome all of those challenges in ten years,

797
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: but you know, we could start building something in ten

798
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: years and that would be kind of fun.

799
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 2: All right, It does seem like this is a hard problem,

800
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 2: but remember SpaceX has done amazing things. What do you

801
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 2: think is the best way to attack each of these problems?

802
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:47,240
Speaker 2: Like what is our best case scenario? Like for nuclear power,

803
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:50,840
Speaker 2: we said small modulu reactors that might be possible. What

804
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:53,279
Speaker 2: about the other challenges, what's the best case scenario for

805
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 2: each one?

806
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 1: All right? Well, so first I'll note that like Starship

807
00:39:57,560 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: was built so that you can move a lot of

808
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 1: mass fairly cheap, right, and so they could get things

809
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:07,399
Speaker 1: like carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus stuff that they need to the Moon.

810
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:11,319
Speaker 1: It would be expensive, but they are maybe in a

811
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 1: good position to move a lot of mass to the

812
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:14,840
Speaker 1: Moon to make it more habitable.

813
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 2: I mean must talks about like daily launches or multiple

814
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 2: launches a day, like really getting a pipeline up to

815
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:21,479
Speaker 2: the moon.

816
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:24,879
Speaker 1: Yeah right, okay, and if that happens, you could get

817
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 1: some mass there. Again, I do think that would still

818
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: be expensive, but let's assume that that can happen. Yeah,

819
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: so all right, you could build factories in lava tubes

820
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 1: and that would protect you from the radiation, which you

821
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 1: and I recently had a whole episode about how radiation

822
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:43,439
Speaker 1: is not just dangerous for human bodies but also bad

823
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 1: for our equipment. So you're definitely going to need to

824
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: protect yourself from radiation.

825
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 2: And does lava tubes also solve the temperature problem if

826
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 2: you're not on the surface, Is it more reasonable?

827
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:58,320
Speaker 1: Yes, it is more reasonable. Yes, that results in milder

828
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:01,440
Speaker 1: temperature swings if you're undergrad And it solves a lot

829
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 1: of the regolith problem because as the lava went through

830
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 1: it fused the regolith and so now you don't have

831
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 1: a lot of dust that's going to be getting into

832
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: your equipment and stuff like that. You still have the

833
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:13,800
Speaker 1: problem of needing to figure out how you like lower

834
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: everything into the lava tube. You know, like we're not

835
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:21,600
Speaker 1: super experienced with moving around on the surface of the

836
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 1: Moon and now we're like lunar splunking, But like that's

837
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:28,760
Speaker 1: kind of a cool problem to solve, and so working

838
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 1: in the lava tubes could be you know cool, and

839
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:35,360
Speaker 1: like if you could even like fuse the inside of

840
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 1: a lava tube and put an airlock in there, like

841
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:41,319
Speaker 1: maybe you could create an environment where you could walk

842
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: around without spacesuits. If you could, you know, create a

843
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:48,440
Speaker 1: pressurized environment inside of part of a lava tube.

844
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 2: Maybe yeah, all right, Well, I don't want to go

845
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 2: into a cave here on Earth. So caves on the

846
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:56,439
Speaker 2: Moon don't sound very cozy, but they do sound better

847
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 2: than the surface, I'll admit.

848
00:41:57,800 --> 00:41:59,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are braver people out there than you and

849
00:41:59,880 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 1: me think. So, yeah, that's right, that's right, low bar.

850
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 2: But exactly, well, what about the water problem? I mean,

851
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 2: the Solar System is filled with water. There's huge chunks

852
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 2: of ice just out there. Certainly we don't need to

853
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 2: launch water from the surface of the Earth climbing up

854
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:15,560
Speaker 2: the gravity, well do we.

855
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:17,840
Speaker 1: Nope, that's true. And a lot of the asteroid mining

856
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 1: community has been excited about collecting water from asteroids and

857
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:24,760
Speaker 1: figuring out how to extract it from asteroids and then

858
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:27,240
Speaker 1: you know, selling it maybe to the International Space Station,

859
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 1: or maybe they could sell it to the Lunar SpaceX facility,

860
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 1: and so water could come from other locations in space

861
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 1: rather than pulling it out of our gravity.

