Speaker 1: T t.
Speaker 2: There are two places we both say we don't want
Speaker 2: to mess around with. That's too deep in the ocean,
Speaker 2: that's right, and too far out into space.
Speaker 3: We don't know what's out there, and we don't know
Speaker 3: it's down there. Okay, there you have it. The people
Speaker 3: are like, oh, I would want to live in the
Speaker 3: ocean at the I'm like, we don't know anything about
Speaker 3: what's going.
Speaker 2: Y'all laughing at SpongeBob. But a pineapple under the sea.
Speaker 2: No thanks, Okay, you don't know what's down there, No
Speaker 2: one does. We don't know what's in space, but people
Speaker 2: are still trying to go there.
Speaker 3: Right. Just this Monday that just passed, NASA was supposed
Speaker 3: to launch their Artemis moon rocket, but the launch was scrubbed,
Speaker 3: so it's canceled due to technical difficulties because of a
Speaker 3: fuel leak and some other things like a temperature issue
Speaker 3: with the engine.
Speaker 2: When will we learn to see in space? We need
Speaker 2: to cool it down?
Speaker 3: When will we learn?
Speaker 2: I'm TT and I'm Zakiyah.
Speaker 3: And from Spotify, this is Stop Labs.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that makes this
Speaker 2: hardcore science, pop culture, and a healthy dose of friendship.
Speaker 3: This week, we're talking all about commercial space flights.
Speaker 2: Before we even get into this too deep.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: I gotta know where everybody's landing. If you could go
Speaker 2: to space, and I mean first class to space, not
Speaker 2: in the cargo area. If you could go first class
Speaker 2: to space, would you go T T? Would you go?
Speaker 3: Ooh? I'm still very terrified of space, you know me.
Speaker 3: I've said this in a few episodes, like the thought
Speaker 3: of space scares me, honey, like it scares me, but
Speaker 3: you know, the scientist in me is very curious what
Speaker 3: it's like, if it'll be cool, you know. So I'm
Speaker 3: kind of on the fence. I'm gonna say yes because
Speaker 3: I feel like I have to say yes.
Speaker 2: Oh, y'all bullying my friend, and to be in a space, I'm.
Speaker 3: Gonna bully me. Y'all always bullying me.
Speaker 2: Okay, now it's time for y'all to tell us would
Speaker 2: you go to space? Yes or no? If you take
Speaker 2: a look in the app right now, you'll see the
Speaker 2: poll at the bottom. Let us know would you go
Speaker 2: to space? Yes or no? And also jump in our
Speaker 2: dms or respond to our story on Instagram because we
Speaker 2: really do want to hear I want to know why
Speaker 2: you're going or why you're not going.
Speaker 3: You didn't say, are you going?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm in their life swim, We're terrified.
Speaker 3: I'm going scared.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going scared, straight to space. Everybody's going to space.
Speaker 2: When William Shatner went, I said, hey, I think I'm eligible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he took offense to everybody asking his age, but
Speaker 3: it's a valid question.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's pretty much up there. So and how
Speaker 2: do you get on the list? I saw Michael Strahan
Speaker 2: went recently, I.
Speaker 3: Don't know what the qualifications are, but Michael Strahan, William Shaddner,
Speaker 3: I don't know who's next.
Speaker 2: And that made us ask a lot of questions. Specifically,
Speaker 2: we wanted to know more about the history of space exploration,
Speaker 2: how commercial space flights impact space exploration, and what that
Speaker 2: could mean for the future.
Speaker 3: All right, let's get into the recitation.
Speaker 2: So what do we know, Well, we are seeing quite
Speaker 2: a bit of dust being kicked up from the private
Speaker 2: space company SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic. Everybody is taking
Speaker 2: this thing to space.
Speaker 3: And like we said, they have been taking a lot
Speaker 3: of celebrities and the folks with the coin because going
Speaker 3: to space is not.
Speaker 2: Cheap going across the country is not cheap.
Speaker 3: Ain't no spirit flights to space?
Speaker 2: Okay, you know there's not any spirit flights anymore anyway, Right,
Speaker 2: they were just bought. Now, if I see Jeb Blue
Speaker 2: going to space, you're taking on too many risks. That's
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell anybody that has a ticket, that's
Speaker 2: just you're taking it too far.
Speaker 3: Right, this is gonna be a slingshot. They're gonna put
Speaker 3: you in a slingshot and just let it happen.
Speaker 2: But even though we're joking around, there seems to be
Speaker 2: a lot of excitement about and potential related to space exploration.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, there's so much to be discovered in space. But
Speaker 3: because we don't know that much, that means there's a
Speaker 3: lot of unknowns. So it kind of makes you go,
Speaker 3: I don't know when you start thinking about just sending regular, regular,
Speaker 3: regular people into.
Speaker 2: Space, and so what do we want to know? So
Speaker 2: I want to know.
Speaker 3: Kind of the history of space exploration, who were the
Speaker 3: first folks to think about space and what questions were
Speaker 3: they asking and trying to answer?
Speaker 2: And I want to know how we got here. I
Speaker 2: feel like I was just minding my business and then
Speaker 2: everybody was going to space, like, was this secretly happening?
Speaker 2: How did it become so popular? How did these people
Speaker 2: get on these lists? You know, was there space flight
Speaker 2: before Instagram when people couldn't post about it?
