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Speaker 1: It's a vast, cold, and mostly empty universe, and as

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Speaker 1: lucky as we've been to live in a time when

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Speaker 1: we are discovering planets around other stars, we still have

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Speaker 1: no evidence that there is anyone out there living on

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Speaker 1: any of them. The prospect that we are the only

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Speaker 1: life in the universe, or the only intelligent life, still

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Speaker 1: haunts us. Of course, people say the aliens could be

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Speaker 1: out there even if we haven't found them. So let's

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Speaker 1: flip the script and think about it from the aliens

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Speaker 1: point of view. Why haven't they found us? Could they

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Speaker 1: find us? There are lots of planets in the galaxy,

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Speaker 1: after all, and we're only on one of them. Today

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Speaker 1: in the podcast, we're going to explore the prospects for

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Speaker 1: a technology that promises to unleash vast exploratory power, one

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Speaker 1: that might allow us to visit any planet in the

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Speaker 1: galaxy and to look for aliens in a reasonable amount

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Speaker 1: of time, or to allow aliens to have come and

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Speaker 1: visited our planet. That technology is self replicating probes spacecraft

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Speaker 1: that build more of themselves, growing our fleet exponentially. Because

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Speaker 1: if we can do it, we probably will do it,

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Speaker 1: and if we can do it, aliens likely could also

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Speaker 1: welcome to Daniel and Kelly's extraordinary and so far barren universe.

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Speaker 2: Hello.

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Speaker 3: I'm Kelly Reader Smith.

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Speaker 4: I study parasites and space, and I had so much

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Speaker 4: fun in today's conversation.

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Speaker 3: But also I'm not going to sleep tonight.

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Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and though I'm

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Speaker 1: technically self replicating, I haven't made any exact copies of myself.

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Speaker 4: Oh, I guess no human has made an exact copy

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Speaker 4: of themselves.

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Speaker 1: Yet, although you know so my two children are both blonde,

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Speaker 1: and my wife is blonde and I'm not, and so

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Speaker 1: people joked occasionally, since she is a biochemist, that maybe

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Speaker 1: she had just cloned herself in the lab.

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Speaker 3: Hazel does look very Katrina issue.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they both. Do you know those dominant Viking genes.

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Speaker 3: I guess they wiped out your genes.

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Speaker 1: I'm not unhappy about that. They both look great.

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Speaker 4: So my question for you today, you are super excited

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Speaker 4: about aliens.

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Speaker 3: Yes, no news to anyone there.

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Speaker 4: If you could make self replicating probes and release them

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Speaker 4: into the universe so that you could communicate with aliens,

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Speaker 4: would you do that?

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Speaker 1: M Oh my gosh, Well, you know, I'm on the

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Speaker 1: record for being willing to invite aliens to come visit

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Speaker 1: Earth as long as they share the secrets of the universe,

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Speaker 1: even if they send us to the hydrogen minds and

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Speaker 1: enslave us. That's how badly I want to meet aliens

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Speaker 1: and learn how the universe works.

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Speaker 3: I'm so glad academics have like zero hour over anything.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's what makes me free to say these ridiculous stus,

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Speaker 1: because I'll never ever be around that table where we

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Speaker 1: make these decisions. So I mean, if you're asking me,

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Speaker 1: like Daniel, would you launch self replicating probes that could

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Speaker 1: put us in touch with aliens that might be able

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Speaker 1: to tell us the secrets of the universe, even if

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Speaker 1: it risks like wiping out all matter in the galaxy

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Speaker 1: because the probes go crazy and convert everything into paper

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Speaker 1: clips essentially, Then yes, I think I still would because

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Speaker 1: the other alternative is too disappointing, Like we are stuck

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Speaker 1: on this planet and the aliens are stuck on that planet,

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Speaker 1: and we can't talk to each other because we're afraid

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Speaker 1: that our technology is going to run amok. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: That just seems too dark.

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Speaker 4: That's more dark than all of us getting to still

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Speaker 4: exist but not talking to each other.

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Speaker 3: You're warped, man.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I'm warped. I will totally admit I'm warped.

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Speaker 1: But I want to know who's out there. I want

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Speaker 1: to know if our other civilizations, and the idea that

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Speaker 1: there could be out there and we never find them,

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Speaker 1: that's to me just too difficult to accept. So any

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Speaker 1: technology that's going to help us make contact with other civilizations. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I'm a booster. I'm an investor, all right, So.

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Speaker 4: If you are anything like me, you might be thinking, one,

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Speaker 4: I hope Daniel never runs for public office, and if so,

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Speaker 4: he does not have my vote. And two, I want

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Speaker 4: to know how likely is it that we could build

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Speaker 4: these self replicating robots so that if some Daniel Ooyd

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Speaker 4: individual gets a position in Congress, do they have a

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Speaker 4: chance at wiping this all out with these self replicating robots?

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Speaker 1: And by self replicating robots, Kelly is referring to not

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Speaker 1: just probes that NASA builds here on Earth, bespoke things

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Speaker 1: that take ten years, and we send out one of

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Speaker 1: them and we cross our fingers and hope that it survives,

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Speaker 1: or even two or ten of those. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: probes that can make more probes, Probes that are not

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Speaker 1: birthed here on Earth, but out somewhere in the galaxy,

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Speaker 1: maybe five ten generations down, that let us tap into

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Speaker 1: the power of exponential growth so that we can effectively

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Speaker 1: explore the entire galaxy without ever leaving our rock.

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Speaker 4: Amazing, and so we asked our extraordinaries, what do they

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Speaker 4: think can we even build self replicating probes to explore

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Speaker 4: the galaxy?

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Speaker 1: Is this actual technology that's around the corner, maybe a

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Speaker 1: few hundred years from now, or is this just Daniel's fantasy?

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Speaker 1: Thanks very much to everybody who answered these questions. Think

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Speaker 1: about it for a moment. Do you think we are

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Speaker 1: around the corner to building self replicating probes? Here's what

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Speaker 1: our listeners had to.

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Speaker 2: Say, Yes, we can.

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Speaker 1: It will take a while until we can, and they

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Speaker 1: might eat us afterwards.

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Speaker 3: It's plausible that we are somebody else's self replicating probe in.

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Speaker 2: Terms of practicality, I mean, you know, the short answer

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Speaker 2: is no. The long answer is well, no, I.

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Speaker 5: Don't think our current engineering precision is up to the

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Speaker 5: tech of making probes that would in turn make probes

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Speaker 5: with equally good precision. And so on all the way down.

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Speaker 6: You know what would happen if this w a ry

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Speaker 6: and we had bands of world destroying robots roaming the galaxy.

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Speaker 6: That seems like, if it's not already the plot of

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Speaker 6: a sci fi novel, it should be.

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Speaker 2: You know what, we don't know. We really just don't

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Speaker 2: know yet.

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Speaker 5: So I feel like, yeah, maybe in the next twenty

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Speaker 5: thirty fifty hundred years.

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Speaker 2: We can't write now, but we won't be able to later.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we can do anything if we.

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Speaker 6: Try once we have sufficiently advanced AI.

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Speaker 7: I can't see what the point is unless we also

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Speaker 7: invent near to speed of life travel. Once they got

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Speaker 7: to another solar system, we'd be long gone. So who

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Speaker 7: would they actually be exploring for.

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Speaker 2: We can't even build self replicating robots that'll do our

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Speaker 2: dishes and our laundry, Yet in a near future dish

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Speaker 2: might very well be pushable.

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Speaker 3: Okay. I absolutely loved these answers.

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Speaker 4: There was a lot of diversity in these answers, and

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Speaker 4: as always, there was some like hilarity in there too.

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Speaker 4: I liked the short answer is no, long answer is.

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Speaker 3: Correct me up.

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Speaker 4: But yeah, lots of people thinking we could do it,

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Speaker 4: some people saying why should we do it? Some people

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Speaker 4: say we could do anything. I loved it.

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Speaker 1: Some people on the Kelly whipb blanket side saying they

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Speaker 1: might eat us afterwards. You know, that's fair, that's fair.

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Speaker 4: I think it's important to point out the possible pitfall

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Speaker 4: so we can make decisions with clear eyes.

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Speaker 3: Maybe that's just me.

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Speaker 1: That's good for when we have that Oppenheimer moment. You know,

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Speaker 1: are we going to push signs forward at risk of

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Speaker 1: destroying everybody? Or are we going to cower in the darkness?

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Speaker 1: Those are really the only two options available.

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Speaker 3: Okay, do not run for Senate.

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Speaker 4: So so today we got super lucky because we have

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Speaker 4: an amazing guest on the show we do.

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Speaker 1: We got to speak to Phil Metzger, who actually has

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Speaker 1: a patent for space concrete. He knows what he's talking about.

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Speaker 1: He's really thought about building industry off the Earth, and

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Speaker 1: he disagrees with Kelly about stuff in space. So we

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Speaker 1: thought who better to come on the podcast.

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Speaker 4: I think our disagreements aren't about like the facts. I

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Speaker 4: think our disagreements are about optimism. And he is a

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Speaker 4: more optimistic human being that I am, and he's probably

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Speaker 4: happier for it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think disagrees with Kelly describes like a

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Speaker 1: vast swath of the space industry community.

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Speaker 3: Yep, yep. And that's a okay, all.

