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 in the future and says I'll probably
Speaker 1: be some kind of scientist building inventions in my space
Speaker 1: lab in space. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you listen to this podcast, you're
Speaker 1: well aware that we love space. Yeah, if you don't
Speaker 1: listen to this podcast, how are you hearing us? Now?
Speaker 1: Some people might watch this podcast and not know why
Speaker 1: it has no contact. Maybe the absorb it as as
Speaker 1: a vibrations. It's like some sort of osmotic process. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: in recent episodes, we've talked about all kinds of space
Speaker 1: exploration projects. We've talked about Mars, We've talked about terraforming,
Speaker 1: we've talked about the Moon. We've talked in the past
Speaker 1: about space tourism, asteroid mine, asteroid mining, certainly. But today
Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about space stations, and specifically because
Speaker 1: we have talked about the I S S before, uh
Speaker 1: and about public space stations, but we wanted to ask
Speaker 1: the question today what about private space station? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: will we get to a future where you can find, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a space station brought to you by Home Depot,
Speaker 1: the Home Depot station. Yeah, right up until it gets
Speaker 1: bought by Smoothie King, and it will be the Smoothie
Speaker 1: King station made out a particle board. I'm wondering how
Speaker 1: hard it would be to find specific types of nails
Speaker 1: floating in microgravity. Seems like that might be a poor choice.
Speaker 1: But no, seriously, though, we really wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: we're entering this era. We're in the era of private
Speaker 1: space industry. We've got companies that are private companies that
Speaker 1: are launching stuff into space. It is not going to
Speaker 1: be that long from now when we start seeing private
Speaker 1: space stations hypothetically maybe hypothetically because of course there aren't
Speaker 1: any right now, but there are a lot of plans
Speaker 1: for such a thing. So we want to kind of
Speaker 1: explore that and talk about why that might very well
Speaker 1: be a necessity in the not too distant future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because because the public space industry has been working pretty great,
Speaker 1: little ish sometimes a little bit so far, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's so much promise in private companies getting to
Speaker 1: this kind of thing, and uh, and we're not sure
Speaker 1: what's going to happen to the I S S. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, eventually it's going to plummet in through orbit
Speaker 1: into the ocean. It will be de orbited, yes, hopefully
Speaker 1: on purpose. Fingers always crossed. But but you know first
Speaker 1: of all that the I S was not designed to
Speaker 1: last forever, right, Yeah, So until a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: the I S S uh, it had a funding lifetime, right,
Speaker 1: So there's a certain amount of times people have committed
Speaker 1: to funding missions and maintenance of the I S S.
Speaker 1: And for a while that was set to expire in
Speaker 1: the year twenty Then in January, NASA announced the Obama
Speaker 1: administration had approved extension of the I S S that
Speaker 1: would keep it running until at least so that's the
Speaker 1: date as of now. Now. Ongoing research projects were cited
Speaker 1: as a major reason for the extension, including research into
Speaker 1: the effects of long term space flight on the human
Speaker 1: body and also the role I the I S S
Speaker 1: is going to play in helping advance the next phases
Speaker 1: of NASA space exploration, like missions to Mars or asteroids,
Speaker 1: and and the Twin study was kind of part of that, right.
Speaker 1: It was that idea of studying the effects of space
Speaker 1: on a human and then comparing that person to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, their twin who had stayed here on Earth
Speaker 1: for that duration, and to say like, well, this, this
Speaker 1: is a way for us to better understand those effects
Speaker 1: so that we can take that into account for missions
Speaker 1: that would take people into space further and longer than
Speaker 1: ever before. Right, But the station is kind of getting
Speaker 1: up there in an age. It's going to be thirty
Speaker 1: and are well, so it's starting to get up there.
Speaker 1: It will have gotten up there in the future grammatically speaking,
Speaker 1: And uh, and that's thirty years. It's about as long
Speaker 1: as most of its structures were intended to last. And and
Speaker 1: and sure the station is modular, but some of the
Speaker 1: really important bits that are a little bit personickety, like
Speaker 1: say the solar panels, might start blowing out a little
Speaker 1: bit earlier than that. So so as it gets older,
Speaker 1: it's going to be more expensive and more difficult to
Speaker 1: keep it in orbit. Uh. And and yeah, ultimately its
Speaker 1: fate is known, right right, And I mean there's no
Speaker 1: surprise here, right. We cannot perpetually maintain and replace parts
Speaker 1: on the space station eventually gets to a point where
Speaker 1: it no longer makes financial sense, let alone a sense
Speaker 1: on a technological or scientific level. Yeah, at some point
Speaker 1: it's like you know, when you were in college and
Speaker 1: you realize, like it would just be simpler to throw
Speaker 1: my clothes away and go buy new clothes than to
Speaker 1: try and do laundry at this point, yeah, like new
Speaker 1: socks are cheaper than washing my socks. So so I
Speaker 1: was thinking more along the lines of I'm spending more
Speaker 1: per year trying to maintain this this limit of a
Speaker 1: vehicle then it would cost me to go out and
Speaker 1: buy even just a used car. Yeah. So ultimately, if
Speaker 1: if all goes as planned, the I S S when
Speaker 1: it reaches his expiration t it is going to come
Speaker 1: down into Earth's atmosphere in a flaming ball of death,
Speaker 1: but hopefully no real death because in the case of
Speaker 1: the I S S, this will be a controlled re
Speaker 1: entry exactly that takes place in the Southern Pacific Ocean
Speaker 1: to a place known it is delightful. It's known as
Speaker 1: the Spacecraft Cemetery. It's where we send all of our
Speaker 1: dead space craft. Right well, and I mean it makes sense, right,
Speaker 1: you want to be able to have a controlled de orbiting,
Speaker 1: You want it to go to a place that is uninhabited,
Speaker 1: to have the least impact for the you know, at
Speaker 1: least impact on on the environment as you possibly can.
