Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says the stars
Speaker 1: look very different today. I'm Jonathan Strickland, Laura, and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick Melancholy again. It's a two First. I told
Speaker 1: you in the last episode that was a bitter sweet.
Speaker 1: That was tribute, right, tribute. Yeah. Actually, now I feel
Speaker 1: like I need to like find some good Alan Rickman quotes,
Speaker 1: it's been a rough week. Wizards and Goblins. Man, Wizards
Speaker 1: and Goblins, got my slitherin sweater here though, So everything's
Speaker 1: doing okay. Yeah. So while we are mourning, we're grieving,
Speaker 1: we're also celebrating because one, we're celebrating great art that
Speaker 1: was left behind as artists themselves have passed away. But
Speaker 1: we're also celebrating because we're in an era of amazing
Speaker 1: technological and science development and we're witnessing it right now.
Speaker 1: Like we are in a time that is phenomenal for
Speaker 1: multiple reasons, and just one of those is that recently
Speaker 1: we've seen a couple of really cool demonstrations of a
Speaker 1: technology that we've been waiting for for a while. Uh,
Speaker 1: the idea of reusable rockets, rockets that can launch up,
Speaker 1: go into space, returned to Earth and land safely so
Speaker 1: that they could be used again after being refurbished. And
Speaker 1: this is a big deal and we'll talk about why
Speaker 1: in this episode. Yea. So, so the two examples that
Speaker 1: we've seen are are Blue Origin, which was the company company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Blue Origins the company, and that was that's backed by
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos of Amazon. Uh, and their rocket New Shepherd,
Speaker 1: which was the first one in late I think it
Speaker 1: was November, launched up, went to the edge of space.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that in a little bit, and then
Speaker 1: returned to Earth and landed safely using thrusters to maneuver
Speaker 1: at self and land upright. And then uh, SpaceX would
Speaker 1: be the other one, and they launched a Falcon nine
Speaker 1: which actually delivered a payload into lower Earth ormit because
Speaker 1: SpaceX does that. Yeah. Yeah, it was a payload that
Speaker 1: had some satellites in it. So now I should mention
Speaker 1: that the Falcon nine, it was the first stage that
Speaker 1: returned to The Falcon nine is a two stage rocket.
Speaker 1: We'll talk more about that a little bit later too.
Speaker 1: But in both cases, this is really impressive display of
Speaker 1: technological and engineering expertise. Now, if you're sitting there thinking,
Speaker 1: wait a second, what's so great about that? I thought
Speaker 1: all the spacecraft we sent to space typically returned. Isn't
Speaker 1: that sort of the point? If they if they're especially
Speaker 1: for crude space missions, don't they come back? Here you
Speaker 1: need to understand the distinction between the spacecraft or the capsule,
Speaker 1: for true, and the rocket. That's true. I'm being very
Speaker 1: loose with the terminology, but yes, the rocket, the vehicle
Speaker 1: that delivers the spacecraft up into space, is what we're
Speaker 1: really talking about here. And the situation with rockets today,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it seems kind of wasteful. It's like
Speaker 1: if you decided, hey, I'm gonna cook dinner, and in
Speaker 1: the process of doing so, you destroyed every piece of
Speaker 1: equipment in your kitchen that you used to make dinner with,
Speaker 1: like the whole kitchen. Basically, like you just at the
Speaker 1: end of when by the time it's done, your stove
Speaker 1: is gone, your fridges, pots and pans in the trash,
Speaker 1: Your you know, knife, you're going in the trash. You're ruined.
Speaker 1: The example I gave is imagine that you are going
Speaker 1: to go on a family road trip and you buy
Speaker 1: a brand new car, and then you go out to
Speaker 1: Wally World, and then you just leave the car there
Speaker 1: and you uber it back home, and your car you
Speaker 1: never get to touch that car again. That car is gone.
Speaker 1: So every time you take a road trip you have
Speaker 1: to buy a new car. That sounds expensive. You can
Speaker 1: get up there. I mean, you know, it depends on
Speaker 1: your taste of vehicle. I being a luxurious type. It's
Speaker 1: it starts to rack up after eight or nine trips. Sure,
Speaker 1: And as you can imagine, launching things into space is
Speaker 1: even as cheap as going to Wally World. No, it's
Speaker 1: actually a tad more expensive. Uh yeah, So we wanted
Speaker 1: to talk today about the concept of reusable rockets. Why
Speaker 1: is that a big deal? And to really understand that.
Speaker 1: I thought it'd be kind of interesting because that's the
Speaker 1: way I think, to have a rundown on the basic
Speaker 1: physics of rocketry, so we can understand what is going
Speaker 1: on when we're sending a rocket up into space. This
Speaker 1: is particularly important because New Shepherd and Falcon nine are
Speaker 1: two very different approaches right. One thing you should keep
Speaker 1: in mind, of course, is where those two names come from.
Speaker 1: New Shepherd named after Alan Shepherd, the first American to
Speaker 1: make it into space. Falcon nine named after Star Wars
Speaker 1: the Millennium Fall. So, uh, those two are are quite different.