Speaker 3: And I want to know what do we need to
Speaker 3: be thinking about for the future. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not going to just stop with those quick flights
Speaker 3: up and down. Are people going to start trying to
Speaker 3: living space? Are people going to be having hotels up there?
Speaker 3: Is there going to be Spotify space? If so, sign
Speaker 3: me up? Is that a part of my premium membership?
Speaker 3: My subscription.
Speaker 2: Let's jump into the dissection.
Speaker 3: Our guest for today's Lab is doctor Jordan Beim.
Speaker 1: I'm doctor Jordan Bim. I'm a space historian at the
Speaker 1: University of Chicago. My research focuses on the hitt of
Speaker 1: space medicine and astrobiology. The best spaceship is friendship.
Speaker 2: Doctor Bim is working on a book called Anticipating the
Speaker 2: Astronaut and it's all about the history of space medicine
Speaker 2: pre NASA. It's coming out next year with MIT Press.
Speaker 2: And since he's a space historian, we knew he could
Speaker 2: take us back into time. Okay, so The first thing
Speaker 2: that we wanted to know was when humans were first
Speaker 2: thinking about going into space, what were they thinking about
Speaker 2: and what did exploration look like.
Speaker 1: We've been going to space for over sixty years, but
Speaker 1: humans have been thinking about going to space for almost
Speaker 1: as long as we have written records. The earliest space
Speaker 1: sciences were visual observations of the cosmos, and that was
Speaker 1: done just with the naked eye for many years, and
Speaker 1: then starting in the sixteen hundreds, it was the telescope.
Speaker 2: The telescope was the main instrument for exploring space until
Speaker 2: the beginning of the twentieth century, and telescopes are still
Speaker 2: important for space exploration today. Doctor Bim told us it
Speaker 2: wasn't until nineteen forty five, at the end of World
Speaker 2: War Two, that we developed technology to actually reach space.
Speaker 1: So most people think that space exploration starts with NASA,
Speaker 1: which was founded in nineteen fifty eight. But what my
Speaker 1: research as a space historian focuses on is this missing
Speaker 1: ten years or so where it was actually done in
Speaker 1: the military, mostly the US Air Force. And the context
Speaker 1: there is the Cold War, which was a military competition
Speaker 1: between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was
Speaker 1: framed by the fear of nuclear annihilation and the delivery
Speaker 1: of atomic weapons. Someone said, hey, instead of putting a
Speaker 1: warhead on top of a rocket, what if we put
Speaker 1: a little capsule and a human in there. What could
Speaker 1: we do with that?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Why would they say that?
Speaker 3: That is not my next? No line up thinking.
Speaker 2: Instead of a warhead, what about a real head?
Speaker 3: Right like that, Doctor Bem shared, it's important to understand
Speaker 3: how the military shaped the history of space exploration and research.
Speaker 1: I always say history matters. You know, the past isn't
Speaker 1: really past. The past is all around us, and that
Speaker 1: counts for space as well. And it's my mission to
Speaker 1: recover those missing stories.
Speaker 2: One of those missing stories includes Werner von Bront, a
Speaker 2: former Nazi and rocket engineer who was brought over to
Speaker 2: the United States by our government as part of a
Speaker 2: secret program called Operation Papercliff. And in this program, the
Speaker 2: United States brought over sixteen hundred German scientists, regardless of
Speaker 2: war crimes, to work against the Soviet Union and with
Speaker 2: the United States.
Speaker 1: And so many people know that Verner von Brown and
Speaker 1: his team of Nazi rocket scientists built the rockets that
Speaker 1: took us to the moon. But what most people don't
Speaker 1: know is that doctors and psychologists came over as well,
Speaker 1: and they worked on the human who would ride inside
Speaker 1: that rocket. So the early history of the field of
Speaker 1: space medicine, which I write about in the US Air Force,
Speaker 1: it's not American doctors and psychologists, it's former Luftwaffe doctors
Speaker 1: and psychologists. And they did not check their ideas about
Speaker 1: the perfectibility of certain humans at Ellis Island. When they
Speaker 1: came to the United States, they wove that into knowledge
Speaker 1: about the human body in the extreme environment of outer space.
Speaker 1: So when you look at the first astronaut groups and
Speaker 1: there are seven white male military test pilots, like all
Speaker 1: the same size, you know, the only thing that's different
Speaker 1: is like their haircut and their tie or something. It
Speaker 1: kind of is this low key eugenics that gets in there,
Speaker 1: and we see the ripple effects of that. Even today,
Speaker 1: we're still trying to fight for diversity and equity of
Speaker 1: access to space because there has been this entrenched normal
Speaker 1: of the sort of white male body as space normal,
Speaker 1: which it's not.
Speaker 2: You know, this gets back to what we talked about
Speaker 2: with Angela sayani H in Skin Deep Lap twenty five.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, how our.
Speaker 2: Historical underpinnings, what was going on in the world at
Speaker 2: that time affects the science that was being done, and
Speaker 2: we look back at it and say, the science doesn't
Speaker 2: lie of what baby, The science is biased. Okay, absolutely,
Speaker 2: and we're still reeling from those effects today. Yeah.
