1
00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:03,440
Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,840
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George

3
00:00:06,880 --> 00:00:09,080
Speaker 1: nor with you along with Sir Charles Schultz the third.

4
00:00:09,320 --> 00:00:12,000
Speaker 1: Sir Charles, we're talking about fossils on Mars. What do

5
00:00:12,039 --> 00:00:14,480
Speaker 1: you think actually Mars might have had there? What kind

6
00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:17,480
Speaker 1: of life? Well, everything that I found was a trace

7
00:00:17,520 --> 00:00:20,040
Speaker 1: of a marine fossils. So anything to live on the

8
00:00:20,079 --> 00:00:23,000
Speaker 1: planet would probably have lived in an ocean, in the water.

9
00:00:23,079 --> 00:00:25,720
Speaker 1: And the reason fat is very simple. With an atmosphere

10
00:00:25,720 --> 00:00:28,560
Speaker 1: as thin as that, things could still survive in an

11
00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:33,320
Speaker 1: atmosphere of water, just as anything can can survive in

12
00:00:33,320 --> 00:00:35,480
Speaker 1: a thicker atmosphere. You can breathe if you've gotten nothing

13
00:00:35,479 --> 00:00:38,199
Speaker 1: on the outside to speak of in terms of air pressure,

14
00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:41,880
Speaker 1: and water is still present, gases can dissolve in the water.

15
00:00:42,159 --> 00:00:45,040
Speaker 1: The experiments showing this have been done at the Houston

16
00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:50,600
Speaker 1: Johnson Space Flight Center years ago. They with greatly reduced

17
00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:52,519
Speaker 1: atmospheric pressure, they were able to keep a lot of

18
00:00:52,520 --> 00:00:55,600
Speaker 1: animals alive very easily. So you know, this is a

19
00:00:55,600 --> 00:00:58,680
Speaker 1: proof of principle that nobody seems to consider. And if

20
00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:01,120
Speaker 1: you look at Mars today, the water is present, but

21
00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:04,319
Speaker 1: it's almost always in the form of minerals ice under

22
00:01:04,319 --> 00:01:07,080
Speaker 1: the soil, and that's also been seen. There are fields

23
00:01:07,080 --> 00:01:11,720
Speaker 1: of glaciers on the planet, the slope streets, the slope streaks,

24
00:01:11,720 --> 00:01:15,600
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, where the soil heats up a little from sunlight,

25
00:01:15,959 --> 00:01:18,720
Speaker 1: the water melts underground and then runs and flows down

26
00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:21,440
Speaker 1: the slopes. And they've seen this for many years and

27
00:01:21,520 --> 00:01:23,640
Speaker 1: recently have admitted yes, that is a sign of water

28
00:01:23,720 --> 00:01:27,640
Speaker 1: being present. So the very fact that we see present

29
00:01:27,720 --> 00:01:29,720
Speaker 1: day erosion, I mean you can look from one frame

30
00:01:29,760 --> 00:01:32,039
Speaker 1: to the next one these rovers and you can see

31
00:01:32,040 --> 00:01:35,240
Speaker 1: that the soil is changing. Then these features that we

32
00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:38,240
Speaker 1: see that appear to be running water formed must have

33
00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:40,680
Speaker 1: been formed recently, not millions of years ago, because they

34
00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:43,760
Speaker 1: would have eroded away by now otherwise. But everything was

35
00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:47,240
Speaker 1: a marine fossil and nothing that's not so hard to believe.

36
00:01:47,319 --> 00:01:54,160
Speaker 1: I mean fish, well like sea urchins, trilobytes, crinoids, and

37
00:01:54,360 --> 00:01:59,760
Speaker 1: a number of shells, very simple marine organisms. Nothing complicated. Now,

38
00:02:00,240 --> 00:02:02,280
Speaker 1: if you know, as many people have claimed, well it's

39
00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:04,640
Speaker 1: a religious issue, they won't say it because of that.

40
00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:07,560
Speaker 1: That doesn't make any sense. What's the fear from a

41
00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:11,880
Speaker 1: planet of marine organisms it's silly. And the fact is,

42
00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:15,040
Speaker 1: and God made everything as far as I everything exactly.

