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Speaker 4: Hey Daniel, did you ever think about being an astronaut?

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Speaker 1: I always wanted to be an astronaut from some points

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Speaker 1: of view, like I wanted to be out in space.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to see the stars, I wanted to see

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Speaker 1: the Earth under me. But I was also sort of

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Speaker 1: terrified of getting up there.

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Speaker 4: It's really extremely difficult. Like I talked to an astronaut

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Speaker 4: last year and he said it was like writing the

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Speaker 4: tip of an explosion to be on.

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Speaker 1: A rocket, and that scares me. I mean, especially after

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Speaker 1: the Challenger disaster. I know, that was very vivid in

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Speaker 1: my mind when I was a kid. It seems terrifying

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Speaker 1: and it seems dangerous, and it is. You know, you're

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Speaker 1: it's just basically you strapped to a rocket, you know.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you're literally writing an explosion.

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Speaker 1: You're like surfing a fireball. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Well, would you want to go to space if it

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Speaker 4: was easier?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? I think so. You know, if you could just like,

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Speaker 1: you know, get in your car and say, take me

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Speaker 1: to space.

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Speaker 4: Or something like that, Siri, take me to Space.

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Speaker 1: Google Directions to Space Please.

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Speaker 4: Well what if it was just as easy as getting

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Speaker 4: into an elevator and then pressing the space butnton.

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Speaker 1: I think I would sign up for that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, cue the elevator music. Hey guys, this is Jorge

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Speaker 4: and I'm Daniel, and welcome to our podcast. Daniel and

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Speaker 4: Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: In which we take crazy stuff in the universe, including

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Speaker 1: stuff people want to make and explain it to you,

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Speaker 1: break it down, make sure you can understand the next

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Speaker 1: time you're at a party and wanting to impress your

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Speaker 1: friends with your cool science knowledge.

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Speaker 4: That's right. All the crazy ideas out there in the

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Speaker 4: universe and the cosmos, and all the crazy ideas in

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Speaker 4: people's hands that may or may not be possible.

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Speaker 1: That's right. I'm a particle physicist.

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Speaker 4: And I'm a cartoonist, and together.

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Speaker 1: We wrote a book called We Have No Idea, which

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Speaker 1: explores all the mysteries of the unknown and the things

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Speaker 1: we don't know about the universe.

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Speaker 4: And together, twice a week we try to take you

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Speaker 4: up into space and out into the cosmos. And today

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Speaker 4: we're going to talk about a very interesting idea that's

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Speaker 4: spinned out there, floating in science and engineering circles and

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Speaker 4: definitely on the internet, which is a pretty interesting and

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Speaker 4: different way to get to space.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which is really fascinating because it seems like we're

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Speaker 1: sort of trapped on Earth. You know, gravity keeps us here.

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Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about how gravity deforms space and

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Speaker 1: makes it difficult to get off of Earth. And it's

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Speaker 1: nice that gravity holds you down to Earth. But sometimes

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Speaker 1: you want to get up to space. You know, if

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Speaker 1: humanity wants to explore the stars and build space technology

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Speaker 1: in space industry and space habitats, then eventually we've got

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Speaker 1: to get off of this planet. And so we've got

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Speaker 1: to somehow counteract that gravity and climb up into space.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and the main way we've been doing that so

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Speaker 4: far is by strapping ourselves into a giant tube full

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Speaker 4: of of flammable gasoline or hydroxene or a rocket fuel

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Speaker 4: and then lighting that up and hoping that the explosion

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Speaker 4: kind of takes us up into space.

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Speaker 1: It's basically the high tech equivalent of taping a bunch

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Speaker 1: of fireworks to your legs and setting them off.

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Speaker 4: Right, which we advise our listeners not to.

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Speaker 1: Do it's right, or riding the shockwave from a bomb

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Speaker 1: on your surface or something right sounds like a bad idea. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's carefully channeled explosions.

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Speaker 4: But there might be a different way to get to space.

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Speaker 4: And this is a pretty interesting idea because I feel

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Speaker 4: like it's the kind of idea a six year old

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Speaker 4: would come up with, Like, if you, as a six

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Speaker 4: year old, hey, how do you get to space? This

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Speaker 4: is what they might come up.

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Speaker 1: With Oh my god, I totally should have done that.

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Speaker 1: I should have gone to a kindergarten classroom and said,

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Speaker 1: what's the best way to get to space? I would

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Speaker 1: have gotten some awesome ideas like last of the Moon

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Speaker 1: and climb up the rope or something like that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, probably you'd get a lot of a just use

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Speaker 4: the spaceship duh jump really hot.

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Speaker 5: Now.

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Speaker 4: Today's topic on the podcast is space elevators. Are they possible?

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Speaker 4: How do they work? How would they work?

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Speaker 1: Should you ride in one? What should you pack?

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Speaker 4: What's the protocol for when you're standing in a space elevator?

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Speaker 4: Do you make eye contact? Do you go to the

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Speaker 4: furthest opposite corner of an elevator?

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Speaker 1: Do you say, oh wait, I'll take the next one?

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Speaker 4: Do you not and do the what's up? Or have

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Speaker 4: a good time? When they leave? Do you say have

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Speaker 4: a good day? What do you what's the protocol?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but you know, if we do develop

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Speaker 1: space elevators would be a whole impact on culture. You know,

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Speaker 1: people will meet and fall in love on space elevators right,

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Speaker 1: become an element in fiction. You'll see them in movies

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Speaker 1: and comic books.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a pretty fascinating idea and just a concept

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Speaker 4: of elevators. You have a favorite elevator, right, Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I do have a favorite elevator. I love that in

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Speaker 1: Europe when you get into an elevator the ground floor

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Speaker 1: is listed as zero for some reason that just like

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Speaker 1: tickles the nerd in me. And at the Large Hadron Collider,

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Speaker 1: the experiments are deep deep underground, rightther like one hundred

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Speaker 1: meters underground, so that the radiation produced in the collisions

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Speaker 1: doesn't affect anybody above ground. And so they have this

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Speaker 1: elevator you can take down into the tunnel where the

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Speaker 1: accelerator is and that the collisions happen, and it just

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Speaker 1: has two buttons. One of them says zero for the

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Speaker 1: ground level and the other one says minus one, and

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Speaker 1: so you press it, you go whoosh down one hundred meters,

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Speaker 1: which is you know, really far deep deep into the ground.

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Speaker 1: So that one's really fun.

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Speaker 4: There are two options zero and minus one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, there's a much there's a much more dramatic

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Speaker 1: elevator and some other physics experiments, like in the Snow

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Speaker 1: Lab in Canada, they go I think miles underground because

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Speaker 1: they have their their experiments underground in a mine, like

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Speaker 1: an old abandoned mine.

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Speaker 4: Did I ever tell you I have written the CERN

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Speaker 4: elevator down to the bottom?

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Speaker 1: You have? Really? How did you? Did you sneak in?

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Speaker 1: Did you pass the retinal scanner?

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Speaker 4: Or did you go yes, I am a physics ninja.

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Speaker 1: I remember you're in, not the physics ninja. That was

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Speaker 1: our listener trying to take credit. Now, how did you

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Speaker 1: get in? Did you? No?

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Speaker 4: I got I was giving a tour and I went

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Speaker 4: down there and it was super exciting, super fun. I

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Speaker 4: didn't get to walk the tunnels, but I was kind

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Speaker 4: of disappointed to see that the one comic strip that

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Speaker 4: was up on the walls there was an x KCV

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Speaker 4: comic strip?