Speaker 3: When you take a look back at all of the
Speaker 3: earliest you know, bright minds that people talk about in
Speaker 3: reference Darwin, all these folks they were racist, and they
Speaker 3: had verrely racist ideologies that they baked into their science,
Speaker 3: and that was the science that was then canonized by
Speaker 3: the scientific community. So we accepted as fact. And there's
Speaker 3: science that's built on top of that. So even though
Speaker 3: we are hundreds of years post those thoughts and we think, oh,
Speaker 3: we're progressive, we're scientists. No, the roots, the foundation of
Speaker 3: some of these scientific principles are biased and racist.
Speaker 2: We even see this in entertainment where people are upset
Speaker 2: about black people being in Marvel movies and being guardians
Speaker 2: of the galaxy. Hey, we talked about space people and
Speaker 2: you think they should all look like white man. That's
Speaker 2: wild to me.
Speaker 3: I also saw a raccoon that y'all don't have no
Speaker 3: objections to that, or a piece of wood. I don't
Speaker 3: watch these Marvel movies, So I don't really know, Like
Speaker 3: there was a tree, that's all. But black folks aren't okay.
Speaker 3: Something's happening here. Spoiler alert, it's racism.
Speaker 2: So when we get to moving from warhead to human
Speaker 2: hit going to space, the first question scientists wanted to
Speaker 2: answer was could the human body actually survive in space?
Speaker 1: Can the human body survive the rigors of space travel,
Speaker 1: which include intense acceleration and deceleration, exposure to low pressure
Speaker 1: environments inside the cabin, perhaps temperature extremes of heat and cold,
Speaker 1: things like that.
Speaker 3: The United States began to answer these questions with Project Mercury,
Speaker 3: NASA's first human space flight program, and it started in
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty eight and had its first flight, the Mercury
Speaker 3: Redstone three, in nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: And those early space flights proved that for a short
Speaker 1: period of time, human body can survive those stresses. And
Speaker 1: then as we moved into longer duration missions like the
Speaker 1: famous Apollo missions that took us into deep space into
Speaker 1: the Moon, we learned that the transit from the Earth
Speaker 1: the Moon is possible. Remote field work on the extreme
Speaker 1: environment of the lunar is possible. It's possible to do
Speaker 1: science in these distant, hazardous places.
Speaker 2: We've learned a lot in the past sixty years about
Speaker 2: sending humans to space, but there's still so much to
Speaker 2: learn and so many more open questions. For instance, we
Speaker 2: don't know how well people will do in longer space flights,
Speaker 2: like beyond a year, so it could be a while
Speaker 2: before we're all thinking about living on Mars.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let's recap. We've talked about how the history
Speaker 3: of space exploration was rooted in the military, in some
Speaker 3: problematic history in early space research, and since the Cold War,
Speaker 3: space exploration and research has been more scientific inquiry focused.
Speaker 3: With the founding of NASA, so in nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 3: we put a man on the Moon and in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety eight we launched the International Space Station. But recently
Speaker 3: we've seen a boom in commercial space flight opportunities offered
Speaker 3: by private companies.
Speaker 1: We have seen this transformation from military to science now
Speaker 1: to what I would call experience and experience that is
Speaker 1: for sale. The thing that's really interesting is that the
Speaker 1: answer to the question of what space is for, whether
Speaker 1: it's for military, whether it's for science, whether it's for experience,
Speaker 1: is always linked to who space is for. So it's
Speaker 1: for military, then you send soldiers. If it's for science,
Speaker 1: you send scientists, engineers, and doctors. And if it's for experience,
Speaker 1: well then it's who has the money to pay for
Speaker 1: that and who they select as their chosen companions.
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting point. As the goals of space
Speaker 2: exploration and travel shift, who is able to travel also changes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and while this shift to commercial space flight feels new,
Speaker 3: it's actually been going on a lot longer, right under
Speaker 3: our noses.
Speaker 1: The commercialization of space began about twenty years ago with
Speaker 1: flights to the International Space Station that were sold by
Speaker 1: a company called Space Adventures. When the Soviet Union collapsed
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one, they had this space program and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they needed money. So, you know,
Speaker 1: they just tried to sell spare seats on their Soyu's
Speaker 1: capsuless that's wild.
Speaker 2: So basically the government had a arc.
Speaker 1: You could basically buy a seat on a Soyu's space
Speaker 1: capsule launching from Russia, and about twenty or so people
Speaker 1: chose that route, and it was maybe twenty million dollars
Speaker 1: for a seat.
Speaker 2: That's crowdfunding was twenty million for a seat. That's wild.
Speaker 2: So doctor bim is saying that when I was on
Speaker 2: AOL instant messenger, people were buying discount seats to crowdfund
Speaker 2: their government to go to space. Ooh, like that's wild
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 3: It is, it is, I can't believe this was happening,
Speaker 3: And it feels like no one knows.
Speaker 2: Nobody knew.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't like they were a company that created
Speaker 1: a whole new infrastructure. They were basically selling something they
Speaker 1: already had as a way to generate income to keep
Speaker 1: their space program going.
Speaker 3: Commercial spaceflight has expanded since the first Space Adventures flight
Speaker 3: to the International Space Station in two thousand and one.
Speaker 3: Today there are several companies that offer sub orbital or
Speaker 3: low Earth orbit flights, and ticket prices start at four
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand dollars and go up from there.