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Speaker 1: Right, So let's jump into our interview with Phil. It's

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Speaker 1: my pleasure to introduce to the podcast Professor Phil Metzger.

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Speaker 1: He's a planetary physicist with the Florida Space Institute. He

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Speaker 1: has the distinction that he has designed spacecraft. He also

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Speaker 1: has a three mile wide asteroid named after himself, and

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Speaker 1: he has strong opinions on the definition of a planet.

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Speaker 1: Plus he has studied the issue of building industry in space,

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Speaker 1: so he actually knows what he's talking about. Phil, Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast.

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Speaker 2: Hi glad to be here.

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Speaker 3: So can I dig into one of those things?

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Speaker 4: So I know Phil pretty well for his work on

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Speaker 4: like you know, regolith on the Moon and stuff like that,

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Speaker 4: but I don't know about Phil's strong opinions about the

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Speaker 4: definition of a planet. So is Pluto a planet or

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Speaker 4: not a planet? What am I missing?

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Speaker 2: I'm going to say it's a planet. And that's because

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Speaker 2: the definition of a planet, going back to the Copernican

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Speaker 2: Revolution was not based on orbits. It was based on

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Speaker 2: the geophysical nature of the objects. And that was really

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Speaker 2: a crucial part of the Copernican argument.

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Speaker 1: What do you mean the geophysical nature? You mean, like,

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Speaker 1: is it mostly spherical?

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Speaker 2: Well before the Copernican Revolution, they thought that the majority

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Speaker 2: of view is that planets were made out of unchanging

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Speaker 2: ether and they were perfect spheres. They followed heavenly physics,

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Speaker 2: not earthly physics, and so the Copernican Revolution said, no,

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Speaker 2: Earth is in the heavens, and these objects are geological bodies,

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Speaker 2: just like the Earth is. And the primary example they

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Speaker 2: had was the Moon because they could see it with telescopes.

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Speaker 2: Galileo saw mountains and those the existence of mountains and

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Speaker 2: the existence of earth shine reflecting off the Moon allowed

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Speaker 2: him to create arguments about this category of objects called planets.

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Speaker 2: And the category he was arguing for was all the

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Speaker 2: geological bodies in our Solar system, including the moons of

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Speaker 2: Jupiter which he called planets, and our moon, and it

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Speaker 2: was all based on the fact that they are geological

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Speaker 2: bodies like the Earth. It was not broken into what

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Speaker 2: they orbit. Now. Kepler introduced the category of secondary planets,

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Speaker 2: meaning a planet that orbits another planet, and that was

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Speaker 2: the primary term, the technical term we had for that

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Speaker 2: subcategory of planets all the way until well as early

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen hundreds that this taxonomy got lost, and

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Speaker 2: it was for non scientific reasons. We ended up with

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Speaker 2: the terminology that's most commonly used today.

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Speaker 4: If it were up to you, we would have like

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Speaker 4: hundreds of planets then, because every moon would be a planet.

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Speaker 3: Is that right?

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Speaker 2: Well if there, we've refined upon Galileo's definition since then,

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Speaker 2: and we now understand that there are small bodies that

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Speaker 2: wasn't known at the time, and we need to have

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Speaker 2: a lower size limit because they become dissimilar and the

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Speaker 2: category is not useful if we include everything down to

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Speaker 2: a dustpec. And so it was Kuiper in the nineteen

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Speaker 2: fifties who proposed the lower limit based on gravitational rounding.

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Speaker 2: He didn't understand the planet formation exactly. And since then

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Speaker 2: we've refined our understanding of planet formation, and so Alan

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Speaker 2: Stern and well Alan I think first proposed a refinement

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Speaker 2: to Kuiper's definition where he said it didn't matter the

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Speaker 2: formation process, if it ended up large enough to become

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Speaker 2: gravitationally rounded, then it should be a planet. So that's

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Speaker 2: the history in a nutshell.

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Speaker 1: Well, maybe the solution is buried in your previous comment,

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Speaker 1: and you know, maybe this category is just not useful.

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Speaker 1: It's sort of historical and archaic and reflects our feelings

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Speaker 1: about the importance of the Earth, and that now we're

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Speaker 1: doing all this like layers upon layers upon layers to

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Speaker 1: try to preserve it as a thing. Maybe we should

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Speaker 1: just give up on it and accept the fact that

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Speaker 1: the Solar System is filled with all sorts of stuff,

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Speaker 1: from tiny specks to huge blobs.

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Speaker 2: Well, you bring up a great point, and I've heard

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Speaker 2: Neil de grass Tyson say the same thing, that maybe

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Speaker 2: we should say that planet is not a useful category.

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Speaker 2: But you know that's really the outcome of the way

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Speaker 2: it's currently defined. It's not useful. But if you went

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Speaker 2: back to the Galileo and you know, the refinements to

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Speaker 2: the Galileo definition, then it actually is useful again. And

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Speaker 2: the idea is that planets are unique in the cosmos

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Speaker 2: because those are the locations where chemical complexity develops and

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Speaker 2: geological complexity and biology emerges, and civilizations emerge. And that's

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Speaker 2: an important concept in understanding our place in the cosmos,

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Speaker 2: And in fact, I would argue that might even be

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Speaker 2: the most important concept I think planets not only is

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Speaker 2: it a useful concept if you go back to Galileo's definition,

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Speaker 2: but it might be the most important concept in physics

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Speaker 2: and understanding why we're here in the cosmos.

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Speaker 1: And incredibly that actually provides a transition to the topic

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Speaker 1: of the episode. So this whole thing wasn't just a digression,

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Speaker 1: because imagine that we wanted to explore the galaxy and

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Speaker 1: to look for other civilizations. Where should we look, right,

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Speaker 1: should we look in the hearts of stars, should we

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Speaker 1: look in stellar atmospheres, or should we look on planetary surfaces?

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Speaker 1: So from that point of view, it's helpful to define

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Speaker 1: like our target locations in the galaxy. So, Phil, if

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Speaker 1: you could look anywhere, is that where you would look?

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Speaker 1: You'd look for things we currently call planets or the

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Speaker 1: field definition of planets, and look on their surfaces for civilizations.

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Speaker 2: Sure, and that is what we've been doing. We've been

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Speaker 2: looking for exoplanets, looking for biosignatures. There's also a lot

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Speaker 2: of interest in the large moons of our own solar system,

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Speaker 2: like is there life under the ice on Europa? Even

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Speaker 2: people talk about on Pluto Deep under the surface of Pluto.

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Speaker 2: It's believed that there may be a liquid ocean still liquid, surprisingly,

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Speaker 2: and maybe there's life because there's organic material on Pluto,

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Speaker 2: and there's energy that it's kept at liquid this long

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Speaker 2: energy from nuclear decay apparently. And the literature uses the

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Speaker 2: word planet including those types of objects. So the people

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Speaker 2: that are actually looking for life and looking at geological

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Speaker 2: complexity do use the Galilean definition of a planet just

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Speaker 2: by default.

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Speaker 1: All right, So let's say we want to explore all

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Speaker 1: the quote unquote planets around all the stars in the

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Speaker 1: Milky Way and look for civilizations we can chat with.

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Speaker 1: Why can't we just scale up what NASA is doing

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Speaker 1: and do a lot more of it. Why do we

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Speaker 1: need to consider self replicating probes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question, I think. And the reason

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Speaker 2: why I would argue is because the people or the

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Speaker 2: civilizations out there that we might detect that might be

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Speaker 2: communicating may not be biological. It may be that they

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Speaker 2: have transitioned so that there's now machine life in the cosmos,

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Speaker 2: and machines are can be designed to be more inherently

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Speaker 2: capable of long distance travel within the galaxy. They could

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Speaker 2: be designed to withstand the environment. They could also be immortal,

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Speaker 2: live for a very long time. Not get bored. Just

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Speaker 2: program yourself to not be bored. It's hard, and.

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Speaker 1: So I've tried that for myself. It just doesn't work.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And so it gets back to when Kardishov Alexei

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Speaker 2: Kardashev was looking for signs of life and the cosmos.

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Speaker 2: He defined type one, type two, and type three civilizations

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Speaker 2: because he was pointing out that what we're looking for

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Speaker 2: might not be similar to what we have here, and

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Speaker 2: self replicating probes is one of the common channels people

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Speaker 2: have discussed of how civilization might go at a larger

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Speaker 2: scale and end up colonizing the galaxy.

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Speaker 1: I think you're saying that what we should be looking

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Speaker 1: for is aliens self replicating probes. Is that the comment

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Speaker 1: you're making. Are you saying that it's important for us

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Speaker 1: to send us self replicating probes because they're more likely

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Speaker 1: to have a fun conversation with alien self replicating probes.

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Speaker 2: All of the above, I think that it's important for

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Speaker 2: us to get beyond the limits of our biosphere here

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Speaker 2: on this planet and take life, not just human life,

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Speaker 2: but take other species with us beyond Earth. And I

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Speaker 2: think the only economically viable way to do that as well,

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Speaker 2: self replication, industrial self replication off the planet. And you

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Speaker 2: also raise another interesting question, would would advance civilizations even

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Speaker 2: bother to talk to us if we saw that we're

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Speaker 2: primitive biologicals when they are much more advanced machine intelligence,

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Speaker 2: And you know, maybe that's a factor too.

