Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. This
Speaker 1: is Alice Noderwell at the science that are at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lambs, science
Speaker 1: writer and how stuff works dot Com. Today's topic of
Speaker 1: space elevators reminds me of the children's classic Charlie in
Speaker 1: the Greek Class Elevator, which I understand that you never read, Robert, Well, no,
Speaker 1: but I saw the movie and don't they have the
Speaker 1: elevator at the end of the movie, right, right, So
Speaker 1: there's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you know, Johnny Depp
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, but then there's no, not Johnny Depp,
Speaker 1: Gene Wilder. That's that's Charlie in the Chocolate fact Well right, right, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: point taken. And then the sequel is Charlie and the
Speaker 1: Greek Class Elevator. Right. So when you open the opening
Speaker 1: scene of Charlie and the Great Class Elevator, I think
Speaker 1: it was called a Wonk evator in the movie. Okay, okay, Well,
Speaker 1: so this this mega structure, the elevator is floating in
Speaker 1: the sky and we see um, Charlie bucket and Willy
Speaker 1: Wonka and all the various grandparents and even Charlie's parents
Speaker 1: are all crowded into this elevator. And this is what
Speaker 1: I was thinking of when we were preparing today's topic
Speaker 1: for the Space Elevator, because the space Elevator is not
Speaker 1: all that fanciful and idea like, it actually makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense and is something that we will probably
Speaker 1: see in the decades ahead, we hope to see. You know,
Speaker 1: I got really excited about this topic when we were
Speaker 1: researching it. I'm not necessarily a space junkie. I'm very
Speaker 1: excited about the different projects we're pursuing or not pursuing
Speaker 1: as the case maybe uh and seems to be more
Speaker 1: in the case these days. But um, the Space Elevator
Speaker 1: really got me fired up, just because, yeah, it does
Speaker 1: seem kind of doable. So let's give you a little
Speaker 1: history on the space Elevator. Um, we have the idea
Speaker 1: from one Russian gentleman Urie aren't suiting of excuse your
Speaker 1: if we messed up your last name, And he came
Speaker 1: up with this in nineteen sixty according to the Space
Speaker 1: Word Foundation, and the Space Ward Foundation is going to
Speaker 1: come up if you do any research into space elevators
Speaker 1: and it's just a nonprofit organization that's dedicated to space
Speaker 1: elevators for the space science, technology, all that good stuff.
Speaker 1: Just a just a grassroots nonprofit interested in building an
Speaker 1: elevator into out of space. So you can go to
Speaker 1: space elevator dot com and read RS nine paper titled
Speaker 1: to the Cosmos by Electric Train. It was published in Pravda,
Speaker 1: the old Soviet union newspaper, and this is what kills me.
Speaker 1: It was published as a Sunday supplement for the kids,
Speaker 1: as far as I understand it, and it has this
Speaker 1: kind of cool, fun kid graphics. Well in a way,
Speaker 1: it's kind of sad though, because you think back and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, at a time when kids were interested
Speaker 1: in science except for your kids listening, of course. So
Speaker 1: Here he was a pretty smart guy, and he wasn't
Speaker 1: really satisfied with rockets as a means for getting to space.
Speaker 1: So Here's in which is reasonable because rockets are it's
Speaker 1: like whatever you're sending into space, it's like strapping it
Speaker 1: on the end of an explosion, you know, right, and
Speaker 1: then there's a whole huge expenditure of fuel and you're
Speaker 1: missing up the atmosphere. You have to protect passengers from
Speaker 1: high acceleration. All this kid stuff. But let's read you
Speaker 1: an excerpt. Oh, yes, yes, Robert has volunteered to do
Speaker 1: this in his best Russian accent. Yes, Robert, feel free
Speaker 1: to abbreviate the quote I got a little overzealous with
Speaker 1: old Gary. All Right, here we go. Preparation for the
Speaker 1: cosmic launching of a contemporary rocket requires not one day,
Speaker 1: but more than one month. Yes, of course, these are
Speaker 1: just the first steps. None is sounding a little like Dracula,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna stop and just continue in a normal voice.
