WEBVTT - The Moon vs. Mars 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:14.960 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:17.360 podcast that looks at the future and says, by rocket 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:19.640 to the moon, by airplane to the rocket, by taxi 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:21.600 to the airport, by front door to the taxi, by 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.720 throwing back the blanket hanging down the legs. I'm Jonvin Strickland, 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.440 I'm Lauren Vocoma, and throughout McCormick. That's that they might 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:32.960 be giants. Quote. It's a great song. I'll play it 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.680 for you after the show. All right, So today we 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.120 wanted to talk We're still talking about space exploration. If 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.840 you heard our previous podcast, we were talking about the 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.960 the benefits and risks of manned space exploration versus unmanned 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:47.080 space exploration. And today we want to talk a little 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:51.600 bit more about the idea of colonization, not just exploring space, 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:55.200 but finding other places where we could live and do 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.640 science and stay there for prolonged time periods of time, 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.000 not just for a short visit and then pop right back. 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.440 You get a good butt groove going on your space couch, Yeah, 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:06.880 you need to exactly get so that that you know, 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:11.399 you can sit there and essentially say it's somewhere like 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.000 this place is mine. Not only do I have a flag, 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.479 check out the butt. It's not gonna fit your butt, 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.560 I guarantee it. Um. Yeah. So, uh, you know, the 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:25.279 can space become home? That's really the question we're asking. 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.120 And the two main candidates that that I think most 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.760 people think about when we talk about colonization, at least 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.120 in the foreseeable future, like within the next few decades, 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:40.120 would be either Earth's Moon or Mars. Those seem to 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:44.280 be the two leading candidates when you agree so well, 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:49.600 they're you know, cooler than mercury, less totally poisonous than venus. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.160 that's true. Okay, So, as we talked about in our 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.960 last podcast, Uh, it's gonna be mega dangerous to go there. 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.720 So because space wants to kill you, Yes, space wants 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:00.880 to kill you. Anytime you leave Earth, you're you're taking 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:04.400 a big risk. So what are the benefits? Why would 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:08.120 people want to create colonies on the Moon and Mars? Well, 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:12.720 I can I can give you some overview about the Moon. Uh, specifically, 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.960 I mean NASA was looking at the possibility of going 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.959 back to the Moon and in fact ended up having 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.360 a project in two thousand six called why the Moon? 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.679 You know, why why would we go back there? And 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.360 they came up with more than They actually asked people 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.000 all around the world, like they were asking leading scientists 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.160 and engineers as well as other people you know, thinkers, authors, 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.880 all sorts, not to say that authors don't think all 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.880 that often. Uh so, I'm the son of an author. 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.800 It's just a joke at my dad. So they asked 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:48.480 all these folks like, you know, why should we go 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.080 back to the moon, and ended up compiling a list 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.960 of over two d reasons or more than two hundred reasons, 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:57.519 I should say, and uh, but the they generally fell 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:02.560 into certain major category. Um. So for the Moon specifically, 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.760 they said that they talked about just the idea of 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.960 having a human settlement beyond Earth, this idea that this 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.640 is another frontier that we can explore and uh and 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.760 make a home on, and and that that's a powerful 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:20.200 idea all on its own out the door, and that 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:22.720 that could apply not just to the Moon, obviously, that 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:27.040 could apply to any anybody that's out in space, but 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.640 specifically they were referring to the Moon in this case. 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.360 They also said that you could pursue scientific study to 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.720 answer questions about the history of the Earth, the history 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.280 of our solar system, and the history of the universe 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.720 and what our place is within that context. You know, 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.600 these are big questions, and sometimes to get perspective, you've 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.760 gotta leave stuff behind, you know, like our planet. And 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:51.480 we could learn more about the actual history of the Moon, 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.480 like how was the moon form. We've got lots of 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.400 theories on it, but this would help us, uh test 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.960 those theories and see if the theories seem to hold 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.480 true based upon the observations we can make their Beyond that, 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:07.480 they said that you could test technologies, systems, and processes 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.840 that we'd use for deeper space exploration and support future 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.640 missions to other places like Mars and beyond. So, in 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.600 other words, used the Moon as a test bed so 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.000 that we can learn oh well, you know, we've created 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:23.800 the best practices that we need to make space exploration 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:29.279 as safe and uh and and scientifically profitable as possible. 