Speaker 1: And the reason why you want to de orbit in
Speaker 1: the first place is that you don't want to leave
Speaker 1: stuff just in space. First of all, it's going to
Speaker 1: de orbit eventually anyway, it'll it'll lose speed and it
Speaker 1: will end up crashing to Earth, possibly over a populated
Speaker 1: area if you haven't done it, you know, in a
Speaker 1: controlled manner. Plus, you don't want to leave space junk
Speaker 1: out there. It just means that it's going to be
Speaker 1: another thing to avoid with future space missions. So this
Speaker 1: is not something that is necessarily like a sad thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's sad in the sense of seeing like
Speaker 1: an era past, but it's it's something that we we
Speaker 1: knew what we were getting into when we built the thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we've kind of been talking about it in terms
Speaker 1: of of the United States funding. But of course a
Speaker 1: large part of the three words in the title of
Speaker 1: the space station is international. This this is a collaboration
Speaker 1: between I believe sixteen countries right now, um, a bunch
Speaker 1: of them at any rate. And uh and and it's
Speaker 1: and it is a huge undertaking. I mean, it is
Speaker 1: like nine hundred thousand pounds moving five miles a second,
Speaker 1: enduring temperature swings of like five hundred degrees fahrenheit between
Speaker 1: sunlight and shade. Uh. It's it takes a lot to
Speaker 1: keep this thing in the air, including this wonderful international collaboration.
Speaker 1: Takes a village to maintain a international space station, pretty
Speaker 1: sure obtaining it well. It's often cited as the is
Speaker 1: the most challenging engineering project in the history of humankind.
Speaker 1: And and I think it would be challenging, not just
Speaker 1: because of the technological aspect, but because you're talking about
Speaker 1: international collaboration, which at times can be a little tricky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and even the different modules might end up going their
Speaker 1: own way. There are reports that once the project comes
Speaker 1: to an end, the Russian modules are going to be
Speaker 1: removed and used to form an independent space station known
Speaker 1: as the Russian Orbital Station or ross UH and the
Speaker 1: it's so that this comes from the Russian Space contractor
Speaker 1: r KK energy A. So they plan to detach the
Speaker 1: forthcoming now CO module from the I S S and
Speaker 1: use it as a basis to attach other modules and
Speaker 1: build a fully functional Russian space station. Once the I
Speaker 1: S S is decommissioned. Yeah, I like how how space
Speaker 1: stations to me are are kind of like a real
Speaker 1: world vultron where you know, other parts just kind of
Speaker 1: dock on and you you do get these modules that
Speaker 1: when you put them together, create something greater than than
Speaker 1: the some of its parts. Right, So we we've got
Speaker 1: this complicated um relationship between various nations that are collaborating
Speaker 1: on the International Space Station. But that's not the only
Speaker 1: player in the game. Like we were saying at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the episode, private space industry is now a
Speaker 1: real player too, who is delivering things to the space
Speaker 1: station right now? Right? Yeah, that's a big one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh And and NASA is definitely increasingly interested in partnering
Speaker 1: with private industry in order to get stuff done that
Speaker 1: it can't afford to get done itself. Um and and
Speaker 1: ostensibly to also grow the private space industry. But I
Speaker 1: think it's kind of more the former. I could be wrong.
Speaker 1: Um Boeing, for example, has been a really huge partner
Speaker 1: in the I S S over over many many years,
Speaker 1: providing hardware and software and docking systems and communications and
Speaker 1: and all kinds of stuff. And uh, I haven't personally
Speaker 1: heard about Boeing looking to get into the space and
Speaker 1: space station industry itself. But uh, but this next company
Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about definitely has Yeah. One
Speaker 1: thing we should mention is that in most cases, I
Speaker 1: would argue, in pretty much every case, the companies we're
Speaker 1: talking about, just like the nations we've talked about, weren't
Speaker 1: necessarily in charge of a big manufacturing system that just
Speaker 1: created space stations all you know, in parts that then
Speaker 1: could be assembled in space. Usually you're talking about entities
Speaker 1: that are contracting with other companies to create various elements, right.
Speaker 1: So I'm that's the way NASA has been forever. Every
Speaker 1: NASA spacecraft has been the product of NASA partnering with
Speaker 1: private industry to create those things. But in this case,
Speaker 1: we're talking about actual private companies overseeing that process from
Speaker 1: beginning to end, not trying to submit a proposal to
Speaker 1: a government agency, get rewarded a contract, and then do it.
Speaker 1: So now we're looking at a whole new world of
Speaker 1: space stations, and we've even got a an example we
Speaker 1: can look at is sort of a test run of
Speaker 1: a private a privately built module or habitat if you prefer,
Speaker 1: that is being tested right now as part of the
Speaker 1: International Space Station. Yeah. In fact, we talked about inflatable
Speaker 1: modules a little bit when we talked to a long
Speaker 1: time ago about space tourism. Yeah, because we were trying
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, so imagine you're you're trying to create
Speaker 1: environments that can be inhabited it on the surface of
Speaker 1: the Moon or in space at the lowest cost possible.
Speaker 1: Getting all these materials into orbit that you would need
Speaker 1: to assemble in order to make your rigid aluminum model
Speaker 1: modules like in the I S is expensive. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: what instead if you could just go blow up a
Speaker 1: big balloon in space, right and then live in it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but now there actually is such a balloon. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a hypothetical the last time we talked about it.