Speaker 1: The first steps man is taking beyond the limits of
Speaker 1: his own planet. Still in the future, the construction of
Speaker 1: rockets will not change in principle, and even in the future,
Speaker 1: the first stage of the of the flight of a
Speaker 1: cosmic liner will be accompanied by the furious effort of
Speaker 1: straining engines, by the immense expenditure of fuel by protecting
Speaker 1: passengers from high acceleration. Right, so, all sorts of crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: Because Grandma's gonna want to go into space, two can't.
Speaker 1: Ema wants to go into space, and and so Uri
Speaker 1: winds up saying flight into the cosmos with the help
Speaker 1: of a rocket will never be like an outing on
Speaker 1: a boat or a trip on a tram. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then he wonders, is this the only method for cosmic flights?
Speaker 1: And thus the space elevator thinks to your right. And
Speaker 1: the fact most thing about it too is that it's
Speaker 1: it's such a kind of like common sense sense answered.
Speaker 1: Like you can imagine the first guy that brought it
Speaker 1: up was just like sent out of the room, you know,
Speaker 1: because he's like, hey, guys, I know these rockets are great,
Speaker 1: but can we just build like an elevator that goes
Speaker 1: from space. It's it's like when I was on vacation,
Speaker 1: you know, you you get on at the lobby and
Speaker 1: then you just push GEO for GIO synchronous orbit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like when I was on vacation, we went to see
Speaker 1: this hell fire pass thing and h in Thailand, okay,
Speaker 1: and like there was some some some very old people
Speaker 1: in God blessing from em brave enough to come on
Speaker 1: the trip. But they were like, is there going to
Speaker 1: be an elevator so we can ride back from the bottom.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like it's a ridiculous question asking it
Speaker 1: seems like a ridiculous question to ask of of space travel.
Speaker 1: But it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, So for
Speaker 1: a while they were thought of as kind of ridiculous,
Speaker 1: and they'd really just existed in old Yury's head and
Speaker 1: the realm of sci five as you guys my network,
Speaker 1: Yeah you've wrote about it and Fountains of Paradise. But
Speaker 1: two things moved space elevators firmly out of fantasy and
Speaker 1: into the realm of possibility. And those two things were,
Speaker 1: according to space Ward, the discovery of carbon nanotubes in
Speaker 1: nineteen and their early nineteen nineties and uh Bradley Edwards
Speaker 1: engineering research in two thousand one. So those were two
Speaker 1: of the things that really made space elevators something that
Speaker 1: we can hope for. We had the we had an
Speaker 1: idea about how the engineering would work. It's not like
Speaker 1: just going out and piling up cement blocks and two
Speaker 1: by four until you reach orbit. I think part of
Speaker 1: the problem for me when we were researching this podcast
Speaker 1: was I just think of an elevator as a structure
Speaker 1: being encased within a building. So that's not the case
Speaker 1: with the space elevator. Yeah, It's more are like a
Speaker 1: vehicle that climbs a super strong tether for miles and
Speaker 1: miles and miles. Yeah, let's give some details on the
Speaker 1: tether because that's pretty important part of the whole Space
Speaker 1: elevator construction. Yeah. The thing that really that I had
Speaker 1: to look up to really put it in perspective for
Speaker 1: for me, UM is that the sheer distance we're talking here,
Speaker 1: all right. Currently, the tallest structure in the world is
Speaker 1: the Burgee Kalafa in Dubai. And you've probably seen pictures
Speaker 1: of this super tall building. I was at the Seventh
Speaker 1: Star Hotel. It might be it's yeah, it probably is.
Speaker 1: It's in Dubai. It's probably eight um. But all right,
Speaker 1: this structure is two thousand, seven hundred and seventeen feet tall.