43
00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:18,760
Speaker 1: So what gets me is this. I've presented this information

44
00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:20,919
Speaker 1: in a number of forms, and Coast has certainly been

45
00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:23,639
Speaker 1: one of them. And I've done television shows, I've done

46
00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:28,480
Speaker 1: presentations with people, and literally in every case, the bulk

47
00:02:28,480 --> 00:02:30,720
Speaker 1: of the people, the majority of people said I see it,

48
00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:34,080
Speaker 1: you know, and they couldn't unsee it once they've seen it.

49
00:02:34,240 --> 00:02:38,520
Speaker 1: From official channels, people working in colleges and research centers,

50
00:02:38,919 --> 00:02:42,359
Speaker 1: I've had numerous people send nothing but insults and invective,

51
00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:45,960
Speaker 1: and NASA won't even debate it. I mean, the feeling

52
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:48,680
Speaker 1: in my mind is, if you've got something built with

53
00:02:48,760 --> 00:02:51,280
Speaker 1: the data that you've supplied, and it looks like a

54
00:02:51,320 --> 00:02:56,119
Speaker 1: solid case, why would you refuse to even look at it? Exactly?

55
00:02:56,320 --> 00:02:58,160
Speaker 1: So it makes no sense to me. But the fact is,

56
00:02:58,919 --> 00:03:02,560
Speaker 1: we stand possibility when the sample returned mission happens of

57
00:03:02,639 --> 00:03:05,799
Speaker 1: bringing back an organism that we have no resistance too.

58
00:03:05,840 --> 00:03:08,399
Speaker 1: And this, in my mind, is the single most important

59
00:03:08,440 --> 00:03:12,320
Speaker 1: message I can give to people. You're bringing back god

60
00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:14,440
Speaker 1: knows what from a planet that had a lot of

61
00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:16,600
Speaker 1: life on it in the past, and something that we

62
00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:19,120
Speaker 1: would have absolutely no resistance too. If I can make

63
00:03:19,360 --> 00:03:23,400
Speaker 1: no other point to people, it is do not sample

64
00:03:23,440 --> 00:03:25,360
Speaker 1: from mars of the Earth. You stand the risk of

65
00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:28,240
Speaker 1: infecting the planet with something we have no defenses against.

66
00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:32,560
Speaker 1: Eats aside, I think there's universe is teeming with all

67
00:03:32,639 --> 00:03:35,520
Speaker 1: kinds of life. Well, absolutely, And if you think about it,

68
00:03:35,880 --> 00:03:39,320
Speaker 1: what's the most common life on Earth? Bacteria? That's simple,

69
00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:41,600
Speaker 1: and it can live in conditions that would kill you

70
00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:45,160
Speaker 1: or I in an instant. The most clement places in

71
00:03:45,160 --> 00:03:47,280
Speaker 1: the universe where people could live are going to be

72
00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:52,480
Speaker 1: rarer than a vacuum covered rock with rock eating bacteria

73
00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:55,280
Speaker 1: inside it. And that's going to be probably the most

74
00:03:55,400 --> 00:03:58,200
Speaker 1: common life on Earth, or I'm sorry, not on Earth.

75
00:03:58,600 --> 00:04:01,320
Speaker 1: Inside the Earth, there certainly is. But on other worlds,

76
00:04:01,640 --> 00:04:04,360
Speaker 1: we're going to see most of them dominated by bacterial life,

77
00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:07,120
Speaker 1: and it's going to be environments where complicated life forms

78
00:04:07,160 --> 00:04:09,800
Speaker 1: couldn't survive. Let's talk about the Moon for a second,

79
00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:12,800
Speaker 1: Sir Charles, Why the interest in the moon? It's a

80
00:04:12,880 --> 00:04:16,240
Speaker 1: barren place. Why even go there? Okay, there are a

81
00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:18,679
Speaker 1: number of really good reasons for going to the Moon,

82
00:04:18,839 --> 00:04:21,880
Speaker 1: and one of them is the fact that if you're doing,

83
00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:24,400
Speaker 1: for instance, radio astronomy. The backside of the Moon, the

84
00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:26,839
Speaker 1: far side of the Moon from the Earth, is completely

85
00:04:26,880 --> 00:04:29,440
Speaker 1: isolated from the radio noise of the Earth. So it's

86
00:04:29,440 --> 00:04:33,000
Speaker 1: a wonderful pristine environment for searching for radio signals out

87
00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:36,360
Speaker 1: of space. Even standard radio astronomy would be amazing from there.