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Speaker 1: Did you take it down and replace it with one

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Speaker 1: of yours?

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Speaker 4: And that was well earned? It was a really funny comic.

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Speaker 1: It was well earned.

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Speaker 4: So, yeah, so getting to space is really expensive, right,

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Speaker 4: and so the idea that you might be able to

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Speaker 4: take an elevator sounds pretty appealing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting why gettingto space is so expensive.

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Speaker 1: You might think, like, what's the big deal? You just

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Speaker 1: build a rocket and you shoot it up there? Right?

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Speaker 1: How expensive could rocket fuel be? Yeah? Right? But the

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Speaker 1: problem is that you need a huge amount of fuel

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Speaker 1: to get to space, and you can't refuel a rocket

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Speaker 1: along the way, right, You have to lift all the

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Speaker 1: fuel you're gonna need from the beginning.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I saw this presentation by an Austronet ones

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Speaker 4: who said that basically ninety five percent of your rocket,

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Speaker 4: like by weight, like ninety five percent of the weight

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Speaker 4: of your rocket is basically fuel.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Imagine if you were going to drive across

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Speaker 1: the country, but there were no gas stations between here

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Speaker 1: and there, and so you need to like pack all

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Speaker 1: the fuel, right, So you like have a huge tanker

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Speaker 1: and you fill it with fuel. So now you need

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Speaker 1: extra fuel to bring that fuel, right, and so pretty

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Speaker 1: soon you're carrying like a train of tankers with you.

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Speaker 1: And so you're right, most of the fuels there just

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Speaker 1: to lift the other fuel.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So a lot of you your fuel just goes

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Speaker 4: to lifting the fuel that you need to lift the

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Speaker 4: other fuel to maybe a little bit use some of

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Speaker 4: that to lift you up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's diminishing returns. Every pound of fuel you add,

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Speaker 1: a very very small amount of it actually lifts you up.

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Speaker 1: And so that's why rockets are pretty inefficient, super expensive.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So when you see a rocket, just imagine ninety five

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Speaker 4: percent of that long tube is basically like an explosive.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's not basically an explosive. It is an explosive.

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Speaker 1: I mean you explode your way to space, right like

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Speaker 1: this, This is the plan, right, it is ride an explosion

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Speaker 1: to space. And so that's pretty expensive, right, I was

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Speaker 1: looking it up. It turns out that if you want

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Speaker 1: to send one kilogram that's like two something pounds of

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Speaker 1: stuff into space, it costs like twenty thousand dollars. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter what it is, gold, mashed potatoes, hamsters, one

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Speaker 1: kilogram of whatever cost about twenty thousand dollars to send

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Speaker 1: a space Wow.

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Speaker 4: So it's like ten thousand dollars a pound.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. That's some premo caviaar, you know. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: say you want to build something, right, you want to

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Speaker 1: build a factory in space that can make space ships,

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Speaker 1: or that can make habitats or domes or spacesuits or whatever. Right,

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Speaker 1: you have to send every piece of that stuff from

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Speaker 1: Earth because we don't have any manufacturing in space yet, right,

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Speaker 1: you have to lift it all. It would cost so

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Speaker 1: much money to make stuff on Earth and then lift

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Speaker 1: it up into space.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it would like all those space stations you

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Speaker 4: see and science fiction movies. You've got to wonder how

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Speaker 4: did they get all that metal and stuff up there?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which is exactly why I think with the future

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Speaker 1: is to build a space based industry, right, build that

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Speaker 1: stuff in space, right, build a factory in space that

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Speaker 1: can manufacture stuff so you don't have to lift it

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Speaker 1: from the Earth. But then first you have to build

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Speaker 1: that first factory, right, you have to get it started somehow.

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Speaker 4: Well, you have to get up the raw materials too, right.

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Speaker 1: Well, there's plenty of raw materials and asteroids, right, There's

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Speaker 1: lots of good metals and stuff and asteroids, so you

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Speaker 1: can if you can build an asteroid mining factory in space,

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Speaker 1: then you're set to go. But the first one you

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Speaker 1: have to build on Earth and lift it right.

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Speaker 4: Well, so rockets seem pretty a little bit inefficient and

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Speaker 4: kind of dangerous, And so there's this other idea to

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Speaker 4: get things up into space called the space elevator.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And so we're going to dig into how

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Speaker 1: a space elevator works and what should you take one,

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Speaker 1: and is it possible and is it feasible? But before

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Speaker 1: we do, we thought we would ask folks around the

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Speaker 1: UC Irvine campus if they had heard of a space elevator,

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Speaker 1: if they thought it was reasonable, or if they thought

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Speaker 1: it was just some crazy idea A fuzzy hair physicist

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Speaker 1: was asking them about.

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Speaker 4: So before you listen to these answers, think about it

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Speaker 4: for a second. How much do you know about space elevators?

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Speaker 4: Here's what people had to say.

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Speaker 1: No, what would be your best guess or what a

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Speaker 1: space elevator would be?

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Speaker 4: The one the Charlie and the Chocolate factory.

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Speaker 1: Perfect? No, it was a best guess space elevator.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, can I get it? Can I get a hint.

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Speaker 1: Elevator to space, elevator to space?

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Speaker 5: No, I don't think it's that.

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Speaker 1: Alright, Thanks very much. Any any best guess what that

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Speaker 1: might be? I have no idea. Yes, do you think

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Speaker 1: it's possible feasible? It seems possible. I don't know about feasible.

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Speaker 1: When do you think we might see one in action?

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Speaker 6: I think that as I understand it, the limitations have

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Speaker 6: to do with materials constraints right now and the strength

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Speaker 6: of the materials. So last I heard they were working

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Speaker 6: on like carbon fiber that could support its own weight

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Speaker 6: up to the lower Earth orbit. But I don't know

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Speaker 6: how that's going.

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Speaker 7: Is it like a thing used for like the space

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Speaker 7: ships to like launch it up?

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Speaker 6: I guess something similarly.

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Speaker 1: To that, right, an elevator in space, elevator in space

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Speaker 1: or elevator to space? Two space? Sure? Space? You'd like

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Speaker 1: to have a space elevator? No, I think I might

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Speaker 1: die in it.

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Speaker 4: On a space station or something like that.

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Speaker 1: It takes you to like from the bridge to engineering

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Speaker 1: or something.

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Speaker 8: Something like that, all right, maybe something that launches you

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Speaker 8: into space.

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Speaker 1: Cool?

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Speaker 4: All right, So it sounds like a lot of people

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Speaker 4: have ever heard what a space elevator is. Someone said

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Speaker 4: that it was like the one Charlie the chocolate factory.

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Speaker 1: That was a great answer. Yeah, I love that. I

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Speaker 1: love seeing people think on their feet. They're like, haven't

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Speaker 1: heard that? What could it be?

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Speaker 4: They're like, I've heard these words before. Space and elevator.

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Speaker 4: Is it an elevator that uses space takes you to space?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Or an elevator in space?

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Speaker 5: Right?

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Speaker 1: That was one of my favorite ideas. Be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of like in Star Trek when you go

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Speaker 1: from like the bridge to engineering that uses an elevator, right,

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Speaker 1: so very few people thought from first principles that it

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Speaker 1: might be an elevator to space. One of the guys

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Speaker 1: we interviewed happens to be a professor of Earth system science,

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Speaker 1: and so he was very knowledgeable about the topic. As

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Speaker 1: you can hear.