Speaker 1: And it's also a really good look into the minds
Speaker 1: of Elon Musk and Jeff Basis. Yeah, I would, I
Speaker 1: would agree with that, but this this is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit about how those two are
Speaker 1: very different as we move along. So rockets work because
Speaker 1: of fundamental law of our universe actually collection of laws
Speaker 1: of our universe that we understand it. Yeah, if they
Speaker 1: weren't true, we wouldn't be sending stuff into space, right,
Speaker 1: And uh, those laws were first explained in a book
Speaker 1: called the Philosophia Naturalists Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton, Sir,
Speaker 1: pardon me, sir Isaac Newton. And in that work Newton
Speaker 1: framed his observations of physics and frame them in the
Speaker 1: form of basic laws of motion. And there are three
Speaker 1: basic laws that we have to really look at. And
Speaker 1: the first is that objects at rest remain at rest
Speaker 1: and objects in motion remain in motion, moving in a
Speaker 1: straight line at a steady speed unless acted upon by
Speaker 1: an unbalanced force. Meaning an outside force of some sort. Right,
Speaker 1: So a ball only stops rolling along the ground because
Speaker 1: of friction. It doesn't stop rolling because things naturally slow
Speaker 1: down over time, Right, it would just continue for infinity
Speaker 1: if in fact that friction wasn't present, or or if
Speaker 1: it ran into something else in the change direction, obviously
Speaker 1: that would be difference, or maybe went through a gravitational
Speaker 1: field that caused some attraction. Yeah, but again, so when
Speaker 1: it encounters an unbalanced force, given no unbalanced forces, given
Speaker 1: only balanced forces. Yes. Also, we we wanted to note
Speaker 1: a thing about the terms rest and motion. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: relative terms, so it all depends upon your point of reference. Right,
Speaker 1: So some of it can be a little counterintuitive. If I'm,
Speaker 1: for example, sitting on a train and the train is moving,
Speaker 1: Am I at rest or my in motion? Well, we
Speaker 1: would describe me as being at rest because compared to
Speaker 1: my surroundings, I eat the train, the physical train that's
Speaker 1: around me, I'm not moving. I'm sitting down, I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in a seat. Now, if I were to get up
Speaker 1: and walk in that train, then I would be in
Speaker 1: motion because according to my surroundings the train I am
Speaker 1: moving around compared to that the train itself is in
Speaker 1: motion because it's moving relative to the surroundings the countryside
Speaker 1: or tunnel or whatever the heck, the train happens to
Speaker 1: be going around, so it's all relative. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: important to remember. Unbalanced force is referencing the sum, total
Speaker 1: or net force exerted on an object. So I used
Speaker 1: a sandwich on a table because I wrote this note
Speaker 1: shortly before lunch and I was dreaming of sandwiches. Hungry
Speaker 1: notes are sandwich notes, Yes, So a sandwich on a
Speaker 1: table is an example of an object under balanced force
Speaker 1: because gravity is pulling down on that sandwich, but the
Speaker 1: table is giving equal force upward, keeping the sandwich on
Speaker 1: the table. It's not pushing too hard because we're pushing
Speaker 1: harder than the sandwich would jump off the table. Right.
Speaker 1: This is a really great analygy to be an amazing
Speaker 1: table would be an amazing table, but it's not happening.
Speaker 1: It's just it's exactly a balanced force. Now, if you
Speaker 1: can buy this table from you, this is a metaphorical table,
Speaker 1: So the answer is yes, I will sell it. Uh,
Speaker 1: But if you were the table, I am interested in
Speaker 1: your sandwich table, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Speaker 1: If you were to pick up the sandwich, you would
Speaker 1: introduce unbalanced force because you would be actually counteracting gravity. Further,
Speaker 1: you would have to use enough force to counteract the
Speaker 1: poll of gravity to lift the sandwich higher than its
Speaker 1: current height on the table. So what we're really talking
Speaker 1: about here is is two different scenarios in which forces
Speaker 1: can be balanced. Yes. Yeah, So if an object does
Speaker 1: at rest, the forces on it are balanced, and that's
Speaker 1: that's without question, right, If an objects at rest, by definition,
Speaker 1: the forces are balanced. If an object is moving, then
Speaker 1: it could still have balanced forces. If it's moving in
Speaker 1: a straight line and it's moving at a constant speed.
Speaker 1: If it's speed changes or its direction changes, that's a
Speaker 1: change and acceleration that is indicative of an unbalanced force
Speaker 1: being applied to this object. So that's covering just the
Speaker 1: first law of motion. The other two are pretty easy
Speaker 1: to remember. Second law of motion states that force is
Speaker 1: equal to mass times acceleration. Keeping mind, acceleration is not
Speaker 1: just speed like I said, it's it's a change in
Speaker 1: speed or direction because it's a vector quantity. And then
Speaker 1: you have the third law, which is for every action
Speaker 1: there is an equal and opposite reaction, And that's really
Speaker 1: the rocket law right there. Yeah, all three of these
Speaker 1: are are applicable. But yeah, but but the rocket would
Speaker 1: not go anywhere if it weren't for the fact of
Speaker 1: that third. That's the key to the propellant idea of
Speaker 1: rocket tree. So when we look at rockets, a rocket
Speaker 1: at rest is going to require a certain amount of
Speaker 1: unbalanced force for it to lift off of a launchpad.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got this big, massive, heavy thing sitting
Speaker 1: on a un a really big sandwich. Yeah, an enormous
Speaker 1: sandwich sitting on a really big tape. Because the moon
Speaker 1: looks very hungry, yes, and shouldn't we treat it once
Speaker 1: in a while. So this unbalanced force has to be
Speaker 1: greater than the forces pulling it downwards. So it has
Speaker 1: to be greater than gravity. And uh so with rockets
Speaker 1: we call that unbalanced for something specific, we call it thrust.
Speaker 1: So a rocket has to have enough thrust to lift
Speaker 1: off of the launch pad. If it doesn't, then it's
Speaker 1: not going to go anywhere. Even if you're shooting flames
Speaker 1: out the back of this rocket. If it's not enough thrust,
Speaker 1: it will just be a flamethrower firing at the launchpad.
Speaker 1: And gravity isn't the only thing that's that's in play
Speaker 1: here exactly. There are a couple of other things to
Speaker 1: keep in mind. So there's a drag, which actually is
Speaker 1: you know, sort of air resistance. Really yeah, yeah, because
Speaker 1: as we have said many times before, the air around
Speaker 1: us is not open and clear. It's soup particle soup. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If it were otherwise, we'd be in a vacuum and
Speaker 1: that would suck for us. We wouldn't exactly like a hoover.