Speaker 1: But Beam, the Bigelow expandable Activity module, has has been
Speaker 1: sent up and inflated and people have hung out in it. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean they haven't like thrown a party like that
Speaker 1: I'm aware of now they have. The most they've done
Speaker 1: has had people in space suits test the air inside
Speaker 1: and then very coil like quietly go back into the
Speaker 1: regular module the space station right less they upset the
Speaker 1: balloon ghosts, No so so beam um. Okay, So it's
Speaker 1: it's as we have been saying, this prototype inflatable space
Speaker 1: habitat because traditional space habitats are a dragged cre eight honestly,
Speaker 1: they require these heavy, rigid materials that are expensive to
Speaker 1: send into space and difficult to maneuver once you get
Speaker 1: them up there. So Bigelow Air Space designed Beam and
Speaker 1: this this unit went up on a SpaceX Dragon resupply
Speaker 1: mission in April and and packed in there it was
Speaker 1: a cylinder that was like five point seven ft long
Speaker 1: like that, very much like that, and and in about
Speaker 1: seven point seven feet in diameter, which is a like
Speaker 1: a like a smart car. Okay if you need a
Speaker 1: visual and uh. It was installed on the aft part
Speaker 1: of the Tranquility node by a robotic arm which was
Speaker 1: controlled by an is S crew member, and it contains
Speaker 1: a pressurization system with stored air. So in May, after
Speaker 1: a failed attempt, um teams worked to expand the beam
Speaker 1: to its full size over the course of seven hours.
Speaker 1: So it is now a bubble that is thirteen feet
Speaker 1: long and like ten and a half feet in diameter,
Speaker 1: which is like a small room, which is what it is,
Speaker 1: just a small room. You know may with teflon coated
Speaker 1: glass fabric. When it comes to space stations, you don't
Speaker 1: turn your nose up at any extra room. That's true, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean rooms space and space oddly enough hard to
Speaker 1: come by. You think it being like hypothetically infinite, but
Speaker 1: it is. It is interesting now like as you were
Speaker 1: as you were just about to say, Lauren, that the
Speaker 1: size of the room itself is larger than the spacecraft
Speaker 1: that was sent to carry it up there are larger
Speaker 1: than the cargo larger than the cargo capacity because it
Speaker 1: has expanded to its full size. Now it's beyond what
Speaker 1: if it had been made out of rigid material it
Speaker 1: would have had to take a couple of trips up
Speaker 1: in a spacecraft of that size. Uh And and that's
Speaker 1: one of the biggest advantages of this approach is the
Speaker 1: idea that you can compress the full size of the
Speaker 1: habitat down to its packed size, which is significantly smaller
Speaker 1: than what it's unfurled sizes. And if you're talking about
Speaker 1: rigid materials, it may not even be the a weight issue.
Speaker 1: It may just that you can't pack them in snugly
Speaker 1: enough for it to really make sense, which means you
Speaker 1: have to send more missions up, which means it makes
Speaker 1: it more expensive. If you've ever been embarrassed while trying
Speaker 1: to move furniture and had to explain to somebody, no,
Speaker 1: it's not that it's too heavy for me, it's just
Speaker 1: awkward sized. I can't write a good grip on it,
Speaker 1: or your or your you've ever had to move and
Speaker 1: you are having your surprise at how many trips it
Speaker 1: takes from your old place to your new place. Because
Speaker 1: while your vehicle might be able to fit a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff in it, your stuff does not magically conformed
Speaker 1: to the inside of the vehicle. Yeah. Yeah, your Tetris
Speaker 1: game is not strong enough. Uh so so yeah, so
Speaker 1: they did open it up, check out the inside, collected
Speaker 1: an air sample, uh and data from some of their
Speaker 1: inflation sensors. They said it was cold, but you know,
Speaker 1: otherwise pretty pretty cool. Yeah that was accidental. Uh and
Speaker 1: and okay, it's it's not meant to stay up there forever,
Speaker 1: and it's not meant to have people live in there
Speaker 1: or do science in there. It's really a two year
Speaker 1: um proof of concept of the technology. So so astronauts
Speaker 1: that are aboard the station and engineer's Earth side, and
Speaker 1: instruments in the module itself are going to be studying
Speaker 1: just how it's doing, like from the structural integrity of
Speaker 1: the thing to the leak rate of air to radiation
Speaker 1: and temperature levels. Also that we can kind of compare
Speaker 1: it back to the traditional rigid pain in the butt
Speaker 1: modules and uh and and and see see see if
Speaker 1: it stacks up right. Make sure that the claims that
Speaker 1: Bigelow makes about their design hold up to reality, because
Speaker 1: when you put real life people into that thing, you
Speaker 1: want to make sure that it is in fact as
Speaker 1: safe as the manufacturer believes it to be. You know,
Speaker 1: when you introduce a sort of a skepticism there that
Speaker 1: I think is going to be an important factor when
Speaker 1: we start considering private companies getting into the space race.
Speaker 1: We need to make sure that the advertising isn't leading
Speaker 1: us astray. Like you can't always necessarily trust that some
Speaker 1: one who's selling a product is telling you everything that
Speaker 1: is true about it, particularly when you talk about companies
Speaker 1: that are looking for funding. Right like then then it's like, well,
Speaker 1: do we tell them we think it's going to work
Speaker 1: and if it, if it does, it's going to be
Speaker 1: or do you say no, this is gonna be the
Speaker 1: most amazing thing ever you want to get in on
Speaker 1: the ground floor. I mean yeah, And I don't think
Speaker 1: it's going to be any kind of cases of of
Speaker 1: you know, like like low radiation levels asterix like the
Speaker 1: bottom of the page, like low compared to holding a
Speaker 1: uranium core like that thing, not a fall out kind
Speaker 1: of share. Like. I don't think anyone's gonna be trying
Speaker 1: to to purposefully trick anyone, but there might be optimism
Speaker 1: and uh and certainly regulation is going to be an
Speaker 1: important part of all of this because traditionally speaking, we've
Speaker 1: never had private industry doing this kind of stuff and
Speaker 1: uh and governments have been picky about what they subject
Speaker 1: to their most prized military flight personnel to right. So,
Speaker 1: so at the end of this grand experiment, after they
Speaker 1: have run these two tests and determined whether or not
Speaker 1: in fact it is as safe as traditional uh spacecraft
Speaker 1: material or space station material, what happens then it will
Speaker 1: be destroyed and re entry. Man, we just can't make
Speaker 1: stuff without breaking stuff. That no, but that's still I mean,
Speaker 1: how would you get at home? I mean the engineers
Speaker 1: that they just want to watch it all burn. That's
Speaker 1: the whole reason they make these things just a bunch
Speaker 1: of jokers coming back from space. Alright, But yeah, so
Speaker 1: the whole pro the whole program is co sponsored by
Speaker 1: NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems Program, which is which is the
Speaker 1: part of NASA that it's particularly excited about fast tracking
Speaker 1: affordable technology for human exploration of space. And uh so
Speaker 1: the BEAM project is hoping, ultimately, I think, to develop
Speaker 1: beyond Earth space habitats, not necessarily just an orbit um.