Speaker 1: What we've seen with SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic is
Speaker 1: the creation of an entirely new sets of infrastructure, and
Speaker 1: the key of this is reusability. And I'm sure we've
Speaker 1: all seen those videos of those rockets coming back and
Speaker 1: landing back on Earth with their stabilizers out. That is
Speaker 1: this sort of key technological innovation that is allowing these
Speaker 1: companies to lower the price of a space launch, which
Speaker 1: before was so expensive that it was really only governments
Speaker 1: that could manage that. But now we're seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: the ascent of the billionaire class coming out of the
Speaker 1: Internet boom. They have money to basically start a space program,
Speaker 1: which is crazy, but it's happening now.
Speaker 2: I got to stop you, because while the price might
Speaker 2: be getting lower, it's definitely not affordable.
Speaker 3: No affordable for Diddy. So let's say someone does have
Speaker 3: the money to go to space, can anyone go? I
Speaker 3: saw William Shatner went up there, and he's pretty old,
Speaker 3: and I would hope that there is some health criteria
Speaker 3: for space travel, not just the coins. But if there
Speaker 3: isn't should there be?
Speaker 1: He was ninety years old. And also Wally Funk, a
Speaker 1: amazing woman pilot who was part of a very early
Speaker 1: space medicine research program, got the chance to go to
Speaker 1: space as well, and I believe she was eighty two
Speaker 1: years old. So what we've seen is that people who
Speaker 1: are not these sort of eugenic specimens that we were
Speaker 1: sending to space in the nineteen sixties can also survive
Speaker 1: at least a short duration spaceflight. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that anybody can go to space. Space does actually challenge
Speaker 1: the human body in lots of ways. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about the vacuum of space, but the environment inside the
Speaker 1: space capsule is usually a low pressure environment. There's the
Speaker 1: problem of weightlessness or zero G. So there are aspects
Speaker 1: of the body that do need to be checked out beforehand,
Speaker 1: because you don't want someone to become sick in space
Speaker 1: or Heaven forbid, you know, die there.
Speaker 2: I think something that we often overlook is that the
Speaker 2: whole way we understand and study our bodies is with gravity. Like,
Speaker 2: as we stand and exist here now, gravity is being
Speaker 2: enacted on us. That's a force that's enacted on us.
Speaker 2: It ensures that our blood maintains an optimum blood pressure level.
Speaker 2: Your heart is pumping to pump your blood up against
Speaker 2: the force of gravity, your organs being situated, all of
Speaker 2: your muscles, and your scalear structure, all that stuff is
Speaker 2: operating under the pressure of gravity. But when you move
Speaker 2: to a gravity list environment or an environment that has
Speaker 2: so little gravity that it's basically negligible, that changes things.
Speaker 2: And you can imagine that over time being in that environment,
Speaker 2: that will continue to change and affect how your body
Speaker 2: operates too.
Speaker 3: My little sister, who is a very smart woman. She's
Speaker 3: an aerospace engineer. She just did a zero gravity flight
Speaker 3: and let me tell you, she said it was not
Speaker 3: for the faint of heart. It was tough, like really
Speaker 3: tough on the body. She did really well and was
Speaker 3: able to pull off all the experiences that she needed
Speaker 3: to do. But the description it didn't sound like something
Speaker 3: I wanted to do, Like, I don't like roller coasters.
Speaker 3: There's no way I'm finding zero G.
Speaker 2: You know, another consideration beyond just like do you have
Speaker 2: the stomach for it? Is the training and selection process
Speaker 2: for commercial space flight. So you know, whenever I watch
Speaker 2: these documentaries about people going to space and NASA, they
Speaker 2: have years of training, and I know these people getting
Speaker 2: on these flights are only getting a few days at best.
Speaker 2: So even though the financial barriers are high, it feels
Speaker 2: like the barrier to entry is lower because a few
Speaker 2: days of training does not equal a few years. Okay,
Speaker 2: So let's say you have the money and you're physically
Speaker 2: cleared to go on a commercial space flight.
Speaker 3: What are people doing up there? Well, what's on the itinerary?
Speaker 1: When people started going to space as tourists, they initially
Speaker 1: were going on those Russian rockets to the International Space Station,
Speaker 1: and there'd only be one of them at a time.
Speaker 1: So you're basically going to be up on the space
Speaker 1: station with a bunch of professional astronauts. You're not really
Speaker 1: going to be able to choose whatever you want to
Speaker 1: do at any given moment. What you want to do
Speaker 1: has to fit in with their busy research schedules and
Speaker 1: station upkeep schedules. But last September, when we saw the
Speaker 1: Inspiration four flight, which was an early SpaceX orbital flight
Speaker 1: and was called the first all civilian space flight, that
Speaker 1: was sort of a turning point where they could choose
Speaker 1: whatever they wanted to do in that orbiting space capsule.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that flight, Inspiration four, was actually privately chartered
Speaker 3: by a billionaire named Jared Isaacman, and it launched September
Speaker 3: fifteenth of twenty twenty one, and the purpose of this
Speaker 3: launch was to raise money for Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Speaker 2: And you know what's really interesting is that doctor Bim
Speaker 2: told us, people on that flight chose to reference back
Speaker 2: to the previous goals of space travel and exploration.
Speaker 1: So in their training, they always appeared in military jets.
Speaker 1: They always appeared dressed in like flight suits, as if
Speaker 1: they were soldiers, and then when they were up there,
Speaker 1: they made sure to tell everyone that they had a
Speaker 1: scientific research program that they were doing.
