WEBVTT - Where No Man Should Go Ever? 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:15.080 Forward Thinking. Hey there'll be one, And Welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.200 the podcast that looks at the future and says ground 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.200 control to Major Tom or she packed my bags last 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:25.520 night pre flight zero hour nine am or Earth below us, drifting, balling, floating, witless, 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:29.040 calling calling home. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren bock Obama, 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:31.280 I'm Joe McCormick. I think we've already had the third one, 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.920 haven't we? We probably have, but it's still very fitting 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:36.199 for this particular episode. So that's why I had to 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:38.440 have extras to fill in for the fact that I 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.800 was already quoting myself again next myself. But anyway, it 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.760 sounds like we're talking about space. We aren't talking about space. 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:50.560 It's very cold in space. But yeah, we're going to 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.720 talk about space and space exploration. And really, this whole 0:00:54.760 --> 0:01:00.000 idea of exploring space using manned missions versus unmanned mission 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.200 is like, why do should we concentrate on one more 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:07.840 than the other? Is one intrinsically better than the other? Uh? 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:12.160 Is the era of manned space exploration, at least for 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:15.640 the time being over is a just beginning and and 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.080 kind of have a just a full discussion about the 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.679 whole idea. So, uh, I mean, what do you I 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.160 guess we should probably start with kind of a historical 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.400 look at at manned and unmanned missions. Right. Well, okay, 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.520 so y'all know when we first landed on the Moon, right, Yeah, 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.600 I wasn't born yet, but yes, it was ninety nine yeah, 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:38.000 the Apollo missions, unless you watch Arrested Development, in which 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.559 case the first real moon landing was nine one. Yeah. 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.280 Or if you're yeah, if you're one of those conspiracy 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:46.720 theorists generally right, right, if you're if you if you 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:51.560 somehow believe that that that the most amazing human achievement 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.400 arguably was actually faked. It's a product of Stanley Kuberick 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:57.800 and a set in the desert somewhere right right, which, 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:02.160 by the way, we do not subscribe to that. Yeah, well, okay, 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.440 it turns out that's still wrong either way, depending on 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.639 how you define the question. We actually put tons of 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.000 stuff on the Moon before any humans got there. That's 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:15.760 where my remote control is. Actually, I'm pretty sure I 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:17.519 don't have any direct proof, but I can't find it 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:19.760 anywhere here on Earth, and most of my left socks. 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.520 Yeah wait, you know, wow, your socks are actually left 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:27.280 and right now. No, seriously, we so we actually had 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.960 something on the Moon in the fifties. Fifties. Yeah, in 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:35.959 nineteen nine, the Soviet probe Luna two smashed into the Moon. 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:40.200 It's not quite what you'd call a landing, but it 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:43.239 it took some molecules from Earth and it put them 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.200 on the surface of the Moon, and so, and they're 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.560 still there in one way or another. Now, that's honestly 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:54.000 I did not I had known of the Soviet space 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.160 program and the fact that they had fired stuff to 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:59.640 the Moon and actually landed things on the Moon, but 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.000 unto we did the research for this, I honestly could 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.680 not remember the act, the name of the program at all. 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:07.640 And uh. And the reason why I bring that up 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.560 is because that plays into what part of our conversation 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:12.840 later on. I just think it's an interesting thing, is 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.440 that I'm aware of it, but I wasn't really knowledgeable 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:18.800 about it. Sure, And I think the part of that 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.080 is that none of us were alive. Then you know, 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.600 it's um and so you know, perhaps if we had 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:26.919 been the geeks that we are in that particular time 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.960 period we would remember these things, but maybe, but there 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.800 are so many of those, and I was just astonished 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.040 how many things we put on the Moon that I 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:40.680 didn't even know about. And so you had this, you 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.920 had this impact in theft and the hard landing. Yeah, 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:48.280 the first soft landing was another Soviet spacecraft. It was 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:51.280 the same It was from Luna nine, so the same series, 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.000 and that was in nineteen sixty six, so still years 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:57.760 before we managed to land any people. But only a 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.320 couple of years. I mean, that's that's an impressive It's 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.320 sorry the loose definition of a but no, that's that's 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:07.400 a very short period of time between manned and unmanned. Well, 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.080 it's amazing what we didn't know about the Moon back then. 