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Speaker 4: Oh, I see, he was a ringer.

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Speaker 1: He was definitely a ringer.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, he really elevated the topic here.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.

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Speaker 4: All right, let's jump into it, Daniel, So, for what

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Speaker 4: is a space elevator.

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Speaker 1: The idea of space elevator is to avoid having to

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Speaker 1: do the rocket lift right and instead of having to

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Speaker 1: push yourself up out of Earth gravity. Right, every time

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Speaker 1: you're pushing yourself out of Earth gravity, you're doing two things. First,

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Speaker 1: you're keeping yourself up and second you're lifting yourself up. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, say you're like, you know, five hundred feet

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Speaker 1: above the Earth and you just want to hover. You

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Speaker 1: don't want to go anywhere any higher. Even that just

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Speaker 1: that takes energy, right.

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Speaker 4: You have to continually push yourself up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so imaginative. Instead, you could just climb a ladder. Right,

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Speaker 1: there's like a ladder to space. Then when you wanted

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Speaker 1: to take a break, you could stop right and you

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Speaker 1: could rest and the ladder would support you. The ladder

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Speaker 1: would provide that essentially the counterbalancing force against gravity to

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Speaker 1: keep you up while you rested, and then did the

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Speaker 1: rest of your climb.

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Speaker 4: Right, So you could literally just hang out, yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 4: hang out in space.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you could build a ladder to space,

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Speaker 1: then that would save you a lot of that energy. Right.

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Speaker 1: The other idea is avoid carrying all your energy with you, right,

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Speaker 1: the rocket. As we were saying earlier, the big problem

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Speaker 1: with the rocket is you have to carry the fuel,

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Speaker 1: and then the fuel to carry the fuel and the

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Speaker 1: fuel to carry the fuel and all that stuff. So

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Speaker 1: if you could somehow, you know, get the energy from

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Speaker 1: the ground as you were climbing, you know, like people

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Speaker 1: are like throwing you, you know, candy bars as you're

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Speaker 1: climbing of the ladder, then you wouldn't have to carry

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Speaker 1: all those candy bars with that. So the idea of

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Speaker 1: a space elevator is build something you can climb and

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Speaker 1: send the energy up to the car that climbs. The

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Speaker 1: climbs the elevator while it's on the way, so it

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Speaker 1: doesn't have to carry it all.

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Speaker 4: Like a real elevator in a building, like you get

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Speaker 4: the power form it. You don't carry all the gasoline

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Speaker 4: to power the elevator. It just comes to you through

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Speaker 4: the cables attached to the elevator, right.

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Speaker 1: That's right. This would be a slightly different structure because

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Speaker 1: an elevator in a building is usually like attached to

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Speaker 1: the cable and then there's an engine at the top

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Speaker 1: that's pulling on the cable or something. So the basic

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Speaker 1: idea here is you have a huge cable, you attach

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Speaker 1: it to the ground on Earth, and then you lift

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Speaker 1: the other end all the way up into space and

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Speaker 1: attach it to something in space. So the idea I

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Speaker 1: said earlier a six year old like lassoing the moon.

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Speaker 1: That's basically the idea is like tie a string between

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Speaker 1: the Earth and something in space.

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Speaker 4: Wow, okay, So I think the basic idea is to

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Speaker 4: build something permanent, you know, not a rocket you use

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Speaker 4: once and then throw it away, but like build a structure,

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Speaker 4: something like a link between Earth and space and then

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Speaker 4: just climb that every time you want to go into

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Speaker 4: space exactly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And so then it's reusable and you don't have

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Speaker 1: to carry all the fuel with you. We'll talk in

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Speaker 1: detail about how you can accomplish that, and you can

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Speaker 1: take breaks, right, you don't have to provide the hovering

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Speaker 1: lift as well as the climbing lift. So there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of possible advantages if you can build that kind

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Speaker 1: of structure. You can just hang on, yeah, exactly, you

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Speaker 1: can just hang on. You can like clamp onto the

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Speaker 1: rope or whatever to prevent yourself from falling. A rocket

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Speaker 1: can't do that, right, it has nothing to hang onto.

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Speaker 1: It's just as the air around it to push against.

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Speaker 1: And when I first heard about the concept of a

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Speaker 1: space elevator, I thought like, how is the rope going

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Speaker 1: to stay up right? I mean if you just if

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Speaker 1: you take a long rope and just like throw the

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Speaker 1: end into the sky, it falls down, right, There's no

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Speaker 1: way it like stays up in the sky. How does

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Speaker 1: that even work?

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Speaker 4: Right, Well, you're assuming that it looks like a rope, right,

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Speaker 4: Like a like this elevator could take different forms, Like

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Speaker 4: it could be just a one rope that goes off

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Speaker 4: into infinity like Jack and the bean Stalk, or it

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Speaker 4: could be what if you just build a really really

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00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:08,760
Speaker 4: tall tower, like if you just you know, the Berk

442
00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:13,679
Speaker 4: Khalifa in Dubai, What if you just keep building that

443
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:15,840
Speaker 4: up up into space. What would happen then.

444
00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:18,080
Speaker 1: Well, the bottom of the tower would get crushed, right.

445
00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:21,520
Speaker 1: The problem with building something up from the ground and

446
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:24,280
Speaker 1: not having it be pulled from outer space. So that's

447
00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:26,080
Speaker 1: the key about the space elevators, that you build it

448
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:29,359
Speaker 1: so long and so high and the rope goes so

449
00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:33,120
Speaker 1: far that it's basically getting pulled from space. We'll talk

450
00:21:33,119 --> 00:21:35,240
Speaker 1: about that in a moment. But the problem with building

451
00:21:35,240 --> 00:21:38,320
Speaker 1: a tower, it's basically like a compression structure. Every layer

452
00:21:38,359 --> 00:21:40,280
Speaker 1: sits on top of the previous layer, and then the

453
00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:42,720
Speaker 1: next layer sits on top of that, and by the

454
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:45,040
Speaker 1: time you get to you know, really really tall, the

455
00:21:45,080 --> 00:21:49,959
Speaker 1: bottom layer is supporting the entire structure, right, and that

456
00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:52,800
Speaker 1: has to be super strong or super wide or made

457
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:55,920
Speaker 1: out of crazy materials to go anywhere close to the

458
00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:58,520
Speaker 1: distance of space. So you have to have this thing

459
00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:01,600
Speaker 1: be really light so we can get height without having

460
00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:02,280
Speaker 1: a lot of weight.

461
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:05,760
Speaker 4: I see, potannically, it's possible. Is it possible to just

462
00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:07,880
Speaker 4: build a giant pyramid that's really really tall?

463
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:10,919
Speaker 1: Is it possible? I mean Mount Everest is a giant

464
00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:13,119
Speaker 1: pyramid that's pretty pretty tall, But I don't know if

465
00:22:13,119 --> 00:22:16,040
Speaker 1: we could build it. You know, like these things have

466
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:18,760
Speaker 1: to go get pretty wide in order to support all

467
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:22,280
Speaker 1: that weight. Eventually, Yeah, maybe you could build the tower

468
00:22:22,320 --> 00:22:25,919
Speaker 1: babble into space, but I think it's as difficult as

469
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:29,160
Speaker 1: space elevators are. A space tower would be even more difficult.