88
00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:41,640
Speaker 1: The other issue is it's a very easy platform to

89
00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:45,880
Speaker 1: observe conditions on the Earth and in a space around

90
00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:50,120
Speaker 1: the Earth, and it's loaded with mineral resources and solar

91
00:04:50,160 --> 00:04:53,240
Speaker 1: power is you know, it's always shining the sun and

92
00:04:53,320 --> 00:04:57,080
Speaker 1: light is always on in space. If you have satellites

93
00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:59,599
Speaker 1: around the Earth or around the Moon, they can collect

94
00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:03,080
Speaker 1: sun and run power plants for a fraction of what

95
00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:06,039
Speaker 1: it takes to burn fossil materials that they call them

96
00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:10,720
Speaker 1: hydrocarbon fuels. Going to the Moon provides us with an

97
00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:15,040
Speaker 1: environment where it's low gravity. It's easy to leave the Moon.

98
00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:18,560
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine this spacecraft the size of a Volkswagon

99
00:05:18,560 --> 00:05:21,360
Speaker 1: with about a hatful of fuel, has the capacity of

100
00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:24,159
Speaker 1: getting off the Moon and into orbit around it. In

101
00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:27,000
Speaker 1: an environment like that, which is so much easier to

102
00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:29,000
Speaker 1: get into space from than it is on the Earth,

103
00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:31,680
Speaker 1: we would have a lot of advantages if we're going

104
00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:35,400
Speaker 1: to set up a civilization that uses lunar resources, asteroid

105
00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:37,839
Speaker 1: resources and wants to spit out of the Solar system,

106
00:05:37,920 --> 00:05:41,080
Speaker 1: the Moon is an excellent place to establish resource and

107
00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:45,520
Speaker 1: industrial places right there. Who's going to go back to

108
00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:48,960
Speaker 1: the Moon before we do China, Well, that's hard to say.

109
00:05:49,480 --> 00:05:51,479
Speaker 1: There are a number of projects to send people to

110
00:05:51,520 --> 00:05:54,920
Speaker 1: the Moon right now, and Artemis notably is one of

111
00:05:54,960 --> 00:05:58,560
Speaker 1: the most talked about ones. From the NASA standpoint. The

112
00:05:58,760 --> 00:06:01,880
Speaker 1: Artemis mission is as part of the new Let's see,

113
00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:04,839
Speaker 1: the Biden administration has set forth a budget proposal for

114
00:06:04,920 --> 00:06:09,200
Speaker 1: twenty four point seven billion dollars NASA this coming year,

115
00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:12,680
Speaker 1: and part of the funding will cover the Artimist project,

116
00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:14,279
Speaker 1: which has planned to put the first woman on the

117
00:06:14,279 --> 00:06:16,600
Speaker 1: Moon and the first person of color on the Moon.

118
00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:23,040
Speaker 1: The Artimist one launch now is scheduled for November. We'll

119
00:06:23,080 --> 00:06:25,840
Speaker 1: see if that flies. It's had a number of setbacks

120
00:06:25,839 --> 00:06:29,800
Speaker 1: in times past. But there are commercial companies as well.

121
00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:35,360
Speaker 1: We're both familiar with the fellow who put his own

122
00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:38,360
Speaker 1: private space stations up a couple of times in the past.

123
00:06:38,440 --> 00:06:43,039
Speaker 1: You know who I'm talking about, Bigelow himself. He bought

124
00:06:43,040 --> 00:06:47,760
Speaker 1: the patent information and the licensing for making inflatable habitats,

125
00:06:47,800 --> 00:06:50,520
Speaker 1: and has built a module for the International Space Station.