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:12.520 So when they put down the Luna nine on the Moon, 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:15.800 one of the important things they found out is oh, okay, 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:17.640 so you can put stuff on the Moon and it 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:21.000 won't sink. Right. Can you imagine to think about this, 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.480 You're you're a NASA scientist planning a manned mission to 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:26.760 the Moon. We're gonna put some astronauts on there. But 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.159 one option in your mind is that the Moon is 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.880 completely covered in dry quicksand, and that when you set 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.400 foot on it, you would sink into the moon right 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.120 then sink into the moon. Perhaps it was just so 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.479 powdery that you would end up so deeply entrenched in 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.360 it that there would be no way to get back 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.440 out again. Yeah, but so the Luna nine they learned that, Okay, no, 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.719 you won't sink. Uh, you know, it's it's safe for 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.600 human landing. The Surveyor one was the first US spacecraft 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:56.240 land on the Moon. That was a few months after 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.520 the Lunar nine. And then we had a bunch of 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.080 other in packs and landers before we ever got to uh, 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:05.360 the Apollo eight, which orbited the Moon, and then eleven, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:09.560 which finally set down, And so it took us this 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.359 long to get to the human landing. But the human 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.359 landing is what everybody remembers. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If you 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.159 if you talk to people about moon landings and there, 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.440 naturally tend to think of the Apollo missions, specifically Apollo eleven, 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:27.279 although six missions did ultimately land on the Moon. I 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.760 think twelve astronauts were able to walk on the surface 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:34.080 of the Moon and uh, and so you know, that's 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.680 one of those missions was supposed to go there but 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:42.240 didn't quite manage. We'll talk about that later, but so 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.560 this kind of puts something in perspective. We haven't been 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:49.080 back to the Moon with human beings since the seventies, right, 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:53.600 and we've we've seriously cut back on just manned missions 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.679 into space in general. With what we haven't been anywhere 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.600 else either. Well, well, I'm talking about being like just 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.080 even going into ornaments. I mean, you know, the Space 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:05.000 Shuttle program has been shelved. It's actually well been scrapped 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.640 at this point. It's it's retired, it's done. So we 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.640 don't have a Space Shuttle mission anymore speaking anyway, Yeah, 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.760 we have privately we well even then it's not Space Shuttle, 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.279 but yeah, it's the like the Dragon space program, things 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.440 like that over at SpaceX and then a few other 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.520 countries of course still have space programs that are sending 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:28.880 people to and from the International Space Station. But you know, 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.719 I think when we had the first Moon landing and 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:37.200 we had the first experience of seeing people walking on 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.039 the surface of the Moon, the natural progression there was 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.680 to think, wow, this is this is the beginning. Here 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:45.599 we go, Yeah, we're gonna go out there and we 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.840 are going to explore the solar system and beyond and 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:51.800 and people are going to play a big part of that. 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.440 And as it turns out, a lot of that hasn't happened. 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:57.680 I mean, we we have explored the Solar System quite 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.800 a bit, but we've done so with these un manned missions, 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:02.480 and we kind of wanted to talk a little bit 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.160 about why that is, Why have we gone down this 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.320 route of unmanned versus manned? So I think first we 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:10.920 should just give a real brief overview of of what 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.280 these unmanned missions look like, and then um, what kind 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.440 of advantages they provide overmanned missions or what are the 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.320 disadvantages of manned missions. So a lot of what we're 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.880 talking about is space probes or planetary orbiter probes and 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:31.200 occasional rovers and rovers and so the most common is 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.120 will send out a probe that's like it orbits other 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.800 planetary bodies and it takes data readings of all different kinds, 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.840 sometimes photographs. Right, You've got the deep space probes like Voyager, 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.040 and they're just going you know, yeah, these are ones. 