862
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 2: Well, that seems pretty cool. I mean people buy like

863
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 2: Fiji water because it seems like exotic, now like asteroid water. Like, yeah,

864
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 2: I'd paid ten bucks for a bottle of asteroid water.

865
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:48,799
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I mean that that could be a possibility.

866
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:51,439
Speaker 2: But again that's not something we're going to figure out

867
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 2: in the next few years.

868
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 1: Agreed, that's right. So yeah, I mean you could have

869
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 1: a portable nuclear reactor that powers your factory inside of

870
00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 1: a lava tube. I can technically see solutions to all

871
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:09,239
Speaker 1: of these problems. Not in the next ten years, but yes,

872
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 1: I could see a path forward again, not inn tenues.

873
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 2: All right, well, on that positive note, let's take a

874
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 2: break and come back and talk about Musk's other dreams

875
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 2: for AI satellites.

876
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 1: All right, we're back, Daniel. I want to start with

877
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:47,920
Speaker 1: a question to you, what is an AI satellite? Why

878
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:51,359
Speaker 1: do you want an AI satellite?

879
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,480
Speaker 2: I think when he says AI satellite, he's thinking about

880
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 2: all the data centers we're building the power AI because

881
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,799
Speaker 2: AI essentially is deep neural networks, and neural networks are

882
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 2: basically lineary algebra, which rely on matrix multiplication, which means

883
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:10,800
Speaker 2: the multiplying a bunch of numbers by another bunch of numbers,

884
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:12,920
Speaker 2: and that's much faster if you do them in parallel

885
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 2: rather than doing them one at a time. And there

886
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 2: are special chips GPUs, which were invented for calculating very

887
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 2: quickly how to draw blood on your screen for your

888
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 2: video games, and along the way invented hardware technology to

889
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 2: very quickly do matrix multiplication because you also need that

890
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:34,359
Speaker 2: for graphics on your video game. And then AI companies realized, oh,

891
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 2: that's also the same technology we need to do with

892
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:40,000
Speaker 2: the linear algebra inside of our neural networks. So now

893
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 2: GPUs are basically AI chips. Even though they were invented

894
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 2: for video games, they found this other use. And I

895
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 2: think now the market is just swamped by people using

896
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 2: them for AI. So they shouldn't be called GPUs anymore.

897
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:56,239
Speaker 2: They should be called like aipus or something I don't know.

898
00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:00,359
Speaker 2: And so I think when he says AI satellite, he's

899
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 2: thinking data centers in space in order to power AI.

900
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so yeah, so Musk has an AI

901
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:12,839
Speaker 1: company called Xai, which was recently acquired by SpaceX.

902
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:15,239
Speaker 2: I love that when Musk buys his own company with

903
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 2: his own company.

904
00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 1: It feels like a scam, Yes, it feels weird, but anyway,

905
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: he owns the world, so he gets to do what

906
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:26,880
Speaker 1: he wants, and so he's done that. These data centers,

907
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: as I understand it, and you probably know more, are

908
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:32,720
Speaker 1: getting like huge, Like hasn't didn't Microsoft buy three Mile

909
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:35,799
Speaker 1: Islands so they could use that nuclear power plant to

910
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: run their data center.

911
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 2: Absolutely. The thing that limits AI right now seems to

912
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 2: be the available GPUs. Like the more GPUs you throw

913
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 2: these things, the more powerful they get. There's this scaling

914
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:50,720
Speaker 2: behavior where it just seems like going bigger means smarter,

915
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 2: So everybody's trying to go bigger than everybody else. And

916
00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 2: there's a huge market now for these GPUs and for

917
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:00,880
Speaker 2: memory also in these chips, which is why like computers

918
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 2: are getting expensive and memory is very expensive, and GPUs

919
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 2: are hard to find because there's like one company in

920
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 2: the world, in VideA that knows how to make the

921
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:10,520
Speaker 2: cutting edge GPUs.

922
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:14,440
Speaker 1: Must be a good time to work it in video, Yes.

923
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 2: It must be a good time to own in video stock.