Speaker 1: But Bigelow is certainly using this as an initial step
Speaker 1: towards creating its own space station. Right, And you might wonder,
Speaker 1: all right, well, we've talked a little bit about the
Speaker 1: International Space Station and about a prototype approach to testing
Speaker 1: a technology that could potentially be incorporated into a private
Speaker 1: space station in the future. Why would any company be
Speaker 1: interested in such a thing in the first place. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such a huge undertaking. Subject yourself to that, and
Speaker 1: it would cost millions of dollars in research and development
Speaker 1: and construction and launching. I mean, what's the payoff? Well,
Speaker 1: it's because there's money in space what not literally but
Speaker 1: you know, figuratively speaking. So space stations one can serve
Speaker 1: as a platform for satellite and spacecraft deployment and maintenance.
Speaker 1: So with the privatization of space launches, more companies are
Speaker 1: getting involved in creating and deploying satellites and other types
Speaker 1: of spacecraft. They need a place sometimes to act as
Speaker 1: kind of a launching ground, not like you would on Earth,
Speaker 1: but place to deploy that technology that is already in
Speaker 1: lower th orbit. Space stations often provide such a platform,
Speaker 1: So that's one thing. So you you could become like
Speaker 1: the truck stop to your spacecraft going out into either
Speaker 1: another lower th orbit or beyond the most expensive cramps
Speaker 1: truck stop you've ever experienced. Don't eat the egg scel
Speaker 1: and sandwiches, uh, shrimp cocktails where it's at. We've talked
Speaker 1: about that numerous times. Not for me, I couldn't have.
Speaker 1: It would be very blended space. Probably that sounds to
Speaker 1: me like a great tagline for a terrible science fiction movie. Also, manufacturing,
Speaker 1: this is one of those things that seemed counterintuitive to
Speaker 1: me at first, the idea of sending stuff out into
Speaker 1: space for manufacturing purposes, because you would think the cost
Speaker 1: of getting it into space would negate any advantage you
Speaker 1: would have, especially if you want it back on Earth
Speaker 1: for something right. I actually remember I watched a science
Speaker 1: fiction film in which I criticized a bit of the
Speaker 1: film specifically for this in which uh androids were being
Speaker 1: um built in a space station in orbit around Earth
Speaker 1: and then sent back down to Earth to act as
Speaker 1: you know, workers and labors, and I thought, well, that
Speaker 1: seems unnecessary and ridiculously expensive. It's actually one of the
Speaker 1: production predictions that Elon Musk has for the future that
Speaker 1: will will will off base all of our heavy industry
Speaker 1: into into orbits. Well for one thing, you know, heavy
Speaker 1: industry becomes practically weightless that way. Uh. It was a
Speaker 1: terrible joke, but it's actually true. I mean, there's because
Speaker 1: because of the nature of space, because you can work
Speaker 1: in a vacuum, you can work in microgravity. It opens
Speaker 1: up opportunities and manufacturing that are impossible to replicate here
Speaker 1: on Earth. And in some cases it can be for
Speaker 1: like really precise chemical types of manufacturing, not just not
Speaker 1: just the sort of manufacturing we tend to think about,
Speaker 1: like building cars and stuff, but actually designer chemicals, things
Speaker 1: like medications or other chemical applications. So it's a very
Speaker 1: real possibility that as we see the price tag come
Speaker 1: down for launching stuff into space. We could see more
Speaker 1: and more applications of manufacturing. I've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff about three D printing in space where it takes
Speaker 1: on a much different dimension than it does here on Earth.
Speaker 1: Another area where it could come in handy to have
Speaker 1: a space station. We actually alluded to this a little
Speaker 1: bit earlier. Asteroid mining. Um, the whole idea of of
Speaker 1: of exploiting the asteroids that are in the Cellar system
Speaker 1: to get at resources that may be very plentiful on
Speaker 1: certain types of asteroids. It would be really helpful to
Speaker 1: have a place in space where you would have your
Speaker 1: your various uh whatever whatever units you have going out
Speaker 1: to asteroids to mind them to come back as a
Speaker 1: place to exchange stuff and go back out again. Um.
Speaker 1: We've talked about using asteroids to mine water, which you
Speaker 1: could then use to turn into rocket fuel. Uh. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that could potentially come in really handy,
Speaker 1: especially as you start talking about going further into our
Speaker 1: Solar system, whether it's for exploration or a colonization or
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. And then space tourism of course, Yeah,
Speaker 1: to be able to create a cabinet space. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the it's the ultimate adventure destination, right, Like it's the
Speaker 1: idea of going into space and staying aboard a space
Speaker 1: station looking back at the Earth. So far, only seven
Speaker 1: private citizens have ever done this, and it wasn't for funzies.