470
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:32,480
Speaker 1: I see, all right, Yeah, the space elevator has the

471
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:35,040
Speaker 1: advantage that the top of it, the rope, is so

472
00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:39,600
Speaker 1: far out into space that it pulls on the rope.

473
00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, I just think maybe we're jumping ahead, right

474
00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:44,879
Speaker 4: because maybe some people think it's an elevator, so you

475
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:47,320
Speaker 4: just it means that there's an elevator shaft that takes

476
00:22:47,359 --> 00:22:49,920
Speaker 4: you all the way up. You're saying that the primary

477
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:52,080
Speaker 4: way that this might work is using a cable.

478
00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:54,600
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, exactly, it has to be a cable. You

479
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:56,480
Speaker 1: can't just build a building that goes all the way

480
00:22:56,520 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 1: up into space. That has to have something at the

481
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:01,360
Speaker 1: top of it that's so far into space that it's

482
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:05,200
Speaker 1: basically escaped the Earth's gravity and is pulling, pulling whatever

483
00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:05,680
Speaker 1: it is up.

484
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:08,679
Speaker 4: And so that's that's is that the prevailing idea, and

485
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:12,359
Speaker 4: that this this way it could work. Maybe, like the

486
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 4: idea is that it's it's not an elevator shaft or

487
00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:17,879
Speaker 4: a tower, it's a it's like a string. Basically, you

488
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 4: attach the string to Earth and you swing around something

489
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:23,639
Speaker 4: really heavy out into space that keeps the that rope,

490
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:26,400
Speaker 4: that string intension, Yeah exactly, and then maybe you can

491
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,600
Speaker 4: use that then maybe you can climb that rope in tension,

492
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:31,439
Speaker 4: that rope up into space.

493
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:34,440
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. You attach a string from the ground to

494
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:37,320
Speaker 1: something up in space, and that thing up in space

495
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:40,080
Speaker 1: is pulling on the string, right, it's keeping it up.

496
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:42,959
Speaker 1: And then yeah, and then you just climb up that

497
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:46,439
Speaker 1: rope and so it's more like a space ladder than

498
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 1: a space elevator, if you want to think about it

499
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:49,160
Speaker 1: that way.

500
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, more like a space uh space cable.

501
00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: It's like a space fire pole, right yeah.

502
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, but then you would ride an elevator like you

503
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:00,800
Speaker 4: would be you would the way. You wouldn't climb it

504
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,399
Speaker 4: by hand. You would be inside of an elevator like

505
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,440
Speaker 4: structure that then climbs up the rope or the pole.

506
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:09,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd have to be crazy strong to climb it

507
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:12,679
Speaker 1: by hand. Yeah. The basic components are you have station

508
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: on the ground, the cable that goes up, some counterweight

509
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 1: up in space to keep it up, and then you

510
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 1: have something that climbs it, some like car or some

511
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: device that basically crawls up the rope. The thing that

512
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,359
Speaker 1: like climbs the ladder for you, and that slips its

513
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: way up the rope. So those are the basic components.

514
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:36,239
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's hard to imagine how that rope stays up,

515
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:37,879
Speaker 4: Like what keeps that rope vertical?

516
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. That's the thing that puzzled me for a

517
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 1: long time when I was thinking about the space elevator,

518
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 1: because it's just counter to your intuition, right, you think

519
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:47,240
Speaker 1: the things that go up in sky come down right.

520
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 1: But the truth is, if you throw things high enough

521
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: up into the sky, they don't come down right. They

522
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: go into orbit. And so at some point the force

523
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: of gravity weakens enough and the centrifugal force is strong

524
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: long enough that they stay up there. You know. Imagine,

525
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: for example, you are you have a bucket with a

526
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:09,960
Speaker 1: rope and you're swinging it around yourself. Right. Then you know,

527
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 1: water for example, can stay in the bucket, even if

528
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:16,400
Speaker 1: the bucket goes upside down. Right. Why is that? It's

529
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 1: because of this apparent force, a centrifugal force, and so

530
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: that's pushing things away if you're spinning, right, it's the

531
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: fact that the Earth is spinning provides this sort of

532
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:27,639
Speaker 1: outwards apparent centrifal force mm.

533
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 4: And so it'd be like the Earth is rotating around

534
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 4: and you tie string to it, and the swinging around

535
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 4: of some big weight at the end of the rope

536
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 4: is what keeps the rope vertical and intention and then

537
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:41,679
Speaker 4: you can climb that rope to get to space.

538
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:44,919
Speaker 1: Exactly. The center of mass of the whole structure is

539
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: above the orbit level. Right at some point above the Earth,

540
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 1: the force of gravity gets weaker, and the centrifugal force

541
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 1: actually gets stronger with distance, and so at some point

542
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 1: above the Earth they're equal. That's what we call like

543
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:01,159
Speaker 1: where geosynchronous orbit can happen that it's in balance, it

544
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 1: can just stay in orbit. And so the idea is

545
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: to put something really heavy above that so that the

546
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 1: average weight, like where's the average bit of mass of

547
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:12,720
Speaker 1: the space elevator is above that orbit level and so

548
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: it's just like something in orbit. I mean, you can

549
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: think of it like something in orbit with that dangles

550
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:19,119
Speaker 1: down really really low.

551
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 4: Oh, I see, it doesn't have to be attached to Earth,

552
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 4: is what you're saying.

553
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be attached to Earth, but it's

554
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:27,120
Speaker 1: better if it is, right, you don't want to climb

555
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 1: someone which is actually dangling. But just some point of

556
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:31,360
Speaker 1: view of the physics, like why does it stay up?

557
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 1: It's you know, the fact that it's attached to Earth

558
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:36,119
Speaker 1: is not what keeps it up, right. The thing that

559
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:37,919
Speaker 1: keeps it up is what they said, it's attached to

560
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 1: the part in space. Right.

561
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:43,679
Speaker 4: That's interesting, Like people in the International Space Station could potentially,

562
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 4: i mean physically just kind of let out a little

563
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 4: bit of string down into Earth, and at some point

564
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 4: it might touch the Earth and it would just hang

565
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 4: there between the station and Earth.

566
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:55,480
Speaker 1: Right, And your intuition tells you that should work, right,

567
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: And that's basically the same thing.

568
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:01,919
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then you just clip that rope deer acarash

569
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 4: and you're done.

570
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. But the key is that the thing is in

571
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:10,360
Speaker 1: geosynchronous orbit, right, so it's always above the same part

572
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:12,439
Speaker 1: of the Earth. Because you don't want this robe like

573
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 1: dragging across the surface of the Earth, right, that wouldn't

574
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 1: be a lot of fun.

575
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 4: Like Bruce Willis movie.

576
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly. So you want to have some like big

577
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 1: station on the ground where this thing clips in, and

578
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: so you have this like a spaceport on the ground

579
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:28,920
Speaker 1: and then a place you can arrive above the Earth.

580
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:31,199
Speaker 1: And so that's the basic physics of it.

581
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 4: Well, this is pretty cool. You said. You told me

582
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:36,439
Speaker 4: that basically the point at which you would reach this

583
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 4: geostationary or orbit is about thirty six thousand kilometers out

584
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:41,959
Speaker 4: into space.