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:31.840 H Yeah, not just a test bed, but it would 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.560 be an important staging point for actual missions, right sure. Yeah, 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:38.680 you're talking about one six the gravity of Earth, so 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.680 from yeah, yeah, compared to Earth, it is far easier 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.120 to get a vehicle off the surface of the Moon 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:47.880 that it is on Earth. So if you were able 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.640 to ship materials to the Moon and then put those 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.760 materials together and then uh and then launch a ship 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.360 from the Moon, then you could use as a staging 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.279 ground a launch pad really, so you could use to 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:05.120 go on deeper space exploration missions, whether those are manned 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.560 or unmanned. You can even you know, launch unmanned missions 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.800 from the mood if you wanted to um beyond that. 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.240 It would provide a challenging objective that would require global 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.559 cooperation and participation in a peaceful way. In other words, 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.279 this is something that goes well beyond the capabilities of 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.960 any one nation. It would be a global effort. And 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.280 the idea being that if you can create a challenge, 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:31.800 a task that requires cooperation on this global scale, So 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.440 we're talking about a peaceful effort where we can get 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:40.120 some cooperation around the entire world to meet this incredible 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.280 challenge at hand. That's so that's one of the things 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.880 that that programs like the Apollo are are are allouded for, 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.719 you know, for even just within a single nation, bringing 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.839 people together and making people figure out how to how 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:55.960 to work, you know, between governments and corporations, and although 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.320 the Apollo program certainly has, it's also other the other 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.840 political side, which was it was part of the space race, 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:07.120 where it was almost a afrontation confrontational thing between the 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:09.800 United States and the Soviet Union. Maybe it's right. I 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.400 think I've read those people interpreting it in a in 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.279 a kind of generous light, saying that the space race 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.719 gave us a way to um to express our sort 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:21.640 of international competitive instinct in a way that was not 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.159 violent like the the the Olympics, but with a more 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:27.640 you know, nuclear threat behind it. As about to say, 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:29.640 because when you think about it, the other side of 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:31.920 the space race is saying, hey, I can put this 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.359 thing into orbits, you better, but I can put it 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.960 into Moscow or you know, Washington, d C. Depending upon 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.240 which part you're in. So, but this would be a 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:42.880 way of saying, instead of it being one pitting one 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:45.200 nation against another in a race to get to a 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.760 finish line, it's more saying, this is a challenge that's 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.160 worthy of us. Let's band together and meet it. So 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:54.240 it's kind of an attempt to take that same sort 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:58.240 of spirit of of competition, but instead of working against 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.320 each other. We're working against a an external challenge that 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:06.840 is pretty significant. Um, the sheer scientific findings. We were 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:08.839 talking a little bit about those in the previous episode. 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.200 But but but you know, the the necessities that human 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:14.440 beings have and in those kind of environments, you know, 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.400 it's it's up on the International Space Station station they've 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.760 got a water filtration system that can effectively recycle up 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:26.120 to all onboard water, including your urine, sweat and tears. Um, 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.640 like the water vapor you breathe out could end up 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:30.640 being recycled. Yeah, yeah, which you know is a little 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:33.520 bit water world. But but but other than that, is 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.680 is a terrific scientific advancement. Yeah yeah, So I mean 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:38.880 that sort of stuff, the things that would become a 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.960 necessity for us just to make this work could end 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:47.040 up in you know, inspiring technology or directly spawning technology 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:50.880 here on Earth that benefits everybody in some other way. Um. 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:54.120 And and the only way you really get that benefit 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.680 is if you really back the initiative to trying to 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.320 do this. Beyond that, it also ex band's Earth's economic 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:05.200 sphere to the Moon. So like in other words, we 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:10.800 actually we literally increase our potential wealth by including the 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.360 Moon as part of that, and you might think like, well, 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:15.320 what the heck is on the Moon? What's good to 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.920 get there? Well, m real estate as a steel right now, 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.040 But you know about that guy who's Yes, I do, 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.880 I do know about that guy who's selling it. But um, 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.600 if you're listening and you're tempted to buy a plot 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.280 of land on the Moon, don't do it. No, it's 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:34.200 a shady deal. Yeah, the claimed will probably not be 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.920 on her right but but there is stuff on the 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.520 Moon that could be very useful. There was a discovery 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:44.280 that the regules, that's the the dirt essentially the soil 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:46.840 that is on the Moon. Um, it's also what we 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:52.080 call really any any extra terrestrial dirt. Yeah, Mars has 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:55.439 regules as well, but the regul on the Moon contains 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.360 helium three in concentration is much greater than you would 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:03.400 find here on Earth. And helium, aside from being completely wasted, 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.920 as a children's toy and awesome way to make your 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:11.319 voice sound funny. Yeah you sound awesome. Yeah, I sure do. 