Speaker 1: It would suck for us. I wish you could see
Speaker 1: the little laugh that Laura. What was great was Laura
Speaker 1: half laughter that almost came out. There was the moment
Speaker 1: where where she wasn't sure where I was going, and
Speaker 1: then there was the moment where she's like, on, man,
Speaker 1: I think I probably make around to you a lot.
Speaker 1: It's you're not the only person I inspire that. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, so as long as a rocket is
Speaker 1: within Earth's atmosphere, it has to deal with the drag, right,
Speaker 1: It's gonna deal with this air resistance, which is part
Speaker 1: of something that like, when we think of air resistance,
Speaker 1: you're probably thinking, well, that's got to be minor compared
Speaker 1: to gravity. I'm not saying it's more powerful than gravity,
Speaker 1: but it's something that as a rocket scientist you have
Speaker 1: to take into account. Otherwise you might not be developing
Speaker 1: a rocket engine that provides enough thrust to escape Earth's gravity. Actually,
Speaker 1: to escape ears gravity entirely, I mean not just going
Speaker 1: into orbit, but to actually leave Earth's gravity, you need
Speaker 1: to be going at a speed greater than eleven point
Speaker 1: one eight six kilometers per second or six point nine
Speaker 1: five miles per second. Wait, that's really fast, super fast
Speaker 1: for seventy kilometers per hour or thousand twenty three miles
Speaker 1: per hour. I know that's true, but you don't think
Speaker 1: about that when you watch a rocket take off because
Speaker 1: it just doesn't look like it's going that fact, well,
Speaker 1: at the point where it's leaving the ground, it's not
Speaker 1: going that fast exactly constantly accelerating. And then, of course,
Speaker 1: once you get outside the air atmosphere, you're no longer
Speaker 1: dealing with the drag. And also the further out you go,
Speaker 1: the less you have to worry about gravity. And the
Speaker 1: mass of the rocket itself is changing, right, because you've
Speaker 1: got the mass of all the fuel inside the rocket.
Speaker 1: As you burn that fuel, that mass starts to decrease,
Speaker 1: you need less force to accelerate it, right, because forces
Speaker 1: mass times acceleration um. As the mass goes down, it
Speaker 1: actually is easier to accelerate, right. And that's why multi
Speaker 1: stage rockets are so interesting, because you can jettison part
Speaker 1: of the rocket you had used to get up to
Speaker 1: where you are at that point of that altitude. Right.
Speaker 1: That's what we talked about earlier, like throwing your pots
Speaker 1: and pants in the trash as you're done with them, right,
Speaker 1: and then the second stage you light up, and the
Speaker 1: second stage can then accelerate the smaller mass of the
Speaker 1: rocket plus spacecraft, uh, much easier than it would if
Speaker 1: the first stage were still attached, because then you would
Speaker 1: have more mass to deal with. So that's that's interesting too.
Speaker 1: So the way that this thrust is generated is through
Speaker 1: propellant through burning fuel. Essentially, you're creating very hot, very
Speaker 1: rapidly expanding gas and you're directing it through a nozzle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing we should specifies that it's kind
Speaker 1: of different than when we usually think about burning fuel.
Speaker 1: We we're thinking about like internal combustion engines or something
Speaker 1: like this. A rocket literally works by throwing mass out
Speaker 1: the back. Yeah, it's and that mass is in the
Speaker 1: form of gas, and you would think, oh, gas doesn't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of mass to it. Well, it's true,
Speaker 1: but it's coming out at an incredible rate. Yes, So
Speaker 1: remember forces mass times acceleration. If that gas is coming
Speaker 1: out at an incredible acceleration, then the fact that it's
Speaker 1: small as far as mask goes doesn't matter so much,
Speaker 1: right though, I also think the total escaping mass that
Speaker 1: comes out the back of a rocket is pretty significant,
Speaker 1: even though it's gas over the over the length of
Speaker 1: a launch, definitely, But at any given instant, the amount
Speaker 1: of gas that's escaping that mass is tiny compared to
Speaker 1: the rocket plus spacecraft, right, But the acceleration is so
Speaker 1: great that it's enough to counteract gravity. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: when you watch a launch and you see that kind
Speaker 1: of slow lift off, that's because you've got this huge
Speaker 1: mass undergoing a relatively small amount of acceleration compared to
Speaker 1: the tiny mass of the gas particles undergoing massive acceleration. Now,
Speaker 1: I have another physics question. Has anybody ever done the
Speaker 1: math to figure out how much it changes the position
Speaker 1: shin of the orbit of the Earth every time you
Speaker 1: have a rocket to pitch against the Earth to leave.
Speaker 1: Orbit pushes back, Earth pushes back, So you know, you
Speaker 1: shove Earth, Earth shoves you. Then it goes to your family.
Speaker 1: Another reason to go treat the moon. The moon never
Speaker 1: did nothing to anybody, well werewolves, but other than them.
Speaker 1: So obviously, when you are making your plans to launch
Speaker 1: your rocket, it's not just the mass of the rocket
Speaker 1: and spacecraft you have to take into account. You also
Speaker 1: have to take into account the mass of the fuel
Speaker 1: that you're including, right, So this gets a little more
Speaker 1: complicated because then you think, all right, well I need
Speaker 1: to add enough fuel to get to this particular altitude,
Speaker 1: more fuel to pay for the fuel exactly right. So
Speaker 1: then you know, it's interesting, Joe, because before we went
Speaker 1: into the studio, in fact, a couple of hours ago,
Speaker 1: you had mentioned it's really cool that we live on
Speaker 1: Earth because Earth has properties that allow rocketry to even
Speaker 1: work here. Yeah, we actually got a really good piece
Speaker 1: of listener mail about this one time on Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind, the other podcast that I do with
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and Christian Seger, and this listener wrote in
Speaker 1: to talk to us about about how we're in a
Speaker 1: nice position on Earth that you know, we can build
Speaker 1: rockets that can escape Earth's gravity. But if we lived
Speaker 1: on a planet that had a more difficult to escape gravity, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, what would we do. Yeah, Because if you
Speaker 1: can't find fuel that has the energy density that you
Speaker 1: need and is able to release that gas at an
Speaker 1: acceleration that's going to counteract the effect of gravity on
Speaker 1: your mass. In this case of rocket, you're stuck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: technological civilization that just can't get off the surface of
Speaker 1: the planet, which is entirely possible depending upon the gravity,
Speaker 1: right or not just the gravity, but also which elements
Speaker 1: are commonly available to turn into fuel, although for ygen
Speaker 1: not uncommon. I mean, once you figure out like fusion,
Speaker 1: then probably have a pretty good chance. Fusion is great.