585
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So you need to have enough mass above

586
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 1: that height so that on average the mass of the

587
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: whole thing is just above thirty six thousand kilometers above

588
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: the Earth.

589
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 4: And just for reference, like the moon is about three

590
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,879
Speaker 4: hundred and eighty thousand kilometers way, so it's like a

591
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 4: tenth of the way to the moon you could have

592
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:02,360
Speaker 4: this elevator.

593
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, So that makes it sound totally plausible. Right,

594
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:06,760
Speaker 1: you don't even need to last of the moon. You

595
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: just have to last of the space station, right exactly.

596
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: But that's a really long rope. Right.

597
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 4: Well, let's see how long would it take you to

598
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 4: get there, like thirty six thousand kilometers away, and let's

599
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:20,160
Speaker 4: say that your elevator is going up at two hundred

600
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 4: kilometers per hour, it would take you long. How much

601
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:24,119
Speaker 4: is that?

602
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 1: Well, that's you know, five hours to go a thousand kilometers, right,

603
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 1: so one hundred and eighty hours or so, So that's

604
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: a few days. You know, when you get in at

605
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: the bottom, you're going to look around because you're going

606
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:36,119
Speaker 1: to be with those folks for a while.

607
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 4: Oh and then hope nobody passes some wind or exactly,

608
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 4: bring some chili longer.

609
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: Pay attention to what everybody's eating just before they get

610
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: on the space elevator. Yeah, no, it's a lot like

611
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 1: a super long airline flight, but days long.

612
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 4: Right, Oh wow, that'd be amazing. But then at the

613
00:28:57,600 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 4: end of the two days, at the end of the

614
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 4: ten days, you'd be in space.

615
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you'd be in space. And even that number,

616
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: like two hundred klometers per hour, that's pretty fast. That's

617
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 1: pretty fast for an elevator, right, So I don't know

618
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 1: how plausible or how comfortable that would be. It seems

619
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,440
Speaker 1: to be pretty sippy for an elevator. But if you

620
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: get those speeds up, then you could get the time down.

621
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:20,360
Speaker 1: And you know, ten days is a long time for

622
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: a passenger. But I think in the beginning, the more

623
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 1: important thing is lifting up cargo. Right. If you're gonna

624
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: build industry in space so you can build space ships

625
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: and habitats and all that kind of stuff, then you

626
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: gotta you're gonna lift stuff up into space.

627
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 4: Okay, So that's the concept. As you do, you put

628
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 4: a cable between the Earth, you tie it down here,

629
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 4: and you tie the other end to something heavy and

630
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 4: swinging around the Earth in orbit geosynchronous orbit, and then

631
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 4: you just pulled yourself up the cable to get to space.

632
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds simple. Just pull yourself up.

633
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, let's do it. Hold on, I'm gonna I'm

634
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 4: gonna take care of this.

635
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 1: I want to imagine you selling tickets at the bottom

636
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: You're like, it's one thousand dollars and just you know,

637
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: pull yourself on up.

638
00:29:56,680 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, let's get into why it's possible or maybe impossible.

639
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 4: But first let's take a quick break.

640
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth

641
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: or enjoy a rich spoonful of Greek yogurt, you're probably

642
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 1: not thinking about the environmental impact of each and every bite.

643
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 1: But the people in the dairy industry are. US Dairy

644
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:23,959
Speaker 1: has set themselves some ambitious sustainability goals, including being greenhouse

645
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: gas neutral by twenty to fifty. That's why they're working

646
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 1: hard every day to find new ways to reduce waste,

647
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: conserve natural resources, and drive down greenhouse gas emissions. Take water,

648
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: for example, most dairy farms reuse water up to four

649
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: times the same water cools the milk, cleans equipment, washes

650
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: the barn, and irrigates the crops. How is US dairy

651
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: tackling greenhouse gases? Many farms use anaerobic digestors that turn

652
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: the methane from maneure into renewable energy that can power farms, towns,

653
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 1: and electric cars. So the next time you grab a

654
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:54,600
Speaker 1: slice of pizza or lick an ice cream cone. Know

655
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: that dairy farmers and processors around the country are using

656
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 1: the latest practices and innovations to provide the nutrienttents dairy

657
00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: products we love with less of an impact. Visit us

658
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: dairy dot com slash sustainability to learn more.

659
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 9: There are children, friends, and families walking riding on paths

660
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664
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Speaker 1: Rules and restrictions may apply.

691
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Speaker 4: All right. So that's a space elevator. It's a giant

692
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 4: rope tied to Earth and tied to on the other end,

693
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 4: to something floating out into space. And the idea is

694
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 4: that we just get on an elevator elevator that climbs

695
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:42,920
Speaker 4: that robe. So where's the what's the difficult part here?

696
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 4: Why can't we just build one?

697
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 1: Oh? I'm building one right now, should be done next week.

698
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: You want to come down try it out?

699
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 4: All right?

700
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's made out of paper clips.

701
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 4: I can see it from here.

702
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 1: Oh my god, there's a lot of hard parts in

703
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: this line. First of all, you're talking about attaching a

704
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: rope to something heavy out in space? What right, Like

705
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 1: do you corral an asteroid? Do you collect a bunch

706
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: of space junk and build a garbage mountain in space?

707
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:11,239
Speaker 1: Like you need something big and heavy that you can

708
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 1: understand and snap a cable too, And.

709
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 4: Wait, why does it need to be? Like how heavy

710
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 4: does it need to be? Like does it need to

711
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 4: be you know, like the size of the moon or

712
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 4: the size of a bus.

713
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: Or what it needs to be? Definitely thousands and thousands

714
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: of kilos. Exact size depends on the distance. So the

715
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 1: longer your rope, the further away this rock can be,

716
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: and the lighter it can be, right, because this centrifugal

717
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 1: force grows with radius, and so it doesn't need to

718
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 1: be as heavy if it's longer, But then you have

719
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: to build a longer rope. If you want a shorter rope,

720
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: then you need a larger mass. And so it's a

721
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: bit of a balancing act.

722
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 4: But we just collect all those junk satellites and make

723
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 4: a giant satellite ball and that's it.

724
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, or yeah, or maybe we could just like gather

725
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: all the plastic from the ocean and use that, right,

726
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: a huge you know, plastic straw ball in space would

727
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 1: be pretty cool. So that's problem number one.

728
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is the thing that's out there holding the

729
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 4: elevator up.

730
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the bigger problem is connecting it right. Like,

731
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: say you have a big asteroid in space. You're all

732
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: set to big built your space elevator. How do you

733
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: make such a rope? You know, this thing has to

734
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: be like thousands of kilometers long, it has to be

735
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:22,839
Speaker 1: super strong, it has to never ever ever break right,

736
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: and most importantly, it has to be strong enough to

737
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 1: hold itself up.

738
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 4: What do you mean strong enough to hold itself up?

739
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 4: Didn't we say that the rope is pretty much kind

740
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 4: of floating out into space.

741
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:35,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you can imagine there's sort of two halves

742
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 1: of it. Right, there's some average point where half the

743
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,000
Speaker 1: mass of the space elevators above it and half the

744
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:44,240
Speaker 1: masses below it. Everything above that point is getting pulled

745
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:47,720
Speaker 1: out into space. Cool. Everything below that point is getting

746
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:50,439
Speaker 1: pulled down towards the Earth. It still has weight, right,

747
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: So even if the whole thing is being held up,

748
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: then those elements of the rope that are right there

749
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: at that halfway point, they have to be strong enough

750
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 1: to hold all that weight below them. Even if there's

751
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 1: a force on the other end, pulling on the rope

752
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 1: to provide it to keep it up. The rope has

753
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:06,280
Speaker 1: to be strong enough, right.