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:14.480 You should do a whole episode on helium. Yeah, but 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:17.600 you mean literally, like we're on helium while we're doing 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:19.319 the episode. It would have to be short because we 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.720 could asphyxiate. But anyway, Uh, yeah, well, I think what 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:24.720 you were going to say is that helium has lots 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.240 of scientific uses, right. For example, you can use helium 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.560 to to to cool things. You know, use liquid helium, 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.679 you can use that to to cool uh, scientific equipment 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.640 that needs to be close to absolute Yeah, helium three 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:42.120 can get things within a few thousands of a kelvin, 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:46.120 like a single less than one kelvin. Zero kelvin is 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:49.720 absolute zero. That means there is no molecular movement. Helium 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.000 three potentially useful infusion. It is also potentially useful for 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:57.000 a fusion. Now, helium three because it's non radioactive, means 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.000 that you could use that as a potential fuel infusion 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.199 reactors and not have to worry about dealing with radiation. 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:09.000 And you could essentially starts to produce uh protons as 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.480 its byproduct. But you can control protons with a magnetic field. 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:16.520 You can actually contain protons that way, So while it's 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:20.240 giving off protons at high speeds during these fusion reactions, 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.280 you could harness the energy and minimize any risk relatively 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:26.600 easy if you have enough helium. And when I say 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.920 relatively This is still an incredibly complicated thing, but it's 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:34.280 access to that helium would make this much easier than 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.600 it is right now. It's also important for detecting things 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.319 like neutrons, which you might not think is that important 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.880 unless you happen to be checking for any sort of 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:49.439 illegal smuggled plute plutonium which gives off neutrons as it decays. 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:53.880 So it's a very effective detection method for for things 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:55.360 like neutrons. But we don't have a lot of it 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.640 here on Earth. The Moon has lots of it from 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.960 what we can tell. Uh it may be that shady 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:03.520 parts of the Moon have a lot more of it 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.240 than the sunny parts of the Moon, But at any rate, 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:08.200 there is the possibility that we could end up using 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.000 the Moon as a resource for helium three. And then 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.960 there is the whole idea of inspiring future generations of 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:21.760 students to really focus on STEM fields so that you know, 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:26.520 all the science and technology, engineering and math disciplines that 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.760 could benefit from you know, students just flooding it because 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.400 there's this this initiative to build a colony on the Moon. 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.320 All of these are big reasons, and of course, like 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.439 I said, they listed more than two hundred total, and 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.600 they all kind of fell into these broad categories. So 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:44.440 that's sort of why we would want to look at 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:48.400 the moon. Um. And now what about why we would 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:50.560 want to go to Mars. A lot of the reasons 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.600 are going to be similar. Things like the inspiring the 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.160 generation of people. I mean, that's clearly going to be 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.640 play a part. Uh. Science and technology would obviously play 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.720 a part share uh, and also it would again be 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:08.400 another global effort. Mars is a that's it is not 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.600 a small task either. That keep in mind the Moon 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:15.360 is about two hundred thirty eight thousand, nine hundred miles 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:20.360 away or three four thousand, four hundred kilometers from Earth. Yeah, 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.240 Mars when it's at its closest point. Keep in mind 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:26.679 that the orbital path of Earth and Mars means that 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:31.280 sometimes they are quite far away. Yeah, they can sides 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:33.600 of the Sun. Yeah, which means that Mars is further 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.880 away from Earth than the Sun would be. Uh. Well, 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:42.120 at its closest point, it is about thirty three million, 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.320 nine d twenty seven thousand miles away or around fifty 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:49.839 four million, six hundred thousand kilometers and its furthest point 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.800 it is two hundred forty nine million, two hundred thousand 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:57.840 miles away or four hundred one million kilometers on average 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.800 is about a hundred thirty nine million, eight hundred thousand 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:04.640 miles or two or twenty five million kilometers. So it's 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.720 much further away than the Moon, and that that presents 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.240 one of the many, many challenges when you compare the two. 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.000 Not to say that either would be a cake walk, 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:16.920 but there are some extra considerations you have to make 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.599 depending upon which place you're choosing. Sure as as a 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.079 launch pad, you know it could when when it's when 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.640 it's further out than Earth two or or closer I 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.200 suppose at that point than Earth, to certain things that 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.800 could be pretty cool. Yeah, you have to. You have 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.280 to account if you're launching anything for Mars, you have 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.840 to account for mars Is gravitational effect, which is not 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.080 as big as Earths. It's around six Earth's, but still 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.000 much greater than the Moon's, which is one six that 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:49.400 of Earth's, so you still have to battle against gravity. 