126
00:06:50,920 --> 00:06:52,880
Speaker 1: He has been working for a number of years on

127
00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:55,880
Speaker 1: habitat modules for hotels and space and on the Moon,

128
00:06:56,400 --> 00:06:58,680
Speaker 1: and it's quite possible that he might pull something off

129
00:06:58,720 --> 00:07:02,040
Speaker 1: in cooperation with another group. But I do expect that

130
00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:04,680
Speaker 1: the first landings back to the Moon will be a

131
00:07:04,760 --> 00:07:08,279
Speaker 1: semi present I would say, a semi permanent location of

132
00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:12,080
Speaker 1: people for doing research and scouting for mineral resources. And

133
00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:15,080
Speaker 1: it probably will end up, you know, this is just

134
00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:17,560
Speaker 1: a speculation. It probably will end up near the polar

135
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:20,440
Speaker 1: regions where there is water ice shown to exist in

136
00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:22,640
Speaker 1: the shadowed craters there. That would make a lot of

137
00:07:22,680 --> 00:07:26,240
Speaker 1: sense because water, well, if you think about it, foundation

138
00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:28,360
Speaker 1: of life and the basis of an easy to make

139
00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:32,240
Speaker 1: rocket fuel. Sir Charles, when we were kids, it was

140
00:07:32,320 --> 00:07:35,440
Speaker 1: exciting to talk about being an astronaut and space and

141
00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:39,200
Speaker 1: everything else. Our kids getting that kind of flavor anymore,

142
00:07:40,360 --> 00:07:43,960
Speaker 1: I don't think so. And it's really a shame because

143
00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:46,560
Speaker 1: we came up in a world where there was so

144
00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:49,680
Speaker 1: much possibility and there was a great deal of unknown

145
00:07:49,720 --> 00:07:53,640
Speaker 1: as well. I think that in the world today. One

146
00:07:53,640 --> 00:07:56,240
Speaker 1: of the problems we face is entertainment is so good

147
00:07:56,640 --> 00:08:01,840
Speaker 1: that it displaces the unknown with fiction, so that people

148
00:08:01,920 --> 00:08:04,440
Speaker 1: don't know to go out and learn about the things

149
00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:07,960
Speaker 1: we don't really know. Instead they see a fantasy about it. Yeah,

150
00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:11,920
Speaker 1: with computer generated graphics and stuff like that. And I

151
00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:15,480
Speaker 1: think that one of the biggest problems is parents don't

152
00:08:15,520 --> 00:08:18,880
Speaker 1: have the sort of call it leverage in information if

153
00:08:18,920 --> 00:08:22,480
Speaker 1: they used to in the past. People were really much well,

154
00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:24,600
Speaker 1: much better educated in the past than they are today.

155
00:08:24,880 --> 00:08:26,440
Speaker 1: I mean, let's face it, a lot of people can't

156
00:08:26,440 --> 00:08:29,920
Speaker 1: even start a lawnmower anymore. Pretty amazing when you think

157
00:08:29,960 --> 00:08:33,400
Speaker 1: about it. I mean, everything around us depends on an

158
00:08:33,400 --> 00:08:36,840
Speaker 1: extremely high level of technology. And the problem is we

159
00:08:36,920 --> 00:08:39,400
Speaker 1: use the technology because it's been made so fool proof

160
00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:43,280
Speaker 1: that you can be technically incompetent and use it. How

161
00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:45,600
Speaker 1: many people can fix anything anymore, it's you know, you

162
00:08:45,679 --> 00:08:48,400
Speaker 1: throw it away and buy a new one. But the

163
00:08:48,559 --> 00:08:53,520
Speaker 1: educational process has been short circuited, in part by public

164
00:08:53,559 --> 00:08:57,280
Speaker 1: schools and in part by the fact that most parents

165
00:08:57,320 --> 00:09:00,120
Speaker 1: don't have the technical expertise so to speak, that they

166
00:09:00,120 --> 00:09:02,320
Speaker 1: did in the past. Just look back at some of

167
00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:05,520
Speaker 1: the magazines that were published for kids in the sixties,

168
00:09:05,720 --> 00:09:08,440
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties. They had things that had a plan

169
00:09:08,520 --> 00:09:11,439
Speaker 1: to build a cabin or how to build a motorcycle,

170
00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:15,760
Speaker 1: or how you could make anything. And they had kits too,