924
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 1: Yeah right right, Okay, So why why space, Like why

925
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 1: move that all to space, because that's got to be

926
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 1: really expensive to do. Why not just keep doing that here?

927
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:32,880
Speaker 2: Yes, so we build these things in massive data centers

928
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 2: here on the Earth. And they take a lot of

929
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:39,880
Speaker 2: water to cool these computers, because computers use electricity and

930
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:41,759
Speaker 2: when you do calculations, they heat up and so you

931
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 2: got to cool them. So we use a lot of

932
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:45,280
Speaker 2: water to cool them. They draw a lot of power,

933
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:47,920
Speaker 2: and they take a lot of space. There's environmental impact.

934
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 2: Real estate is expensive, and so recently muscles been talking

935
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 2: a lot about data centers in space. And people have

936
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:57,759
Speaker 2: been talking about this for years, but mostly it was

937
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:00,760
Speaker 2: scoffed at, and now people are taking it work seriously,

938
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:02,879
Speaker 2: and so, you know, let me try to steal man

939
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 2: the arguments for data centers in space. Why do people

940
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 2: want to do that at all? Well, Number one, there's

941
00:47:10,080 --> 00:47:13,399
Speaker 2: power up there, right. If you have solar panels, then

942
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 2: those solar panels see the sun much more often, Like

943
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 2: there's no clouds in space, right. If you are far

944
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 2: enough from the Earth's surface, then you can always be

945
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 2: in sunshine, So solar panels can power you. There's more

946
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:29,359
Speaker 2: power in space. So there's that. The other issue is

947
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 2: environmental impact. Some people argue, like why should we cover

948
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 2: the surface of the Earth, and data centers, we should

949
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:38,040
Speaker 2: just put those out in space. Also because there's like

950
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 2: infinite real estate out there, right, you don't need to

951
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 2: take up land as somebody was going to use to

952
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 2: build houses to just fill space with data centers. Space

953
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 2: is really big and there's plenty of room up there,

954
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 2: and so you know, in terms of like scalability, and

955
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:54,839
Speaker 2: that's definitely an advantage. You can flip some of the

956
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 2: cons and try to make them pros. Like one of

957
00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:00,440
Speaker 2: the cons is it's hard to get up there. So

958
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 2: anybody who's ever like run a computing system knows you

959
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:05,840
Speaker 2: got to reboot the stuff, you got to repair the stuff.

960
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 2: You got to get in there sometimes physically to fix things.

961
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 2: And that's harder to do out in space. Remember when

962
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 2: we fix the Hubble, we had to like launch the

963
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:16,279
Speaker 2: Shuttle with astronauts to do a space walk to fix

964
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 2: the hubble. It was a huge pain. So now you're

965
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 2: talking about like maintaining a data center in space. But

966
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 2: these guys flip it and they say, ooh, that makes

967
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:29,799
Speaker 2: it less susceptible to terrorists for example. Right, So it's

968
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 2: like data sovereignty. You're out there in space you own

969
00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 2: these computers where there the law is fuzzy, as you've

970
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 2: often said, Kelly, and so like, if my data is

971
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 2: out in space, then I don't have to worry about

972
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 2: like the US Administration trying to subpoena it, right because

973
00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 2: it's not in their jurisdiction. Maybe my lawyers say, what

974
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:52,839
Speaker 2: do you think about that argument? The face you're making

975
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:54,400
Speaker 2: tells me you're not persuaded.

976
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're still supposed to register your

977
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 1: satellite when you launch something. It is the responsibility, I

978
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:08,880
Speaker 1: believe of somebody, because if your satellite smashes into something,

979
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 1: they need to know who would get sued. And so

980
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 1: I think someone is still responsible for it. And there

981
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 1: is a nation that would be responsible for paying the

982
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,839
Speaker 1: bill if you don't pay the bill, and so I'm

983
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:26,720
Speaker 1: pretty sure that you're not in a legal gray area

984
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: if you're out there. I'm not sure that holds up.

