WEBVTT - Space Travel and Synthetic Biology 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.360 Forward Thinking, Peter, and Welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:16.560 that looks at the future and says, don't want to argue. 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:18.480 I don't want a debate. I don't want to hear 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.560 about what kind of food you hate. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.759 I'm Joe McCormick, and our other host, Lauren Big Obama 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:28.280 is not with us today. She's having a horrible dystopian 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.440 allergy experience. Yeah, we should do one about the future 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.879 of allergies. Actually, that's not a bad idea. I was 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.199 just going to kid about that, but that's actually a 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:39.600 pretty interesting topic. We'll put it on the list. Yeah, 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.760 and we'll make sure that she's, you know, got plenty 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.720 of any histamines in her system before we record that one, 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:48.920 but not so many that she's asleep, because there's no 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.159 point really. But today we wanted to talk about something 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.760 that is a pretty cool topic, the idea of one 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.800 of the big challenges in space travel. You knew it 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.640 was going to come to space travel because here and 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:03.680 Forward Thinking, space travel is one of those things we're 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:08.560 absolutely obsessed with, you know, so, But Joe, why don't 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.399 you pay me a picture with your words and tell 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.360 me what you think of as some of the biggest 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:18.520 challenges in space travel. Well, let's see. First of all, 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.720 i'd have to say space pirates. That's a big one, geck. 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:25.280 And I'd have to say the fact that space smells 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:30.319 really bad. In space, no one can smell you. Third, though, 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:35.639 I'd say there are tremendous costs to getting the stuff 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:40.400 we need in space up there. Yeah, you might be wondering, like, um, 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.839 why don't we have all of those Star Trek space 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.080 stations going all around the Earth and colonies on the 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:51.080 Moon and Mars. And there are several explanations, but one 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:54.480 of the most basic is just it's really expensive. Yeah, 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.120 it costs huge amounts of money to have a space launch. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.080 And uh, you know we've talked about in the past before. 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.240 We've given kind of the round number, the one that 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:07.760 everybody quotes, which is ten dollars per pound. Right now, 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.639 it's more expensive than that really good cut of meat 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:13.720 that you can find at your grosser's. Um. Yeah, ten 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.280 thousand dollars a pound is a huge amount of money. 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:22.079 But the unicorn meat, I don't know, say, think geeks 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.160 sells unicorn meat for much less than that, but uh, 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.480 it comes in a can like spam, but ten thousand 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:30.400 dollars per pound. So we we thought for a moment, 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:32.760 we thought, well, why we should look into this, because 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.160 we have quoted this figure many many times ourselves. Right, well, 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.480 it's not necessarily wrong, but it's not a specific number either. 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:44.000 It's sort of a rough historical estimate, right, and and 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.560 beyond that, it's it's very vague because this is ten 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.799 thousand dollars to get stuff into space. But we're into space, right, 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.160 that's a good question. So basically, if you look back 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.880 in the history of us taking stuff from the surface 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.160 of the Earth up to orbit or beyond it, it's 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.440 been about ten tho dollars per pound on average, if 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.919 you if you average together the stuff that costs more 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:09.839 and the stuff that costs less. Well, what influences those. 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:11.840 One of those is the kind of rocket we use, 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:13.640 and we can talk about that in a second. But 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.800 of course another one is simply where you're taking this stuff. 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.000 So going to a low Earth orbit destination like the 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.919 International Space Station is going to be cheaper than say, 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.440 taking a satellite way out to geo stationary orbit where 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:30.200 it stays at the same line of longitude and revolves 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:34.040 around the Earth in synchronization. Right. And also it would 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.960 matter about whether or not the spacecraft you're sending up 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.120 is expected to come back, because then you know you 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.760 need to believe it has crew that's gonna be yeah, 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.600 because yeah, you want them eventually to come back, and 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:48.840 so you need to factor in the amount of field 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:50.840 that's going to be necessary to make the return trip. 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:53.839 And that's just talking about orbit. Of course. Now once 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.720 you're talking about going to another planet or to a moon, 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:00.760 then you add in a whole other lay of complexity 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:04.440 because then you're talking about landing vehicles and hopefully if 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.480 it's a crude mission you're talking about relaunching off of this, 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:11.680 I mean adding more and more layers of complexity and 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:15.600 more and more support requirements. Right. We can talk about 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.400 the support mass that's required on these missions in a bit, 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.559 But the other thing is what rocket you're using. So 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:27.159 on on the low end, so far, we have something 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.359 like SpaceX's Falcon nine, right, And I should add that 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:36.760 the figures I've seen, we're actually priced per kilogram, so 