Speaker 1: That's roughly half a mile structure. Yes, the Dubai structure,
Speaker 1: all right. Geo centrationis altitude is a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: four miles, Okay, okay, So you'd have to stack um
Speaker 1: two hundred and um of those Dubai super hotels on
Speaker 1: top of each other just to reach um, you know,
Speaker 1: satellite territory. But that's not even the distance of the
Speaker 1: Space elevator. The space elevator, according to uh to some predictions,
Speaker 1: would be sixty two thousand miles in length, right, and
Speaker 1: it would be made from lightweight carbon nanotubes, which again
Speaker 1: according to some people, maybe a hundred times stronger than steel.
Speaker 1: And then it's going to be security to a station
Speaker 1: on Earth on one end. So depending on who you
Speaker 1: talked to, you specifications for that ribbon vary. According to
Speaker 1: the Institute for Scientific Research, the ribbon maybe three ft
Speaker 1: wide and thinner than a sheet of paper, which is insane.
Speaker 1: Something that's going to be slipping you up to space
Speaker 1: and that a sheet of paper and maybe carrying all
Speaker 1: sorts of expensive material and grandmas. And then if you
Speaker 1: wanted to increase the amount of stuff you're bringing into space,
Speaker 1: the payload you're bringing into space, and you would want
Speaker 1: to scale up your space elevator by increasing the size
Speaker 1: of your tether, which makes sense. Now this next part
Speaker 1: really just floored me when I was when we were
Speaker 1: researching it. And that's when you talk about the how
Speaker 1: the counterweight stays in space, Like I ran this is
Speaker 1: the simple explanation that I ran across from a scientist
Speaker 1: and he was like, all right, imagine that your fist
Speaker 1: is the is the planet, all right, and then you
Speaker 1: have a bit of dental floss, you know, that, and
Speaker 1: then that dental floss is tied to like a little um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like a little golf ball or something, right,
Speaker 1: and then you like hold your fist over your head
Speaker 1: and you just start swinging that golf ball around and
Speaker 1: and of course the golf ball doesn't crash into your
Speaker 1: fist because it's swinging around and around and around the rotation,
Speaker 1: the rotation and all. And that's the same principle essentially
Speaker 1: with the space elevator. And it's so simple that it
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of those that kind of flourish.
Speaker 1: You're like, that can't be right. That just sounds way
Speaker 1: too simple, right, And we have the original space elevator guy,
Speaker 1: the Russian Eurie, to thank for working this out. So
Speaker 1: we all know that the Earth's force of attraction lessons
Speaker 1: in proportion to the square of the distance, and centrifugal
Speaker 1: force grows with the increase in distance. So what that
Speaker 1: means is that at about a distance of fort KOs,
Speaker 1: centrifugal force turns out to be an equal to the
Speaker 1: force of gravity. So it's kind of cool. I never
Speaker 1: knew that. And then the Institute for Scientific Research says
Speaker 1: that by using the end of the ribbon like a slingshot.
Speaker 1: You could send pretty serious payloads in the Moon, Mars
Speaker 1: and beyond. That's so awesome. It's like if they're if
Speaker 1: you're you're an astronaut, you're the Aunt. It's on the
Speaker 1: little golf ball that's tied to the dental bloss that's
Speaker 1: attached to my fist, and then you're swinging around and
Speaker 1: then Aunt goes flying and on his way to Mars.