Speaker 1: Fusion is great. Once you get into space to actually
Speaker 1: create lift with thrust, it would be interesting. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's a way to do it. I'm just I guess
Speaker 1: you could probably even do it with steam if you
Speaker 1: really wanted to, like if you wanted to write a
Speaker 1: boiler into space plan Yeah, But fusion I think of
Speaker 1: as more of a way of releasing a controlled amount
Speaker 1: of energy over a long period of time, as opposed
Speaker 1: to that burst that you need in order to escape
Speaker 1: the bonds of Earth or whatever hypothetical plant. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: you could do one of those nuclear explosion reactions you do,
Speaker 1: the use nuclear bombs to propel yourself. You just yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like I've actually read about this, using like three
Speaker 1: or four nuclear explosions to propel an object into space.
Speaker 1: I mean, once you're real done with the planet, then
Speaker 1: why not. I've been stuck here for thousands of years.
Speaker 1: I'm sick of it for them, For them, nuclear real
Speaker 1: asian might be a tasty treat. So at any rate,
Speaker 1: getting back to some of the other things that affect
Speaker 1: rockets taking off, there's also air pressure, so this is
Speaker 1: interesting too. You know, you have to counteract air pressure
Speaker 1: in order to have gas escape from the rocket in
Speaker 1: the first place. Right, If the air pressure were too strong,
Speaker 1: it would be like a cork, so no gas would
Speaker 1: ever escape your rocket. So your rocket has to produce
Speaker 1: more internal pressure than there is air pressure here on Earth.
Speaker 1: Not such a big deal, right, If air pressure were
Speaker 1: that great where a rocket could not generate enough internal
Speaker 1: pressure to escape, we wouldn't be breathing right now. But
Speaker 1: it is a factor that you have to take into
Speaker 1: account when again you're a rocket scientist, it's not completely
Speaker 1: trivial where you can ignore it. Also, rockets have to
Speaker 1: obviously be strong enough to contain that internal pressure. If
Speaker 1: they didn't, they would not be rockets. They would be
Speaker 1: bombs because it would explode. Uh, that would be what
Speaker 1: you would call something that is unable to contain the
Speaker 1: pressure that generates inside of it. Um And until recently
Speaker 1: they were one use affairs. It's kind of like with
Speaker 1: your kitchen example, my car example. The idea that you
Speaker 1: use this thing one time. Other couple of exceptions that
Speaker 1: the one that Lauren will pick up in a second.
Speaker 1: But in general, you'd use it to launch something up
Speaker 1: into space. It would fall back to Earth, usually in
Speaker 1: an ocean. That's what where that's where we wanted to go. Also,
Speaker 1: the oceans cover more of the surface of the plant
Speaker 1: than than land mask does. And you might go out
Speaker 1: and retrieve it, but you probably weren't going to use
Speaker 1: it again, which meant that you had to build a
Speaker 1: whole new one the next time you wanted to put
Speaker 1: something on the space. Yeah, or you would have to
Speaker 1: put a whole lot of work into making that thing reusable. Yeah.
Speaker 1: For For example, for the Space Shuttle, NASA designed components
Speaker 1: that could be retooled and reused the there two solid
Speaker 1: rocket boosters were the parts that got the shuttle off
Speaker 1: the ground and end up some like twenty eight miles
Speaker 1: or KOs And at that point they'd separate and and
Speaker 1: those solid rocket boosters would parachute into the Atlantic. The
Speaker 1: Navy would go out and pick them up, and then
Speaker 1: they could be taken back into the into the lab
Speaker 1: and refurbished for future launches. But it was such an
Speaker 1: intense process because of the solid part of those solid
Speaker 1: rocket boosters that they used solid fuel instead of liquid,
Speaker 1: so huge parts of the rockets had to be completely
Speaker 1: replaced each time. But I mean that was the whole
Speaker 1: idea behind the space shell, right, was that they were
Speaker 1: trying to make as much of it reusable as possible.
Speaker 1: Like that was the whole concept behind that particular era
Speaker 1: of NASA's space exploration was we want, we want, We're
Speaker 1: limited the low Earth orbit, but we can keep using
Speaker 1: this equipment repeatedly. And it had some stages that couldn't
Speaker 1: be reused. Right. The external tank, which was the shuttle's
Speaker 1: main fuel tank, would burn up upon re entry after
Speaker 1: launching the shuttle the rest of the way into low
Speaker 1: Earth orbits. And and that's a good point to make
Speaker 1: because there actually if you want to use a reusable
Speaker 1: rocket to get you not just to the edge of space,
Speaker 1: spit up into orbit around the Earth and then back safely,
Speaker 1: there are a couple things you've got to take into consideration.
Speaker 1: One of them would be making it so that it
Speaker 1: survives re entry into the atmosphere from space. We've got
Speaker 1: it up in orbit. Uh, it's got to be able
Speaker 1: to get back into our gassy soup I talked so
Speaker 1: wonderfully about with that drag. Thing becomes pretty intense without
Speaker 1: burning and breaking apart. And then it's also got to
Speaker 1: survive contact with the surface of the Earth. And so furthermore,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know about any of you guys,
Speaker 1: but every time I dunk my expensive electronics and an ocean,
Speaker 1: they don't work anymore after. So so that's that's another thing,
Speaker 1: Like if you have an ocean splashed down, then you're
Speaker 1: trying to get this thing ready to fly into space.