754
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 4: But why does it need to be intention I guess

755
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 4: is my question, Because couldn't you just have something in

756
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:13,919
Speaker 4: geosynchronous orbit? Like, if something's in orbit, it's not there's

757
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 4: nothing holding it, right, So couldn't you just have a

758
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 4: slack line?

759
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:19,840
Speaker 1: Well, I think a slack line would make for a

760
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: pretty wild ride, you know, as elevator or.

761
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 4: Something like the atmosphere, not a completely taunt or like

762
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:27,760
Speaker 4: a barely taunt.

763
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 1: It's not about the tension, right, It's just about having

764
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: having a really really long cable that's suspended by itself. Right.

765
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 1: Even if you lower say you lowered that cable from

766
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 1: the space station, right, you didn't even tie it to Earth.

767
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 1: The part where it attaches to the space station is

768
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:45,440
Speaker 1: going to be pulled down by the entire weight of

769
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:48,880
Speaker 1: the cable, right. Oh, The cable itself just has to

770
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:51,839
Speaker 1: be strong enough to hold that weight. It's not about

771
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,320
Speaker 1: the strength of the pulling force. Like let's say Superman

772
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:58,040
Speaker 1: wants to pull on the Moon. Okay, so yeah, maybe

773
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: he's strong enough. He ties a rope around the moon,

774
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 1: and he's strong enough to pull hard enough on the

775
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:05,319
Speaker 1: rope to move to move the moon. But is the

776
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:09,040
Speaker 1: rope strong enough. Probably not, Probably the rope would snap, right,

777
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 1: So this is about making a rope that's strong enough

778
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: to hold all that weight, hold all that force that's

779
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 1: keeping it in space.

780
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,719
Speaker 4: Oh, I see, so that there doesn't need to be

781
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:23,320
Speaker 4: tension between the space object and the Earth. But the

782
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 4: rope itself weighs a certain amount exactly, so it's it's

783
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:29,880
Speaker 4: being pulled down by itself basically.

784
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:31,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's got to be strong enough to hold

785
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 1: itself up, so you need something which is really strong.

786
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 1: You also want it to be very light so that

787
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be that strong. So it's this

788
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:40,799
Speaker 1: constant balance, and people in materials are doing this kind

789
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 1: of research all the time trying to make really strong,

790
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: really light materials, not just for space elevators, you know,

791
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: for like bulletproof vests and for buildings and for airplanes,

792
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 1: and like being both strong and light is like one

793
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 1: of the hardest things in materials, right you know that

794
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:55,320
Speaker 1: you're an engineer.

795
00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought I was just going to say I

796
00:36:57,560 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 4: thought you were going to say that I am strong

797
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 4: in light, which is totally true. Thank you, Daniel.

798
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:07,280
Speaker 1: You're brilliant like light, and you're also very strong willed,

799
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: So there you go.

800
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:11,480
Speaker 4: Have a strong personality, is what you're saying.

801
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: Exactly. And so it's difficult to find materials that are

802
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 1: strong enough to fit the bill. I mean, this thing

803
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: is crazy long, right, It's like, I mean, thirty six

804
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: thousand kilometers is it's just a huge number, right, And

805
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:28,719
Speaker 1: so we've never met anything that long. We don't have

806
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 1: materials that can hold themselves up when they're that long.

807
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 4: That would be like a rope that goes around the

808
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 4: Earth basically, right, Like you you start a rope here

809
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 4: and you keep going to come back on the other

810
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 4: end from the other side. That would be how long

811
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:43,600
Speaker 4: the rope would need to.

812
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:45,919
Speaker 1: Be, right exactly. It's it's crazy. It's hard to even

813
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: really imagine building something that big, literally planet sized.

814
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, okay, So, and so what are the alternatives,

815
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 4: like titanium, What if you use titanium or at amantium.

816
00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 1: At amanium. Yeah, if you use more rble comixium, you

817
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:04,840
Speaker 1: know than any you can do anything. No, the strongest

818
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 1: metals we have. If you made a thin rope of them.

819
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:09,480
Speaker 1: They can hold themselves up if you make it like,

820
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:13,800
Speaker 1: you know, twenty or even thirty kilometers long, but eventually,

821
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: eventually they just fall apart. Right the weight in the

822
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:21,120
Speaker 1: bottom will be stronger than the internal strength of the material.

823
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 1: It'll tear itself apart. And you can try lighter stuff

824
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:28,280
Speaker 1: like kevlar or carbon fiber. These are fancy materials people

825
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: developed that are pretty light, and those can maybe make like,

826
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:34,239
Speaker 1: you know, one hundred kilometers a few hundred kilometers, but

827
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:37,919
Speaker 1: remember we're looking for something that's like tens of thousands

828
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 1: of kilometers. And so recently people have done research and

829
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: they've come up with even crazier materials, Like have you

830
00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 1: ever heard of carbon nanotubes?

831
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 4: I have? Yeah? Is that like YouTube? Is that like

832
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 4: like YouTube bread? Is that the No?

833
00:38:56,360 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the super premium version of YouTube. Exactly. Carbon

834
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:05,720
Speaker 1: nanotubes are this really cool development. It's a totally different

835
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 1: way to arrange carbon. Carbon is an amazing element. You know,

836
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: it's the backbone of organic chemistry. Right, every molecule in

837
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 1: your body has carbon in its backbone. It's incredibly flexible. Also,

838
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a lot of protons in it because

839
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: it's early in the periodic table, so you can make

840
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: structures in it that don't have a lot of like

841
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 1: dead weight. Like a lot of the materials we use,

842
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: the protons and the neutrons, which provide most of the

843
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: weight of the stuff, don't really contribute much to the

844
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 1: strength of the object.

845
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:35,320
Speaker 4: But a carbon nanotube is like pure chemical.

846
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 1: Bonds, right, Yeah, exactly. Most of the strength comes from

847
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: the chemical bonds, which really just come from the electrons,

848
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 1: which are pretty light. So you want to find a

849
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 1: material which has a small number of protons and neutrons

850
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: like carbon, and can arrange itself in clever ways. And

851
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: so people have figured out ways to make like these

852
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 1: spherical shells of carbon. Those are called bucket balls, or

853
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 1: these tubes of carbon. It's really pretty incredible. And of

854
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:58,320
Speaker 1: course folks out there might know elect carbon can make graphite,

855
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: it can make diamond right. It's really it's like a

856
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: you know, an engineer's dream when it comes to a

857
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 1: basic building material.

858
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 4: So this is almost kind of like a cable meane

859
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 4: out of diamonds, right, almost like it's it's a very

860
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 4: specific carbon arrangement.

861
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:15,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's exactly. It's a very specific arrangement of carbon

862
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 1: and people have and they're incredibly strong, right, They're stronger

863
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: than anything anybody has ever made. Right, And the current

864
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 1: calculations tell us that, like, you could probably make a

865
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:30,840
Speaker 1: carbon nanotube that goes five, maybe ten thousand kilometers and

866
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: it could hold itself up, which is pretty good. Right,

867
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,279
Speaker 1: that's getting in the range of what you need. It's

868
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 1: still a little low. But the problem is that we're

869
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,120
Speaker 1: not really that good at making carbon nanotubes yet. Like

870
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 1: the longest one we've ever made is like centimeters in length.