Speaker 2: I like this, So basically, so they're playing dress up. Yea,
Speaker 2: they think this is what they should do if they
Speaker 2: go to space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's like when you go to Paris and you
Speaker 3: see the Eiffel Tower, or in New York when you
Speaker 3: see the Empire State Building or a Times Square.
Speaker 2: It just felt like that was part of their generation
Speaker 2: checklist for space vacation.
Speaker 3: You got to get a beret when you're in Paris.
Speaker 2: Doctor Bim says people shouldn't be ashamed to go to
Speaker 2: space and not do science.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's some pressure to like perform or
Speaker 1: like recreate the sort of hits of the past that
Speaker 1: people are expecting from like the cultural history of space exploration.
Speaker 1: But like I'm waiting for someone who just wants to
Speaker 1: go up and say I'm just here to chill and
Speaker 1: look at the view, you know, or like I want
Speaker 1: to go up there and like write a play, do
Speaker 1: some art.
Speaker 2: In some ways, it feels like traveling to space, like
Speaker 2: the TODA, the razzle, dazzle of it is the journey.
Speaker 2: But I think you do have to consider, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: if we start having these longer flights, like all right,
Speaker 2: we're up here, you know what do we do?
Speaker 3: I know what I'm gonna do. I'm definitely taking a
Speaker 3: selfie with Earth. Okay, I'm waiting until you know, I
Speaker 3: can see, like right where my house is, and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna try and point and get the right selfie angle
Speaker 3: and smile like geez posting that on my Instagram. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna try and get some TikTok's flowing through the capsule.
Speaker 3: I gotta start thinking of captions now, nobody can hold
Speaker 3: me down something like that, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Like it writes itself.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, so TT obviously has a plan. I
Speaker 2: can't even imagine my feet off the ground, especially not
Speaker 2: that far up. Okay, let's take a break and when
Speaker 2: we come back, we'll talk about some of the downsides
Speaker 2: or precautions we should think about when it comes to
Speaker 2: the future of space exploration.
Speaker 3: We're back, and before we jump back into today's lab,
Speaker 3: let's talk about next week's lab. Next week we're talking
Speaker 3: all about friendship. Now, I know you remember our last
Speaker 3: lab on friendship when we brought doctor Marissa g Franco
Speaker 3: back to talk a little bit more about how to
Speaker 3: make and keep your friends as adults.
Speaker 2: But for now, let's get back to today's lab with doctor
Speaker 2: Jordan Beim, where we're talking about the history of space
Speaker 2: exploration and commercial space flight. We've come so far from
Speaker 2: gazing up at the Cosmos, but there's still so much
Speaker 2: to discover about space. There's a lot of possibility, which
Speaker 2: feels really exciting. But what do we need to watch
Speaker 2: out for. What are we going to look back on
Speaker 2: and wish we did different?
Speaker 3: You know, those are some really important questions, especially since
Speaker 3: we know certain companies are interested in building space hotels,
Speaker 3: settling on other planets, and finding ways to make a
Speaker 3: profit off of space.
Speaker 1: I worry that there's actually a lot of negatives that
Speaker 1: we don't perceive because there is this sort of a
Speaker 1: popular fascination without her space. A lot of people think
Speaker 1: of space as like a utopian place where we transform ourselves.
Speaker 1: I worry deeply about who is holding the keys to space.
Speaker 1: And it was bad enough when it was NASA controlling
Speaker 1: who gets to go to space. They were at least
Speaker 1: a government agency that had oversight from Congress, but now
Speaker 1: it's in the hands of private companies, and that changes
Speaker 1: the information environment drastically.
Speaker 2: Doctor Bim says, we should really pay attention, you know,
Speaker 2: who's making decisions about space and what's the narrative that's
Speaker 2: being told about these commercial flights.
Speaker 1: When I see these commercial space flights that have, you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of billionaires or millionaires and then like one
Speaker 1: or two chosen celebrities or people who have really sympathetic stories,
Speaker 1: I worry that those people are selected basically just to
Speaker 1: help them control the air, so that you talk about
Speaker 1: your Wally Funk, but you don't talk about who is
Speaker 1: in the seat next to her, Jeff Bezos and the
Speaker 1: climate impacts of his empire, where it's like, look over here,
Speaker 1: look at this person who really deserves to go to space,
Speaker 1: and it's really cool to go into space, But don't
Speaker 1: look over here at like the whole larger thing about
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's plans for putting people on Mars and starting
Speaker 1: a city there, Like you don't need a crystal ball
Speaker 1: to know how he's going to treat laborers in his
Speaker 1: Martian city. Just look at how workers in his Earth
Speaker 1: companies get treated and that to me is a huge
Speaker 1: red flag that we're not going in the right direction
Speaker 1: here and it's time for a course correction. To use
Speaker 1: an astronautical term, I.
Speaker 3: Think this is such a great point, and we already
Speaker 3: see similar red flags happening with meta the Facebook world,
Speaker 3: where people are going to be living kind of in
Speaker 3: virtual reality. When that was announced, very rich people started
Speaker 3: buying up a lot of meta land in the Metaverse,
Speaker 3: which could have ripple effects later on when other people
Speaker 3: want to engage with the metaverse and now they have
Speaker 3: to purchase land from someone else who can determine the
Speaker 3: price of it.