Speaker 1: And that's why all all those rockets have that one
Speaker 1: sticker that goes from white to black. If it's had
Speaker 1: contact with an ocean um in case you didn't notice
Speaker 1: it as you were fishing it out of the Pacific
Speaker 1: or Atlantic. Yeah, so the reusable rocket idea is very
Speaker 1: attractive and that it can lower costs that you can
Speaker 1: keep you equipment instead of having to rebuild it every
Speaker 1: single time in the case of something like the Falcon nine.
Speaker 1: Obviously it only applies to the first stage of the rocket.
Speaker 1: The second stage, which would push payloads further into space,
Speaker 1: that is not retrievable in that sense. So I think
Speaker 1: I've read that typically the first stage is like the
Speaker 1: most expensive part of the deal. It's definitely the largest
Speaker 1: and has the most fuel on it, so I would
Speaker 1: imagine it would have to be the most expensive. Honestly,
Speaker 1: one of the hard things to do is to put
Speaker 1: a price on a rocket, as it turns out, because
Speaker 1: lots of companies work on them. And I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say that the government is squirrelly about releasing those
Speaker 1: numbers in in specific breakdowns, but they're really hamsterry about it.
Speaker 1: Or well, everybody nobody wants to tell you exactly how
Speaker 1: much money they actually spent to do something. Well, and
Speaker 1: to be again, it's it's complicated because if you look
Speaker 1: at we'll talk about the Saturn five rocket in a second.
Speaker 1: That was what we used to get the Apollo missions
Speaker 1: into days. If you look at the Saturn five rocket,
Speaker 1: three different companies worked on the three different stages of that, rightet.
Speaker 1: That was a three stage rocket, so you had your
Speaker 1: initial stage that would get to launch, and then two
Speaker 1: more stages to actually push the Apollo spacecraft out to
Speaker 1: where it was supposed to go. And a different company
Speaker 1: designed each of those stages. When you talk about that,
Speaker 1: and then you look at it and and ask somebody
Speaker 1: how much does the Saturn five rocket costs? It's understandable
Speaker 1: that the answer is that it's complicated, right, It's not
Speaker 1: just like you don't you go out to the lot
Speaker 1: and say, hey, how much for the Saturn five? Doesn't
Speaker 1: work that way. But at any rate, um it is
Speaker 1: still pretty cool that we've seen a couple of demos
Speaker 1: of this reusable rocket approach. They they actually retain enough
Speaker 1: fuel so that they can use thrusters on the return
Speaker 1: to have a light, relatively light touchdown on a on
Speaker 1: a on a pad landing pad and on a launchpad.
Speaker 1: So both the Falcon nine and UH New Shepherd have
Speaker 1: demonstrated this ability, although they've done it in very different ways.
Speaker 1: It's almost like orders of magnitude difference in a way.
Speaker 1: But they neither of them were using a parachute, right.
Speaker 1: They were actually using thrusters to counteract gravity's pull and
Speaker 1: slow down the descent so that they can have a
Speaker 1: smooth touchdown, just just so we can make it feel
Speaker 1: a little cooler. Can we call them retro rockets? Sure,
Speaker 1: they fired the retro rockets, firing retro rockets and slowed
Speaker 1: the descent so that they could land. Now, one other
Speaker 1: thing I want to point out before I get into
Speaker 1: the differences between all this is also that at the
Speaker 1: time we're recording this, which is on January fourteenth, two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen, very soon we're gonna have another demonstration
Speaker 1: of SpaceX trying to land one of these rockets on
Speaker 1: one of the barges that are floating out in the ocean.
Speaker 1: Like y, I think it's I think it's the seventeenth.
Speaker 1: So by the time this episode goes live, it we
Speaker 1: will know whether or not it worked. But but we
Speaker 1: don't now. Yeah, we don't know now because we can't see.
Speaker 1: So you guys have one up on us. But it
Speaker 1: hasn't worked yet for for the ocean landing. It has
Speaker 1: worked for a landing pad that was on the ground.
Speaker 1: The fingers crossed. Yeah, and okay, so just in case
Speaker 1: you guys are thinking, like, man, this doesn't sound that hard,
Speaker 1: let me lay out another few reasons that I don't
Speaker 1: think that we've covered on why this is really difficult
Speaker 1: to do this whole reasonable rocket thing. Okay, first off,
Speaker 1: and you know, not to bring the party down too much,
Speaker 1: but you know, like it needs to be brought up.
Speaker 1: The failure of the original version of the Space Shuttle
Speaker 1: solid rocket boosters was what caused the destruction of the
Speaker 1: Challenger back and okay that the problems with that original
Speaker 1: design have been really well documented. Concerns about them were
Speaker 1: raised with the NASSA during development, So of course that
Speaker 1: tragedy is taken into consideration by today's engineers when they're
Speaker 1: building reasonable rockets. Just you know, I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: say that whenever you're trying to save a piece of
Speaker 1: equipment for future use, you've got to be so careful
Speaker 1: that you're not doing so by potentially endangering the crew
Speaker 1: and the passengers. Um, it's it's a it's a really
Speaker 1: huge thing to think about. Also, from an engineering perspective,
Speaker 1: when you reuse a rocket, you're basically stopping development of
Speaker 1: that rocket, so you're looking at getting stuck with a
Speaker 1: potentially imperfect model. And this was pointed out by a
Speaker 1: representative of the French Space Agency c n e S
Speaker 1: by the name of Christoph Banal, and he sat back
Speaker 1: in I just thought it was such a pithy little quote.
Speaker 1: If you reuse, you stopped producing, depending on the level
Speaker 1: of reusability, so you end up with a permanent prototype. Um,
Speaker 1: so that's something to think about. And then he he
Speaker 1: also pointed out that the equipment and fuel that you
Speaker 1: need to add to a rocket to get it to
Speaker 1: land safely is a non trivial weight and size issue.