871
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:55,919
Speaker 4: Oh, so we're almost there. Well, I've heard this idea

872
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 4: of using carbon nanotubes, which I know are like single atom,

873
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 4: single molecule strands, and I was thought, well, you're going

874
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 4: to pull a whole other elevator on a single strand

875
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,719
Speaker 4: of molecules. But I think the idea is not that

876
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 4: there's a single strand up to space, but like a

877
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 4: like a bundle of these fibers, right.

878
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you could weave them together to get

879
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:20,080
Speaker 1: additional strength and also redundancy. Right. Another problem with carbon

880
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 1: ena tubes is that they're not very robust too. For example,

881
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: lightning strikes, right, you strike it with lightning.

882
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 10: It basically evaporates, So that means yeah, but that means

883
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 10: you need to like always predict the weather exactly correctly

884
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:38,279
Speaker 10: or you're susceptible to these lightning strikes to you know,

885
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 10: evaporate your your cable.

886
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:42,000
Speaker 4: That would be a long ride down if your space

887
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 4: elevator gets fried by the lightning strike.

888
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 1: I think it's faster on the way down then on

889
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,399
Speaker 1: the way up if you if the cable snaps. Yes,

890
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 1: there's a lot of challenges there. We don't even have

891
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:56,920
Speaker 1: We don't have the technology right. Carbon ena tubes aren't

892
00:41:56,960 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 1: yet good enough, and we don't even know how to

893
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: make carbon inittoes that are long enough.

894
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:06,479
Speaker 4: But I mean physically carbon tubes could be could work

895
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 4: or they just even those are not physically able to

896
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:11,320
Speaker 4: get to thirty six thousand kilometers.

897
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:13,279
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of uncertainty still because the's

898
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: a lot of ways you can make them, and so

899
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,840
Speaker 1: people think about weaving them together to get them extra strong.

900
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 1: So I think it's possible. Right, nobody knows exactly how

901
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:23,839
Speaker 1: to do it, but I certainly wouldn't say it's ruled out.

902
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: It's definitely in the category of things that people imagine.

903
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:30,400
Speaker 4: You just have to find the right solution, like the

904
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:32,280
Speaker 4: right engineering material solution.

905
00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 1: And one of the problems is that often you're surfing

906
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 1: on the backs of other industries. If there are other

907
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: reasons why people are trying to push to make long

908
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 1: carbon nanotubes, then cool space elevator can wait until some

909
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:47,319
Speaker 1: other industry figures out the problem and then they can

910
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 1: just order a big tube. Right. Problem is, nobody else

911
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:54,359
Speaker 1: really needs carbon nanotubes thousands of miles long, right. We

912
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 1: need them for electro electrical conductivity, and all sorts of

913
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: other applications that are you know, millimeters or centimeters.

914
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 4: Or spider Man. Spider Man needs them.

915
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:06,400
Speaker 1: He makes them himself though, and he's not shared the patent,

916
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 1: so we're screwed from that point of view. So you

917
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:12,759
Speaker 1: need a dedicated effort to develop these things to be

918
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:15,359
Speaker 1: long enough for space elevators. And that's expensive, right, That's

919
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:16,320
Speaker 1: a huge investment.

920
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 4: And so you're saying it's like a nascent industry.

921
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of applications of them in solid

922
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: state you have physics, you know, and in biophysics and

923
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: using them for all sorts of stuff, But most of

924
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 1: those applications they can be pretty short, right, us they

925
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: use them for connectivity, for circuits, for like filtering stuff,

926
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 1: for picking stuff out of other kinds of goo. But

927
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,799
Speaker 1: nobody really else, nobody else other than space elevators needs

928
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: them to be this long. So you need somebody to

929
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 1: develop it. But you know, there are people out there

930
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 1: who are working on it, people who think this would

931
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: be awesome, or people who correctly think it would be

932
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 1: huge economic windfall. The first person to build a space elevator,

933
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 1: you know, and instead of charging twenty thousand dollars Perculo

934
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:59,320
Speaker 1: could charge like their very reasonable price of five hundred

935
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 1: dollars percula though we'll get a lot of business.

936
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:05,440
Speaker 4: Wow. But you're saying this might be achievable with a

937
00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 4: few if we just invest enough money into it.

938
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, it might be right. Somebody needs to develop the

939
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:14,320
Speaker 1: technology to build these long cables and to make them robust.

940
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 1: And you know, people estimate how much this might cost.

941
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:20,680
Speaker 1: It's really just speculation because nobody really knows. It's research. Right.

942
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:23,279
Speaker 1: You could have a moment of inspiration and figure something

943
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: out tomorrow, or you could sink billions of dollars in

944
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 1: and get nowhere. But it's definitely in the billions or

945
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 1: tens of billions of dollars category in terms of research projects.

946
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:35,320
Speaker 4: Just people saying, hey, if you give me twenty billion dollars,

947
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 4: I'll get you to space.

948
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wouldn't believe a firm price tag, but that's

949
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:41,279
Speaker 1: probably the right order of magnitude, is you know, ten

950
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:43,759
Speaker 1: or twenty billion to develop and to build this thing.

951
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: And you know, some people are talking about like trying

952
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 1: it first on the Moon because on the Moon to

953
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,319
Speaker 1: be much easier because the gravity is much lighter on

954
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:52,320
Speaker 1: the Moon, So the space elevator would need to be

955
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 1: as high, wouldn't need to be as long, it's not

956
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 1: as risky.

957
00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 4: You mean, like a space elevator from the Moon out

958
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 4: into space to to take off from the.

959
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 1: Moon, Yes, exactly, out into orbit around the Moon, basically

960
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:07,879
Speaker 1: just as sort of a warm up project. Because also,

961
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 1: imagine you build a space elevator and it's working fine

962
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 1: and then it breaks, right, that could be a big disaster.

963
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 1: Like what if it breaks where the cable snaps at

964
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 1: the top end, right, then this huge cable falls from

965
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: the sky right and it's as you said, it's as

966
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 1: long as the circumference of the Earth. So like, where's

967
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:31,439
Speaker 1: this thing go to fall? It's gonna slice people in half,

968
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 1: like it seems crazy?

969
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 4: Whoa it would keep falling for a long time?

970
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:38,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, or if it snaps at the bottom, right, then

971
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: you're dragging this like very sharp, hot, fast moving cable

972
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 1: across the surface of the Earth. Right.

973
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:45,760
Speaker 10: Wow.

974
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:47,800
Speaker 4: None of these pictures sound very rosy.

975
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: No, exactly, And so if you're considering investing in this

976
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 1: space elevator company, think about the lead of liabilities right.

977
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 4: Well, which is why I think we should just make

978
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:00,440
Speaker 4: it out of spider webbing, Which.

979
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:03,840
Speaker 1: Is does Spider Man answer your phone calls these days?

980
00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:05,920
Speaker 1: How do you tell?

981
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 4: How much is a Marvel movie? It's about a hundred

982
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 4: million dollars donee.