985
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 2: I think the strongest argument is that eventually we're going

986
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:36,760
Speaker 2: to have space industry and we want to build stuff

987
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 2: for space, and if you do that, it makes sense

988
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:42,279
Speaker 2: to build it in space. The idea is, if you

989
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:44,920
Speaker 2: need this stuff for space, then why build it on

990
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:47,040
Speaker 2: the surface of the Earth and then launch it. So

991
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 2: if you need, for example, data centers on the Moon,

992
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 2: build them in space, have them in space, don't build

993
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 2: them on the Earth and try to operate them from

994
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 2: the Moon or then launch them. And so if you

995
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:59,360
Speaker 2: have some sort of self sustaining space economy, then I

996
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,359
Speaker 2: do think there are arguments for building data centers out

997
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,720
Speaker 2: in space using materials you already have out in space,

998
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 2: assuming you have people living out there in space who

999
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 2: can maintain them and support them and all this kind

1000
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:13,440
Speaker 2: of stuff. But it's a bit of a bootstrapping issue.

1001
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 1: And I think part of that argument is because Earth's

1002
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 1: gravity well is so hard to get out of that

1003
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:21,359
Speaker 1: if you were making the satellites, for example, on the Moon,

1004
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:23,480
Speaker 1: it would be much easier to get them out into

1005
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 1: orbit exactly relative to Earth.

1006
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 2: Even if they bring launch costs down right, Building huge

1007
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:33,359
Speaker 2: data centers in space would be very expensive, but it

1008
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:36,120
Speaker 2: is possible to build them in space for use in

1009
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 2: space eventually.

1010
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 1: Okay, So it sounds like Musk's plan is to build

1011
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:46,400
Speaker 1: AI satellites on the Moon and then use what he's

1012
00:50:46,480 --> 00:50:52,320
Speaker 1: calling a mass driver to shoot them out into space yep,

1013
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:57,359
Speaker 1: which is interesting because he's a big hindline fan and

1014
00:50:57,400 --> 00:51:01,000
Speaker 1: this sounds very moon is a harsh mistress, like where

1015
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: they used a mass driver to shoot rocks using an

1016
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 1: AI towards the Earth. But anyway, maybe I'm maybe I'm

1017
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:13,880
Speaker 1: projecting too much, but anyway, so well, mass.

1018
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:16,240
Speaker 2: Drivers are cool because on the surface of the Moon

1019
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 2: gravity is much less, and so you don't need like

1020
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:23,319
Speaker 2: chemical rocket technology to escape the Moon's gravity. You just

1021
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:25,760
Speaker 2: need like a big gun. And so a mass driver

1022
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:29,600
Speaker 2: is just like you know, electromagnetic rail or you know

1023
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:32,840
Speaker 2: even a or even like a centrifuge, you know that

1024
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:36,720
Speaker 2: spins up and then throws things into space. That's pretty cool.

1025
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:39,359
Speaker 1: Now that you've done a pretty good job of emphasizing

1026
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: all the positives, let's go ahead and give it the

1027
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 1: Kelly treatment and talk about some of the some of

1028
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:49,799
Speaker 1: the negatives of doing this on the Moon.

1029
00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:53,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there are challenges to data centers in space.

1030
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:57,600
Speaker 2: Number one is cooling. There's a lot of misunderstanding about

1031
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 2: how this works. People think of space as cold, and

1032
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 2: so ooh, isn't cooling just free out in space? The

1033
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:08,440
Speaker 2: problem is space is an insulator, right, It's a vacuum.

1034
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 2: The thing you have in your thermis, for example, that

1035
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:14,040
Speaker 2: keeps your coffee hot or your beverage is cold, is

1036
00:52:14,080 --> 00:52:16,719
Speaker 2: a vacuum gap between the beverage and the rest of

1037
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 2: the planet because it's hard for heat to go across

1038
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:22,520
Speaker 2: a vacuum, and that means if you have something hot

1039
00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:25,960
Speaker 2: out in space, there's no air to blow across it

1040
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:28,839
Speaker 2: to get heated up to carry that heat away. You

1041
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 2: can cool down in space, but there's only one way

1042
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 2: to do it, which is to radiate that heat away.

1043
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:37,200
Speaker 2: So remember, everything that's out there that has a temperature glows,

1044
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:39,800
Speaker 2: and that means that it's cooling. It's giving off energy.