Speaker 1: I mean they were they were up there conducting research.
Speaker 1: Well they were. It was for funzies for them, but
Speaker 1: they also had the conductor research because they paid for
Speaker 1: the privilege between twenty and forty million dollars for and
Speaker 1: one of them went twice. And so there's only been
Speaker 1: seven people who have gone up who have not been
Speaker 1: part of an official cosmonaut or astronaut crew, but paid
Speaker 1: for the privilege to go up aboard the International Space Station.
Speaker 1: They did have to perform experiments and stuff while we
Speaker 1: were they were there space. It's part of their buying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: space and space like we said limited, so you gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta work your shift. Yeah. Um, one of those
Speaker 1: people actually know one of the seven people who have
Speaker 1: been a private says an up in space, it would
Speaker 1: be Richard Garriott, a lord British. Yeah. So um, it's
Speaker 1: interesting that that has happened. But the cool thing about
Speaker 1: the private the possibility of private space stations is that
Speaker 1: opportunity might open up to a broader audience than just
Speaker 1: super mega rich people, right, Like, Yeah, I don't think
Speaker 1: most of us could afford a twenty million dollar ticket
Speaker 1: for vacation. I know I couldn't, especially not another twenty
Speaker 1: million for a return trip. Yeah, well you're here, but
Speaker 1: guess what, You're gonna stay here until you cough up
Speaker 1: another twenty million. Now, I think sponsored visits are going
Speaker 1: to be a thing where where people like a company says,
Speaker 1: you know, I will pay for your trip to the
Speaker 1: space station if what you do is talk about how
Speaker 1: great Eeto's taste in space, or or something like like
Speaker 1: a vice being like hey like go up and get
Speaker 1: like the scoop on all of the I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's how people advice talk. That was probably a
Speaker 1: really unflattering I kind of want to start a Kickstarter
Speaker 1: noll that's just titled send Kanye to Space and just
Speaker 1: raise that twenty million, not the I didn't say, so
Speaker 1: he can tell us how Cheetos tastes. No, I mean,
Speaker 1: I haven't worked out the entire detail of the Kickstarter campaign,
Speaker 1: so just give me time. But no space tourism like
Speaker 1: with the private Space industry. We're seeing the cost of
Speaker 1: launch come down slowly over time, we might be able
Speaker 1: to see it come to a point where more people
Speaker 1: could afford that experience. I don't think it's ever going
Speaker 1: to reach a point where the average person will be
Speaker 1: able to afford it. I think it's still gonna be
Speaker 1: certainly in that luxury category, but it will be less
Speaker 1: than the twenty million that we've seen in the past,
Speaker 1: forty million that we've seen in the past, And that
Speaker 1: to me is really exciting to this idea that that potentially,
Speaker 1: if you had enough money, you could go and visit
Speaker 1: a space station and look back on the Earth. That's
Speaker 1: something that you you know, they they haven't done that
Speaker 1: for years now aboard the International Space Station, and that
Speaker 1: those seven people pretty much got in before that was
Speaker 1: shut down. So this would give that opportunity once again.
Speaker 1: So anyway, the point being that there there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different opportunities to make serious cash running a
Speaker 1: private space station, assuming you can work out the incredibly
Speaker 1: complicated details of building one, testing it, making sure it works,
Speaker 1: and then launching it and deploying it. They've already done
Speaker 1: it once. How how hard can it be? It only
Speaker 1: only took more than a dozen countries collaborating with one
Speaker 1: another billion dollars to say that space. But but the
Speaker 1: nice thing is that we can build upon knowledge. Right,
Speaker 1: we know already things that work, and we even are
Speaker 1: seeing some really cool experiments. In fact, did you know
Speaker 1: that before NASA designed and built the International Space Station,
Speaker 1: they actually considered inflatable habitats as a possible UH method
Speaker 1: of creating a space station. But at the time, their
Speaker 1: materials were pretty flimsy. Good Year was providing the rubber
Speaker 1: for them to test it, but it was because that's
Speaker 1: they hadn't hadn't developed keval are yet, they hadn't developed
Speaker 1: stronger materials yet, and they did determine they said, well,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be sufficient for blocking radiation and
Speaker 1: it's not very resistant to ballistic impact. So they said,
Speaker 1: we can't do this. But now material science is caught
Speaker 1: up to the point where we do have have flexible
Speaker 1: materials that are incredibly resistant to ballistic impact and at
Speaker 1: least from what we've heard, are as effective at protecting
Speaker 1: against radiation as the traditional materials used. Speaking of hearing, though,
Speaker 1: this is my pun transfer of the conversation topic. UH.
Speaker 1: The the the Bigelow inflatable beam thing is it's hypothetically
Speaker 1: a lot quieter on the inside than a traditional aluminum capsule.
Speaker 1: Oh so acoustically, acoustically, it's nicer to hang out, I guess.
Speaker 1: I guess that makes sense because it's not a hard surface,
Speaker 1: so sound doesn't bounce off of it the same way
Speaker 1: it would inside a traditional space capsule. I never thought
Speaker 1: about that, but that is interesting. I guess it's like
Speaker 1: being in a big pillow or a bouncy house, just
Speaker 1: without the kids, which is my favorite way of being
Speaker 1: in a bouncing house. Um. So, let t's talk about
Speaker 1: some of the private space stations that are in various
Speaker 1: forms of development. There is the Bigelow next generation commercial
Speaker 1: space station, so Beam is kind of like that that
Speaker 1: proof of concept to test the basic technology that would
Speaker 1: be incorporated on a much larger scale for this particular approach.