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:51.480 You also have an atmosphere, although it's a thin one 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.240 on Mars, and that can you know that also plays 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.440 into the whole launch aspect and re entry and all 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.520 that kind of stuff. So Mars is a launching pad 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.920 is certainly a possibility if you were able to build 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.839 out a colony of sufficient complexity, but it's uh, it 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:10.960 would be a larger challenge than to do the same 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:14.040 thing on the Moon. Also, we were not sure what 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:16.440 we could get resource wise out of Mars yet. We 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.680 we don't have enough data to really say, yeah, if 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.360 we want a lot of stuff that's oxidized, then we 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.880 can get plenty of that. But that might not be 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.400 that we can rust stuff here on Earth. I mean, 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.160 there might be really cool stuff there could be well, 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:32.640 I mean, one advantage of a colony on Mars is 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:36.600 that Mars is potentially the bigger research prize than the Moon. Sure, 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:40.280 because nobody really thinks we're going to find evidence of 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:43.800 life on the Moon, but it's who knows, you know, 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.240 we might find evidence on Mars that there was once 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.720 microbial life on the surface. Yeah, those canals didn't pan out, 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:54.000 So maybe we'll actually see some some some microbial or 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.280 at least some evidence of microbial life on Mars. But 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.960 that would hopefully that we didn't bring ourselves. That's a 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:05.720 good that's good as well. Yeah, so there are definitely 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.280 benefits for either. And I think that you know, we've 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:13.160 always dreamed of exploring other place. Maybe always is the 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.360 wrong word, but as long as I can remember, we 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:20.040 dreamed of exploring, dream of exploring, like the bodies of 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.600 gods that were crossing this guy. Probably not, but you know, 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.800 now we're we're definitely at that point, although we call 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:30.200 those bodies of God's rockets, uh, but you know, we're 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:33.080 at the point now where we do dream of the 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:36.480 exploration and establishment of a colony somewhere else. And I 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:41.760 think Mars has its own kind of appeal because while 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.600 there are some major challenges that we're gonna have to 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:46.800 talk about in a minute, uh, the fact that it 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.080 is in some ways much more similar to Earth than 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:52.160 the Moon is. I mean, there is an atmosphere, even 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.080 though it's not a breathable atmosphere, it's not very thick, uh. 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:58.200 And there is more gravity on Mars, although it's not 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:02.080 as great as Earth's gravity in uh, it kind of 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:04.840 feels like that would be a better fit in some ways. 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:07.320 So that kind of leads us into a discussion about 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.320 what the challenges are of establishing colonies at either the 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:14.760 Moon or Mars um. And they share some stuff in common, 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.160 but there are also some very you know, there's some 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.360 things that are peculiar to just one or the other. 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.400 Uh So, I mean the first problem is getting there. 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.880 Not getting to the Moon is significantly less difficult than 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.640 getting to Mars, so a couple of days. Yeah, Yeah, 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.040 getting to the Moon is a few days, whereas getting 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.120 to Mars, depending upon where Mars and Earth are along 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:38.160 their orbits. And yeah, hopefully we would sink that up 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.400 so that it was a shorter trip, but the best 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.000 estimates about a hundred and eighty days, right, Yeah, generally 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.360 like six months tends to be the on the shortest 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.200 of short And even then, you're not aiming at where 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:53.400 Mars is. You're aiming at where it's going to be, right, 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:55.480 you have to do a trajectory of where Mars will 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:57.760 be by the time your spacecraft gets to that point 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.280 in space. Yeah, we discussed last time what happens to 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:04.600 your body while you're in space on transit. In transit 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:08.280 to Mars, dred and eight days in interplanetary space is 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:10.520 not very cool. As it turns out, there's a lot 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.560 of radiation going on in space. Yeah, there's a there's 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:17.800 solar radiation there's cosmic radiation, cosmic rays. Uh, these are 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:23.040 nasty things to encounter. It's not it's not something that 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:25.360 you definitely it's not something you want to be exposed 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:27.840 to for very long. So it means that either you 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:32.720 would have to shield your spacecraft in such a way 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.440 so that it could block the majority of this radiation, 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:37.960 which adds weight to your spacecraft, it makes it more 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.040 difficult for you to have to launch it, or you 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:45.080 just have to endure the danger of traveling through that. 