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:49.320 The Voyager probes in particular, we're designed to do surveys 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:52.200 of the outer planets in our Solar System. And then 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.360 once they were done with that, they were to continue 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.440 on into uh, the furthest reaches of our Solar system 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:04.880 grab tationally ricocheted off of Jupiter. Yeah, it all depends 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:06.760 on which voyager you're talking about, because one of them, 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.920 one of them just visited essentially, uh, you know, like 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.200 like Saturn and Jupiter, and the other one went further 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:17.120 out all the way to Neptune and then hit it 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.480 off into interstellar space or toward interstellar space. We should 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.640 say that it's one of those milestones that has constantly 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.160 shifted the idea of leaving the Solar system. Right, it 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.240 seems about every three months now, so it goes like 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:31.680 it's leaving the kind of thing that we thought was 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:33.640 the edge of the Solar System, but we're finding out 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:35.280 that it's bigger than we thought. I kind of think 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:39.000 of that as like trying to leave Atlanta. The further 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.360 out you go, the bigger Atlanta becomes. So, for example, 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.520 if you if you live within Atlanta, you tend to 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.800 think Atlanta is the city like the city of Atlanta. 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.839 The city has an extremely high escape velocity. Right you 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:53.760 get to the perimeter and then you're thinking, all right, 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:55.960 well that now now because the perimeter is actually bigger 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.120 than the city, right, So you know, you get to 0:08:58.120 --> 0:08:59.800 the perimeter and then other people who are outside the 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:01.959 are saying, no, you're still in Atlanta. You get a 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:03.880 little further out of there and people who are like 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.079 an Athens are saying, no, you're still in Atlanta. Even 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.280 if you say you're in Stone Mountain, you're still in Atlanta. 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:11.000 I know that this has lost everybody else who doesn't 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.080 live in the Metro Atlanta neighborhood. But hey, it's true. 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.040 It's one of those things where the soldar system gets 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.719 bigger the further out we go, and nope, you're not 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:24.360 done yet. So you've got the space probes, you've got 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.120 you've got a few landers, like the Venera Landers that 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.440 landed on Venus. Those were Soviet craft that if you 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:33.960 ever see the pictures these things take if you haven't 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.160 seen a google the photographs taken by the Venera Lander, 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.840 they're they're just kind of some rocks. But it's still haunting. 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:46.520 This this eerie yellow mist over, this scary looking gravel. 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.199 I don't know something about it haunts one young girl 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.120 wearing a night shift in her hair down over her face. 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:56.320 She basically I might be looking at the wrong pictures. Um. 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.240 But a lot of these landers don't make it back. 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.520 We've we've had Japanese Space Agency had to put a 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.920 lander on an asteroid and then got that to return 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.960 to Earth, but not a whole lot of landers. We've 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.320 had some rovers like rovers on the Moon and on Mars. 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.800 Um the Mars rovers. We've had a bunch of those, right, 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.720 and the most recently the Opportunity, the Curiosity. Yeah, Viking 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.640 was Viking one. Viking was I thought that was a probe. 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.400 Might have been Viking landed, but it wasn't a rover. 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.560 It landed on Mars and it gave us our first 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.600 color images of Mars one, but it I don't remember 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:40.240 it being mobile. Okay, that might I think that's right. Um. Yeah, 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.120 And the most recent, obviously is Curiosity one. Thing. Um, 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.320 a lot of these and of course we we mentioned orbiters, 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.040 but there have been more recent orbiters of different planets. 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.360 We we've seen like Cassini doing its schoolwork and Saturn 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:59.600 and um the Grail probes doing gravity research on the Moon. Right. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.480 One thing all of these unmanned missions seem to have 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.760 in common is that their suicide missions. You know, like 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.840 the Yeah, there's sort of a planned end. It's just like, well, 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.600 because we've got all these dead rovers on Mars, right, Uh, 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:18.160 some are still going, some are, some are some are 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:20.880 destined to die on Mars, while they're all destined to 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.240 die pretty much unless unless we get our bets over 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.160 there real quick and and find a way of picking 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.439 them up and bring them back. Yeah. But at the 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.959 same time, we've learned a lot of cool stuff from 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.840 these these unmanned probes, right sure. Yeah, I mean we 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:39.160 we learn lots of basic information about the the environments 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.840 that we send them to. For instance, we can learn 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.520 things like the chemical composition, composition of the soil or 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.240 the regular on these these surfaces. Well, whether it's the 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.040 Moon or Mars or whatever. We can get images back. 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.840 We can take samples of atmosphere if there is one, 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:57.000 and learn what is what makes up the atmosphere of 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.880 that planet or moon or whatever. We can get a 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.480 lot of information things like whether or not the you know, 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.440 the plant has a magnetosphere, all this other kind of 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.320 stuff that that is important for us to know, particularly 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.559 if we want to do further uh, scientific endeavors that 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:15.439 involve this planetary body and I would imagine for all 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.080 of these we want to do that, um, and even 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.680 just figuring out how how our universe works, right Yeah, 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:24.440 and the history of our solar system, in the history 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:26.480 of our planet, in our place in the universe. I mean, 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.440 all of these things play a role in in why 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:32.320 we would do this. And Uh, to your point about 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:34.880 these suicide missions, I think that's one of the big 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.160 reasons why we why unmanned missions have taken such precedents, 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.960 because it means that we can send stuff that we 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:43.440 don't have to get back. We don't have to get 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:45.880 it back, so so that takes care of a huge 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.839 engineering problem, right, I mean, creek coming up with an 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.600 engineering solution to not only get a spacecraft out to 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:57.199 another body in space, but then back again is an 0:12:57.360 --> 0:12:59.880 enormous challenge, and it is amazing to me that we 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.400 have managed to do that so many times. But it 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:07.240 definitely makes missions I hesitate to use the word easier, 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.600 but less complex too. If you don't have to worry 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:12.840 about getting them back home again, then we can go 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:19.000 ahead and say easier. I think that I usually want 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:21.880 to come home well, and also that they want to 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.680 breathe air and eat food. Yeah, so well, that takes 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:27.960 us to where we're going next, the whole the whole 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:33.200 idea about the the benefits versus the costs and risks 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.719 of of of manned and unmanned flights. So okay, so 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.240 what's wrong with manned missions? Well, let's talk about let's 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.440 talk about cost a bit. Okay, alright, So about twenty 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.240 five billion dollars was spent on the Apollo program in 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.320 the nineteen sixties and today's money, that's about a hundred 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:53.679 and eighty five billion, which is a few dollars. That's 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.880 a lot, and it's more than two it's more than 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.800 what I'm making an average year. Uh and and a 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.960 lot of that went to the human spaceflight element of 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:11.440 of the mission. Um I I think about um out 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:16.960 of wow. So essentially that money, yeah, so that that's 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:21.800 covering everything from the systems on board the spacecraft to 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:26.360 the personnel both in the spacecraft and on the ground 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.640 that are in charge of all the things that are 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.000 keeping the astronauts alive. And you know, you think about 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.200 there there, it's not a surprise that so much money 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:38.800 would need to go in to the safety and health 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.640 of astronauts. As it turns out, space is not a 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.960 very forgiving environment. Space want to kill you. Yeah, so alright, 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:48.960 so twenty five billion dollars or like you said, about 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.080 eighty five billion in today's money. So how does