Speaker 1: The base unit of the the Bigelows space station, should
Speaker 1: it actually become a thing, is the B three thirty,
Speaker 1: which is an expandable habitat that Bigelow has developed that
Speaker 1: will have three hundred thirty cubic meters of internal space. Now,
Speaker 1: if you compare that to the International Space station's Destiny module,
Speaker 1: which is the primary operating facility for the United States
Speaker 1: research payloads, that has a one sixty cubic meters of
Speaker 1: internal space, so it's much larger than the Destiny Module module.
Speaker 1: But cuban mind, the Destiny Module is just one part
Speaker 1: of the I S, it's not the whole thing. But
Speaker 1: that means that Bigelow's habitat would have two more habitable
Speaker 1: space inside of it than the Destiny module does. However,
Speaker 1: it would only have an increase of thirty three in
Speaker 1: mass because that inflatable design means that doesn't have to
Speaker 1: have as much of that bulky material, So you get
Speaker 1: two more space but only thirty three more mass. That's
Speaker 1: a pretty pretty good you know trade. Yeah, not bad
Speaker 1: at all. Uh Now, according to Bigelow, the B three
Speaker 1: thirty will provide radiation protection that's at least as good,
Speaker 1: if not better than the current I S S modules.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things they are testing with Beam
Speaker 1: to make sure that that actually is accurate. Uh And
Speaker 1: they also say that the whole would be more resilienta
Speaker 1: ballistic damage than the International Space Station currently is, So,
Speaker 1: in other words, it would be an improvement in in
Speaker 1: those specific ways, uh, which you definitely want to hear
Speaker 1: that too, And it's modular design would allow for multiple
Speaker 1: units to fit together. In fact, the space station would
Speaker 1: consist of two B three thirty modules joined. They essentially
Speaker 1: kind of lock docking stations have become a larger unit
Speaker 1: that way. Bigelow has already partnered with United Launch Alliance
Speaker 1: to provide launch services for the two modules. U l
Speaker 1: A uses Atlas five rockets to launch payloads into space,
Speaker 1: and right now they're looking at the possibility for launching
Speaker 1: these things as early as One module, they said, is
Speaker 1: already on schedule to be ready for launch by twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: and the other one is scheduled sometime in So that
Speaker 1: means we could have our public space station still operating
Speaker 1: at the time the private ones come start to come on.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. Uh. To be fair, we don't
Speaker 1: have any information about where the private space station would
Speaker 1: orbit in relation to the International Space Station. That would
Speaker 1: be a very important piece of information, but that has
Speaker 1: not been If it is known by anyone, it has
Speaker 1: not yet been publicly revealed. Um. But they said that
Speaker 1: one of the things they might do before they actually
Speaker 1: create the full private space station is DOC one of
Speaker 1: the B three thirty units with the I S S,
Speaker 1: which would actually increase the I S S is uh
Speaker 1: capacity by or or volume I should say overall volume
Speaker 1: by so at least for a while. They would They
Speaker 1: would launch the first module up, it would dock with
Speaker 1: the I S S presumably assuming that NASA would agree
Speaker 1: to such a thing, They would launch the second one,
Speaker 1: and then the two would meet and become the Bigelows
Speaker 1: space Station. Uh, it's not the only one that is
Speaker 1: being talked about. Bigelow is probably the one that the
Speaker 1: more space enthusiasts have heard about. It's it's been around longer.
Speaker 1: The idea has been around longer, sharing especially since they
Speaker 1: are currently conducting an experiment to see how well their
Speaker 1: technology works. It's it's got perhaps better street cred. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at least they've got an active test going on right now,
Speaker 1: so they have something to show for their plans. It's
Speaker 1: not like it's not like when we were talking about
Speaker 1: what is it is it Mars one? The the the
Speaker 1: entity that's attempting to launch people into space to go
Speaker 1: and colonize Mars before anyone thinks it would be quite ready. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not quite like that, right, that they actually have
Speaker 1: stuff that they're showing that is beyond just just really idealistic.
Speaker 1: It's not a fly by night. Yeah, it's not a
Speaker 1: launch by night either. You launched in the daytime. Everyone
Speaker 1: knows that anyway. So there's a there's a former NASA
Speaker 1: manager of the International Space Station who has recently UH
Speaker 1: started up a company called Axiom Space l l c.
Speaker 1: That is Mike Suffredini, who announced on June twenty two,
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen, just a few days before we
Speaker 1: record this podcast, that he was going to start this
Speaker 1: new company in order to develop a private space station.
Speaker 1: Now it looks like this one is not going to
Speaker 1: be going the same path as Bigelow in terms of
Speaker 1: structural design. Yeah, according to UH. To Suffradini, he said
Speaker 1: that in order to make money, we have to get
Speaker 1: to orbit fast. I think it's going to take a
Speaker 1: while to build a spacecraft out of inflatal a technology.
Speaker 1: So what he's saying is it's not the Biggelows approach
Speaker 1: is not going to work. He just thinks that it's
Speaker 1: it's going to be slower in the long run. Slower.
Speaker 1: He yeah, I think he believes that is way too
Speaker 1: aggressive to get an an inflatable habitat space station into orbit.
Speaker 1: I think that's essentially what he's saying here. But he
Speaker 1: hopes also to be able to attach a private module
Speaker 1: developed by Axiom Space to the International Space Station as
Speaker 1: a prototype testing grounds. Would be kind of similar to
Speaker 1: BEAM in that way, and once that that technology is
Speaker 1: proven to be safe and effective and be able to
Speaker 1: do all the things that the International Space Station is
Speaker 1: currently used to do, then it would transition that into
Speaker 1: creating it's you know, its own space station, that that
Speaker 1: unit would become the core of the new space station.
