Speaker 1: Boeing has begun assembling an Atlas five rocket in anticipation
Speaker 1: of an historic launch of a new space capsule. In
Speaker 1: will you soon be able to hail a space cab?
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and this is text up daily. For years,
Speaker 1: NASA has had to depend heavily upon Russia in order
Speaker 1: to conduct missions into space. NASA started the Commercial Crew
Speaker 1: Program in response to that dependence, looking to private companies
Speaker 1: to fill the agency's needs and remove the necessity to
Speaker 1: rely upon foreign powers. Boeing was one of the companies
Speaker 1: selected to participate in this program. Boeing's design is called
Speaker 1: the c ST one star Liner, or sometimes the space Taxi.
Speaker 1: The CST stands for Crew Space Transportation. Boeing has designed
Speaker 1: several different configurations of the capsule, including one that could
Speaker 1: hold up to seven crew members or a combination of
Speaker 1: crew and cargo. According to Boeing, the craft's design allows
Speaker 1: it to be reused up to ten times, with a
Speaker 1: six month turnaround between trips. The capsule has some cool
Speaker 1: upgrades to the tech you'd find in historic spacecraft like
Speaker 1: the Apollo vehicles. Crew interfaces will include touchpad devices and
Speaker 1: wireless internet, and unlike other capsules, the CST one hundred
Speaker 1: will be able to land on solid ground rather than
Speaker 1: in the ocean. A combination of a parachute and an
Speaker 1: air bag system provides the cushioning necessary for land based returns.
Speaker 1: The original plan was to have the CST one hundred
Speaker 1: ready for use by ten. That was the purpose of
Speaker 1: the Commercial Crew program, free NASA from dependence upon Russian
Speaker 1: spacecraft by the end of sev As it turns out,
Speaker 1: designing space vehicles it's pretty hard. It requires precise engineering
Speaker 1: and manufacturing to ensure the safety of crew while giving
Speaker 1: the best guarantee for mission success. Boeing discovered some design
Speaker 1: flaws in the star Liner structural elements that delayed the
Speaker 1: production of the spacecraft by more than a year. Some
Speaker 1: of the more complicate at elements of the design required
Speaker 1: more time to troubleshoot than engineers originally anticipated. Boeing isn't
Speaker 1: the only company that's been working on this project. Space X,
Speaker 1: founded by Elon Musk, has also been hard at work.
Speaker 1: SpaceX has already developed the Falcon nine rocket, a two
Speaker 1: stage launch vehicle that has already delivered cargo to the
Speaker 1: International Space Station. The first stage of the Falcon nine
Speaker 1: is reusable. SpaceX has demonstrated this by landing a first
Speaker 1: stage Falcon nine rocket on special platforms. Reusing rockets creates
Speaker 1: significant cost savings, but space x is also running a
Speaker 1: little behind on its Dragon two capsule, which is the
Speaker 1: one the company hopes will deliver astronauts to locations like
Speaker 1: the International Space Station in the future. We may have
Speaker 1: to wait until twenty nineteen or later to see people
Speaker 1: flown into space aboard of private spacecraft. The private space
Speaker 1: industry has created some interesting challenges. For example, one potentially
Speaker 1: lucrative aspect is asteroid mining. With the right technology, it
Speaker 1: would be far more efficient and economical to mine resources
Speaker 1: in space rather than to send them up via rocket
Speaker 1: from Earth. Asteroid mining craft might be able to get
Speaker 1: precious minerals that can serve as raw material for space
Speaker 1: based construction, but until recently, there was a bit of
Speaker 1: a sticky issue who would own the minerals. In two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, United States President Barack Obama signed the Space
Speaker 1: Act of into law. The Act, among other things, grants
Speaker 1: companies the rights to whatever minerals they might mine on
Speaker 1: asteroids or other celestial bodies. This appears to be a
Speaker 1: direct contradiction to the Space Treaty of nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: in which countries around the world agreed that it would
Speaker 1: be illegal to sell space based minerals for profit. Some
Speaker 1: legal experts argue that these considerations apply only to government agencies,
Speaker 1: not to private companies. In other words, the United States
Speaker 1: has no legal authority to lay claim to a particular asteroid,
Speaker 1: but Boeing or SpaceX or some company that doesn't even
Speaker 1: exist yet might not have such a restriction. Asteroid mining
Speaker 1: and trips to the space station are just the tip
Speaker 1: of the celestial iceberg when it comes to private space travel.
Speaker 1: Some companies are already competing to become the number one
Speaker 1: name in space tourism. The strategies range from taking high
Speaker 1: altitude parabolic flights to simulate micro gravity to actual short
Speaker 1: trips up into space but not quite low Earth orbit.
Speaker 1: Then there are the plans for Mars. Several entrepreneurs, Elon
Speaker 1: Musk included, have expressed interest in setting a course for
Speaker 1: the red planet. But Mars is a particularly tricky destination.
Speaker 1: It would take months of travel to get there, and
Speaker 1: once you touch down, it would be pretty tricky getting back.
Speaker 1: Then there's the cosmic radiation you'd encounter both along the
Speaker 1: way and on the surface of Mars. Plus I forgot
Speaker 1: to mention this, pretty much everything on Mars is trying
Speaker 1: to kill you, but it might be cool to visit
Speaker 1: it one day. We're still in the early stages of
Speaker 1: the private space industry. Within a decade or two, who
Speaker 1: knows where we might end up. To learn more about
Speaker 1: space tech and companies like Boeing or SpaceX, subscribe to
Speaker 1: the tech Stuff podcast. On that show, I take my
Speaker 1: time exploring subjects with my listeners and learning what makes
Speaker 1: them work. That's all for today. I'll see you again soon.