Speaker 2: And when we're thinking about people with this much money
Speaker 2: and power that they are in the position to put
Speaker 2: a city on Mars, I don't think osha, And you
Speaker 2: know the labor laws here are gonna apply there, and
Speaker 2: quite frankly, I feel like Martians could be about about it.
Speaker 2: So are there any regulations for taking up space in space? Ah?
Speaker 2: You know, we might be.
Speaker 3: Marsians wanted to smoke action.
Speaker 2: Yeah we're weak, but the Martians might have something else
Speaker 2: up to sleeve. They don't even have sleeves.
Speaker 3: Every alien movie proves that the aliens are smarter and
Speaker 3: stronger and oftentimes way bigger than us. We don't stand
Speaker 3: a chance. We don't good luck in Gotham City. On Mars.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be underground. We're not gonna get no sun.
Speaker 3: Doctor Bim says. The issue of taking up space in
Speaker 3: space is something we need to be thinking about.
Speaker 1: That's going to be a huge issue. It already is
Speaker 1: when it comes to the topic of space junk. There's
Speaker 1: a huge amount of space around the Earth, but we're
Speaker 1: taking it up, and there's tens of thousands of things
Speaker 1: up there now, and eventually we're going to reach a limit.
Speaker 1: And there's this theoretical concept called the Kessler syndrome where
Speaker 1: if things get so dense, one collision can start, three
Speaker 1: collisions can start, nine collisions. Then it's just like exponential disaster.
Speaker 1: That was the concept behind the movie Gravity. It's a
Speaker 1: real problem that we have to contend with of how
Speaker 1: to protect the environment of low Earth orbit. It is
Speaker 1: an environment. You know, the environment does not end at
Speaker 1: the top of the atmosphere.
Speaker 3: We just saw an article about space junk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, stuff is falling from the sky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And typically when stuff falls from space, it falls
Speaker 3: into the ocean, so we don't care. But we just
Speaker 3: saw an article where it actually fell into a sheep farm,
Speaker 3: So now it's getting a little bit too close for comfort. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we have to start thinking about this because as we
Speaker 3: start taking more opportunities to go to space and people
Speaker 3: are thinking about doing more space flights, that means more
Speaker 3: space junk.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's basically going to be like National
Speaker 2: Parks when they're telling people to pick up their trash,
Speaker 2: pack up whatever you brought in.
Speaker 3: Leave no trace in space.
Speaker 2: Right there you go. That's the slogan, reach out to
Speaker 2: TT for more space slogans.
Speaker 3: I'll put it on a T shirt. Yeah, I'll put
Speaker 3: it on a T shirt.
Speaker 1: The environment does not end at the top of the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: but there is no FAA for space yet that is
Speaker 1: going to regulate the creation of a space hotel. And
Speaker 1: then you run into like all of these legal issues,
Speaker 1: like which countries laws govern that space hotel.
Speaker 3: Commercial space flight companies are subject to the Federal Aviation
Speaker 3: Administration or the FAA their regulations because they pass through
Speaker 3: the atmosphere on the way up to space and back
Speaker 3: down the Earth. And doctor Bim says there's been friction
Speaker 3: between space companies and the FAA, and that space travel
Speaker 3: is starting to go beyond the scope of the existing laws.
Speaker 1: That can be problematic because then it just becomes sort
Speaker 1: of like a first mover's game. Who has the money
Speaker 1: in the power to do something, especially if doing it
Speaker 1: in space. It's hard to enforce stuff like that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to say, you know, you can't do that. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, stop me, you know is what maybe Elon
Speaker 1: Musk would say to doing something on Mars, and like,
Speaker 1: morally I would be like, yes, stop him, But practically
Speaker 1: how do you do it? I worry though, that it
Speaker 1: is an actor's game and that the laws will struggle
Speaker 1: to keep up.
Speaker 2: This is giving strong callbacks to colonialism. This feels like
Speaker 2: the Europeans going to the Americas. You know, we got
Speaker 2: to ask some questions, did we learn anything from that?
Speaker 2: Should we even be trying to go into space? Should
Speaker 2: we just you know, stay in our orbit, into the
Speaker 2: rivers and lakes that we're used to. I think there
Speaker 2: are so many frameworks for thinking about this.
Speaker 3: Some people might be tempted to say, since there's no
Speaker 3: one living in space currently, we can't be colonizers or
Speaker 3: repeat the violence of European colonization, but doctor Bim says
Speaker 3: that's not true.
Speaker 1: We absolutely can I push back forcefully on that. And
Speaker 1: the ways that we do that are, first, you can
Speaker 1: enact colonial relationships on Earth to get you to space.
Speaker 1: And you see that in different things like who are
Speaker 1: medical test subjects for space medicine? Where are spaceports located
Speaker 1: in the world. Do the locations of the spaceports benefit
Speaker 1: the people who live around them? Do they have a
Speaker 1: say in whether that spaceport gets there? And then the
Speaker 1: second way that we can recreate the mistakes the past
Speaker 1: is we can speak about space with a colonial rhetoric
Speaker 1: without being critical of it. So talking about colonization, talking
Speaker 1: about terraforming, this idea that we can just like go
Speaker 1: to a planet and like take it over and make
Speaker 1: it for us, that is an assumption that we got
Speaker 1: to back up a number of steps and think about
Speaker 1: whether or not that's the right way to think about
Speaker 1: doing that, because a lot of times we're just skipping
Speaker 1: right ahead to like, that's what we're doing.