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.320 per unit of mass as opposed to per unit of weight, 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.560 and then I did the conversion to UH cost per 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.240 pound that way, Well, what is it, Jonathan, give us 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.160 the numbers. So for the Falcon nine the cost per 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.760 pound and and it was about a thousand, eight hundred 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.360 sixty seven dollars and seventy three cents, so significantly less 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:58.400 than ten thousand dollars per pound, but still well above uh, 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:00.840 you know what most of us be able to pay 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.800 to send a pound of stuff up into space. And 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.560 there's also the Atlas five, which would be closer to 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:08.880 the higher end. That's closer to about six thousand dollars 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:12.400 per pound. But all of this is rough estimation, and 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:16.239 it's mostly estimated based on the cost of a launch 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:22.000 compared to the cargo capacity of you know whatever device, 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:26.040 like how much mask can a rocket propel up into orbit? 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.880 So it's it's taking all that into consideration. It's almost 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.680 like looking at the pound for pound best fighter. You know, 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:34.880 you have to take all this stuff, and there are 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.640 a lot of factors that may not be entering into 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:42.920 this really rough estimation that could wildly change that amount, right. Well, 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.159 one of the things that could wildly change it, of course, 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.560 is creating much cheaper, newer versions in the future, which 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:52.520 people like Elon Musk have been predicting is going to 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.279 happen for a while now. The he said, you know, 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.240 Musk says, the private spaceflight industry is going to be 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.680 able to get prices much cheaper. The first major milestone 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:04.680 is going to be a launch cost of a thousand 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.640 dollars per pound. And Musk predicted in an interview with 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:11.240 NPR in two thousand eleven that the Falcon Heavy, which 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.880 is the booster rocket that's the successor to the Falcon nine. 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.039 They're working on it now. The Falcon Heavy is like 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:19.920 the Falcon nine, Like I think it's something like three 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.880 Falcon nine's grouped together. It's it's ridiculous. Yeah, it's it's enormous. 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:26.960 I know, it's big. I mean, we'll see if that 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.279 achieves a thousand dollars per pound. He predicted that a 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:32.880 couple of years ago, but we don't know yet. It's 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.840 scheduled for launch in so I guess we'll find out. 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:39.680 And of course, in the same NPR interview, must acknowledge 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:43.240 that even a thousand dollars per pound is still too expensive. 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.680 I mean, that's so expensive. What we really need to 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:50.720 do is get things under a hundred dollars per pound. Yeah, 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:54.120 and even then we still have some limitations to take 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.440 into right, because no matter how cheap you get it 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.560 in terms of the dollar or as you spend right, 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.560 you still have physical limitations. Exactly, you have a physical 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.719 limitation of how much cargo of particular rocket can boost 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.680 into orbit. And depending upon what your mission is, you 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.559 may not be able to physically take with you using 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.600 a single rocket at any rate the materials you need 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.120 to carry out your mission. Let's say that your mission 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:23.080 is to go to Mars and spend some time there 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.280 and come back now, because the way the Martian orbit 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.880 and the Earth orbit are, there's really a very limited 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.320 window of when you want to launch to Mars in 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:35.680 order to spend the least amount of fuel to get there. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.239 And then once you're at Mars, you have to wait 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.600 for a long time for that situation to come back 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:42.160 round for you to be able to get back to 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.160 Earth under the same conditions. Otherwise you have to have 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:48.040 even more fuel because the distance between Earth and Mars 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.720 will be greater, right, because they don't orbit the son 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:52.520 at the same rate. Yeah, I mean, there's no point 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:54.880 at in launching at a time when you're not going 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:58.040 to be able to make the shortest route to Earth, right, Yeah, 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.120 you wouldn't want to launch off of ours and say, well, 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:03.559 here's the problem. By the time we get to Earth, 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:05.880 we it will effectively be on the other side of 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:07.600 the Sun from where we are now, So we're going 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.600 to need five times the amount of fuel we would 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.560 need or more. Really, I was just throwing five times 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.240 in there out of random, right. So they are basically 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.600 mass constraints on top of the dollar constraints. And one 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.240 of those is that in the paper we're going to 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:24.840 talk about in this episode points this out, so you'll 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.560 hear about that in a second. But they say for 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.680 every unit mass of payload launched into space, the mission 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:36.320 as a whole requires nine nine units of support. So 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.400 for every pound of payload the stuff you're taking, we 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:45.920 require nine pounds of food, water, oxygen, fuel. Yeah, and 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.160 it gets even more complicated, right because when you're talking 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:52.800 about fuel, like, you can't just add fuel into the 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.199 mixture and say, oh, now, adding fuel increases your weight, 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:58.400 so you need to add more fuel. You have to 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:00.640 find the right balance point where the fuel you have 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.120 is going to be sufficient to get that weight out 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.920 into space. It's kind of like, why doesn't my car 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:10.640 have a gallon gas tank? Yeah? Yeah, because by that 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:12.600 time that your car would be so heavy as to 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.640 not be able to move. Um, I mean yeah, you 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.120 never need to refill it because it would never consume 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:22.080 enough fuel. You never get anywhere your battery would diverse. 