Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from Hey
Speaker 1: There we one, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland and our co host Lauren is out today, but
Speaker 1: another co host of mine on the show Coward Thinking,
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, has kindly agreed to step in. Um, he
Speaker 1: doesn't know what he's in for. Hi, everybody, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was just sitting at my little I was going to
Speaker 1: say cubicle, but it's a cubicle with only one side.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a one iCal. We all have the
Speaker 1: same and uh and this this strange bald person sneaks
Speaker 1: up to me and says, well, you jump on a podcast.
Speaker 1: They don't know, They don't get much stranger. Yes, I jumped,
Speaker 1: I jumped on. We have not outlined this at all.
Speaker 1: This is an impromptu podcast that Joe has kindly agreed
Speaker 1: to participate in, but we wanted to have a chance
Speaker 1: to chat about something that I talked about in a
Speaker 1: recent episode of Forward Thinking. So if you guys haven't
Speaker 1: checked out Forward Thinking, please do. I think I think
Speaker 1: a lot of tech stuff fans would really enjoy that series.
Speaker 1: Joe is the head writer on Forward Thinking and has
Speaker 1: done amazing work I have not written this episode. However,
Speaker 1: this episode was I thought really cool, and it's about
Speaker 1: a solar powered aircraft. Yeah, which when you think about it,
Speaker 1: that on its face sounds pretty crazy, especially if you
Speaker 1: have taken time to really look into solar power and
Speaker 1: not just its advantages but it's limitations, right right, Well,
Speaker 1: this is obviously not the only solar powered aircraft that's
Speaker 1: ever been created, right, it's it's probably the coolest one
Speaker 1: ever created yet. And it is amazing that you can
Speaker 1: take a huge, heavy thing off the ground with the
Speaker 1: power of solar energy alone. That's just I mean, this
Speaker 1: is what powers your calculator, right, not not an airplane. Yeah. Like,
Speaker 1: for example, I have a a battery pack in my
Speaker 1: in my backpack solar panel that it faces outward, and
Speaker 1: in theory, you can use solar energy to recharge the
Speaker 1: battery pack, which then you can use to recharge something
Speaker 1: like a smartphone. Right, that's the basic premise of this backpack.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. If I want to recharge that battery
Speaker 1: using solar power, I have to have it in the
Speaker 1: sun for twelve consecutive hours. One doesn't have to be consecutive,
Speaker 1: but twelve hours to get a full charge, whereas if
Speaker 1: I were to plug it into the wall, it's an
Speaker 1: hour and a half maybe two hours total to charge
Speaker 1: it all the way up, maybe even less than that.
Speaker 1: So it just shows that that solar power, you know,
Speaker 1: getting a lot of energy from it is a challenge. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously the solar panel that's in my backpack is not
Speaker 1: what you would consider bleeding edge. No, it's probably not
Speaker 1: the best that our current science has to offer. It's
Speaker 1: probably not even on the top near the top line
Speaker 1: for consumer tech right now, because what's available on the
Speaker 1: consumer side is a big drop down from the cutting
Speaker 1: edge best of the best. So if you are getting
Speaker 1: a solar panel that has been designed to be as
Speaker 1: efficient as possible, we're talking top of the line. This
Speaker 1: is the stuff that NASA is going to use, right,
Speaker 1: you're gonna top out somewhere around forty to efficiency. And
Speaker 1: what you're talking about there is how much of the
Speaker 1: energy from the sun you're converting, right, So you're you're
Speaker 1: not even starting necessarily with a very high number. It's
Speaker 1: just how much of that solar energy is arriving at
Speaker 1: the panels, which is obviously going to be less than
Speaker 1: say the energy density of gasoline or something like that.
Speaker 1: Far less, far less. Yeah, so you're getting you're getting
Speaker 1: this h You're you're losing six the energy that hits
Speaker 1: the panel raf the bat then that ends up being
Speaker 1: converted into electricity. And it's not that much per solar panel,
Speaker 1: Like an individual solar panel doesn't put out that much electricity.
Speaker 1: Even if it's really efficient, it's not putting out that much.