Speaker 1: We are the ants, right, So let's talk about the
Speaker 1: cars you have. These cars are climbers as they're called,
Speaker 1: that are riding up the ribbon, and they're meant to
Speaker 1: carry some serious weight and they themselves may way up
Speaker 1: to twenty tons. So in one draft of the idea,
Speaker 1: the cars attached to the ribbon have electric motors and
Speaker 1: they get their power from a station on the ground
Speaker 1: by way of laser beams. It's kind of a setup
Speaker 1: like a ski lift, was one comparison I heard. And
Speaker 1: then another idea is to use solar power instead of
Speaker 1: laser beams to power the cars. Either way, you don't
Speaker 1: want a huge engine on board because that kind of
Speaker 1: negates the whole great thing about it. The solar energy
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense because you're not going I have to
Speaker 1: deal with with cloud cover right right, So inside the
Speaker 1: cars could be roomier because of the relatively inexpensive cost
Speaker 1: per pound, So great news for grandmas. She might have,
Speaker 1: you know, sleeping and eating accommodations within the car. And
Speaker 1: some of the estimates I've looked at um they show
Speaker 1: that our like first space elevator, whenever we finally build
Speaker 1: it could like bring thirteen tons of grandma's. Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's all the grandma's, but it's a large,
Speaker 1: large assembly of grandma's it is, indeed. But you raise
Speaker 1: an important point in that we're not going to be
Speaker 1: sending grandma's up first. We're gonna be sending Also it's
Speaker 1: important distress the grandma's will not be the first to
Speaker 1: take the space elevator, no matter how many nights they
Speaker 1: cam about to get tickets to be the first in line.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a great Twilight Shone episode that where
Speaker 1: it's like all the grandmas are called in for the
Speaker 1: first space elevator, right, what's up right, We're gonna be
Speaker 1: sending you know, different things for NASA and the European
Speaker 1: Space Agency and all sorts of other folks are in
Speaker 1: line before the Grandma's. I saw there's I saw an
Speaker 1: article online talking about the map to the Space Elevator
Speaker 1: which showed like some of the ways will test it,
Speaker 1: which is kind of interesting and also kind of common sense.
Speaker 1: It involves like using blimps to test like the early
Speaker 1: section of it, and then using satellites to test the
Speaker 1: higher portion of it until you reach the point where
Speaker 1: you pull unrolled sort of the whole thing. So that's
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. Would you be a guinea pig for that? No, No,
Speaker 1: of course, I'm not a big fan of heights. So
Speaker 1: you might be wondering how fast the cars are ascending.
Speaker 1: I certainly was, and I heard according to space where
Speaker 1: that there's a roughly a hundred miles per hours the
Speaker 1: speed they would be going up. Okay, yeah, some of
Speaker 1: the estimates I was looking at the talking about maybe
Speaker 1: a week or so on board that thing. So I'm
Speaker 1: guessing they'll probably some of that view to look at
Speaker 1: the home, but there's some of the thirteen tons though.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to have your snack bars and your
Speaker 1: places for the Grandma's to stay. You know, how are
Speaker 1: the space bathroom work for Grandma yeah, because that's tricky,
Speaker 1: wouldn't you think, Yeah, it would on several levels. Um.
Speaker 1: And then of course we have the ground station. Right,
Speaker 1: let's not forget about the ground and has where's that
Speaker 1: going to be? Well, the best scenario as far as
Speaker 1: I've heard, is in the ocean, right, because you want
Speaker 1: to have um, you don't want anybody getting close to it, right,
Speaker 1: So the ocean is the best place to have like
Speaker 1: a hundred mile no fly zone keep planes from accidentally
Speaker 1: running into it. Um. No, you know, to keep your
Speaker 1: villainous folk away from it in case they want to Yeah,
Speaker 1: crazy people you know, anti space elevator, terrorists, etcetera. Um.
Speaker 1: And then also if something goes wrong, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: all that's another reason to stay back from it, right.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a pretty big investment with new technology,
Speaker 1: right right. And any other thing is that it needs
Speaker 1: to be near the equator, right, Robert correct. Which also
Speaker 1: has the benefit of of having there being fewer like
Speaker 1: catastrophic storms in that area, so you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about like hurricanes blowing your tether around, gotcha, Right,
Speaker 1: So there will be a bit of movement kind of
Speaker 1: like a guitar sty for the tether, which would be
Speaker 1: a tad bit unsettling. Yeah, but it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, you want a little a little give and
Speaker 1: take even with a skyscraper, So you definitely want some
Speaker 1: give and take with something that stretches, uh six miles. Yes, intuitively,
Speaker 1: I know that, but I'm still saying that I might
Speaker 1: be a little bit frightened when that thing started. Wouldn't help. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So why space elevator? What's the motivation behind it? I
Speaker 1: think you guys know the answer to this. But um,
Speaker 1: one of the people who's interested in this is a
Speaker 1: company called Liftports, and their goal is to be the
Speaker 1: folks behind mass transportation system that allows people to take
Speaker 1: advantage of space and all the resources that space offers,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, mining asteroids or a helium three.