Speaker 1: He estimated that you'd be needing to use at least
Speaker 1: like more fuel at launch than you would with non
Speaker 1: reasonable rockets. So in other words, you'd have to make
Speaker 1: sure that however much more fuel you need doesn't completely
Speaker 1: over than than rebuilding a rocket from scratch. I would argue,
Speaker 1: I see totally where he's coming from, and I agree
Speaker 1: that those concerns are warranted. But if you're talking about
Speaker 1: trying to get to an era where the space industry
Speaker 1: makes financial sense. Clearly, at some point we have to
Speaker 1: look at the ability of using reusable rockets, because otherwise
Speaker 1: it's just gonna be this ridiculously expensive proposition that never
Speaker 1: goes beyond a very very narrow use case. It seems
Speaker 1: like common sense that the reasonable would be the eventual
Speaker 1: way to go. Right. But but yeah, so let's look
Speaker 1: at the two different ways that these two companies are
Speaker 1: trying to get past these problems. Right So, Blue Origin, uh,
Speaker 1: with the New Shepherd rocket it's it's approach was arguably
Speaker 1: not even arguably it was simpler than the Falcon nine
Speaker 1: approach or less ambitious. If you're Ellen, Muski might mention
Speaker 1: something along those lines. Uh must actually tweeted about SATs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I spat might be a
Speaker 1: little too friendly, Yeah, that would I think ribbing is
Speaker 1: is a good way of putting it. But uh So,
Speaker 1: the test vehicle of New Shepherd it was had a
Speaker 1: target altitude of three hundred seven thousand feet, which is
Speaker 1: about ninety three point six kilometers. Now, the goal for
Speaker 1: commercial flights, which is the whole concept behind Blue Origin,
Speaker 1: is uh an altitude that would be just over one kilometers.
Speaker 1: And the reason for that is that internationally, we define
Speaker 1: the boundary of space at one kilometers. When I say we,
Speaker 1: I mean pretty much everyone besides the United States now
Speaker 1: on a scale of one to ten. How arbitrary is that?
Speaker 1: Like a fourteen? Yeah, I mean it's uh, there's a
Speaker 1: specific term for it. But at any rate, the international
Speaker 1: community says one kilometers. United States will say that anyone
Speaker 1: who has flown at an altitude higher than eighty kilometers
Speaker 1: as an astronaut, but does not actually have a specific
Speaker 1: definition for what the edge of space is. So, uh,
Speaker 1: there's this twenty kilometer gap between what the international community
Speaker 1: agrees as an astronaut and what the United States does.
Speaker 1: And uh so what's twenty kilometers between friends? Right? But
Speaker 1: at any rate, Um, that one hundred kilometers, while impressive,
Speaker 1: is not the same as delivering something to low Earth orbit.
Speaker 1: Low Earth orbit begins at about a hundred sixty kilometers.
Speaker 1: So this vehicle goes just beyond half the distance it
Speaker 1: would need to get to a little bit more than
Speaker 1: half the distance it would need to get to low
Speaker 1: Earth orbit. Um, it's actually meant to be kind of
Speaker 1: a passenger vehicle. Like, if you have a decent amount
Speaker 1: of cash to burn, you could get a seat aboard
Speaker 1: a space capsule on top of one of these rockets.
Speaker 1: Do you do you get a discount if you're a
Speaker 1: member of Amazon Prime. That's an excellent question. I've been.
Speaker 1: I've been Amazon Prime members since they first launched it,
Speaker 1: so just week so I think I think I should
Speaker 1: get This should include free space travel, or at least
Speaker 1: at least a significant discount space travel. They'll just be
Speaker 1: like we just dropped the shipping fee Black Friday special.
Speaker 1: So the way it works is that you know, you
Speaker 1: would get aboard this capsule. H. The rocket would launch. Um,
Speaker 1: there would be a separation phase. What I'm sorry, still
Speaker 1: my space travel never arrived? Can you send me another one? Uh?
Speaker 1: So it would launch, the space capsule would separate from
Speaker 1: the rocket at the proper altitude. Space capsule would continue
Speaker 1: to go up a little bit just from momentum from inertia. Uh,
Speaker 1: the rocket would start to descend and would it's almost
Speaker 1: like it's going straight up and straight down there. It's
Speaker 1: not quite like that there is an arc to it,
Speaker 1: Like it's almost like a really narrow parabola that you
Speaker 1: would see but the rockets orientation pretty much remains vertical
Speaker 1: with respect to the ground, so it doesn't tilt. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you aboard the capsule would be able to experience free fall,
Speaker 1: which would feel like weightlessness for several minutes, and then
Speaker 1: you would get a little alerting buzz that says, hey,
Speaker 1: you need to put on your seatbelt now and experience
Speaker 1: around five g s of accelerative forces as you descend
Speaker 1: towards the Earth and land safely through a combination of
Speaker 1: thrusters and parachutes. The New Shepherd rocket uses just those
Speaker 1: retro rockets for landing and it doesn't use a parachute.
Speaker 1: So that's Blue Origins New Shepherd, which I don't want
Speaker 1: to downplay. It is a very impressive achievement. They demonstrated
Speaker 1: it before SpaceX was able to have a successful landing
Speaker 1: of their Falcon nine. And if in fact they want
Speaker 1: to create a vacation experience where people with the right
Speaker 1: amount of money you can actually go up into space,
Speaker 1: this is a really cool way of doing it. But
Speaker 1: if you were elon Musk, what might you tweet at that?
Speaker 1: Would it be something like congratulations? But people need to
Speaker 1: understand the difference between space and orbit. That's pretty much
Speaker 1: why he said. Right, So the Falcon nine, unlike New Shepherd,
Speaker 1: can deliver payloads into lower th orbit. It is a
Speaker 1: two stage rockets, so the first stage gets them, the
Speaker 1: second stage and the the whatever the payload is up
Speaker 1: to the right altitude for separation, and then the second
Speaker 1: stage takes it from there. But the first stage already
Speaker 1: goes significantly higher, like into the lower th orbit range
Speaker 1: than the New Shepherd rocket can. And this is way
Speaker 1: harder to do, right. This is not just like you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have this attitude that well, once you're in space,
Speaker 1: you're in space, right, It's not like that at all.