that 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:56.960 compare against an unmanned mission. Well, the Mars Curiosity Space 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.920 Lab project as of right now sits it about two 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:04.720 point five billion, significantly less. We should also point out that, uh, 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:09.080 other things to take into consideration involve the proximity of 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:12.320 the Moon as compared to the proximity of Mars. Turns 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:16.800 out Moon is a bit closer by it like millions 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.920 and millions of miles, but a bunch of the cost Yah, 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.400 it's going to be in fuel, um and and just yeah, 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:25.200 getting it, getting it all the way out there, and 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:29.200 making sure that your instrumentation is um uh powerful enough 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.920 to transmit It's It's interesting though, because you sit there 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.200 and you think about it, and you think, well, if 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.920 it costs a hundred essentially a hundred and eighty five 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:41.760 billion dollars to run the Apollo program, which granted is 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.840 greater than just the Moon landing, sure, sure, and it's 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:46.760 it's also it's a bunch of missions. Um, you know, 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:52.000 the Curiosity rover is is one mission on Mission Apollo 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:56.160 was seventeen missions and only six of those landed on 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.800 the Moon and came back. Um, whereas the Curiosity Rover 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:01.840 one mission out to Mars. But if you if you 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.800 just extrapolate, if you sit there and think, well, if 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:07.040 it cost us two point five billion dollars to send 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:11.800 essentially a remote controlled car onto the surface of Mars 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:16.360 move it around something, uh, then how expensive would it 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.840 have been to have had a Mars landing program where 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:24.160 we're putting in the same care and and development in 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:26.720 life support systems as well as everything else just to 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.720 get people there and back. And you know, it's it's 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.920 a huge expense. And while we don't want to suggest 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:37.240 that scientific discovery should all boil down to how much 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.160 money does it cost, that is a factor you have 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:43.920 to take any consideration. YEA, whether I would love it 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:45.960 if we didn't have to worry about money when it 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:47.960 comes to science, I would love it if that were 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:49.840 just not something we had to think about at all. 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:54.800 But the reality is you do uh yeah, Well, whatever 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:57.800 your feelings about allotting money to science, you have to 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:01.400 accept that these projects have a budget, and whatever that 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.080 budget is, you need to deal with it, and uh 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:05.840 so we've got to do the best we can with 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.439 the money that we can get in. Uh. In In 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.240 further contrast, the Voyager program and the numbers here get 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.520 a little bit squiggly because because you know, Voyager was 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.480 launched a little while ago, and and and an inflation 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.000 rates and and you know differences. I mean, and we're 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:21.840 still putting money into that project, into building satellite rays 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:25.320 to to better detect the signals from these guys. This 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.000 is this is the project where we have these probes. 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:29.960 They're going further and further away. So it means that 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:34.159 we have to keep building more sensitive radar technology or 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:37.159 radio technology I should say, like radio antennas, uh to 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.400 pick up the signals that these things are sending back 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:41.680 because they're getting weaker and weaker over time because we 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.120 can further and further away from us. Right right. But 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.720 but overall that's cost about a billion dollars. Yeah, so 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.919 again the cost of unmanned missions that I think that 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.359 plays a big part in why there's been such a 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.360 concentration in them. It's it's the idea that we can 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:01.280 do a lot more research for less money. Uh. And 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.000 then they're the other factors. Well, yeah, a lot of 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:08.280 that cost comes from so a lot of the cost 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.800 of the manned mission. The reason that costs more is 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.840 because you're having to spend huge amounts of money on 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:20.800 training and safety to keep the astronauts alive. Yeah. Yeah, 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.360 like we said, space is not a very forgiving environment 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.080 at all. It's very dangerous. Let's just talk about all 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:30.440 the ways space wants to kill you. Lack of air. Yeah, 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:32.760 so there's a lack of air. The most common ones 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:37.440 you'd think about our lack of air, maybe lack of gravity, uh, coldness, 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:39.760 So we can talk about those. Lack of air, that's 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:44.160 pretty obvious. You have to take oxygen tanks, but that's 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:48.040 not always so easy because of course, like oxygen is explosive, 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.520 and as we saw in the Apollo thirteen, wasn't one 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:54.480 of their oxygen tanks that had the major malfunction. And 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:56.680 then there was the build up of carbon dioxide within 0:18:56.800 --> 0:18:59.680 the capsule itself, and we'll talk about that more later. 