Speaker 1: I mean, they want to be the transportation system for
Speaker 1: even the smallest entrepreneur. Right. And the other great thing
Speaker 1: about a space elevator is not just like physical um cargo,
Speaker 1: but it would be a way to transport energy, a
Speaker 1: way to transmit communications, um, you know in the information
Speaker 1: it's uh, you know, it becomes a highway for for
Speaker 1: all those things. Right, we break free the Earth, and
Speaker 1: we start colonizing other worlds we established in the inter stations.
Speaker 1: We finally get to go to Marsha or actually if
Speaker 1: you we put a satellite into orbit and we make
Speaker 1: a man and some robots watch bad movies on it,
Speaker 1: like Mystery Sense Theater three thousand. They have a space
Speaker 1: elevator of sorts in that show, is called the Umbilicus,
Speaker 1: and they would Dr Clayton Forester would send the movie
Speaker 1: up through that. So there's another sci fi example of
Speaker 1: space elevator for you. Right. They're all over science fiction,
Speaker 1: And there was also one of them book I just
Speaker 1: read called Fearsome Engine by Ian M. Banks. I highly
Speaker 1: recommend that to anybody who's into um into science fiction,
Speaker 1: because there's a whole lot of like craze like anything.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna give any what anything like, except say
Speaker 1: it has less of cyberpunk stuff in it. It has
Speaker 1: stuff having to do with like um, with civilizations in
Speaker 1: the Kardashef scale. It has stuff to do with like megastructures, um.
Speaker 1: And there's in this particular world there was at one
Speaker 1: point a space elevator, but it's long since been taken down.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty glowing recommendation. So what are we talking
Speaker 1: about for price to get Grandma on the space elevator?
Speaker 1: The price, Yeah, I think it was a hundred dollars
Speaker 1: per pound. So that's going to be a price of
Speaker 1: a pretty serious plane ticket plus um luggage. Right, so
Speaker 1: there maybe a hundred fifty pounds. You want to bring
Speaker 1: fifty pounds of luggage, then you're talking roughly free Grandma
Speaker 1: if you're a hundred fifty pounds. Wait, but why is
Speaker 1: Grandma bringing fifty pounds of stuff in orbit? I don't
Speaker 1: get that this Gamma need that many things. I just
Speaker 1: like how much. I don't know. Maybe it's just a
Speaker 1: lot of birthday cards to send now and stuff with
Speaker 1: five dollar bills. I'm not really sure. I was just saying,
Speaker 1: because you think of fifty pounds as the limit, you
Speaker 1: know from when they you stick here, Well, I guess
Speaker 1: you gotta bring a space suit, space food, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: It ends up wings and max. Yeah. But one of
Speaker 1: the thing is like sending anything into orbit, like using rockets.
Speaker 1: That's the huge prices. The huge part of the price
Speaker 1: tag is like you want to send food into space,
Speaker 1: It's really expensive because it has to you know, right
Speaker 1: on top of rockets. So it is inflated. As this
Speaker 1: price might sound, it's a bargain. It's total bargain sending
Speaker 1: it up in a rocket. Yeah, and then price of
Speaker 1: building it, some would argue as a bargain as well.
Speaker 1: That's going to be around the realm of ten billion,
Speaker 1: that's one estimate. Well, we've we've spent that much on
Speaker 1: things that were far less beneficial to the human race before.
Speaker 1: So I think no doubt. I'm all for it. Ten million.