Speaker 1: That's why whenever you talk about really using solar panels effectively,
Speaker 1: you're talking about lots and lots of lots of solar panels, right,
Speaker 1: they have individual solar cells in them, and there might
Speaker 1: be thousands of the solar cells in one solar panel farm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you're designing an airplane that's powered by solar panels,
Speaker 1: one of the big questions I would wonder is where
Speaker 1: are you going to put them? I Mean, when I
Speaker 1: heard about this thing before I saw an image of it,
Speaker 1: what I pictured in my mind was like a football
Speaker 1: field sized flat surface with just the tiny little, you know,
Speaker 1: person strapped to the bottom of it. And that's not
Speaker 1: that far off in a way that probably wouldn't fly,
Speaker 1: but yeah, definitely sign it like a plane. Yeah, you've
Speaker 1: gotta have a lot, a lot of surface area, right,
Speaker 1: You have to have a lot of surface area for
Speaker 1: multiple reasons. So the big reasons why you need a
Speaker 1: lot of surface area, which in planes means a wide wingspan,
Speaker 1: because obviously if you made the fuselage or the body
Speaker 1: of the plane the biggest part, then you have to
Speaker 1: figure out how do you get something that bulky and
Speaker 1: heavy into the air and have it have the vehicle
Speaker 1: maintain enough thrust to keep it in the air, because
Speaker 1: I mean thrust is a really important part of this too.
Speaker 1: We we just established that solar panels aren't generating that
Speaker 1: much electricity, so they can't uh push a super powerful
Speaker 1: electric motor. And the electric motor is what's going to
Speaker 1: be turning the propellers that are going to provide the
Speaker 1: thrust necessary to get this plane in the air. So
Speaker 1: you have to keep weight in mind, you can't make
Speaker 1: it too heavy, and you still need all that surface area.
Speaker 1: So what do you do? Well, what the folks over
Speaker 1: at solar Impulse, Oh, yeah, we should have said that's
Speaker 1: the one we're talking about, the solar impulse. Solar impulse
Speaker 1: too is specifically what we're talking about that there already
Speaker 1: has been a Solar Impulse one, which was kind of
Speaker 1: a proof of concept vehicle that they built in order
Speaker 1: to test out the different engineering approaches they were going
Speaker 1: to take, because their goal is to have this circle,
Speaker 1: this this solar Impulse to go all the way around
Speaker 1: the Earth. I believe the demo of the Solar Impulse
Speaker 1: one was a transcontinental flight. Yeah, it was from the
Speaker 1: West coast to the United States to the East coast,
Speaker 1: and they had several legs of the journey. They even had,
Speaker 1: uh set a record for the longest number the most
Speaker 1: number of flight hours consecutively for a manned solar powered aircraft.
Speaker 1: So if you're talking about unmanned aircraft, you end up
Speaker 1: having really long times because you don't have a human
Speaker 1: that you have don Yeah, you don't need to worry
Speaker 1: about a person saying goodbye to their family for two
Speaker 1: weeks or whatever. Uh So for the manned record, we're
Speaker 1: talking uh twenty six hours, ten minutes and nineteen seconds,
Speaker 1: so more than a full day. And if you're thinking
Speaker 1: solar power and you're thinking, how the heck were they
Speaker 1: able to fly when there was no son, we'll get
Speaker 1: to that, uh but yeah, So, so the records already
Speaker 1: been set. These were all proof of concepts that they
Speaker 1: were saying, well, we need to figure out what things
Speaker 1: are required for this dream of flying a solar powered
Speaker 1: aircraft all the way around the world. What's required for
Speaker 1: that to actually become a reality. So this wing span
Speaker 1: was the first thing, and the Solar Impulse two S wingspan.
Speaker 1: It's pretty impressive. We're talking about seventy two meters, so
Speaker 1: that's that's more than two and forty ft. We're talking
Speaker 1: about the uh, the width that's greater than say a
Speaker 1: Bowing seven. Okay, but unlike a Bowing See, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have a huge fuselage full of passengers and cargo. This
Speaker 1: has a tiny, tiny, little compartment. Yeah, it's essentially a
Speaker 1: little The body of the plane is very small. It
Speaker 1: will allow the two the pilot and copilot to sit
Speaker 1: side by side, just as in a traditional aircraft. It's
Speaker 1: not you know, front and back like the old World
Speaker 1: War One and World War Two aircraft work all turret. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have to worry about that. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's relatively small, and it's made out of carbon fiber.
Speaker 1: So carbon fiber has a couple of advantages, right, It's
Speaker 1: pretty strong, and it's really light compared to other materials.