171
00:09:15,920 --> 00:09:18,760
Speaker 1: They certainly did. Boy, they sold every sort of kit

172
00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:22,679
Speaker 1: you can imagine. People would build cabins, they'd build a psiloscope,

173
00:09:22,760 --> 00:09:26,199
Speaker 1: they'd build superchargers for their car, and I mean a

174
00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:28,040
Speaker 1: lot of times the fifteen to sixteen year old kids

175
00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:29,679
Speaker 1: with tools in the garage and their dad would go

176
00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:32,320
Speaker 1: out there and help them. That sort of world just

177
00:09:32,360 --> 00:09:35,640
Speaker 1: doesn't even exist anymore. And what do we do about it.

178
00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:37,800
Speaker 1: It's very difficult for people to know where to turn

179
00:09:37,840 --> 00:09:40,800
Speaker 1: for information, and yet in their hands they hold a

180
00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:43,520
Speaker 1: cell phone which is literally connected to the Library of

181
00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:47,800
Speaker 1: human achievement. Why have we seemed to forgotten about Venus

182
00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:51,400
Speaker 1: as a planet? I think that once people discovered how

183
00:09:51,640 --> 00:09:54,760
Speaker 1: hellish it's environment was and how difficult it is to

184
00:09:54,800 --> 00:09:58,520
Speaker 1: get a spacecraft to survive there. It's baked right. Well, yes,

185
00:09:58,679 --> 00:10:01,880
Speaker 1: you can't put anything on the surface that's going to

186
00:10:01,880 --> 00:10:06,120
Speaker 1: survive for very long. And the issues are the atmospheric

187
00:10:06,120 --> 00:10:10,040
Speaker 1: pressure is about seventy times greater than the atmospheric pressure

188
00:10:10,040 --> 00:10:13,640
Speaker 1: on the Earth. It literally rains a mist of sulfuric acid,

189
00:10:13,679 --> 00:10:18,280
Speaker 1: and it's about four hundred degrees centigrade and there's not

190
00:10:18,360 --> 00:10:20,959
Speaker 1: even a true day or night there. It stays dimly

191
00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:24,520
Speaker 1: lit at all times because the light is conducted through

192
00:10:24,520 --> 00:10:27,200
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, almost like a light fiber, from front to back.

193
00:10:27,480 --> 00:10:30,840
Speaker 1: It gets a little dimmer on the backside, but not nighttime.

194
00:10:30,960 --> 00:10:35,120
Speaker 1: It's such a forbidding environment that even now we have

195
00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:37,480
Speaker 1: a hard time building hardware that will last. And it's

196
00:10:37,520 --> 00:10:41,960
Speaker 1: because we've only recently begun to fabricate power supplies and

197
00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:46,439
Speaker 1: electronics that will survive those temperatures. And what about beyond

198
00:10:46,480 --> 00:10:51,439
Speaker 1: Mars Jupiter, Saturn? Are they're worth visiting now? They actually are.

199
00:10:51,480 --> 00:10:54,200
Speaker 1: The problem with visiting a place like the moons of Jupiter,

200
00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:56,960
Speaker 1: which is going to be a fascinating environment to explore,

201
00:10:57,720 --> 00:11:01,559
Speaker 1: is that Jupiter has this incredibly huge magnetic field. Now,

202
00:11:01,559 --> 00:11:04,560
Speaker 1: we're often told about the Earth's magnetic field being a

203
00:11:04,600 --> 00:11:08,040
Speaker 1: shield for radiation striking us from space, and yes, it

204
00:11:08,120 --> 00:11:11,719
Speaker 1: does that, but there's another thing that happens when you

205
00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:14,839
Speaker 1: have a magnetic field of that magnitude, particularly of jupiters

206
00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:18,520
Speaker 1: it traps particles of radiation and they circle the planet

207
00:11:18,559 --> 00:11:22,240
Speaker 1: like a cyclotron. It creates an immense radiation belt like

208
00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:25,600
Speaker 1: our Van Allen belts around the Earth. So if you

209
00:11:25,640 --> 00:11:27,400
Speaker 1: were to stand on the surface of one of the