Speaker 3: I don't think most people are considering what doctor Bim
Speaker 3: just said when they're saying, oh, let's live on the
Speaker 3: moon or let's live on Mars. But that is absolutely
Speaker 3: a colonial mentality of people like they can leave where
Speaker 3: they are and inhabit another place just.
Speaker 2: Because, just because they want to. Yeah, we're seeing this
Speaker 2: all over. We especially saw it with remote workers. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I saw folks just packing up and saying, now I'm
Speaker 2: going to this other country because the cost of living
Speaker 2: is lower. But you're not thinking about any of the
Speaker 2: systems that are already in place, who you're displacing, how
Speaker 2: you're exploiting folks, none of that.
Speaker 3: Right there resources that they have available, And we're gonna
Speaker 3: be talking a lot more about this in an upcoming
Speaker 3: episode on eco tourism, So we're gonna step off our
Speaker 3: soapbox really quickly on that and make sure you tune
Speaker 3: into that episode.
Speaker 2: Yes, but to bring it back to space we saw
Speaker 2: SpaceX recently building a rocket factory in South Texas and
Speaker 2: it affected the shore birds and other wildlife in that area.
Speaker 2: And then they had an explosion and it spread debris
Speaker 2: for five miles, including onto like a wildlife refuge.
Speaker 3: Right, We've talked about this in past episodes. None of
Speaker 3: these things is this in isolation. Once you start affecting
Speaker 3: other species, the circle of life is real. It's not
Speaker 3: going to just be Oh, it's just this five miles,
Speaker 3: no big deal. The ripple effects from these types of interactions,
Speaker 3: these negative interactions with our environment, We're going to feel it.
Speaker 2: And while there's a lot of negatives to consider and
Speaker 2: things we have to watch out for, there are also
Speaker 2: a ton of positives and potentials too.
Speaker 1: I think there's a huge potential for space to be
Speaker 1: for good if we keep it for science and exploration,
Speaker 1: not to exploit resources, not to exploit other human beings.
Speaker 1: But if we go there humbly seeking knowledge, then that
Speaker 1: can be really, really exciting. And I think probably the
Speaker 1: most exciting aspect of it is the big question are
Speaker 1: we alone in the universe? What is our place in
Speaker 1: the cosmos? And we are close to answering that question.
Speaker 1: You know, we have been looking at Mars for the
Speaker 1: last forty years or so as potentially the best place
Speaker 1: in the Solar System to perhaps find life. We have
Speaker 1: not found it in our many flybys and orbits and
Speaker 1: rovers on the surface, but there are new emerging sites
Speaker 1: of astrobiological interest in our Solar system. And I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the icy ocean world, moons of Jupiter and Saturn,
Speaker 1: places like Europa and Enceladus, where underneath their thick icy
Speaker 1: crust there could be a vibrant ocean filled with all
Speaker 1: kinds of alien life that would just be fascinating to
Speaker 1: see and explore in an ethical way. We can't just
Speaker 1: go and take them and capture them. Can't do that,
Speaker 1: but there are ways I think that we could, maybe
Speaker 1: without being too invasive, visit them and see who's there.
Speaker 3: This is a really great point, and I think that
Speaker 3: there is a tiny bit of hope that we might
Speaker 3: be able to explore space in an ethical way. There
Speaker 3: is a United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, so
Speaker 3: they operate similar to the United Nations that we know,
Speaker 3: where they convene a lot of space experts and they
Speaker 3: are able to make decisions about space issues and how
Speaker 3: we should be interacting with space on an international level. Also,
Speaker 3: just like the United Nations, the United Nations Office for
Speaker 3: Outer Space Affairs, they have a very limited enforcement capacity,
Speaker 3: so if folks are in violation, there may not be
Speaker 3: much that they can do. But there is something called
Speaker 3: the National Space Council, which you know has been around
Speaker 3: for a long time, I think since nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 3: and it's chaired by Kamala Harris, our vice president, and
Speaker 3: on September ninth, they're meeting to discuss a new rules
Speaker 3: framework for commercial space, so that's including a potential partnership
Speaker 3: between regulatory agencies and the private sector.
Speaker 2: You know, this makes me think about the most exciting
Speaker 2: recent news about the James web Telescope.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh my gosh. The images that came out from
Speaker 3: the telescope were breathtaking, honestly, and I think it got
Speaker 3: a lot of people's minds moving about. Wow, this universe
Speaker 3: is so vast, and when you think about how far
Speaker 3: away those images were taken from, it's just I can't
Speaker 3: think about it too much because, you know me, if
Speaker 3: I start thinking about how big the universe is, I
Speaker 3: start to feel like I am being crushed by the universe.
Speaker 2: I mean, low key, who don't know.
Speaker 3: I can't think about it.
Speaker 2: It's a lot out there, friend, It's a lot to
Speaker 2: feel crushed by. That's all I'll say. I think the
Speaker 2: most exciting news for me from the James Webb telescope
Speaker 2: was about the presence of water on an exoplanet, Like
Speaker 2: they saw the potential because they saw what looked like
Speaker 2: evidence of clouds, water, vapor, and hazes. And that's not
Speaker 2: the only thing.