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.640 But then we look at things like permanent colonies, which 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:27.480 have their own issues. Right, even if you if you 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.880 figured out the amounts you need to get people to 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:32.840 where they're going. Let's say you know you're going to 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:37.360 establish a Martian colony. Obviously you can't expect to have 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:42.000 everything you ever will ever need on board that same rocket. 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:44.240 It's just not you know that spacecraft is not going 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.400 to have the cargo capacity necessary to carry a lifetime 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:53.240 supply of everything. Unless you're big cargo requirements are effectively infinity. 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:55.480 Then you can't do that, right if you if you're 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.960 going to be a cynical, cold hearted person and say, well, 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.640 technically there is lifetime supply on there, because after the 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.640 supply runs out, so well, the lifetime that's not what 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.120 we're talking about here. We're talking about being able to 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.280 perpetuate a colony. Be able to keep it going. So 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:15.040 clearly you can't just expect to be able to carry 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:17.760 everything with you, nor in the case of something like Mars, 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:22.680 can you expect to get regular resupplies from Earth. Because 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.760 it takes months for a ship to get from Earth 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.040 to Mars, and that's under ideal conditions. That's when we're 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.600 talking about Earth and Mars being lined up so that 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:34.760 you are spending the least amount of effort to get 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.520 out there. Then even then you're you're talking about uh, 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.360 like an eight month trip and then more than a 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.200 year before it comes round again. So that's not really 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:47.360 a viable option either to say like, oh, we'll just 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:52.040 send uh supplies from Earth to Mars indefinitely in order 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:54.720 to keep them going. So that's one of the reasons 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.160 why we talked about the big challenges that the Mars 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.840 one Colony faces if they want to really be successful. 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:02.959 So here's where we get to the point of the episode. 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:07.160 What if we could create a way where a low 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:13.520 mass initial investment in a space mission's cargo could create 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:18.320 a self replenishing system for the things we need in 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.400 order to colonize other planets or survive in a long 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:23.920 space journey, right, So, in other words, what if we 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:28.120 could bring something with us that could continue to manufacture 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.520 the basic things we're going to need, either on the 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.560 journey there or if it's a uh, if it's a 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:36.480 mission like the one we mentioned about Mars, where you 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.760 land on the planet, you are actually able to make 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:40.640 the stuff that you need in order for that mission 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:42.760 to be a success and for everyone to survive and 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.240 to get back to Earth safely. Yeah, and this is 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:49.000 where synthetic biology comes in. Yeah, this is really an 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:53.520 interesting idea. Synthetic biology is defined as the design and 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:58.200 construction of new biological parts, devices, and systems, and the 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:02.240 redesign of existing natural biological systems for useful purposes. So 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.800 it's sort of like engineering with life. Yeah, it's saying, 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.040 look at these various organisms, usually micro organisms in the 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.320 case of synthetic biology. Look at these micro organisms that 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:18.640 have remarkable capabilities and qualities and can survive in various 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:22.040 environments and produce things that, with a little tinkering can 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.840 come become useful stuff for us. What if part of 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.680 our payload in that initial launch happens to be some 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.319 of these micro organisms that we put to use, especially 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.640 once we get to a place like Mars and can 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:42.480 we realistically create you know, the basic things we're gonna 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:47.360 need using those microorganisms converting the stuff that's already there. Yeah, 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.760 the idea here is going to space and taking along 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:55.320 a factory that fits in a Petrie dish. Yeah. But space, 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:57.160 of course, we should say at the outset is not 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.800 the only place that synthetic biology is going to be 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.640 a No, there's actually an m i T Synthetic Biology 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:06.200 working group. Have you actually looked at this website the websites, 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.000 it's it's kind of cute. It's a website that includes 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.440 areas of interest for the field. So the at m 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:13.320 I T. You have a working group that meets in 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:18.160 brainstorms about potential uses for synthetic biology and they dream 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:23.240 big and my favorite like they have areas like yeah 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.120 we expect well yeah, I mean you know why dreams small, 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:30.040 aim for the stars. If you don't make it, you're 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.720 still going to come up with something amazing with your bacteria. Yeah, 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:38.920 So that they're applications include things like fabrication, computation and 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:44.240 signal processing, materials processing, energy management, mechanics, and replication. But 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.599 it also creates creates some interesting more science fiction e 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:51.439 like applications that would have fit in with our our 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:55.560 x men uh episodes in a way, like the idea 0:13:55.679 --> 0:14:01.160 of creating humans that can photos synthesize, so that humans 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.720 would be able to get some energy through a photosynthetic 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:08.520 chemical process similar to what you find in plants. Uh. 