Speaker 1: Sock it away, start saving right now. Um. So you
Speaker 1: may be thinking this is kind of fringe, and yes,
Speaker 1: it is far off, but it's not fringe. Lest you
Speaker 1: think it is fringe, let's talk about some of the
Speaker 1: people and agencies that are involved in this. We've got
Speaker 1: you know, NASA and the Las Alamos National Laboratory. We've
Speaker 1: folks from m I, T you see, Berkeley, Locked Martin,
Speaker 1: European Space Society, all sorts of people and they all
Speaker 1: get together every year. In fact, they're holding in August
Speaker 1: two thousand ten Space Elevator Conference in Redmond, Washington. In
Speaker 1: case you guys want to attend, I just give the
Speaker 1: image of a bunch of scientist building a space elevator
Speaker 1: like out in the field. Yeah, I don't think this
Speaker 1: is it. I think it's got a little bit more
Speaker 1: to it. So, among other things, are going to be
Speaker 1: focusing on the four pillars of Space elevator development, and
Speaker 1: those are science and technical aspects, Political, social, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: obviously there's a like, how do you arrange to have
Speaker 1: this giant section of of ocean that you're going to
Speaker 1: erect it in? How do you, you know, convince people
Speaker 1: there's not going to wreck their satellites, etcetera? Right? How
Speaker 1: do you figure out who gets to ride on it,
Speaker 1: who owns stuff, and who gets all the benefits from it,
Speaker 1: you know, cost wise? Yeah, you're you're basically building a
Speaker 1: gateway to like the Eighth Continent, you know, if you
Speaker 1: can consider space or the Moon and the eighth continent,
Speaker 1: and then it's like who owns the Eighth Continent? Right?
Speaker 1: So another thing that they're going to be doing at
Speaker 1: this Space Elevator conference is they're going to be holding
Speaker 1: a materials engineering challenge that will play into the space
Speaker 1: elevator development, and it's called the Strong Tether Competition. I
Speaker 1: know you guys are wondering where I'm going with this,
Speaker 1: but I promise you it has a point. So this
Speaker 1: is a NASA sponsored challenge in which tames enter some
Speaker 1: super strong tether that's subjected to a pool test. Right,
Speaker 1: So in order to win the two million dollar prize,
Speaker 1: that's no small chump change. The tether has to exceed
Speaker 1: the strength of the best available commercial tether by with
Speaker 1: no increase in mass. I wonder what they have pulling
Speaker 1: on it, Like DoD they have those big, big guys
Speaker 1: from the World's Strongest Man competition. That would be amusing.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But at the two thousand nine Space
Speaker 1: Elevator Conference, no one participated except for one exhibition only team,
Speaker 1: and they brought with them a two point two meter
Speaker 1: length of carbon nanotube. So carbon nanotube, you guys will remember,
Speaker 1: is what some people have proposed building the elevators tether
Speaker 1: out of. So according to NASA, this loop that the
Speaker 1: team brought with them failed at a level that's well
Speaker 1: below expected strength. But the fact that they made the
Speaker 1: carbon nanotube loop was good news because we need that
Speaker 1: ribbon first space elevator. So the main reason we're focusing
Speaker 1: so much on the tether is of clearly it's a
Speaker 1: key component that's the space elevator, but the materials technology
Speaker 1: just and quite there yet. When will we have it though,
Speaker 1: we're looking at what October thirty one. Yeah, they have
Speaker 1: a running clock on their website and they have slated
Speaker 1: October twenty one as the date. Two thousand one. I
Speaker 1: gotta say, I'm pretty excited. Yeah, yeah, I bet they'll
Speaker 1: Maybe they'll have the deal where you can like be
Speaker 1: like going up in space, um on the on the
Speaker 1: virgin Ship. You know, you can buy your tickets ahead
Speaker 1: of time before the things even build. Yeah, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of hype before that. Hey, So in
Speaker 1: case you guys have nothing to do before two one,
Speaker 1: when I go to the homepage and check out how
Speaker 1: space elevators will work, or how space tourism works, or
Speaker 1: how the Google Lunar exerprese works. Yeah, we have a
Speaker 1: lot of great, great space content, so check it out.
Speaker 1: And we're constantly throwing those links up to some of
Speaker 1: these space related content pieces on our Twitter and our Facebook.
Speaker 1: That's a stuff from the Science Lab on Facebook, Lab
Speaker 1: stuff on Twitter. I also do a little stuff for
Speaker 1: Discovery Space, so I'd like to throw that on to
Speaker 1: the website as well. Yeah, you're pimping yourself there, Robert.