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Speaker 4: And just to make sure I'm understanding, are we saying

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Speaker 4: that the life in the universe is no longer squishy

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Speaker 4: it's actually machines, or that they're still squishy life somewhere

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Speaker 4: and they're sending machines out to do the exploring and

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Speaker 4: that's what we would be communicating with or both of

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Speaker 4: those options.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, both of them. I had in mind the idea

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Speaker 2: that eventually machine intelligence may replace biological intelligence. Out there

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Speaker 2: in the cosmos. People have talked about dice and minds,

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Speaker 2: where you build a dice sphere and use all the

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Speaker 2: energy of a star to support one mind, one gigantic compute.

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Speaker 2: And so maybe there are dice in minds scattered across

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Speaker 2: the cosmos, and they're so far above us that they

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Speaker 2: were not their peers, so they don't bother talking to us.

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Speaker 2: But maybe they're out there, maybe they're watching and they're

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Speaker 2: aware of us.

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Speaker 4: I feel like I could personally benefit from a more

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Speaker 4: broader look at self replicating probes, and so, like you know,

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Speaker 4: we've talked about how they can have this exponential growth,

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Speaker 4: but I'm not quite sure what they're growing from or

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Speaker 4: how they're growing, And so can you give me a

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Speaker 4: bigger picture look at what these probes do and what

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Speaker 4: they are and why we want these probes?

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Speaker 2: Sure? So the first person I know who talked about

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Speaker 2: this concept was I think as Robert frietas Free to Us,

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Speaker 2: writing in the nineteen eighties. He was associated with a

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Speaker 2: NASA Ames Research Center study in nineteen eighty he talked

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Speaker 2: about where you send a probe to a star. That

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Speaker 2: probe will then mine the gas giants. Maybe it'll set

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Speaker 2: up factories on the moons of the gas giants. But

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Speaker 2: he looked at all the elements that you could get

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Speaker 2: from a belief to be nominal star system, and could

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Speaker 2: you create a complete industry using those resources? And you can,

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Speaker 2: and you could have this factory start small. He called

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Speaker 2: it a seed factor, and the seed would be planted

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Speaker 2: on this icy moon at a giant planet, and it

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Speaker 2: would start to build larger factories and it would all

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Speaker 2: be robotic with autonomous labor and eventually it would start

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Speaker 2: to build other seed spacecraft, and then those seed spacecraft

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Speaker 2: would be launched from there and go to other star systems.

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Speaker 2: And so he tried to do some scaling of the

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Speaker 2: economics of autonomous labor on outer icy moon planets and

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Speaker 2: colonize in the entire galaxy. Since then, we've started to

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Speaker 2: develop some of these technologies in order to support NASA.

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Speaker 2: We've been working on mining the soil on the Moon

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Speaker 2: or Mars, getting resources making metal, and as we've started

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Speaker 2: to do this, it got us excited. We started thinking, wow,

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Speaker 2: you know, maybe this idea from FreeDOS is possible. And

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Speaker 2: so we've done a little bit more recent work trying

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Speaker 2: to bring Freetus's ideas into a more concrete instantiation where

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Speaker 2: we talk about what exact types of robots would be

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Speaker 2: at these factories, what would be their metabolic throughput, so

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Speaker 2: how fast can they self replicate and start to build

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Speaker 2: other spacecraft. So that's the general idea.

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Speaker 1: Doesn't it go back a little bit further. Wasn't it

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Speaker 1: von Neuman who introduced this concept of a von Neuman

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Speaker 1: probe and the universal constructor or something which can build itself.

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Speaker 2: You're absolutely right. Yeah, I forgot about von Neuman. So

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Speaker 2: he was before freed us.

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Speaker 1: He's always before everybody and everything. He's got his fingers

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Speaker 1: and every time he's like Euler.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: Right, Let's go through the exercise of thinking about the

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Speaker 1: exponential factor of self replicating probes, because I think a

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Speaker 1: lot of people are like, why can't we just get

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Speaker 1: Elon to do his SpaceX multiplication on our current thing?

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Speaker 1: You know, why is it really necessary to have the

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Speaker 1: probes build more probes?

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a matter of scale scaling up if you

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Speaker 2: want to explore the entire galaxy, and maybe you don't,

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Speaker 2: you know, maybe you don't care about that, But if there's.

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Speaker 1: A civili I do, if there's a want to overlook something.

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Speaker 2: So if there are any civilizations out there that have

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Speaker 2: had the same motive that you have, then it's an

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Speaker 2: economic question. How do you how do you explore ten

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Speaker 2: to the twenty star systems, and if your labor force

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Speaker 2: is only ten to the nine biological creatures you know,

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Speaker 2: in the order of billions, how do you have an

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Speaker 2: industry that can explore on such a vast scale. And

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Speaker 2: so you need to have more autonomy and you need

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Speaker 2: to have a lot of industry with that autonomy in

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Speaker 2: order to build all the assets, all the capital necessary

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Speaker 2: to go out into that gigantic cosmos. So it's a

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Speaker 2: scaling question.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So if I do a simple calculation, you know,

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Speaker 1: if you start out with like five self replicating ships

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Speaker 1: and each one can make fine more than it's only

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Speaker 1: twelve generations before you have a billion ships out there

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Speaker 1: in the galaxy exploring for you, the power of exponential

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Speaker 1: functions is just really amazing.

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Speaker 2: That's correct. Yeah, And we do see exponential growth like that.

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Speaker 2: If you put bacteria into sugar water, their population will double, double,

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Speaker 2: double until it uses up all the sugar and then

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Speaker 2: of course you get population collapse at that point. But

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Speaker 2: we do see the exponential scaling occur in some systems.

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Speaker 2: We also see it in technology Moore's law, for example.

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Speaker 2: There's been some discussion why does Moore's law exist. Some

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Speaker 2: people have argued that it's a self fulfilling prophecy that

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Speaker 2: companies try to meet that metric, But for it to

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Speaker 2: persist over so many orders of magnitude, I have to

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Speaker 2: believe it's there's something fundamental that's more than just a

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Speaker 2: self fulfilling prophecy because all of industry has to scale

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Speaker 2: up so that each piece of equipment can meet that

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Speaker 2: exponential growth rate. And so I think that technology does

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Speaker 2: have an inherent exponentiality to it, where technology builds technology

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Speaker 2: and because of that feedback loop, it scales up exponentially.

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Speaker 2: And so extrapolating that idea, you eventually fill up your planet,

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Speaker 2: you end up ruining your planet and you have population collapse,

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Speaker 2: just like the bacteria and the sugar water. So I

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Speaker 2: think it's important to get life outside of the planet

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Speaker 2: so that we don't ruin this for biology, and then

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Speaker 2: we could do greater things as well. Of course, that

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Speaker 2: also raises questions about the ethics of self replicating probes

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Speaker 2: unleashing them in the cosmos, which you hinted at at

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Speaker 2: the beginning of.

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Speaker 1: This podcast, letting them tap into that galactic Sure. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and there's the second element of the industrial aspect, which

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Speaker 1: is not just the exponential growth, but also starting from space. Right, Like,

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Speaker 1: we don't necessarily want to build everything on the service

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Speaker 1: and then have to lift it up out of our gravity. Well,

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Speaker 1: if you can have industry in space, then you never

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Speaker 1: have to overcome that, right. Isn't that a big factor.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that is. And there are ways we can benefit

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Speaker 2: Earth by putting industry in space. They're not always obvious,

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Speaker 2: Like Jeff Bezos talks about moving all of heavy industry

438
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:14,240
Speaker 2: off the planet and only keeping light industry on the Earth.

439
00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 2: But the problem you get into is how do you

440
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 2: transport all the mass of manufactured goods down through the

441
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 2: atmosphere to the surface, because re entry physics does damage

442
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:28,920
Speaker 2: the atmosphere, and you know, ablation of materials puts tiny

443
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 2: particles in the atmosphere which contribute to the greenhouse effect

444
00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:36,600
Speaker 2: and driving chemistry, and the heating of the atmosphere drives chemistry.

445
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:39,480
Speaker 1: And if I buy dog chew toys on Amazon, I

446
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:41,760
Speaker 1: don't want them melted from re entry in the atmosphere,

447
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:43,400
Speaker 1: even if they were manufactured on the Moon.

448
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:48,359
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, right, But despite these problems, there are ways

449
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 2: we can move industry, at least parts of industry into

450
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:53,840
Speaker 2: space to do a great benefit to our planet. I

451
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 2: think by the end of the century we could have

452
00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 2: fifty percent of our industrial footprint in space.

453
00:24:57,760 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 3: That's a lot, all right.

454
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:02,120
Speaker 1: So I'm fascinated the technical questions you raised about whether

455
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:05,399
Speaker 1: we could actually put this thing together and make it happen,

456
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 1: build a factory that can make factories to make factories.

457
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: But let's take a break and come back and then

458
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:33,159
Speaker 1: dive into those technical details. All right, we're back, and

459
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: we're talking to Phil Metzger about building self replicating probes

460
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 1: that go out and explore the galaxy and maybe get

461
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:41,920
Speaker 1: the attention of those crazy dice in minds so we

462
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 1: can learn what they know about the universe.

463
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 3: That would be pretty awesome.