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:13.080 This was not It wasn't gone into detail. It was 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.360 like literally it was listed on the website, and I thought, 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:20.200 I want to read that paper to see if you're 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.720 actually paying attention. Maybe that could very well be the 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.240 point of it. But the idea is that this biology 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:30.440 would allow us to harness these processes that organisms carry out, 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:32.840 or we could change the organisms to do something that 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.960 we specifically need them to do, either genetically or through 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.640 selective breeding or whatever, um, and then use those to 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:43.080 our advantage. So really simple example that I was thinking 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.080 of is a genetic alteration to a silkworm so that 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.800 the silk produced is stronger and more resilient, so that 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:53.080 you could use that silk to then make other stuff 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.160 that would be useful for you. That's just a like 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:00.160 an example polled elephant air. Yeah, I feel like you've 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.960 talked about some other examples of this kind of thing 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.280 on the show before, like when we talked about microbial 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:13.640 computing and about creating microbial machines that would move tiny 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:17.040 components in machines that like you can get microbes to 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.120 spin a tiny gear. Uh. And if you would be 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:23.640 changing the nature of these microbial life forms in order 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:25.840 to do useful work for you, that seems like that 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.320 would fit under synthetic biology, right. Yeah, in this case, 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.200 the work we're mostly talking about tends to be chemical 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.920 in nature as opposed to mechanical. Well, obviously that that's 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.840 probably easier to do, I guess, I imagine. So I 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.080 mean just getting those microorganisms to be consistent with hitting 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.800 those punch cards in and out whenever they're checking in 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:47.280 for the beginning of the day and they're checking out 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.400 at the end of the day, that alone is a nightmare. 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.080 They're also always just walking in front of the robot. 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:56.720 They get beaten down every time. Yeah. So let's talk 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:00.080 about this paper you found that really became the the 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:02.960 lynch pen for all of the research that we've done 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.920 for this topic. It's actually an incredible paper and it's 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:09.360 and it's completely available to read. You can read the 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.880 full text for free. So so it was just last week, 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.240 I think it was in It was a group of 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:19.320 authors associated with UC Berkeley and with NASA two and 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:22.840 to each and they published a paper called Towards Synthetic 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:27.320 Biological Approaches to Resource Utilization on Space Missions, and this 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.600 was in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, and 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.160 of course interface here sort of refers to the interface 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:38.280 between different natural and applied sciences. And so the authors, 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:42.600 which were Menezi's cumbers, Hogan and Arkin, claimed that if 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.400 you're going to explore or colonize the Moon or Mars, 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:51.080 it makes good sense to develop systems of biological production 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:56.440 to use live organisms to transform things like available volatiles 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:00.720 and waste products into usable resources to keep the crew 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.520 members alive and able to do their work on the 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.840 mission right. And ideally you would want to have organisms 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.560 that could harness whatever resources are going to be available 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:13.080 on the site you're going to Mars, for example, which 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.800 would include things like carbon dioxide and nitrogen which are 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.200 found on Mars. Also, ideally the outputs of those organisms 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.880 will fall into a useful category of material or as 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:27.399 an intermediate feedstock that some other microorganism will consume to 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:30.919 produce the useful material. In other words, they actually talk about, 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.080 you know, you could create a system where you have 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.119 these microorganisms that take some sort of raw material that 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.199 are that that you find on Mars, they convert it 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.600 into a different type of material. You have a second 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.639 group of microorganisms that consume that new material, they produce 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.159 a third type of material, and so on and so 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:52.639 forth until you finally get to where you want to be. 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.560 Now they stress that, of course, you want to have 0:17:55.960 --> 0:18:00.960 as few intermediates in that relationship as possible because you 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.359 want it to be more simple. The added complexity just 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:06.720 means you have added payload because you have to bring 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.920 more stuff with you in order to process the different materials. 