Speaker 1: So you want to use something that's going to be
Speaker 1: resilient so I can withstand the rigors of air travel,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it can't be too heavy, So carbon fibers
Speaker 1: what they went with, and in fact, the entire plane
Speaker 1: ends up being something like I think it's twenty six hundred, no, sorry,
Speaker 1: twenty that's around five thousand seventy pounds. That means that
Speaker 1: there are cars on the market that are heavier than
Speaker 1: this airplane. Is this airplane that has a wingspan wider
Speaker 1: than a Bowing seven. That's pretty crazy, It's pretty crazy,
Speaker 1: you know. I would imagine one reason that they can
Speaker 1: use those kind of fibers is because this airplane goes
Speaker 1: a lot slower than your standard passenger airplane, which obviously
Speaker 1: the faster you go, the more turbulence and friction you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to withstand, right, And uh yeah, So so
Speaker 1: with a Boeing example, for example, like your average commuter
Speaker 1: airline type of thing, you're talking about speeds in the
Speaker 1: five mile per hour range. With solar impulse too, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna go quite that fast. The top speed is
Speaker 1: something like eight miles per hour eighty eight miles per hour. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: it does not require one point twenty one jigga watts
Speaker 1: for it to fly, or else it would go back.
Speaker 1: How many gigawatts does it require? Not many at all, really,
Speaker 1: because again, all right, do you know how many solar
Speaker 1: panels are actually on this seventeen thousand across that seven
Speaker 1: guess I don't know what that means because I don't
Speaker 1: know how big they are. They're not. It's not that
Speaker 1: they're that big. Well, I mean, think of a seventy
Speaker 1: two wide wingspan. Um, you know, you're that's pretty huge.
Speaker 1: It's not that the panels themselves or the solar cells.
Speaker 1: I guess I should say it's not that the solar
Speaker 1: cells are that big, because really, solar cells is more
Speaker 1: accurate than panels. Panels are like a collection of cells.
Speaker 1: But they're not that big. But the fact that there
Speaker 1: are seventeen thousand of them is pretty impressive. And they're
Speaker 1: only driving four electric motors. And like I said, those
Speaker 1: electric motors turn electric propellers. The propellers are shaped in
Speaker 1: such a way to help provide the thrust needed so
Speaker 1: that you maintain the speed to uh to stay in
Speaker 1: the air. Those wide wings also are able to provide
Speaker 1: a lot of lift and stability and flight, although it
Speaker 1: is kind of tricky. You can't take off in windy
Speaker 1: conditions with this thing. You would imagine not because with
Speaker 1: such a wide wingspan, a little bit of wind could
Speaker 1: easily get it to start tilting any which way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yet another thing I'd also imagine is that the wider
Speaker 1: wing span allows it to stay aloft at lower speeds. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's another thing. And it's also not going to go
Speaker 1: to the same sort of altitude that you would see
Speaker 1: with like a commuter jet or something that's not gonna
Speaker 1: go up to thirty feet. Um. So, yeah, we've got this.
Speaker 1: We've got this incredible aircraft that's light, it's a it's
Speaker 1: able to get through the air without falling apart. Despite
Speaker 1: the fact that so light, it's able to drive these
Speaker 1: electric motors. So how can it fly at night? Well
Speaker 1: that's an excellent question that will answer in just a moment,
Speaker 1: But let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're doing around the world flight. It's at eighty
Speaker 1: eight miles per hour. That means at top speed eight
Speaker 1: eight miles per that's not average speed. That's top speed.
Speaker 1: That would mean there's going to be some stretches of
Speaker 1: this flight where the airplane is gonna have to stay
Speaker 1: in the air a really long time because there's no
Speaker 1: convenient way to land it at night. When you're over
Speaker 1: say the Ocean, right, they're gonna be times where the
Speaker 1: you know, those oceans are so wide, there's no way
Speaker 1: the plane can make a trip across say the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: in a single day. Not at eighty eight miles per hour.
Speaker 1: It's gonna take multiple days and nights of flying for
Speaker 1: it to get from one point to another where it
Speaker 1: can safely land. Because they do plan on taking this
Speaker 1: trip through several legs where the plane will be able
Speaker 1: to land. Maintenance screws can come out and and do
Speaker 1: some repairs if necessary, that kind of thing. It's not
Speaker 1: like it's going to do a a full flight around
Speaker 1: the Earth without ever touching down. They will be touching
Speaker 1: down along the way and then taking back off and
Speaker 1: another leg of the journey. But still, when you're over
Speaker 1: the ocean, you don't have that luxury, so you've got
Speaker 1: to be able to fly at night. So that's when
Speaker 1: they switched to monkey on a stationary bicycle. Power. You know,
Speaker 1: I recommended that. I thought it's time has come. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's an unproven technology, I'll grant you, but I really
Speaker 1: think we have not tapped the potential of monkey bicycles. No.