464
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: So this sounds like a pretty daunting task to build

465
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 1: a machine that could build machines to make more machines.

466
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:54,959
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the first piece of it. How you

467
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:57,959
Speaker 1: get the materials, how you mine it? Because if our

468
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 1: machine is like landing on some alien moon or orbiting

469
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:04,639
Speaker 1: some gas giant, it's got to find the bits to

470
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:07,120
Speaker 1: make more of itself, right, so it needs whatever it's

471
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 1: made out of. It's got to find all of those

472
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 1: bits locally. How does that work? How do you build

473
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 1: a machine which is capable of like mining pieces for itself.

474
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 1: Can we build autonomous mining devices?

475
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no new physics required, but the technologies are

476
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:26,679
Speaker 2: very immature. Some of them are only conceptual as we

477
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 2: have conceived of these. They are all very doable. It's

478
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 2: just going to take some time and some industrial engineering

479
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 2: to develop them.

480
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 1: I love your optimism.

481
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 2: Fil Yeah, it's just going to take a few trillion

482
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 2: dollars and you know exactly whatever.

483
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: It's just we know how to do it. It's just

484
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: an engineering problem. We just got to get it done right.

485
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. So here on the Earth we do it using

486
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 2: human intelligence, human labor, and we've scoured this planet for

487
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 2: thousands of years looking for all the best resources, and

488
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 2: we've discovered there are special metals. We've discovered certain types

489
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:05,879
Speaker 2: of rock, certain type of ore that we can extract

490
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 2: these metals out of. And so we don't just grab

491
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,880
Speaker 2: any material off the ground and start trying to build

492
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 2: robots out of it. We have this gigantic logistical network

493
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 2: on the Earth, transportation hubs and giant container ships, and

494
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 2: we have mining is distributed all over the planet bringing

495
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 2: together the materials we need to build this industry. So

496
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 2: if you wanted to set up an industry on the Moon,

497
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 2: the first problem we have is that we don't have

498
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 2: that logistical We don't have thousands of years of developing

499
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,359
Speaker 2: that logistics, nor do we have all the deep understanding

500
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 2: of where the resources are in the Moon. The second

501
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 2: problem we have is that the Moon lacks a lot

502
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 2: of the geological processes that the Earth has had. So,

503
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 2: going back to what we said at the start of

504
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 2: this conversation, Galileo argued that it was a planet because

505
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 2: it has the same geological processes. But now we know

506
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 2: that it doesn't have all the same geological processes and

507
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 2: Earth is pretty special. So if we want to build

508
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,479
Speaker 2: industry on the Moon or other simpler objects, we're going

509
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:12,440
Speaker 2: to have to develop tech to extract the resources out

510
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 2: of minerals that we would normally pass over. It can

511
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 2: be done, but it's not as efficient. It takes a

512
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 2: lot more energy, and the chemical processes to do that

513
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:27,680
Speaker 2: haven't been developed yet. So people have conceived of how

514
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,879
Speaker 2: to use sodium hydroxide to break down rock to get

515
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,440
Speaker 2: all the different atoms out of the rock, or how

516
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 2: to use fluorine to do that processing, but we've never

517
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 2: had anybody get funding to go build a fluorine metal

518
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 2: extraction device, which would be very dangerous. Working with fluorine

519
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 2: is hazardous, and so it's going to take a lot

520
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 2: of money and there's not really a market for it.

521
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 2: Nobody wants to go build it because you're not going

522
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,720
Speaker 2: to make any money off doing it. So this is

523
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,680
Speaker 2: the problem we get into that the technologies that we

524
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 2: need to live and operate beyond Earth are pre economic.

525
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 2: We think that eventually they will have a very important

526
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 2: role in our civilization, but not yet.

527
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 4: We had a question from a listener where they said

528
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 4: they really wanted to hear about how engineering on the

529
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 4: Moon would differ from engineering here on Earth. Tell me

530
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 4: if this is too far afield, but could we talk

531
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:23,959
Speaker 4: a little bit about how the Moon environment differs from

532
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:27,280
Speaker 4: the Earth environment in ways that would make engineering interesting

533
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 4: but also perhaps more complicated.

534
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's extremely challenging to try to build hardware

535
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 2: to operate outside of Planet Earth because the environments are

536
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 2: so radically different. On the Moon, you're dealing with a

537
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 2: temperature swing of I forget the number, but it's like

538
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 2: four hundred degrees difference between day and night. We're dealing

539
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 2: with hard vacuum materials like plastics will outgas and lose

540
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 2: their flexibility, and therefore washers and O rings will start

541
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 2: to fail. We're dealing with this tremendously abrasive dust, which

542
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 2: comprises between twenty and up to fifty percent of the

543
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 2: mass of the soil in some locations, because the Moon

544
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 2: lacks a water cycle to wash the dust out of

545
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 2: the soil and to turn it into mud and then mudstone,

546
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 2: and so the dust just builds up over geological time scales,

547
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 2: and working in that extremely abrasive dust is maybe the

548
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 2: biggest challenge. That You've also got low gravity, and then

549
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 2: you've got the radiation environment. We don't have Earth's atmosphere

550
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 2: to shield us from these high energy particles coming down

551
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 2: from space. It doesn't have a magnetic field to also

552
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 2: deflect particles away. The ultraviolet light ruins materials, the space

553
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 2: plasma effects. So we can go on and on listing

554
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 2: the challenges of working in space, and we don't even

555
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 2: understand all the physics of some of that. We don't

556
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 2: understand the space plasma environment and how it interacts with

557
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 2: the lunar surface. So it's a really interesting field to

558
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 2: be in. I've always worked in groups that typically have

559
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 2: a ratio of one third physicists two thirds engineers, and

560
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 2: it's a really cool working environment because the scientists are

561
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 2: trying to understand the basic physics, and then the engineers

562
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 2: are taking that knowledge and creating the technology and then

563
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 2: we need the technology to go learn the physics, so

564
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 2: it's a feedback. They're both supporting each other, which makes

565
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 2: it a really interesting field. It's also a really hard

566
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 2: field to work in because you can't do the tests

567
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 2: that you want to do on your hardware. You just

568
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 2: cannot replicate the lunar environment or even the Martian environment

569
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 2: well enough. Here on Earth, even in the Giant Chamber.

570
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 2: You can't get the gravity right and you know, etc.

571
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 2: So we have to rely on simulations. But we can't

572
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 2: write computer simulations that are good enough because we don't

573
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 2: understand the physics yet. So we really have to get

574
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 2: data from those objects. We got to do more mission

575
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 2: through the Moon, more missions to Mars to learn the science.

576
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 4: But it also sounds fun, like a fun challenge to

577
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 4: have all of those pieces.

578
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 3: I like a good challenge.

579
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 2: Oh, it's tremendous fun. It is tremendous fun. And when

580
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 2: I speak to students, undergraduates or high school students, I'll

581
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 2: show them pictures of the amazing things that humans have

582
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 2: done already, like these fabulous skyscrapers or these unbelievable bridges,

583
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 2: and you know, when I drew Gopher Bridge, I'll look

584
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 2: at it and like, I think, how did we get

585
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 2: all this mass up here in the sky before there

586
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 2: was a bridge? You know? And these are really daunting problems,

587
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 2: but we've managed to solve them by doing straightforward engineering.

588
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 2: Break it down into smaller problems, get the funding, do

589
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 2: the engineering. But it needs to be done for space still.

590
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:53,719
Speaker 2: We need to have young people working on these problems.

591
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 2: And there's so much work to be done, so much

592
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 2: discovery still ahead of us, that I think is a

593
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 2: great for young people to be getting into these fields.

594
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: I have that same feeling when I see like the

595
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 1: Golden gate Bridge, like look upon my works, E mighty right,

596
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 1: it is awesome, And I like how you describe the

597
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: scope of this challenge. I mean, here on Earth we're

598
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: not capable of building robots that can do very much

599
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 1: yet certainly not capable of building robots that can make

600
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: more robots. And it's supported by this incredibly vast mining industry,

601
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: which requires a lot of human work, you know, many

602
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: cases like terrible labor conditions. Right, so we're so far

603
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: from being able to do this. Give us a little

604
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 1: bit of that fill optimism. What are we capable of

605
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: doing or what do you think is the first thing.

606
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: I mean, you've studied like actual lunar industry, you know,

607
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: processing regolith etc. What do you think is going to

608
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: be the first thing we accomplish down the road towards

609
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 1: being able to do this well.

610
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 2: We we're currently seeing a lot of progress in robotics

611
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,719
Speaker 2: and in automation. And there's one company, for example, that

612
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 2: has robots. They typically will post on social media pictures

613
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 2: of their robots folding the laundry and able to pick

614
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 2: up these cloth pieces and fold them very carefully. So

615
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 2: the dexterity and the machine vision, the autonomy to be

616
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:14,840
Speaker 2: able to do task like that is making tremendous progress.

617
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:18,359
Speaker 2: And again it comes down to an economic question. Is

618
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 2: there a consumer need for these technologies because there's not

619
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 2: a lot of funding going into them unless they can

620
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,240
Speaker 2: make a profit. People aren't going to put their retirement

621
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:30,760
Speaker 2: money into something unless it's going to help them retire.