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.239 Oh yeah, it makes sense. You want to streamline your 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.000 chemical assembly line, right, and you want to try and 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:20.000 make it effective across multiple outputs. And we'll talk about 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.280 the outputs in a little bit, because there are they 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:27.040 identified four big ones and and you want those processes 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.040 to apply to as many of those as possible. So 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.359 that way, again, you are simplifying your your efforts as 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.280 much as you can. Yeah. So, in the simplest possible terms, 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:39.320 you're looking for a way to create a collection of 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.679 organisms that sort of eat Martian soil and poop things 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.439 that are really useful. That's pretty much it. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.320 the most useful poop in the universe. Well, at least 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.960 for as far as we're concerned, And we haven't run 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.120 into like, what's the what's the little nibbler on Futurama 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.440 that that poops dark matter that US spaceships. We haven't 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:06.119 run into that yet. So barring running into Nibbler, then yes, 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.400 so far this is the most useful stuff. Okay, And 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:12.560 so probably we should be fair and say, maybe not 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:14.600 pooping in the way you and I imagine, but at 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.320 least creating a byproduct. Please don't imagine the pooping now, 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.280 you can't help. But what are what are the pooping, 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:26.520 non pooping byproducts that these powerful little machines could create. Well, 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.320 one of the first ones we should mention are drugs 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.240 in medicine. Yeah, yeah, there are. In fact, there are 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.520 a lot of drugs that we synthesize through uh, using 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:41.159 different types of micro organisms, bacteria, fungi, all sorts of 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.359 stuff that we depend upon from the natural world in 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.280 order to produce drugs. Uh. You know, even if we're 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.439 talking about starting off with something and then creating a 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.840 purely synthetic version. We often look at nature as the 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:55.080 first source. So you know, you hear about like um, 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:58.640 natural cures and folk wisdom. A lot of the drugs 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:04.280 we use really are the refined, scientifically arrived at versions 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.240 of stuff that has been used in folk cures for 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:11.040 quite sometimes. Oh sure, like we have, you know, chemically 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:14.560 isolated the active ingredient in some piece of tree bark 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.400 that acted as a pain reliever. And now you've got 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.320 just just that main chemical that was actually doing the 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.920 work concentrated in pill form, right in a very predictable 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:27.840 and measurable way. Right. But now that I bring up 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.200 the pill form, I do kind of wonder. We'll wait 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:34.280 a second, why would you need to synthesize medicine in space? 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:38.760 Because medicine doesn't really take up that much room or mass. 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:41.840 It's not a significant amount of your payload. And it 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.000 turns out there is a good reason you need to 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:47.320 synthesize medicine and space. Yeah, and this was interesting. I 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:49.879 did not know this until we looked at this paper 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:54.639 that medications. You know, there are expiration dates for medications 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.480 that tell you when the active ingredient is no longer 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.280 going to be as efficacious as it should be. I 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.119 always just assume that's a lie, But maybe that's not 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:05.560 at all. Apparently it is not a lie. And apparently 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:08.080 not only is it not a lie, it happens faster 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:13.920 in space, So drugs go go bad. They they lose 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.680 their efficacy, they become less effective over time and space 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.679 it happens faster. It's the old radiation, isn't it. You know, 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:24.280 I think it's really the microgravity. They just start partying 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:29.520 and then they're tired. Oh no, I'm thinking of the astronauts. Uh, 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:33.760 you know, it's interesting. I think it's it's a cool 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:36.800 idea to bring along micro organism so that you can 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:41.560 continue to create drugs instead of having to rely upon 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.840 whatever stores you brought with you. Right, So, once you 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:49.160 get to Mars, apparently it is not all that difficult 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.720 to create a system where you could have microbes manufacturing, 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.800 for example, a seat amnifin, which is the you know, 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:57.840 a pain killer, right. And there are other drugs that 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:00.240 they might be able to make too, like antibiotics, which 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:03.640 obviously that'd be really useful in small amounts. I mean, 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:05.520 if you want to if you don't run into the 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:08.760 Mars flu every five seconds would be good too. Well, 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:11.240 I mean, I guess we would hope that whatever cold 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:13.360 you catch on Mars is something we brought with us. 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:17.399 And the Martian supervirus, I'd be pretty pretty sure that 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:19.800 it would be something we brought with us. We haven't 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.119 detected anything on Mars that would lead us to believe 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:25.680 there are pathogens already there. But yes, you know you 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:27.600 would want to be able to make this kind of stuff, 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:33.000