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.639 Now that that's just kind of a nonstarter, Like you 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.920 just have to find a way to shield the astronauts 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.680 right the the there was one study that was done, 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.040 uh back by the f a A actually back in 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.399 two thousand five. If that said that if you were 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:04.239 to take a journey to Mars and back. Now this 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:06.680 was a thought of if we were to visit Mars 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:09.640 but then ultimately return to Earth. As we'll discussed later 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.439 on the podcast. Now the look at going to Mars 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.879 essentially means a one way ticket because the difficulty of 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.200 getting someone back to Earth is so great that it's 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:25.280 it would push back the mission many more years for 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:27.919 us to be able to do that. So the FAA 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.320 estimated that it would take about five and thirty six 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.760 days in space total to get two Mars and back 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.960 because remember those both planets are continuing to travel through 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.240 space while you're going on this mission, which means that 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:42.960 by the time you land on Mars, Earth is not 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.239 where you thought it was gonna be like, So you 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:48.040 actually have to wait for the plants to start to 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:50.880 line up. Against that you can optimize your travel time. 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:52.879 Otherwise you have to worry about how much more fuel 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.200 you're going to carry, which again changes all the other 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.439 parameters of mission. It's really complicated in other words, like 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.800 one change to one thing changes everything else. Um, they 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:06.480 said that they estimated someone who would be between and 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.879 thirty four years old would have a ten chance of 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:17.600 contracting cancer if you're male, if you're female, seventeen. So uh, 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.600 that's a that's a you know, that's a significant number. 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.000 That's just and that's just the trip. So Mars, as 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:26.879 it turns out, does not have enough of an atmosphere 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.719 to really block a lot of this nasty radiation, and 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.879 it doesn't have a magnetosphere to repel cosmic rays, and 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:38.600 cosmic rays are thought to possibly lead to diseases like Alzheimer's. Yeah, yeah, 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:40.560 so yeah, it's not just cancer. There are a lot 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.600 of nasty things that can happen to you upon exposure 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.679 to this stuff. You are vulnerable to it while you 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.080 are traveling to Mars, and you would still be vulnerable 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.840 on the surface of Mars. Will talk about a proposed 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:56.719 mission to Mars that and how they are talking about 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:00.639 getting trying to get around that, trying to keep people 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:05.840 safe from this kind of radiation. But the point is 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.080 that's something you gotta worry about. Now. The Moon benefits 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.760 from being close enough to the Earth where not all 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:14.639 of this radiation is going to hit the Moon, but 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.400 it's still quite a bit still does hit the Moon. Yeah, 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.040 the moon is is from what I read, and maybe 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.040 I'm wrong. I thought the moon was was pretty much 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.320 just as bad a radiation situation as the surface of Mars. 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.600 But the it's well, it's different because of the lack 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:33.080 of atmosphere. That certainly plays a huge role with the Moon. 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:38.160 But the advantages is the length of the trip, right, Yeah, 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:41.480 you're talking about exposed as long on the way there, 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.760 and the heathetically come home within a certain period of time, 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:47.760 so to to minimize your exposure exactly. Yeah. And and 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:50.320 but so if we're talking about in both cases that 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:52.840 they could build a surface on the structure that would 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:57.359 protect you from the radiation or under the ground. Yeah, um, 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:00.240 build a surface on the structure. I think that's what 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:02.919 I said, build a structure on the surface. Sorry, Uh 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.160 that would yeah, well, so that would keep you safe 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:09.560 in either place. But the trip to Mars is unavoidable. 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.720 It's going to be long, even in the best case. Now, 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:16.480 some other challenges to discuss. Uh. You know, we've also 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:20.439 said in the last podcast about how long exposure to 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.200 micro gravity can result in other problems, things like your 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.200 bone loss, your your body fluids redistribute, and you can 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:33.000 start to have cardiovascular and blood pressure problems. Uh. Now 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:35.800 on a trip to Mars, that's dangerous. The ones you 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:37.680 get to Mars, the gravity is a little bit better, 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:39.879 so you you could avoid some of those problems the 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:42.280 moon one six the Earth gravity, so some of those 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:47.000 problems would remain. Uh, big concerns like if you spend 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.040 any appreciable amount of time on the Moon and then 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:50.840 came back to Earth, you probably feel like you were 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:54.760 wearing lead clothing. Um. And uh, and it's possible that 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:56.919 you could be suffering from some of these problems like 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:00.280 muscle loss and bone loss that uh, muscle less you 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:03.159 can recover from, but bone loss is something that is 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.960 pretty you know, pretty much permanent. Medical technology. Yeah, there's 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:08.760 no coming back. Now. Maybe by the time we actually 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:10.399