622
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 2: So we're seeing a lot of advancement. I think the

623
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 2: big killer app is going to end up being AI.

624
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 2: I truly believe AI servers are going to have to

625
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 2: go to space because the environmental costs are greatly increasing.

626
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 2: The pushback to building servers is growing for good reason,

627
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 2: And already servers could be profitable if they went to space,

628
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 2: just not as profitable if they build them on the ground.

629
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 2: But I think that the tipping point's going to come

630
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 2: where they start going into space. There are already people

631
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 2: like Eric Schmidt and Sam Altman in the AI world

632
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 2: talking about how there is inevitable we're going to build

633
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 2: servers in space.

634
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 1: Do you mean service in space to support space industry

635
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 1: or do you mean service in space to support like

636
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 1: people who want help organizing their day through JATGBT on Earth.

637
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that all the AI servers that

638
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 2: are supporting people on the Earth are eventually going to

639
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 2: be in orbit around the Earth, maybe distant orbit, because

640
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:33,319
Speaker 2: the latency doesn't matter that much for most compute and

641
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:36,279
Speaker 2: so Eric Schmidt and Sam Altman that's what they're talking about.

642
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,800
Speaker 2: They're talking about putting the AI servers that we would

643
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:42,280
Speaker 2: have built on the Earth putting them in space instead

644
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 2: because of the environmental impact costs of excessively building data

645
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 2: servers on the Earth.

646
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: But how do you balance that against the issues of

647
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,399
Speaker 1: like cooling, right, because in space you have to cool

648
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: everything radiatively, and you know, technical support, how do you

649
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: go reboot those servers if they're in distant orbit, is

650
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 1: that really going to be economically feasible.

651
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 3: Harden them against radiation?

652
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:07,359
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, those are good questions. And as far as

653
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,279
Speaker 2: the radiative cooling, the energy in has to equal the

654
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,839
Speaker 2: energy out, and that's the same for every spacecraft. So

655
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:18,239
Speaker 2: the scale of solar panels and radiators, that ratio will

656
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 2: be the same on servers that it is on any

657
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 2: other spacecraft. It's just a matter of scaling it up

658
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 2: to an unbelievably gigantic scale, which is, you know, super ambitious,

659
00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:34,239
Speaker 2: but nonetheless that's where people are talking about going. And

660
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:37,879
Speaker 2: as far as being able to have radiation hardening, yes,

661
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 2: that's going to require additional mass around the servers to

662
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:44,399
Speaker 2: harden them against radiation. And as far as being able

663
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 2: to repair it, yes, that's going to require better robotics

664
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 2: and more autonomy. But this is I think is going

665
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 2: to be an economic driver that will push those technologies

666
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:57,920
Speaker 2: forward because I don't believe there's ever going to be

667
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 2: an upper limit of demand on intelligence. I think the

668
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 2: intelligence will become the customer for more intelligence, and it'll

669
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:11,319
Speaker 2: create that feedback loop which will have exponential growth which

670
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 2: would destroy our planet if we don't push it off

671
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 2: into space.

672
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: Well, I want to invest in Fill's Space Optimism company

673
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 1: at this point.

674
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:22,680
Speaker 4: All right, so we've talked a little bit about the

675
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 4: resources that you would need to find in space and

676
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 4: then extract and why that might be difficult. So say

677
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 4: you have those resources, what's the next step?

678
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 2: Yes, so the next step is well, beneficiation. That's where

679
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,840
Speaker 2: you improve the quality of your resources before actually doing

680
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 2: the extraction process. I have some patents in beneficiation. My

681
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 2: university owns them, but they were inventions that I had,

682
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:51,880
Speaker 2: and I like to tell people. If you go to

683
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:55,839
Speaker 2: the patent search and look on patents on concrete, there's

684
00:37:55,960 --> 00:38:01,360
Speaker 2: literally over a million patents on concrete. Look at concrete

685
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:05,879
Speaker 2: for off the planet, there's only two and I have

686
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 2: one of those too, And so there's still room for

687
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:14,359
Speaker 2: nine and ninety nine thousand more patents on concrete. And

688
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 2: that's why it's such a great field to go into.

689
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 2: We've only just begun developing these technologies.

690
00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 1: Would you call that exo concrete or astro concrete or something.

691
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. We didn't come up with a name

692
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 2: for it, but but our idea was that if you're

693
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 2: going to be making concrete by absorbing microwaves, microwaving the

694
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:39,920
Speaker 2: lunar soil until melts. Some minerals are better at absorbing

695
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:43,440
Speaker 2: microwaves than others, and so using magnetic fields, we can

696
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,359
Speaker 2: sort the minerals out and improve the microwave absorption by

697
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:51,400
Speaker 2: something like seventy percent, which results in a dramatic reduction

698
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:54,440
Speaker 2: in the energy and a much greater efficiency. So that's

699
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:57,799
Speaker 2: an example of beneficiation. Let me just mention the reason

700
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 2: we need beneficiation is because we're not going to be

701
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:03,120
Speaker 2: able to go all over the moon and find these

702
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 2: native ore bodies of each mineral. Instead, we're going to

703
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 2: be scooping up the dirt off the ground, which is

704
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 2: a mixture of minerals, and so sorting the grains is

705
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 2: an early step. After that, then you have chemical processing,

706
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 2: and there has been some work on this. One of

707
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 2: the processes is called molten regular electrolysis. That's where you

708
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 2: melt the soil. They have an anode and a cathode,

709
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:32,359
Speaker 2: and you run an electrical current through the molten well

710
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 2: basically lava, and that electric field breaks down some of

711
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 2: the minerals so that the oxygen is released, and then

712
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 2: the metals will sink to the bottom and you get

713
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:48,759
Speaker 2: two melted materials. One is the oxides on the top,

714
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 2: which you can use to make ceramic, and the other

715
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 2: one are the pure metals. Now we call that a

716
00:39:54,960 --> 00:40:01,879
Speaker 2: mongrel alloy because it's going to be a mixture of iron, magnesium, aluminum, calcium,

717
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:06,880
Speaker 2: and even some silicon, and so it's an iron silicon

718
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 2: mongrel alloy. It's very heavy. It's weaker than steel, but

719
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 2: it's pretty good. You know, it's stronger than iron, and

720
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 2: so there's a very rudimentary building material. But if you

721
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 2: want to do better than that, now you need to

722
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:25,360
Speaker 2: have metallurgy. You need to further refine the metals to

723
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 2: separate them from each other using the standard processes we

724
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 2: here on the Earth, but adapted for lower gravity. And

725
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 2: so it'll just be hardcore industrial engineering doing electrochemical processes

726
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 2: to break down the atoms and then separating the different

727
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 2: material streams into making feedstock, and then it's just standard industry.

728
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:51,399
Speaker 2: After that, it's casting forging parts. You could do three

729
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 2: D printing, although the throughput may not be as high

730
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:57,279
Speaker 2: on three D printing. Three D printing is very automatable,

731
00:40:58,239 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 2: so making parts. Then you have to have a set

732
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 2: robots they can put all the parts together. Typically we

733
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 2: envision these being humanoid robots so that they have they

734
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 2: have flexibility analogous to a human, but they needn't be humanoid.

735
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 2: They could be any kind of robots that can build things. Now,

736
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 2: one of the challenges we get into is that here

737
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:22,800
Speaker 2: on Earth, our industrial supply chain includes something like twenty

738
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 2: thousand different types of screws, and you don't want to

739
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:29,880
Speaker 2: have enough machines on the Moon to make twenty thousand

740
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 2: types of screws if you can get by with three

741
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 2: types of screws, and so we need to do a

742
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:39,720
Speaker 2: lot of industrial ecology to figure out how to create

743
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 2: a self replicating or a closed ecosystem of machines using

744
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 2: fewer parts and fewer machines. So there's a gigantic field

745
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 2: of work that hasn't even started yet for industrial engineers, architects,

746
00:41:54,920 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 2: computer programmers, mathematicians. The math on writing an industrial economy

747
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 2: is really complex and fascinating math and has really fabulous

748
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 2: theoretical approaches, but it hasn't been applied far enough yet

749
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 2: to look at doing this on the Moon. So there's

750
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:13,960
Speaker 2: a lot of work ahead.

751
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 4: Still, would we need to get to the point where

752
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 4: we're making like computer chips for our humanoid robots in space?

753
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:21,400
Speaker 4: Is that like how far we need to get before

754
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:22,759
Speaker 4: they can replicate?

755
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 2: Not at first, but I think eventually you will need that.

756
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 2: In the modeling that I've done, we assumed that you

757
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 2: would start making simple things like metal, and then you

758
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 2: would go through a series of generations of hardware to

759
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 2: and it's all a material science question. It's what material

760
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:44,399
Speaker 2: can we make next, and then what material after that?

761
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 2: And the goal is to make an increasing fraction of

762
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:51,879
Speaker 2: the parts for your industry. And during that interim time

763
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 2: you're continuing to bring things from the Earth, and then

764
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 2: the assembly robots are putting your parts together with the

765
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:00,359
Speaker 2: ones that were brought from Earth, and over time you

766
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:03,640
Speaker 2: wean yourself off of the earth made parts. Now, the

767
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:06,720
Speaker 2: very last thing that we assumed is that you're making

768
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:10,879
Speaker 2: computer chips or I've done some modeling for Mars where

769
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 2: humans would be on Mars, and so in that model,

770
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:15,880
Speaker 2: the very last thing you would make would be the pharmaceuticals.