Speaker 1: Earth's gravity is still a major factor to contend with,
Speaker 1: and you have to have a much higher velocity to escape, right,
Speaker 1: And you also have to your the orientation of your
Speaker 1: rocket changes because you're you're actually trying to when you're
Speaker 1: going into orbit, you're essentially constantly in free fall around
Speaker 1: the Earth. Right, You're traveling forward at a speed that
Speaker 1: is great enough so that as you fall towards the Earth,
Speaker 1: the Earth curves away at a similar rates, so you're
Speaker 1: never going to actually hit the ground, at least assuming
Speaker 1: you don't slow down enough. So that your orbit deteriorates
Speaker 1: and you fall. Also, if you're if you're SpaceX, then
Speaker 1: you're probably trying to do stuff while you're up there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're probably actually delivering payloads like like, and those are
Speaker 1: two space barges, sandwiches on the Moon to probably not
Speaker 1: the Moon, probably stuff aboard the International Space Station, as
Speaker 1: well as satellites. You're delivering all that shrimp cocktail they
Speaker 1: love so much. Yes, yes, we've talked about the shrimp
Speaker 1: cocktail at length in previous Forward Thinking episodes. Uh So,
Speaker 1: when that first stage separates from the second stage and
Speaker 1: whatever the payload is UM, it then starts to descend.
Speaker 1: They use the thrusters so that they can orient the
Speaker 1: rocket properly so it's not just twirling and falling, you know,
Speaker 1: willy nilly as it descends into the Earth's atmosphere. And
Speaker 1: then they have to make sure that they use the
Speaker 1: right amount of force so that it can actually land
Speaker 1: safely on a landing pad. So it is already more
Speaker 1: difficult than the Blue origin approach, which was already really
Speaker 1: hard to do UM. And then add to that the
Speaker 1: fact that they want to do this regularly using autonomous barges.
Speaker 1: Floating on the ocean, which obviously that's gonna be a
Speaker 1: moving platform. That makes it even harder. Drone boat sounds cooler.
Speaker 1: That's not a rowboat. That's something totally different. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I have a question about this whole enterprise. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the question is exactly how much money would a reusable
Speaker 1: rocket save in the long run. Now, I know Elon
Speaker 1: Musk himself has given a prediction, though you know, we
Speaker 1: might want to take it with a grain of salt
Speaker 1: because he himself has a stake in that somewhat yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but his prediction, he's he's famously said that rockets that
Speaker 1: are as reusable as modern airplanes will reduce the cost
Speaker 1: of access to space by a factor of about a
Speaker 1: hundred time. Yeah. Do you think that number is close
Speaker 1: to right if it were as reusable as an airplane? Probably,
Speaker 1: But that's if you take into consideration the fact that
Speaker 1: airplanes can be serviced and ready to go back up
Speaker 1: in the air within within half an hour. I don't
Speaker 1: think we're ever going to get to a point where
Speaker 1: rockets are going to be that reusable. Of course, that
Speaker 1: may not have been what he was trying to get across.
Speaker 1: He might have just been saying like, well that he's
Speaker 1: used that comparison several times. I think is is saying like,
Speaker 1: you know, look at what airplanes can do. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: imagine if you throw your airplane in the garbage every
Speaker 1: time it landed right, And it's an interesting comparison. Again,
Speaker 1: I think with any rocket launch, you're going to have
Speaker 1: a significant just for the sake of safety. You obviously
Speaker 1: have to have a significant amount of time to test
Speaker 1: and refurbish and everything to make sure that the rocket
Speaker 1: is ready to go for another another launch, which adds
Speaker 1: to the cost. Right, It's not just the amount of
Speaker 1: fuel you have to dump into the thing, it's the
Speaker 1: amount of work you have to do to make sure
Speaker 1: that is going to be safe and not danger to
Speaker 1: the payload or to anyone else in the launch area.
Speaker 1: So you're saying, you think all this, all this testing
Speaker 1: is very important. We're not just like glad awesome, we're
Speaker 1: addicted to testing. I would say that in the case
Speaker 1: of rocket science, testing is of some importance. And so
Speaker 1: whether or not that testing would be enough to reduce
Speaker 1: this one hundred times cheaper prediction to you know, fifty times,
Speaker 1: I don't know, But still fifty times would be significant.