Speaker 1: Nice work. So I got a little listener mail that
Speaker 1: I would love to share. This could be my favorite
Speaker 1: ever piece of listener mail, although we have gotten some
Speaker 1: good ones, and it seems to be trending that we're
Speaker 1: getting very interesting pictures from you all, which I really like.
Speaker 1: In the past, we've received pictures of people's pet rats.
Speaker 1: With your marvelous pictures of of listeners composting efforts. We
Speaker 1: got that one with the lizards regenerated tale, which was
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. That was good. But then then this this morning,
Speaker 1: it was interaction and this one came from Jenna in Vancouver,
Speaker 1: and Jenna writes, Hey, I just started listening to this
Speaker 1: podcast and listening to back episodes, so you have to
Speaker 1: excuse me for sending an email on an old one.
Speaker 1: Please forgive you, Chenna, but I really do have something
Speaker 1: to share on your podcast about hookworm. Three years ago,
Speaker 1: I caught kanaan hookworm on a beach in Ghana. This
Speaker 1: has a different life cycle in humans because we're dead
Speaker 1: and host so instead of going to the lungs and intestine,
Speaker 1: it pretty much just crawls around your foot. This was
Speaker 1: probably the worst experience of my life, as it is
Speaker 1: incredibly itchy. Luckily, by the time it really manifested itself,
Speaker 1: I was in Scotland. Listen, she's in Ghana and then
Speaker 1: she's in Scotland. Janna, you're a world traveler bringing parasites
Speaker 1: all over the place, I know, right, So she's in
Speaker 1: Scotland and they have cold water. Because the only way
Speaker 1: I could sleep was to soak both the until he
Speaker 1: went numb up to the ankle, at which point I
Speaker 1: could sleep for two hours before getting up to numb
Speaker 1: them again. Well, okay, so she she talks a little
Speaker 1: bit more about the process, but she wraps up and says, now,
Speaker 1: it's just a super fun and totally gross story that
Speaker 1: I have pictures to prove. And indeed, Jenna sent us
Speaker 1: the pictures of her foot with the hook room and
Speaker 1: it is awesome. I'm about to give the photo out
Speaker 1: again and look at it again just to re experienced it,
Speaker 1: and it is so gross. It's just oh, I mean fit,
Speaker 1: will you sent this photo in knowing that we would
Speaker 1: be grossed out by your feet? Your feet are gross
Speaker 1: in this photo because you can I'm sure they're lovely
Speaker 1: now they're Jenna well, it's well, maybe we can put
Speaker 1: this on the block. We would have to ask for question,
Speaker 1: but yeah, maybe. Well it's not for the fan of heart,
Speaker 1: it really isn't. It's like it's little worms crawling under
Speaker 1: the skin kind of and it kind of looks but
Speaker 1: it also kind of looks like like poison ivy um.
Speaker 1: But you can see the path of the worm, which
Speaker 1: is awesome, Like you can just yeah, because the whole
Speaker 1: thing is like they used to have to like like
Speaker 1: get it out and like spin it around a little
Speaker 1: stick and you can just imagine somebody doing it to
Speaker 1: these feet. Yeah, so that was disgusting and awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks Jenna, And that's all we got for listener now today.
Speaker 1: So I think that wraps it up. Yeah, you guys
Speaker 1: have thoughts on spaceworms space worms, Well, yeah, if you
Speaker 1: have thoughts on spaceworms, centnamon because I would love to
Speaker 1: know what that entails. But if you have thoughts on
Speaker 1: just parasitic worms or space separate thoughts. And uh and indeed,
Speaker 1: if you have some sort of horrific infection and you
Speaker 1: have does that you're rather proud of send them in.
Speaker 1: I guess I will look at that, Robert, I will
Speaker 1: definitely look at him. I love this stuff. Yes, send
Speaker 1: us an email at science stuff at how staff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks guys for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
Speaker 1: the house stuff works dot com home page