983
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 1: You know, one of my favorite science fiction stories is

984
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: about a physicist who has an idea for some awesome

985
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 1: technology and he can't get any funding agencies to fund

986
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,360
Speaker 1: it for him. So instead he pitches it to Hollywood

987
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,440
Speaker 1: is a movie and then make a movie, and he

988
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,800
Speaker 1: uses Hollywood's huge budget to build a quote unquote prop

989
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 1: of his device and it actually works, and so he

990
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:36,360
Speaker 1: uses Hollywood as a as a way to fund his research.

991
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 4: You should pitch it as a movie.

992
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: A movie about a guy who talks on his podcast

993
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:47,399
Speaker 1: about a story about a physicist. This sounds like an

994
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 1: awesome pitch so far.

995
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:51,279
Speaker 4: I can just imagine you going too, like a movie

996
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 4: studiohead of meaning, hey, sir, can I give you my

997
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:56,040
Speaker 4: quick elevator pitch?

998
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,400
Speaker 1: That's right, we have we're taking the space elevator, so

999
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 1: I have ten days to give you my pitch for

1000
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: this movie.

1001
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 4: Okay, great, So so that's the that's the the space elevator.

1002
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 4: It's it's it would sort of liberate us from this

1003
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:18,440
Speaker 4: need for rocket fuels and rockets and which are explosive

1004
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 4: and inexpensive.

1005
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 1: That's right. And we didn't even get to touch on it,

1006
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 1: but very briefly, like you could avoid having to carry

1007
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:27,840
Speaker 1: all the energy for the space elevator by like using

1008
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 1: laser beams. You could like shoot laser beams from the

1009
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:32,440
Speaker 1: ground to send energy up there, or if to use

1010
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 1: carbon nanotubes, you could they could be electrified, so they

1011
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 1: could like send the electricity along the wire like a

1012
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:39,799
Speaker 1: like an electric bus or something.

1013
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 4: Oh my god, you should stop just start right there

1014
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:46,440
Speaker 4: and just call it a laser space elevator. I mean,

1015
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:51,320
Speaker 4: that just sells a laserator, a laser laser space evator.

1016
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 1: How are you going to get to space? I'm gonna

1017
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:55,759
Speaker 1: laser of eight nice way to space? Yeah cool, good luck

1018
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:58,880
Speaker 1: with that, wear a helmet. Yeah. But I think this

1019
00:47:58,880 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 1: stuff is important. I think it's interesting. I think if

1020
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:03,880
Speaker 1: we're going to build a space industry, if we're going

1021
00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 1: to develop humanity into space and you know, populate space

1022
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:10,240
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff, we got to get started.

1023
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,280
Speaker 1: We got to get over this hump where it costs

1024
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:15,680
Speaker 1: so much money to get something into space and it's

1025
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 1: so risky and it takes months of planning. Right, it

1026
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 1: has to be more routine, it has to be cheaper.

1027
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Avengers get on it.

1028
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: So orge to listen to all of that. If somebody

1029
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 1: builds the space elevator, would you pay to take a

1030
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 1: ride up into space? Let's do the calculations. Say it

1031
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:35,279
Speaker 1: costs two hundred dollars per kilo? Right then? How much

1032
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 1: would how much would your ride on the space elevator cost?

1033
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 4: How much would it for me? Really? Like that sounds

1034
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 4: like ten thousand bucks or something?

1035
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 1: All right, So would you spend ten thousand bucks to

1036
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:44,760
Speaker 1: get into space?

1037
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:48,600
Speaker 4: Totally? Yeah? Wouldn't you? I mean if it was venue

1038
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:49,400
Speaker 4: was safe.

1039
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'll take your deposit right now. What was

1040
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 1: your credit card number? No, I probably would. I think

1041
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:00,920
Speaker 1: getting to be up in space would be would be exhilarating.

1042
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 1: Of course, if the price drops that low, then you

1043
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:04,919
Speaker 1: know a lot of people will do it. Maybe won't

1044
00:49:04,920 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: feel as exciting anymore.

1045
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:07,799
Speaker 4: I think it would also depend on who's going on

1046
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 4: in the elevator with me.

1047
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: When you're on a transatlantic flight, do you like stare

1048
00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 1: out the window agog and the technology anymore? No, you're

1049
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: probably just like watching movies. You lower the window, you

1050
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:19,799
Speaker 1: ignore what's going on outside. Right, Some people adapt pretty

1051
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:20,840
Speaker 1: quickly to this kind of stuff.

1052
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:24,040
Speaker 4: Mmmm, like a real elevator, right, Like, if you showed

1053
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 4: a real elevator to someone ten thousand years ago, toy'd

1054
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:29,839
Speaker 4: be like, what, you're gonna go up? You can go

1055
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:32,279
Speaker 4: up a thousand feet up into the air just by

1056
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:33,560
Speaker 4: getting onto this box.

1057
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:36,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, And these days people are just like impatiently mashing

1058
00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:39,200
Speaker 1: the buttons, cursing the thing for being so slow. Right,

1059
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 1: humans never satisfied.

1060
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:44,719
Speaker 4: Somebody told me that New York is the only place

1061
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:47,080
Speaker 4: where the closed door button actually works.

1062
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:49,759
Speaker 1: What are you saying the closed door button doesn't usually work?

1063
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:53,919
Speaker 4: I think that that's just their first psychology better.

1064
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:56,680
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that blows my mind. Are you serious?

1065
00:49:57,000 --> 00:49:59,800
Speaker 4: Yeah? Have you ever been in one where they actually

1066
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:00,799
Speaker 4: wore I don't know.

1067
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:03,319
Speaker 1: I guess I had the impression that frantically mashing that

1068
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 1: button did something. Yeah. No, I'm gonna apply that. I'm

1069
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 1: gonna apply that technique to other places. You know, like

1070
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:12,480
Speaker 1: having a knob out a button outside my office door

1071
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 1: that says complain to professor and people come over and

1072
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: just mash the button and feel satisfied.

1073
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 4: Ring ring doorbell for physics answers, And it doesn't do anything.

1074
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:24,120
Speaker 1: It doesn't.

1075
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 4: It just pulls up a copy of our book.

1076
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 5: We have no idea.

1077
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:31,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, had no answers. So there you go. There

1078
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:31,680
Speaker 1: you go.

1079
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 4: Well, I hope the next time you get into an

1080
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:41,240
Speaker 4: elevator you may imagine yourself getting onto the space elevator

1081
00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:43,279
Speaker 4: and imagine when you get off that you'd be in

1082
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:44,720
Speaker 4: a whole different world.

1083
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:47,279
Speaker 1: Or I imagine that maybe one of our listeners has

1084
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:49,440
Speaker 1: heard about space elevators for the first time it is

1085
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 1: so inspired that he or she will sync their fortune

1086
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 1: into investing in space elevators and make it real and

1087
00:50:56,680 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 1: actually go to space.

1088
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:01,279
Speaker 4: Make it so as John lets the carbon sat engage.

1089
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:04,520
Speaker 1: All right. Thanks for listening everybody, and if you have

1090
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:07,080
Speaker 1: questions about what we said, send us some feedback at

1091
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:10,800
Speaker 1: Questions at Daniel Andhorge dot com, or send us a

1092
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 1: suggestion for what topic you'd like to hear us talk about.

1093
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.

1094
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 1: If you still have a question after listening to all

1095
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Speaker 1: these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd love to

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Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge that's one word, or

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Speaker 1: email us at feedback at Daniel Andhorge dot com. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the

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Speaker 1: Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

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Speaker 1: Many farms use anaerobic digesters to turn the methane from

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