Speaker 1: I mean, even if this is a ridiculously high estimate,
Speaker 1: like I would take thirty times, y'all, I would take
Speaker 1: fifteen times, it would be Any improvement would be really impressive,
Speaker 1: especially a magnitude of more than like two. So, but
Speaker 1: trying to actually answer your question of how much money,
Speaker 1: how much physical dollars it would save, as we said before,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to put a price in rocket. Why
Speaker 1: do they have to be physical dollars? Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Talking about space exploration is going to be some kind
Speaker 1: of cat show only enterprise and we can change. Bitcoin
Speaker 1: is the new thing, guys. This is how you use
Speaker 1: up your old pennies, Joe. So, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: answer the question like how much money would be saved,
Speaker 1: it's super tricky because obviously, unless you have the actual
Speaker 1: price tag of a rocket and you can see how
Speaker 1: much it costs from building it from scratch all the
Speaker 1: way to the point of launching it, and then compare
Speaker 1: that to a refurbished rocket that has already been fired
Speaker 1: once and is now going to go again, you can't
Speaker 1: easily answer that question obviously. But if we want to
Speaker 1: look historically and again, this is kind of comparing apples
Speaker 1: to oranges. We can look at the center in five rocket,
Speaker 1: like I mentioned before, that's what NASA used to get
Speaker 1: the Apollo missions up into space, and those costs at
Speaker 1: the time around four million dollars per launch. That's in
Speaker 1: the late sixties, early seventies. If you adjust for inflation,
Speaker 1: that's more than three billion dollars per launch. Now that's
Speaker 1: not just for the cost of the rocket and the fuel,
Speaker 1: that's all the costs associated with launching. But still three
Speaker 1: billion dollars. So I thought, well, let me check and
Speaker 1: see what SpaceX how much that would cost? Uh? And
Speaker 1: I looked on SpaceX's website, which actually has the amount
Speaker 1: of money it costs to launch a Falcon nine rocket
Speaker 1: according to two thousand sixteen numbers, and according to that
Speaker 1: it's sixty one point two million dollars. So three billion
Speaker 1: to sixty one point two million. Already we've seen a
Speaker 1: dramatic drop in the in the in the cost. Right,
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty good. That's not bad. Now. Arguably, we
Speaker 1: could also add the fact that we've got decades of
Speaker 1: research and development between the sixties and today. We have
Speaker 1: things like computers. Yes, we're not using slide rules to
Speaker 1: make the calculations. So yeah, just the decreasing cost of
Speaker 1: computing power is gonna be a huge part of enormous stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh and I love the fact that that SpaceX calls
Speaker 1: it their standard payment plan for the sixty million dollars
Speaker 1: per launch. So if they're able to actually make a reliable,
Speaker 1: reusable rocket, that cost the sixty one point two million
Speaker 1: might actually go down significantly, at which point you might
Speaker 1: have other companies that would be interested in launching scientific
Speaker 1: research equipment or commercial equipment out into space. It might
Speaker 1: fall within the realm of possibility now, because for some
Speaker 1: companies they might say, well, we have this great idea,
Speaker 1: but there's no no point in even developing it because
Speaker 1: we have no way of actually executing this. But this
Speaker 1: could open a lot of doors as well as usher
Speaker 1: in a new era of space exploration, manned missions or
Speaker 1: peopled missions. I guess I should say, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we we we like it when people are able to
Speaker 1: do science. Yeah, it's it's pretty pretty psyched about it.
Speaker 1: It's also nice to see something that could reverse the
Speaker 1: trend of space missions getting so expensive that governments are
Speaker 1: loath to fund them, right especially if there's not some
Speaker 1: other outside force that is acting upon our interests. For example,
Speaker 1: I say that because the Space Race was largely funded
Speaker 1: because it was part of the Cold War between the
Speaker 1: United States and the then Soviet Union. Arm wrestling, military
Speaker 1: related kind of kind of thing, and we benefited from
Speaker 1: all of that scientific exploration and discovery, But ultimately what
Speaker 1: was funding it was something akin to fear and aggression,
Speaker 1: which I would rather we not have to have. But
Speaker 1: but sometimes when you're talking to the person who signs
Speaker 1: the checks, you've got to have that other really compelling reason.
Speaker 1: But are you saying now that the the analogy to
Speaker 1: the Cold War could be like billionaire ego feuds could
Speaker 1: be that, or it could also just be it also
Speaker 1: could just be that, well, now the price has fallen
Speaker 1: to a point where it's easier for the people who
Speaker 1: fund things to see that there could be a return
Speaker 1: on that investment. You know. The thing that we talked
Speaker 1: about and forward thinking all the time is that pure
Speaker 1: research is of value all by itself because you never
Speaker 1: know what else you're going to learn or or benefit
Speaker 1: from down the line as a part of that pure research.
Speaker 1: But that's a hard sell for the people who actually
Speaker 1: signed the checks, if they're not a scientist, if they
Speaker 1: don't have that appreciation. Uh. And by lowering the cost,
Speaker 1: it may make it easier to convince the powers that
Speaker 1: be to actually fund the various missions that could lead
Speaker 1: to phenomenal discoveries down the road, things that we can't
Speaker 1: even anticipate right now. Um. So I'm excited by this era.
Speaker 1: I really hope that it continues to develop over time.
Speaker 1: I really hope that the SpaceX demonstration was successful, which
Speaker 1: we will know by the time this episode goes live.
Speaker 1: And uh, I hope that we see even more competition
Speaker 1: in the space because that drives innovation. If you can't
Speaker 1: get competition through you know, various nations warring with one another,
Speaker 1: companies trying to one up each other, I'll take that, sure.
Speaker 1: And I guess that kind of comes akin to your
Speaker 1: billionaires all getting into a fight with one another and
Speaker 1: just through space exploration. All right, that's fine. I don't
Speaker 1: mind if we benefit from it, sure better than I
Speaker 1: bought a bigger boat. I don't think that's nearly as
Speaker 1: beneficial to humanity. So just wait till we introduce James
Speaker 1: Cameron into this feud. Yeah, well, I mean, we'll have
Speaker 1: to get them out of the ocean first, right. Once
Speaker 1: we get them out of the ocean, then maybe we
Speaker 1: can point them towards space. But at any rate, this
Speaker 1: was fun to talk about. We're so excited to be back.
Speaker 1: And guys, if you have any suggestions for future topics
Speaker 1: for forward thinking, or you got any comments or questions,
Speaker 1: you should send those into us our email addresses FW
Speaker 1: thinking at how Stuff Works dot com, or you can
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Speaker 1: Twitter and Google Plus we are FW thinking. You can
Speaker 1: search FW thinking on Facebook. We'll pop right up. You
Speaker 1: can leave us a message there. Thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for your support. Thank you for all the questions
Speaker 1: about Hey, when are you guys coming back, because it
Speaker 1: means a lot to us. We're so pleased that we
Speaker 1: could be back now and strap in because it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a crazy year. I have a feeling. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's some weird stuff coming down the pipe as far
Speaker 1: as science and technology goes, and we're gonna try and
Speaker 1: cover all of that. That's my it's my ambition. So
Speaker 1: we'll see, all right, and until then, we'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon for more on this topic. In
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