Speaker 3: There's a team that was led by the University of
Speaker 3: Montreal and they used observations from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey satellite.
Speaker 3: We'll call it Test for short, to discover an Earth
Speaker 3: like exoplanet that could potentially support life.
Speaker 2: Hey, one exoplanet door opens, we'll say another one closes,
Speaker 2: but it seems like another one.
Speaker 3: Opens, another opens, perpetual doors, door after door after door.
Speaker 2: It's the Russian doll of planet.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's that kind of thing that is going to
Speaker 1: yield what we call a biosignature, which is not discovering
Speaker 1: life itself, but discovering a sign that we know is
Speaker 1: associated with biological processes. As a planetary level.
Speaker 2: I feel like, you know, that gets us one step
Speaker 2: closer for all space kind to lead communication.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's always really interesting to wonder what
Speaker 1: is possible with space. And I am always skeptical of
Speaker 1: anybody who says that space is our destiny or certain
Speaker 1: engagements or uses of space are like preordained. Space is
Speaker 1: a series of choices and it's always open for us.
Speaker 1: Space is not a utopian, transformative place. Space is a
Speaker 1: place where all of our earthly problems are reproduced or
Speaker 1: even amplified, And we got to remember that. We can't
Speaker 1: think of it as a separate realm. It's an extension
Speaker 1: of us and our values.
Speaker 3: It's really exciting, and it's a really exciting time to
Speaker 3: be aware of what's going on and being to keep
Speaker 3: track of it and seeing how far we've come. I mean,
Speaker 3: we're talking about less than one hundred years that we've
Speaker 3: been going to space, and now we have these really
Speaker 3: amazing images. We know so much more. We've done a lot.
Speaker 3: We've done a lot in a short amount of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think if I were to give us a grade,
Speaker 2: we started out the first few semesters looking rough a
Speaker 2: lot of military, a lot of the wrong ideas. But
Speaker 2: I think, you know, at our midterms we kind of
Speaker 2: turned it around. Only time will tell if we will
Speaker 2: get an a moving forward.
Speaker 3: Only time will sounds like my undergrad career turned off.
Speaker 2: And look at you down getting paper all right, TC,
Speaker 2: you ready for one thing?
Speaker 3: I sure, am, what's your one thing? Ze?
Speaker 2: My one thing this week is you know I said
Speaker 2: I was interested in space, in learning about it, but
Speaker 2: I think we should all ways take lessons from the
Speaker 2: past and now this is fiction, but I think we
Speaker 2: need to just make sure we're looking at it and
Speaker 2: considering the lessons. There was a new movie called Pray
Speaker 2: that just came out and it's kind of playing on
Speaker 2: the Predator series of films. Pray is on Hulu and
Speaker 2: I watched it and I loved it. So that's my
Speaker 2: one thing, and I hope other folks are into it too.
Speaker 2: If you're a science fiction person, I want to hear
Speaker 2: from you. I want to know if you like Prey
Speaker 2: or if you didn't like it, and if you didn't
Speaker 2: like it, what else do you recommend? What's your one thing?
Speaker 3: Tt My one thing this week is Serena Williams. So
Speaker 3: when this episode comes out, it'll be a few weeks
Speaker 3: post but she announced her retirement and I think it's
Speaker 3: so exciting because I love when super athletes get the
Speaker 3: opportunity to explore other sides of themselves. And I mean,
Speaker 3: she's really into fashion. She had her own fashion line.
Speaker 3: So my one thing this week is Serena Williams and
Speaker 3: cheers in to her success as one of the greatest
Speaker 3: athletes of all time, if not the greatest athlete of
Speaker 3: all time and seeing what else she has to give
Speaker 3: the world. I'm so excited.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's it for Lab seventy seven. How are you feeling?
Speaker 2: Are you ready to go to space? Are you thinking
Speaker 2: we should reconsider and read some more literature on the subject.
Speaker 2: Call us at two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 2: zero two eight and tell us what you thought, or
Speaker 2: you could give us an idea for a lab you
Speaker 2: think we should do the semester. That's two zero two
Speaker 2: five six seven seven zero two eight.
Speaker 3: And don't forget that there is so much more to
Speaker 3: dig into on our website. There'll be a cheat keep
Speaker 3: for today's lab, additional links and resources in the show notes.
Speaker 3: Plus you can sign up for our newsletter check it
Speaker 3: out at Dope labspodcast dot com. Special thanks to today's
Speaker 3: guest expert, doctor Jordan Beim.
Speaker 2: You can find Jordan on Twitter at Jordan.
Speaker 3: And you can find us on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 3: Dope Labs Podcast.
Speaker 2: TT's on Twitter and Instagram at d R Underscore t Sho.
Speaker 3: And you can find Zakia at z Said So with.
Speaker 3: Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from Mega owned
Speaker 3: Media Group.
Speaker 2: Our producers are Jenny Rattlet Mask and Lydia Smith of
Speaker 2: WaveRunner Studios.
Speaker 3: Editing in sound design by Rob Smerciak.
Speaker 2: Mixing by Hannes Brown.
Speaker 3: Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex
Speaker 3: Sugier from Spotify. Creative producer Miguel Contraras.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Shirley Ramos, Jess Borrison, Till krat Key,
Speaker 2: and Brian Marquis. Executive producers from Mega Own Media Group
Speaker 2: are us T T Show, Dia and Zakiah Wattley