Speaker 1: And he hopes to have a final design for their
Speaker 1: module by the end of this year, which you know,
Speaker 1: he just announced the company on June twenty two. He
Speaker 1: hopes by December to have a final design for the
Speaker 1: module he helps by January of next year two get
Speaker 1: a contractor to start building the thing. So incredibly aggressive
Speaker 1: and a very tight deadline, and the company also plans
Speaker 1: to launch by one So assuming the Bigelow's plans go
Speaker 1: on the way that they have intended, we could see
Speaker 1: two different private space station modules being launched into space
Speaker 1: around the same time, with different design elements. Totally different
Speaker 1: approaches to creating space stations. Does this one sound unrealistically aggressive?
Speaker 1: Do you guys? It sounds crazy aggressive to me, Like
Speaker 1: the design and building it. He's not talking about being
Speaker 1: built by seen, but being ready to launch by when
Speaker 1: he doesn't even have a final design yet. Seems really optimistic.
Speaker 1: If it weren't the one of the former head Haunt
Speaker 1: shows involved in the I S S, I would say
Speaker 1: that it was ridiculously aggressive. Very fair point that that
Speaker 1: thing puts it down onto a merely aggressive. That's that's fair.
Speaker 1: I've done this before, like look before, I already know
Speaker 1: what not to do, all right. Uh yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: that's totally that's totally valid. And uh it's interesting to
Speaker 1: think about, you know, these two very different approaches and
Speaker 1: whether or not, like it could very it could possibly
Speaker 1: get to a point where we see both actually active
Speaker 1: in lower th orbit simultaneously. Yeah, and that would be
Speaker 1: amazing because now you're talking about a plethora of options
Speaker 1: considering that right now, there is one which doesn't make
Speaker 1: it an option. It's just your only choice. It's either
Speaker 1: that or nothing. Yeah. But but this is the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that would avoid having a space monopoly, which
Speaker 1: is something I think we don't want to see, uh
Speaker 1: and it could mean that we continue to see a
Speaker 1: lot of innovation so that one company is always trying
Speaker 1: to have an advantage over the other. We all stand
Speaker 1: to benefit from. Yeah, the the private space race, I
Speaker 1: kind of like this idea. Yeah, yeah, but there are
Speaker 1: some challenges that we have to address. One of the
Speaker 1: biggest ones is one we kind of talked about right now,
Speaker 1: that timeline to be able to develop this private space
Speaker 1: station technology and test it in a way where we
Speaker 1: can use the International Space Station as as sort of
Speaker 1: our our home base. That timeline is getting shorter and shorter,
Speaker 1: assuming we don't see another extension uh for the funding
Speaker 1: for the International Space Station. Right like, right this very moment,
Speaker 1: we have approximately eight years left if anyone wants to
Speaker 1: test their stuff on on the I S S. With
Speaker 1: NASA's uh bene benefaction UM. Hypothetically, the longest we're going
Speaker 1: to get is twelve years. And once the I S
Speaker 1: S is decommissioned, it's gonna be a lot harder to
Speaker 1: test your your technology because you won't have that base
Speaker 1: to to lock onto and be able to you know,
Speaker 1: remotely assess the feasibility and the and the efficiency of
Speaker 1: your technology. You have to figure out some other way
Speaker 1: of testing it that minimizes risk both to property and life,
Speaker 1: so that that's going to be a real big challenge
Speaker 1: once the I S s D commissions. And not only
Speaker 1: is there a short amount of time to get in
Speaker 1: that testing, but you also have to remember the International
Speaker 1: Space Station doesn't have an infinite number of docking ports.
Speaker 1: So if you want to if you want to dock
Speaker 1: your your module to the International Space Station so that
Speaker 1: you can do testing, yeah, you better you better start
Speaker 1: building soon because well, I mean, it all depends on
Speaker 1: how NASA decides who to partner with, right, We don't
Speaker 1: We are not privy to that particular process. Um. I
Speaker 1: would imagine that Bigelow has since it has the the
Speaker 1: already existing relationship with NASA, is in pretty good shape.
Speaker 1: And then the fact that you have a former manager
Speaker 1: of the International Space Station heading the other company, it's
Speaker 1: in pretty good shape too. So assuming Bride right, he
Speaker 1: just flipped his desk and said, Sea it loses, I'm
Speaker 1: out of here, and left the door open as he
Speaker 1: left NASA. I'm assuming that didn't happen. I'm not don't know,
Speaker 1: but I'm assuming, but that means that they you know,
Speaker 1: NASA has to juggle while do we have the capability
Speaker 1: of allowing more than one to dock at a time.
Speaker 1: How how much do we want to keep these docking
Speaker 1: ports open in case we need it for some other
Speaker 1: unforeseen circumstances for our own stuff or Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: can we just build a module that's nothing but docking points?
Speaker 1: It's just it's just theahedron docking points. It's that connect there,
Speaker 1: like any sort of building toy you have where you're like,
Speaker 1: I just I just need something like a Lego that
Speaker 1: has every every surface is Lego because I just needed
Speaker 1: to hold everything together. Um. Yeah, I mean that it's
Speaker 1: just a logistic issue at that point, but it's a
Speaker 1: one that has a real impact. And when you're talking
Speaker 1: about a short timeline, every little thing like that matters. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And another potential hiccup or um or hold up in
Speaker 1: all of this is something that we mentioned a little
Speaker 1: bit earlier. Um there there aren't really regulations in place
Speaker 1: for for private industry being out in space right right now,
Speaker 1: and that is going to be a thing that will happen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a field known as space jurisdiction,
Speaker 1: and you might say it's an underdeveloped field. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: because until recently, the only entities that were at all
Speaker 1: getting into space we're completely sponsored by nations. I mean,
Speaker 1: they were government agencies. So the government international treaty right there, right,
Speaker 1: the rules that we created, the space law that we
Speaker 1: created it it specifically pertains to nations, not private organizations,
Speaker 1: because at the time that we were drafting that legislation,
Speaker 1: you didn't think about a private company blasting off into space.