771
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:20,320
Speaker 2: And it's a question of the mass of product divided

772
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 2: by the mass of capital. You want that ratio to

773
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:28,360
Speaker 2: be sequenced. You want to make the industries that have

774
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 2: the highest ratio first, and then work your way down

775
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:33,840
Speaker 2: through all the sectors of the economy and do the

776
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 2: ones that produce the least mass last, which would be

777
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 2: pharmaceuticals and computer chips.

778
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 1: So the things that are the least mass you want

779
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:43,359
Speaker 1: to do last, because so they're cheapest to bring from

780
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 1: Earth because they're low mass.

781
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:48,400
Speaker 2: Exactly nice yep, but yet very expensive to stand up

782
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 2: those industries on the new planetary body.

783
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 1: I mean even here on Earth, Like to make computer

784
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:55,360
Speaker 1: chips is like one company that can make them, and

785
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: they rely on several single source manufacturers of like devices

786
00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 1: and lenses and stuff like that. So we're talking about

787
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: replicating that entire supply chain in a robot that can

788
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,200
Speaker 1: replicate that entire supply chain, It just it seems sort

789
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:10,960
Speaker 1: of fantastical.

790
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:14,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think we should get away from the

791
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 2: idea of self replicating robots and talk about self replicating

792
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 2: industry or self replicating factories because it will be a

793
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 2: whole family of robots at these factories on this icy

794
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:32,719
Speaker 2: moon around a Jupiter like object. Yeah, so trying to

795
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 2: do this in one robot, I just don't see that happening.

796
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:39,839
Speaker 2: I mean, we have self replicating biology. We call it

797
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 2: self replicating, Like raccoons can make other raccoons, but they're

798
00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:48,439
Speaker 2: not independent. They are part of a biosphere and they

799
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 2: depend on other species.

800
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: Are you suggesting we send raccoons to space to explore

801
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 1: the galaxy eventually?

802
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love to see that.

803
00:44:56,880 --> 00:44:58,000
Speaker 1: I think I've seen that movie.

804
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah, But

805
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 2: even self replicating biology is not really standalone. Maybe some

806
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 2: simple bacteria can go live off of rocks and self replicate,

807
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 2: but if you want to produce anything economically useful for civilization,

808
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 2: then I think it has to be EcoSpheres of robots

809
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 2: and EcoSpheres of factories.

810
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: But you still have to have the initial thing which

811
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: lands for the first time on that planet and begins replicating.

812
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 1: I think I'm getting that you're saying, it's not just

813
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:32,280
Speaker 1: a robot which makes other robots that look like it's

814
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 1: going to make like a foundry, and it's going to

815
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 1: make like helper robots that it's going to make the

816
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:39,960
Speaker 1: whole industry. But you still need the thing which lands

817
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:42,760
Speaker 1: and starts everything off, like the seed. As you were saying, earlier.

818
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:45,879
Speaker 2: Right. One way you could think about it is you're

819
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 2: going to have to relive the entire industrial revolution that

820
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:54,799
Speaker 2: we went through on Earth on this new planet. And

821
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:58,480
Speaker 2: so you're going to have a box, and that box

822
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:02,080
Speaker 2: is going to contain computers that know the whole process.

823
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:05,000
Speaker 2: You know, it knows where it's going. But in the

824
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:07,719
Speaker 2: first generation, it's not going to make everything. It's going

825
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 2: to have some supplies. Even a seed, you know, a

826
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 2: seed has food in the seed so that it can

827
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:17,319
Speaker 2: live off of what it has stored until it can

828
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 2: make its own food. And so you're going to need

829
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 2: some supplies in that box to live off of until

830
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 2: it creates the ability to you know, to replicate everything.

831
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: So we're going to have like a coal powered steampunk

832
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 1: era on every planet we land on.

833
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I used to say something like that, and somebody

834
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 2: once pointed out that that's probably not how it's going

835
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:44,319
Speaker 2: to happen, because maybe we'll invent nanotech, and maybe nanotech

836
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:48,359
Speaker 2: can be smaller scale and support the self replication as

837
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 2: a smoother process. But you know, that's something we're just

838
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 2: speculating about at this point.

839
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:56,560
Speaker 1: Well, do you know anything about this argument between Eric Drexler,

840
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:59,800
Speaker 1: who wrote Engines of Creation, who is a big proponent

841
00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 1: of nanotech. And Richard Smalley, the guy who won the

842
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize for buckminster Fullerene, who argues essentially that you

843
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 1: can't have nanotech self replication because the pieces need to

844
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: be nanotech and they can't they just like force the

845
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 1: chemistry together. Have you followed that conversation, No, I have not. Well.

846
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:20,319
Speaker 1: Smally essentially says you don't make a girl and a

847
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: boy fall in love by pushing them together. He's essentially

848
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:27,359
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, you can't just manage chemistry by

849
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,319
Speaker 1: squishing things together at a nanotech level. They had some

850
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:33,000
Speaker 1: like two years of open letters where they were arguing

851
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 1: with each other about whether this is ever going to

852
00:47:35,239 --> 00:47:35,800
Speaker 1: be possible.

853
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:38,719
Speaker 4: But what you're not just smooshing them together, right like?

854
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 4: You know, you know, we know you can smoosh things

855
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:43,440
Speaker 4: together and expect certain chemical reactions depending on what you're

856
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 4: smoohing together.

857
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 3: I'm going to weigh in an argument I don't know

858
00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:47,440
Speaker 3: anything about.

859
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:50,319
Speaker 4: But it seems like like probably people had more complicated

860
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 4: opinions than just we're going to smoosh things together, right.

861
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:55,400
Speaker 1: Well, I think this series of letters which people should

862
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,319
Speaker 1: go out and check out is not an example of

863
00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:00,880
Speaker 1: good faith arguing as we often see online.

864
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 3: So, yeah, got it?

865
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:07,080
Speaker 4: All right, Well, let's take a break and when we

866
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:28,320
Speaker 4: get back we'll talk about energy sources and autonomy.

867
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 3: All right, we're back.

868
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 4: So we're talking about self replicating robots and all of

869
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 4: the steps that would go into making them, and I

870
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 4: feel like maybe we want to have an energy discussion

871
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 4: at two different scales here. Phil was talking about like

872
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 4: smelting and things that would require very high temperatures, and

873
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 4: so I'm wondering what would be the source of power

874
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:50,240
Speaker 4: for that? And then I also, on a tinier scale,

875
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:52,720
Speaker 4: want to know what would be our source of power

876
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:54,840
Speaker 4: for the robots that are building everything.

877
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. So in the paper I wrote on this topic,

878
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:01,920
Speaker 2: we assumed everything would be solar powered, and so the

879
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 2: question came down to can a self replicating set of

880
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:12,080
Speaker 2: robots create solar panels that will create enough energy for

881
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:16,960
Speaker 2: that process? In other words, does the metabolism close? And

882
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:20,320
Speaker 2: there's a lot of hand waving in that paper. In fact,

883
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:22,280
Speaker 2: I didn't expect the paper to get as much attention

884
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 2: as it did. In the opening of the paper, we said,

885
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 2: this is a preliminary study, which is just designed to

886
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 2: get more people interested so that then later we can

887
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 2: do a proper study. But everybody got real interested and

888
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:37,760
Speaker 2: it took off, and we never did the proper study.

889
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:41,439
Speaker 2: There's never been funding for it. So in our hand

890
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 2: waving arguments, we used the evidence we had available on

891
00:49:46,719 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 2: how much energy will it take to make metal? And

892
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of handwaving. And then for a

893
00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:55,399
Speaker 2: safety factor, I said, well, let's assume that in every

894
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:59,799
Speaker 2: generation we create thirty times more solar panels than we

895
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:02,560
Speaker 2: think we're going to need in the next generation. So

896
00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 2: I had a factor of thirty uncertainty. And even with

897
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:10,280
Speaker 2: a factor of thirty uncertainty, the metabolism closed. So solar

898
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 2: alone should be enough to do it. But you will

899
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 2: be making a lot of solar panels. And we know

900
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:18,920
Speaker 2: that you can make solar panels out of lunar soil.

901
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:21,839
Speaker 2: They're already there are already two companies doing it. Blue

902
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:26,719
Speaker 2: Origin has a technology for making solar panels out of

903
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:31,720
Speaker 2: lunar soil. And there's another company called Mana Electric MAA

904
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:36,839
Speaker 2: and A. They're in Europe and they also have technology

905
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 2: to do this, and they claim they can make solar

906
00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:42,600
Speaker 2: panels using something like ninety nine point eight percent lunar

907
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:45,239
Speaker 2: soil and only zero point two percent brought from Earth.

908
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:47,759
Speaker 3: Wow, Okay, so how are they doing that?

909
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:49,560
Speaker 4: So are they are they doing it from like they're

910
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 4: extracting the resources, they're manufacturing them in space. They're doing

911
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 4: all of that stuff just using like equipment that they

912
00:50:56,600 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 4: shift from Earth.