210
00:11:27,440 --> 00:11:31,000
Speaker 1: moons of Jupiter, even in a spacesuit, you know where

211
00:11:31,040 --> 00:11:35,040
Speaker 1: you could survive the pressures and temperatures, you'd be killed

212
00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:38,520
Speaker 1: by the radiation in just a few hours, or it

213
00:11:38,559 --> 00:11:41,120
Speaker 1: would be scouring through every cell of your body and

214
00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:44,320
Speaker 1: destroying all your genetic material and wrecking the mechanisms that

215
00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:47,880
Speaker 1: keep the cells alive. So you'd probably need about three

216
00:11:47,920 --> 00:11:50,240
Speaker 1: feet of lead to shield you if you were to

217
00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:53,720
Speaker 1: stand on the surface off let's say Ganymede, And that's

218
00:11:53,760 --> 00:11:56,480
Speaker 1: not very practical. If you'll look at the missions that

219
00:11:56,559 --> 00:12:01,520
Speaker 1: they're sending. They try to send things with well fielded electronics.

220
00:12:01,080 --> 00:12:03,840
Speaker 1: I don't expect it to last very long. One of

221
00:12:03,880 --> 00:12:07,800
Speaker 1: the reasons that the orbiters for Jupiter and Saturns stay

222
00:12:07,840 --> 00:12:10,480
Speaker 1: basically far away from the planet and explore a lot

223
00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:13,559
Speaker 1: of the stuff by telescope is to increase the lifespan

224
00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:18,160
Speaker 1: of the spacecraft because the radiation destroys the microchips. Yeah, well,

225
00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:20,800
Speaker 1: one of the jobs I did years ago in defense.

226
00:12:20,840 --> 00:12:23,440
Speaker 1: I was working with a group called the Nuclear Design

227
00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:26,079
Speaker 1: and Test LAMB for a couple of years on some projects,

228
00:12:26,120 --> 00:12:30,479
Speaker 1: and we explored the effects of ionizing and non ionizing

229
00:12:30,600 --> 00:12:34,400
Speaker 1: radiation on microchips, and so I designed test fixturing, wrote

230
00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:37,360
Speaker 1: a lot of test programs for microchips, and it was

231
00:12:37,400 --> 00:12:40,320
Speaker 1: a joint venture between Intel and Martin Merida which is

232
00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:44,400
Speaker 1: now Lockheed Martin. And we looked at how radiation would

233
00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:46,960
Speaker 1: destroy some chips outright, but some of them had a

234
00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:50,480
Speaker 1: degree of recovery, and we learned a lot about how

235
00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:54,400
Speaker 1: radiation can damage a chip. We also discovered one of

236
00:12:54,440 --> 00:12:59,120
Speaker 1: the most interesting things. Military grade chips are in a

237
00:12:59,240 --> 00:13:02,480
Speaker 1: case made of ceramic called sermet, which means ceramic to metal.

238
00:13:03,080 --> 00:13:06,680
Speaker 1: These chips, as it happened, had higher failures from internal

239
00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:12,280
Speaker 1: radiation because the ceramic itself contained radioisotopes that they didn't expect,

240
00:13:12,880 --> 00:13:16,320
Speaker 1: and so you couldn't really have reliable, high density memory

241
00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:20,679
Speaker 1: chips made out of sermet and be military certified because

242
00:13:20,720 --> 00:13:23,240
Speaker 1: the ceramic case itself would cause memory failures. They had

243
00:13:23,280 --> 00:13:25,920
Speaker 1: to do error correction and a lot of other things

244
00:13:25,920 --> 00:13:28,160
Speaker 1: doing it work. But we've learned a lot since then

245
00:13:28,280 --> 00:13:31,480
Speaker 1: maybe we can make spacecraft robust enough to stand higher

246
00:13:31,559 --> 00:13:34,040
Speaker 1: radiation levels. Now, if you are in charge of the

247
00:13:34,040 --> 00:13:37,320
Speaker 1: space program, what would you be doing right now? Oh? Wow,

248
00:13:37,640 --> 00:13:40,440
Speaker 1: you know, and you had a blank check, I would

249
00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:45,280
Speaker 1: immediately go into two things. Number one, let's put some

250
00:13:45,360 --> 00:13:49,160
Speaker 1: power stations in orbit to start beaming power collected from

251
00:13:49,200 --> 00:13:53,320
Speaker 1: sunlight down to receivers on the ground. Immediately, we could

252
00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:59,240
Speaker 1: cut out a lot of the well hydrocarbon burning a

253
00:13:59,320 --> 00:14:02,440
Speaker 1: huge capathit sits that would be powered down to us. Well,

254
00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:05,439
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be capacitors. There are a couple of methods explored.