1045
00:52:40,239 --> 00:52:42,040
Speaker 2: That also happens down here on Earth. You have like

1046
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:44,360
Speaker 2: a hot piece of metal, it's red hot, it's glowing,

1047
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:47,120
Speaker 2: it's giving off that energy. It's gonna cool down. But

1048
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:48,960
Speaker 2: here on Earth we have two ways to do it,

1049
00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:52,280
Speaker 2: convection and radiation. Out in space, you only have radiation,

1050
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 2: so you need to build big radiators out in space,

1051
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 2: or bring a bunch of water to run across your chips.

1052
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 2: But you already are are short on water. So cooling

1053
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:05,240
Speaker 2: is going to be extra hard in space, not extra easy.

1054
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: That's number one.

1055
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 2: That's number one. Then there's a question of the radiation.

1056
00:53:09,239 --> 00:53:12,400
Speaker 2: Our data centers here on Earth run under the protection

1057
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:15,719
Speaker 2: of our magnetic shield. Right, the magnetic field of the

1058
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:18,920
Speaker 2: Earth deflects a lot of cosmic rays and the atmosphere

1059
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:22,800
Speaker 2: which protects us from cosmic rays. Even still, data centers,

1060
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 2: as we talked about on a recent episode, have to

1061
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:28,719
Speaker 2: correct for bitflips from cosmic rays. I had dinner the

1062
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:30,720
Speaker 2: other night with a guy who runs the data centers

1063
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 2: for Nvidia, and they have all this cool technology to

1064
00:53:34,120 --> 00:53:36,919
Speaker 2: correct for bitflips, which is frustrating to me because when

1065
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 2: they delete those bitflips, they're deleting physics information that could

1066
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 2: teach us about the universe. But anyway, I know, but

1067
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 2: somebody's got to generate that image of puppies playing poker

1068
00:53:46,160 --> 00:53:49,479
Speaker 2: or whatever. Anyway, this is harder out in space because

1069
00:53:49,520 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 2: you have no protection, and radiation is bad for computers,

1070
00:53:53,160 --> 00:53:55,600
Speaker 2: and what you're doing is running computers in space, and

1071
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 2: so you need extra hardcore chips, which we have not developed,

1072
00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 2: or you need shielding, which means again more mass. So

1073
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 2: this is harder to do in space than it is

1074
00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:09,480
Speaker 2: here on Earth. It's a more important, more challenging problem.

1075
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:13,200
Speaker 2: And then of course the biggest one is maintenance. Right,

1076
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:16,759
Speaker 2: something always breaks. You built something at scale, it needs

1077
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:19,400
Speaker 2: a whole team of people to keep it running. Nothing,

1078
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:23,439
Speaker 2: even like the Golden gate Bridge, just stands there and works, right.

1079
00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:27,000
Speaker 2: It needs constant maintenance. Everything does, which means you need

1080
00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 2: a team of people up there all the time, or

1081
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:32,480
Speaker 2: launching up there all the time. And it's much further away.

1082
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:35,400
Speaker 2: Imagine you were in charge of maintaining a computer on

1083
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 2: a table in Antarctica. It would be really hard to

1084
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:40,440
Speaker 2: do if you could never go there and fix it,

1085
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:42,880
Speaker 2: or if it was hard to get there. And so

1086
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 2: this thing is going to be down all the time,

1087
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:46,960
Speaker 2: and they're going to be people trying to fix it

1088
00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 2: all the time. And maybe we could get better at

1089
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:52,359
Speaker 2: building computers that didn't need so much maintenance, but we're

1090
00:54:52,360 --> 00:54:53,440
Speaker 2: definitely not there yet.

1091
00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:56,800
Speaker 1: What about maintaining those giant solar panels.

1092
00:54:56,480 --> 00:55:00,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right. Solar panels also are set instead of

1093
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:02,800
Speaker 2: two radiation, So those things are going to get destroyed.

1094
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 2: They need to get replaced, or they need to be

1095
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 2: more robust. Another disadvantage is it's further away, and so

1096
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 2: maybe if you don't care about latency, then it's not

1097
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 2: a big deal. But if you want like fast turnaround

1098
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 2: times to your calculation. You want to press the button

1099
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:20,000
Speaker 2: and get the answer instantly. Then you don't want to

1100
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:23,560
Speaker 2: put your data center far away because that adds latency

1101
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:24,560
Speaker 2: to your calculation.