913
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:00,040
Speaker 2: So I haven't seen the details from either of the

914
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 2: to companies, but the press announcements tell us that they

915
00:51:04,280 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 2: have made solar panels out of simulated lunar soil. And

916
00:51:08,480 --> 00:51:11,400
Speaker 2: the way you do it is use a process like

917
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:15,960
Speaker 2: molten regular electrolysis, or fluorine or sodium hydroxide, or you know,

918
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 2: some method to break apart the molecular bonds in these minerals.

919
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 2: So we're dealing with minerals like basalt and ilminite, and

920
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:31,240
Speaker 2: a NORTHO site. You know types of rock and mineral

921
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:34,319
Speaker 2: that are in the lunar soil, and we know the

922
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:38,120
Speaker 2: composition of these minerals, so we know there's iron and aluminum,

923
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:42,800
Speaker 2: and we know there's calcium. Typically you're gonna have a

924
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:45,360
Speaker 2: hard time finding hydrogen on the Moon unless you go

925
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 2: to the polar regions. But I don't know if these

926
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:53,359
Speaker 2: companies process requires hydrogen. Carbon is another one that's hard

927
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:55,320
Speaker 2: to get On the Moon. We know there's some carbon

928
00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:56,680
Speaker 2: in the ice of the poles of the Moon, but

929
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:01,160
Speaker 2: not much and it's only the poles. But maybe you

930
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 2: don't need carbon in these processes. So anyways, apparently they're

931
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 2: doing the chemical reactions, they're producing these materials, and they're

932
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 2: laying them down in a wafer so that you have

933
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:17,400
Speaker 2: p N junctions so that they are electronic devices and

934
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:21,640
Speaker 2: are photosensitive so that they can convert photons of energy

935
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:25,480
Speaker 2: into voltage. And they claim that they've made it work.

936
00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 1: But why try to do solar power? I mean, if

937
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: you're landing on some random surface, you don't know how

938
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:33,080
Speaker 1: far away that planet is from its star, how bright

939
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: that star is. Isn't nuclear power something that's going to

940
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:38,600
Speaker 1: be more robust. We already know how to build those

941
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:42,680
Speaker 1: things fairly miniaturized for stuff here on Earth. Why not

942
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:43,960
Speaker 1: nuclear powered probes?

943
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:49,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, so for the actual self replicating probes, I think

944
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:53,279
Speaker 2: Free just did talk about nuclear and that's part of

945
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 2: the reason why he wanted it at a gas giant planet,

946
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:58,440
Speaker 2: so that you would have a lot of hydrogen and

947
00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:01,760
Speaker 2: you would have helium so that you can do fusion

948
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 2: for example. I don't remember if he was using fusion

949
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 2: or fission in his analysis, but yeah, that is the

950
00:53:08,640 --> 00:53:12,480
Speaker 2: goal to eventually have nuclear power so that you're not

951
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 2: bound to being too close to a star. It's a

952
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:20,120
Speaker 2: crawl walk run type situation. So the technologies we're actually

953
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 2: developing right now are ones that we think will be

954
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:25,440
Speaker 2: useful for NASA and useful for commercial companies in the

955
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:28,239
Speaker 2: near term. And it'll be a while before you can

956
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:31,160
Speaker 2: get your whole supply chain up to making nuclear reactors.

957
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 4: All right, So let's imagine we've got we've got the

958
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 4: power figured out, we make we're replicating these robots we're

959
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:41,000
Speaker 4: scaling up. Let's start talking about like the ethics and

960
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:43,640
Speaker 4: some of the other bigger problems we might encounter. So,

961
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:47,000
Speaker 4: first of all, how do you make sure you don't

962
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 4: get like bad copies? This is like humanities ambassadors that

963
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:54,920
Speaker 4: we're sending out into the solar system. How do we

964
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 4: make sure that they remain good ambassadors.

965
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:02,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a big problem. So I'm not actually working

966
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:04,719
Speaker 2: on that problem because it's still pretty far down the road,

967
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:08,239
Speaker 2: but it is something that we need to consider. We

968
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 2: need to have ethesis and philosophers thinking about these things,

969
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:15,920
Speaker 2: and they're surprisingly there are people working on these problems.

970
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 2: One of the reasons that we're thinking about it is

971
00:54:18,520 --> 00:54:21,160
Speaker 2: because we're trying to detect is there already life in

972
00:54:21,200 --> 00:54:24,720
Speaker 2: the cosmos outside of Earth? And we're asking the question,

973
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 2: why don't we see radio signals coming from all the

974
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:30,120
Speaker 2: other stars? You know, why is it not a star

975
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:33,720
Speaker 2: wars galaxy? So this is the question of the Fermi

976
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 2: paradox or the great silence? Why is it so silent

977
00:54:36,719 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 2: out there? And there's a number of theories. One of

978
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:45,160
Speaker 2: the theories is the dark forest hypothesis, where in game

979
00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:47,920
Speaker 2: theory you have to consider the possibility that there are

980
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:51,480
Speaker 2: bad actors that if they discover your presence, they're going

981
00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 2: to come and wipe you out because they know that

982
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 2: you might develop self replicating probes, and the probes you

983
00:54:58,680 --> 00:55:01,359
Speaker 2: develop could take over the galaxy and wipe them out.

984
00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 2: And so in the game theory it becomes a part

985
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:09,040
Speaker 2: of the puzzle like how does self replicating probes fit

986
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:13,760
Speaker 2: into the dark forest hypothesis? Also, if self replicating probes

987
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:18,160
Speaker 2: are possible, why are they not already here? Because we

988
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:20,439
Speaker 2: think we can get there in you know, a few

989
00:55:20,520 --> 00:55:24,040
Speaker 2: hundred years or less. I honestly think that we could

990
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:25,759
Speaker 2: get there by the end of the century or maybe

991
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,759
Speaker 2: within one hundred years. And so I think there are

992
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:31,120
Speaker 2: people alive today that can see this happening.

993
00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:34,760
Speaker 1: That's my biggest question, right, Like, if this really is possible,

994
00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:37,799
Speaker 1: if we're close to it, then surely aliens have been

995
00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:40,000
Speaker 1: close to it. And if it doesn't take more than

996
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:42,000
Speaker 1: fifty thousand or on hundred thousand years to explore the

997
00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:45,280
Speaker 1: whole galaxy with these probes, then why haven't we been visited?

998
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 1: So what's your personal answer to that? Film.

999
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:51,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's I think there's three or four really

1000
00:55:51,719 --> 00:55:56,160
Speaker 2: interesting hypotheses. One is the dark forest one. Another one

1001
00:55:56,280 --> 00:56:00,560
Speaker 2: is that life is just incredibly improbable and so Earth

1002
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:02,360
Speaker 2: might be alone within the visible universe.

1003
00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:05,280
Speaker 1: And just to underscore that this is such a powerful

1004
00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:08,400
Speaker 1: technology that it would allow any alien civilization in the

1005
00:56:08,560 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 1: entire galaxy to visit us in a fairly small amount

1006
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,719
Speaker 1: of time. And we're talking one hundred thousand years or so,

1007
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 1: So you're suggesting that the lack of visiting self replicating

1008
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:20,360
Speaker 1: probe suggests that we might be alone in the milky

1009
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:22,840
Speaker 1: and not just like rare, but like literally alone.

1010
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:29,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, in terms of advanced intelligent life technological species. In fact,

1011
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:32,680
Speaker 2: it's worse than that. There was a paper done by

1012
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:36,839
Speaker 2: a philosopher at Oxford a few years ago. His name

1013
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:39,520
Speaker 2: is slipping my mind. It might have been Stuart Anderson,

1014
00:56:40,280 --> 00:56:46,080
Speaker 2: where he showed that one civilization in another galaxy could

1015
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:51,480
Speaker 2: set up a linear accelerator and dismantle one planet the

1016
00:56:51,520 --> 00:56:55,200
Speaker 2: size of Mercury, turning all that mass into self replicating probes.

1017
00:56:55,840 --> 00:56:59,880
Speaker 2: And if they did that a billion years ago, then ever,

1018
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 2: every single galaxy in the entire visible universe would already

1019
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:07,680
Speaker 2: have every single star colonized. And so it's not just

1020
00:57:07,760 --> 00:57:10,840
Speaker 2: the galaxy, it's all the galaxies that are involved in

1021
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:14,839
Speaker 2: this question. Okay, So yeah, it's a great and very

1022
00:57:14,880 --> 00:57:18,960
Speaker 2: important question. There's also the theory that civilizations always go

1023
00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:21,040
Speaker 2: extinct and they don't get that far. I don't think

1024
00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:24,680
Speaker 2: that's very plausible anymore, because we're already close to that point.

1025
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:28,160
Speaker 2: You know. That's the great filter hypothesis. The other hypothesis

1026
00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:32,640
Speaker 2: is that it's the transcendence hypothesis, and I like this

1027
00:57:32,680 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 2: one a lot. And the idea is that civilizations go

1028
00:57:35,760 --> 00:57:42,160
Speaker 2: so intelligent that they actually figure out that self replicating

1029
00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 2: probes are dangerous, so then they don't set them loose,

1030
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:52,160
Speaker 2: and they don't really need the material of the rest

1031
00:57:52,160 --> 00:57:55,560
Speaker 2: of the galaxy, and they're more interested in just watching

1032
00:57:56,240 --> 00:58:00,680
Speaker 2: and seeing how other star systems develop rather than colonizing.