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.200 But so you've got that problem you've got of course, 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.400 it's freezing in space. Yeah, you've got the vacuum of space, 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:08.639 which that will kill you. I mean, even if we 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:11.639 talk about the lack of air, but explosive decompression, right, 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:15.360 lack of air goes beyond lack of oxygen. Obviously we're 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.879 talking about like they're not really that many molecules out 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.159 there in the first place. Um, yeah, you have to 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:26.840 having a pressurized spacecraft in a near vacuum out in space. 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.080 Is it's like having a balloon, you know, it's just 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.320 it's waiting to pop. Yeah, it's yeah. And so if 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:34.760 you were to have a whole breach, you know, people 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:39.119 talk about uh, stuff getting sucked out of the spacecraft. 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:42.280 That's not really what's happening. It's getting blown out, as 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.119 data on Star Trek next Generation would one day correct 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:49.919 Captain card Um, Yeah, I saw that episode not that 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.240 long ago, but anyway, uh that Yeah, So there's the 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.640 vacuum space, there's the lack of oxygen. Like you said, microgravity, 0:19:57.720 --> 0:19:59.640 or as I like to call it, zero G because 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:01.719 I like to see Joe go crazy. Hey, so this 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.440 is a little nerd happiness moment we're going to share 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:06.840 with you. So if you're talking with your friend who 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.080 works for for NASA and you're talking about being in space, 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:13.720 you don't want to say zero gravity because you're not 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:16.600 really at zero gravity in space, you're what you're at 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:19.719 what we would call micro gravity. It's gravity so small 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:24.680 that it might be almost noticeable or even totally negligible. Yeah, 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.359 that's why it's not totally zero. So if you're in 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:31.359 zero G one of the problems. Even your own hand 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:34.359 has gravity, so you're never okay, so you're in zero 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.320 graph zero, you would be you'd be floating. In any case, 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:43.080 you you are effectively witless, if not completely witless, Jonathan, 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:44.760 What does that do to your body? Does a lot 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:47.600 of things. First of all, it can are they nice things? 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.480 They are not? Well, I mean you can do flippy flips, 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:53.760 that's nice, and rules and those are nice. That's fun. 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:56.680 If you don't have a strong stomach, you might also 0:20:56.720 --> 0:21:00.600 do some barfie barfs. Um, don't they report? Yeah, there's 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:05.040 so people who are new to micro gravity environments experienced 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.080 space sickness. Well, yeah, I mean it's you've got your 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:10.800 you've got you've got some organs in your ear, these 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:15.000 little micro organs that are essentially like a three axis 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:18.080 uh accelerometers. It's essentially the same sort of thing as 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:20.720 you would find in a three excess accelerometer device. It's 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:25.000 what tells your body how it's oriented in comparison to 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:28.359 the ground. And then you have your your visual input 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:31.280 that you come in to play. And if the visual 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:35.040 input and the input you're getting from those little micro 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:39.720 organs are at odds, you start to feel a bit dizzy, disoriented, 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:43.320 sometimes nauseated. Furthermore, if if I mean a lot of 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:48.000 those those microorgans involved fluid, and if the fluid is floating, 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.240 then your ear just does not know how to read 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:55.119 that data. It's like, well screw it, like something is happening, 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.359 what ought not to happen? Uh? And so yeah, you 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:03.800 can definitely feel disoriented, auseated, But that's that's small potatoes comparatively. Yeah, 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:08.800 so let's talk about prolonged exposure to micro gravity alright. 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.879 So if prolonged exposure, it can mean everything from muscle 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.400