1102
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:27,360
Speaker 1: I don't want to wait for my puppy playing poker.

1103
00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:33,560
Speaker 2: And in terms of environmental issues, if you're building the

1104
00:55:33,560 --> 00:55:36,480
Speaker 2: stuff here on Earth and then launching it, like launching

1105
00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:39,400
Speaker 2: things into space, is not great for the environment.

1106
00:55:39,920 --> 00:55:42,200
Speaker 1: So I don't actually know what Musk's plan is. Do

1107
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:44,760
Speaker 1: you think that his plan is to build these things

1108
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:47,919
Speaker 1: on the moon or would that be just like way

1109
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:48,920
Speaker 1: too complicated to do.

1110
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:51,160
Speaker 2: No. I think his plan is to build things on

1111
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:53,120
Speaker 2: the moon. That makes a lot more sense, but it

1112
00:55:53,160 --> 00:55:55,640
Speaker 2: assumes that we have the capacity to do this on

1113
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 2: the moon. But yeah, it's a lot cheaper if you

1114
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:01,320
Speaker 2: build these things essentially in space, use in space. Building

1115
00:56:01,400 --> 00:56:03,719
Speaker 2: them on the surface and then launching them makes very

1116
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:06,200
Speaker 2: little sense to me. But even still, you have to

1117
00:56:06,200 --> 00:56:10,040
Speaker 2: face the issues of maintenance, of radiation, of cooling. These

1118
00:56:10,040 --> 00:56:13,879
Speaker 2: are all solvable problems, but it makes it expensive and laborious,

1119
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:16,440
Speaker 2: and I don't think they have been solved yet. But

1120
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:19,560
Speaker 2: you know, SpaceX it's an amazing company and they catch

1121
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:22,360
Speaker 2: rockets with chopsticks, so let's not put anything past them.

1122
00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:24,520
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we will have to keep an eye

1123
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:27,640
Speaker 1: on this as the years in the decades pass and

1124
00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:29,800
Speaker 1: see what they do. And you know, in the meantime,

1125
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:32,520
Speaker 1: if you're interested in more information on what it's like

1126
00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:35,520
Speaker 1: to live and work in space, a City on Mars

1127
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:38,439
Speaker 1: is a pretty great book to check out to learn

1128
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 1: more about.

1129
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:42,040
Speaker 2: That, as is Becoming Martian by our friend Scott.

1130
00:56:41,760 --> 00:56:44,880
Speaker 1: Solomon, which came out today, which is February seventeenth. You

1131
00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 1: won't be hearing this on February seventeenth, but you should

1132
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 1: definitely check out Becoming Martian, and you should check out

1133
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:52,760
Speaker 1: the prior to episodes on which Scott Solomon was a guest.

1134
00:56:53,280 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 2: And so, while we think there are challenges to building

1135
00:56:56,080 --> 00:56:58,920
Speaker 2: a self sustaining colony on the Moon, it's not impossible

1136
00:56:59,120 --> 00:57:01,319
Speaker 2: and it is worse of pushing, but we should be

1137
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 2: realistic about when it's going to happen, yes.

1138
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:07,439
Speaker 1: And we should try to do it ethically. And I

1139
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:08,879
Speaker 1: will try not to be too much of a wet

1140
00:57:08,880 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 1: blanket at this point. So we'll end the show. Now,

1141
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:21,160
Speaker 1: have a nice day. Daniel and Kelly's extraordinary Universe is

1142
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:24,200
Speaker 1: produced by iHeartRadio. We would love to hear from you,

1143
00:57:24,440 --> 00:57:25,480
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1144
00:57:25,640 --> 00:57:28,400
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1145
00:57:28,600 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 2: extraordinary universe.

1146
00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:33,280
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1147
00:57:33,280 --> 00:57:36,280
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1148
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:36,720
Speaker 1: back to you.

1149
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:40,520
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1150
00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:43,760
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1151
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:44,880
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1152
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:48,840
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1153
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1154
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1155
00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:54,600
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