1033
00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:04,520
Speaker 2: And so they're not our peers. They're far above us.

1034
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:09,640
Speaker 2: If that's possible, maybe that window of danger where you

1035
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:13,960
Speaker 2: unleash self replicating probes is a very narrow window, and

1036
00:58:14,200 --> 00:58:16,560
Speaker 2: maybe they're watching out for that, you know, I mean,

1037
00:58:16,600 --> 00:58:18,560
Speaker 2: if we're going to get contacted by aliens, I think

1038
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:21,080
Speaker 2: we're close to the point where it would happen, because

1039
00:58:21,080 --> 00:58:25,760
Speaker 2: we're just about to transition to having superintelligence and self

1040
00:58:25,760 --> 00:58:28,440
Speaker 2: replicating probes, and we're just about to become a danger

1041
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:31,040
Speaker 2: to our part of the cosmos.

1042
00:58:30,680 --> 00:58:32,560
Speaker 3: And you're trying to hasten that.

1043
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 7: We all know.

1044
00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:37,120
Speaker 4: I'm a what blanked, right, And so you said this

1045
00:58:37,240 --> 00:58:40,880
Speaker 4: is your favorite hypothesis. That feels to me like you

1046
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:43,840
Speaker 4: wouldn't want to be working as self replicating probes. Then

1047
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:44,720
Speaker 4: what am I missing?

1048
00:58:45,600 --> 00:58:47,360
Speaker 1: He wants to get us to the place where we're

1049
00:58:47,400 --> 00:58:50,360
Speaker 1: responsible with our self replicating probes. Is that the idea?

1050
00:58:50,680 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the problems I have in life is

1051
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:55,720
Speaker 2: I always try to take a very nuanced approach to everything,

1052
00:58:55,960 --> 00:59:00,200
Speaker 2: and it's really hard to describe a nuanced position. And

1053
00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:04,160
Speaker 2: so the nuance in this one is that I think

1054
00:59:04,200 --> 00:59:07,160
Speaker 2: we need to have industry outside of planet Earth in

1055
00:59:07,240 --> 00:59:10,240
Speaker 2: order to save the Earth. But there is a danger.

1056
00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:13,960
Speaker 2: In fact, there's multiple dangers. So as we're going forward

1057
00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:16,640
Speaker 2: towards this right future, we're going to have to solve

1058
00:59:16,760 --> 00:59:22,320
Speaker 2: major ethical problems along the way, and so preventing runaway

1059
00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:26,720
Speaker 2: destroyer probes from setting out from our planet destroying our

1060
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 2: planet and then all the other ones, you know, that's

1061
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 2: one of the one of the big concerns. There's other

1062
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:35,680
Speaker 2: concerns even before then, like if you've got self replicating

1063
00:59:35,680 --> 00:59:40,040
Speaker 2: industry in space, whoever owns that industry is not going

1064
00:59:40,120 --> 00:59:43,200
Speaker 2: to need to dilute their equity. They won't need any labor,

1065
00:59:43,680 --> 00:59:47,000
Speaker 2: they won't need anybody's property on planet Earth. They can

1066
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:49,760
Speaker 2: just go out there and replicate, and within twenty years

1067
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 2: they can have more industry than our entire planet. And therefore,

1068
00:59:55,080 --> 00:59:57,760
Speaker 2: even if the whole planet pooled all of our resource together,

1069
00:59:57,800 --> 01:00:00,360
Speaker 2: we would not be able to buy a signif figant

1070
01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:03,880
Speaker 2: share of that industry. Even if the owner wanted to sell,

1071
01:00:03,960 --> 01:00:08,520
Speaker 2: And so there's the potential for more wealth concentration once

1072
01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:11,720
Speaker 2: we've removed labor from the equation, and once we've removed

1073
01:00:11,720 --> 01:00:16,000
Speaker 2: the planetary scale limits from the resource equation, And so

1074
01:00:16,320 --> 01:00:20,640
Speaker 2: that major sociological and ethical problem has to be solved,

1075
01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 2: and we only have about forty years to solve it

1076
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:26,480
Speaker 2: in my opinion, So yeah, there are major issues we

1077
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:29,640
Speaker 2: got to solve. But still, nonetheless, I think that we're

1078
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:32,560
Speaker 2: not going to be able to slow down industrial growth

1079
01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:33,880
Speaker 2: on our planet. We're not going to be able to

1080
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:38,520
Speaker 2: slow down demand for intelligence because it's geopolitical, and if

1081
01:00:38,520 --> 01:00:40,120
Speaker 2: we want to save our planet, we're going to have

1082
01:00:40,160 --> 01:00:42,520
Speaker 2: to start developing these technologies off of the planet.

1083
01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:45,960
Speaker 1: So then the phil's optimistic view of the future is

1084
01:00:45,960 --> 01:00:49,120
Speaker 1: that over the next few decades or centuries, we develop

1085
01:00:49,200 --> 01:00:52,720
Speaker 1: these off planet resources as a way to salvage Earth

1086
01:00:52,840 --> 01:00:55,960
Speaker 1: and stop putting such a great environmental burden on it

1087
01:00:56,240 --> 01:00:58,760
Speaker 1: and to expand out to the rest of the Solar System.

1088
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:02,160
Speaker 1: But that once we develop self replicating industry, we are

1089
01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:05,400
Speaker 1: wise about it and we don't release it out into

1090
01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:08,040
Speaker 1: the universe to run like a crazy virus and take

1091
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:09,919
Speaker 1: over the rest of the universe and we're still here

1092
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:13,800
Speaker 1: because aliens have also been responsible with their technology.

1093
01:01:14,240 --> 01:01:17,600
Speaker 2: Well, either they don't exist, or yes, they became smart

1094
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:22,080
Speaker 2: along the way they underwent this crisis. This point of

1095
01:01:22,120 --> 01:01:26,080
Speaker 2: crisis where your technology becomes truly dangerous, you know you

1096
01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:32,560
Speaker 2: have AI that exceeds the sum of human capability, and

1097
01:01:32,840 --> 01:01:35,440
Speaker 2: you know that at that level of danger, at that

1098
01:01:35,520 --> 01:01:38,640
Speaker 2: crisis time, either you come through it or you don't.

1099
01:01:39,560 --> 01:01:43,040
Speaker 2: I think inevitably we're going to get there. Honestly, I'm not.

1100
01:01:43,280 --> 01:01:46,000
Speaker 2: I don't feel like I need to push for industry

1101
01:01:46,000 --> 01:01:47,560
Speaker 2: to happen off the planet. I think it's going to

1102
01:01:47,640 --> 01:01:50,400
Speaker 2: happen no matter what. And so what I'm trying to

1103
01:01:50,400 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 2: push for is to democratize it so that people all

1104
01:01:54,480 --> 01:01:57,280
Speaker 2: over the world are involved in the process and owners

1105
01:01:57,400 --> 01:02:01,320
Speaker 2: developing equity as we go to try to improve the

1106
01:02:01,360 --> 01:02:04,800
Speaker 2: odds that we will solve those societal problems.

1107
01:02:05,080 --> 01:02:07,160
Speaker 4: Well, this conversation has given me a lot of things

1108
01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:09,000
Speaker 4: to be optimistic about and a lot of things to

1109
01:02:09,080 --> 01:02:09,680
Speaker 4: panic about.

1110
01:02:09,720 --> 01:02:11,320
Speaker 3: Tonight when I'm trying to fall asleep.

1111
01:02:12,440 --> 01:02:15,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just hope that if there are aliens listening

1112
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:18,040
Speaker 1: to this podcast, that they take Phil's comments to Heart

1113
01:02:18,120 --> 01:02:20,360
Speaker 1: and that they are wise and responsible with the use

1114
01:02:20,400 --> 01:02:22,240
Speaker 1: of their self replicating technology.

1115
01:02:22,400 --> 01:02:23,560
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for being on the show.

1116
01:02:23,600 --> 01:02:25,480
Speaker 2: Phil, my pleasure, Thanks for having me.

1117
01:02:32,560 --> 01:02:36,120
Speaker 4: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio.

1118
01:02:36,320 --> 01:02:39,000
Speaker 3: We would love to hear from you, We really would.

1119
01:02:39,160 --> 01:02:41,920
Speaker 1: We want to know what questions you have about this

1120
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:43,760
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe.

1121
01:02:43,840 --> 01:02:46,800
Speaker 4: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

1122
01:02:46,800 --> 01:02:47,800
Speaker 4: for future shows.

1123
01:02:47,920 --> 01:02:50,240
Speaker 3: If you contact us, we will get back to you.

1124
01:02:50,520 --> 01:02:54,040
Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

1125
01:02:54,080 --> 01:02:57,280
Speaker 1: at Questions at Danielankelly.

1126
01:02:56,360 --> 01:02:58,440
Speaker 4: Dot org, or you can find us on social media.

1127
01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:02,320
Speaker 4: We have accounts on at Instagram, Blue Sky and on

1128
01:03:02,400 --> 01:03:03,320
Speaker 4: all of those platforms.

1129
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:06,360
Speaker 3: You can find us at D and K Universe.

1130
01:03:06,560 --> 01:03:08,040
Speaker 1: Don't be shy write to us.