Speaker 1: That was beyond the capabilities that we had at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but as we all know, businesses, private corporations and companies
Speaker 1: sometimes behave very well and sometimes behaved not so well
Speaker 1: or sometimes can even uh be be criminally or civilly
Speaker 1: liable even if nobody did anything really bad on purpose.
Speaker 1: That's why we have corporations, because there are people and
Speaker 1: we can hold them accountable. That never happens. Go ahead. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this whole thing of space jurisdiction, it's how laws are
Speaker 1: applied and enforced in space, and it uh, it hasn't
Speaker 1: been to big of an issue with the remarkably well
Speaker 1: behaved public servants to have been part of the public
Speaker 1: and private expeditions up until now. But let's entertain a
Speaker 1: few weird scenarios. How about a few private companies put
Speaker 1: privately owned space stations into orbit. One of these private
Speaker 1: companies goes bankrupt, can't maintain its space station, nobody else
Speaker 1: wants to buy it, its orbit decays, and because this
Speaker 1: was unplanned, it turns out the station maybe entering the
Speaker 1: atmosphere somewhere where there's a small risk of intact debris
Speaker 1: from the station falling over a populated area. Who is
Speaker 1: supposed to step in to prevent something like this from happening?
Speaker 1: And can people be held legally accountable? And if so,
Speaker 1: by whom? All I can imagine is is being like
Speaker 1: a shareholder in that company and the guy just shows
Speaker 1: up and says, hey, so you own stock in Space
Speaker 1: co it went belly up, It's your responsibility to to
Speaker 1: de orbit Space Coast space station over the Pacific. And
Speaker 1: this is typically like the answer to this is usually
Speaker 1: Superman right right? Or how about space collisions? Uh so
Speaker 1: one space station crashes into another because of negligence or
Speaker 1: you know, error, or or much simpler to imagine scenario.
Speaker 1: I think businesses on Earth are often charged with illegal
Speaker 1: dumping of waste. This is a common problem that that
Speaker 1: you know, manufacturers get in trouble for Let's say a
Speaker 1: private space station has a penchant for emptying some sort
Speaker 1: of solid waste into high velocity orbit. Some of this
Speaker 1: orbital waste damages another private company space station. How do
Speaker 1: you sort that out? How do they how does one
Speaker 1: get restitution from the other, and in what jurisdiction? And
Speaker 1: we do have I mean, we have a lot of
Speaker 1: space junk out there right now that like leftovers from
Speaker 1: essentially dead satellites right so there there really is the
Speaker 1: possibility that one company's dead satellite it eventually collide with
Speaker 1: a private company's space station, and then you have these
Speaker 1: very real questions about accountability and how do you handle this,
Speaker 1: And that could even involve satellites from companies that are
Speaker 1: no longer in business. It's it's this is a brand
Speaker 1: new frontier. Yeah. So I'm not saying it's impossible to
Speaker 1: figure this stuff out. I do think it's perfectly reasonable
Speaker 1: to assume we will work out a framework for addressing
Speaker 1: the laws it applies in space, just like we have
Speaker 1: a framework for addressing the law as it applies in
Speaker 1: international waters. But it's something to be thinking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where it's it's good to
Speaker 1: go ahead and ask the questions and try and come
Speaker 1: up with some basic answers. Now when it's not entirely imperative,
Speaker 1: like like it's it's not that something has already happened
Speaker 1: and now we're trying to figure out how do we
Speaker 1: deal with that, It's better to go be preemptive about
Speaker 1: that sort of thing and say, let's ask some questions
Speaker 1: of things, and you know, maybe maybe we assign each
Speaker 1: question a probability score, like how likely is this to happen?
Speaker 1: And the ones that are more likely they get priority
Speaker 1: for us to figure out the answers too, and things like, well,
Speaker 1: what happens if a an alien comes aboard my space
Speaker 1: station and totally messes with it and ends up putting
Speaker 1: pepsi logos all over my Coca Cola space station? Listen,
Speaker 1: that goes at the bottom of the pile. All right,
Speaker 1: we have some serious questions we want to answer first
Speaker 1: before we get into brand confusion, like like why do
Speaker 1: aliens prefer pepsi to Coca cola? Yeah, well, clearly they
Speaker 1: didn't grow up in the South. Does Workman's comp cover
Speaker 1: space madness, You're you're covering my ice cream bar. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: this was kind of a fun preliminary discussion. The really
Speaker 1: cool thing about this is that we don't have to
Speaker 1: wait that long to see some real progress on this front. Now,
Speaker 1: it may be that that twent any date that both
Speaker 1: Axiom Space and and Bigelow have set could be too optimistic,
Speaker 1: but even if that's the case, I suspect it won't
Speaker 1: be that much later before we start seeing some real progress.
Speaker 1: So hopefully they stay on track, because I would love
Speaker 1: to see this, like like actual talk of launching private
Speaker 1: space station components up into lower th orbit in just
Speaker 1: four years. That's insane. I would love to see it happen.
Speaker 1: So here's hoping it all works out. Um. We're really
Speaker 1: excited to learn more about this and to kind of
Speaker 1: explore both the possible positive elements of private space stations
Speaker 1: as well as some of the concerns we might have
Speaker 1: and again kind of address those in advance before it
Speaker 1: becomes a problem. But we've got a lot of other
Speaker 1: stuff we've got to talk about too, because it turns
Speaker 1: out the future it's about everything. Did you guys know
Speaker 1: that when you signed up for this. It's crazy. So
Speaker 1: we have a lot more topics we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about in future episodes of this podcast, but hey, we
Speaker 1: get tired of choosing those all by ourselves. We love
Speaker 1: it when you guys pipe up and give us ideas
Speaker 1: and ask us questions like what will X be like
Speaker 1: in the future? Uh, please continue to do that. You
Speaker 1: can send us an email the addresses f W Thinking
Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works dot com, or you can drop
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