255
00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:08,360
Speaker 1: One of them is to use a certain frequency of

256
00:14:08,360 --> 00:14:10,960
Speaker 1: infrared laser light that would pass through the atmosphere easily,

257
00:14:11,280 --> 00:14:14,000
Speaker 1: and it would be diffuse enough that it wouldn't harm

258
00:14:14,040 --> 00:14:17,640
Speaker 1: anything in its path. The other was to use microwaves

259
00:14:17,640 --> 00:14:20,000
Speaker 1: to couple the antennas in space down to those on

260
00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:22,360
Speaker 1: the ground, and receivers on the ground would take the

261
00:14:22,400 --> 00:14:26,480
Speaker 1: microwave signal and rectify it into DC voltage like a

262
00:14:26,520 --> 00:14:29,200
Speaker 1: battery current, and then turn it into an alternating current

263
00:14:29,240 --> 00:14:31,960
Speaker 1: to put in the grid. And that had a lot

264
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,560
Speaker 1: of things that we could do very easily. So one

265
00:14:34,560 --> 00:14:37,360
Speaker 1: of the things I would do immediately is invest right

266
00:14:37,400 --> 00:14:41,160
Speaker 1: away in orbital power systems, and the other would be

267
00:14:41,560 --> 00:14:45,120
Speaker 1: to get some factories in orbit that could manufacture stuff

268
00:14:45,120 --> 00:14:49,640
Speaker 1: from off planet resources. Because we need two things to happen.

269
00:14:50,400 --> 00:14:53,720
Speaker 1: We need to build a place to go. A lot

270
00:14:53,800 --> 00:14:56,520
Speaker 1: of people have realized we don't do a lot of

271
00:14:56,560 --> 00:14:59,560
Speaker 1: space travel humans because there's nowhere to go. You have

272
00:14:59,680 --> 00:15:02,600
Speaker 1: to say, end an environment that's right in order to

273
00:15:02,640 --> 00:15:08,240
Speaker 1: have a place to survive. With robotic manufacturing, imagine really

274
00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:11,440
Speaker 1: sophisticated three D printers that can make their source material

275
00:15:11,480 --> 00:15:15,080
Speaker 1: out of let's say lunar material, the dirt on the

276
00:15:15,080 --> 00:15:17,440
Speaker 1: surface of the Moon, break it down, turn it intive

277
00:15:18,760 --> 00:15:22,080
Speaker 1: fuel for these three D printers, and print a habitat.

278
00:15:22,640 --> 00:15:25,119
Speaker 1: We know how to make concrete out of lunar materials.

279
00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:27,920
Speaker 1: We know how to extract the metals. You could actually

280
00:15:27,960 --> 00:15:32,360
Speaker 1: send robots called von Neumann machines, which are automated factories

281
00:15:32,360 --> 00:15:35,400
Speaker 1: of a sort that can reproduce themselves. You send them

282
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:37,200
Speaker 1: the Moon, you send them the asteroids, and they set

283
00:15:37,280 --> 00:15:40,360
Speaker 1: up shop and they start making factories and turning out

284
00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:43,680
Speaker 1: sheet metal and plastics and all the things you need

285
00:15:43,720 --> 00:15:47,360
Speaker 1: to make microchips and breathable air and hydroponic gardens. And

286
00:15:47,880 --> 00:15:50,520
Speaker 1: then you have places to go. Listen to more Coast

287
00:15:50,520 --> 00:15:54,160
Speaker 1: to Coast AM every weeknight at one am Eastern, and

288
00:15:54,360 --> 00:15:56,760
Speaker 1: go to Coast to Coast am dot com for more