Speaker 1: I think this is they've got to be using some
Speaker 1: some pretty good batteries and that has to be a
Speaker 1: very important part of the design, right, because batteries are heavy.
Speaker 1: This airplane needs to be light. Yeah, they used, uh,
Speaker 1: they created lithium batteries. They actually had the engineers had
Speaker 1: to look at a way to make the batteries incredibly efficient,
Speaker 1: and uh, they had to be able to charge quickly
Speaker 1: because if you aren't getting a full charge throughout the day,
Speaker 1: then while you're also dry having those propellers, then that
Speaker 1: could become a problem at night, right, if you want
Speaker 1: to remain aloft, that could be a serious problem. So
Speaker 1: they experiment with different electrolytes um, which, of course, as
Speaker 1: we know from Idiocracy, is the stuff that plants crave.
Speaker 1: But no, they experiment with a lot of different chemical
Speaker 1: compositions to try and make the most efficient batteries. So
Speaker 1: they went with lithium batteries. They are kind of think
Speaker 1: of it like a long, thin almost like a film
Speaker 1: as opposed to a big battery pack. So it it's
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable the design, and they weigh the batteries weigh
Speaker 1: six D thirty three k or about two thousand seventy
Speaker 1: seven pounds, which means that you know, the they weigh
Speaker 1: up little bit more than a quarter of the actual
Speaker 1: plane itself the batteries alone. So obviously batteries are heavy.
Speaker 1: They're important because you have to have that energy to
Speaker 1: tap into at night, Otherwise, once the sun starts to
Speaker 1: go down or it gets too cloudy, your plane would plummet.
Speaker 1: And this isn't just a problem for planes, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's especially a problem in planes, right, This is a
Speaker 1: problem for any electric vehicle, right, is is how to
Speaker 1: deal with this massive battery that's required to operate motors
Speaker 1: with this kind of power exactly. And it's something that
Speaker 1: we've seen not even not just in an electric vehicles,
Speaker 1: but electronics in general. It's one of those constant questions
Speaker 1: that pop up about how you know, the processing power
Speaker 1: has increased steadily over the years. We've got the whole
Speaker 1: observation of Moore's law where we're seeing it practically double
Speaker 1: every two years or so, depending upon your interpretation of
Speaker 1: the observation. Uh, well, then why haven't batteries kept pace
Speaker 1: with that? You know, we're I'm seeing my my mobile
Speaker 1: devices getting more powerful, but the battery is draining faster,
Speaker 1: so it's not as useful to me as long. And
Speaker 1: part of that is just because batteries aren't on that
Speaker 1: accelerated path. I mean, there's only so much we can
Speaker 1: do with chemistry. To be fair, they have come a
Speaker 1: long way. This is also a topic we talked about
Speaker 1: not too long to go on forward thinking is how
Speaker 1: far batteries have come. And it is kind of amazing
Speaker 1: what we've achieved today. I mean, your standard lithium ion
Speaker 1: battery today is kind of a wonder work. It really is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The fact that you're able to recharge it so that
Speaker 1: the chemical, the electrochemical reaction that's going on within the
Speaker 1: battery gives off electrons. I mean that's the whole point
Speaker 1: of a battery, Otherwise it would be useless. Uh. And
Speaker 1: in a in an alkaline battery, this is an irreversible
Speaker 1: uh reaction, So the electrochemical reaction happens, electrons are given off.
Speaker 1: As a result, you can use those electrons to do work. Thus, electricity.
Speaker 1: But once it's drained, once that chemical reaction has gone
Speaker 1: to a certain point, you're not generating enough electrons for
Speaker 1: it to be useful anymore. You have a dead battery.
Speaker 1: Whereas with these lithium rechargeable batteries. There are non rechargeable
Speaker 1: types too, but with rechargeable batteries you can reverse that
Speaker 1: reaction by essentially forcing electrons back backward through that pathway.
Speaker 1: It's basically doing the whole thing backward. You're putting war
Speaker 1: work into the battery the same way you took work
Speaker 1: out of it earlier. Yeah, So the fact that we've
Speaker 1: managed to do that and increase the efficiency even a
Speaker 1: little bit is the reason why something like the solar
Speaker 1: impulse too is is possible. And again we're not going
Speaker 1: to see this actually fly around the world until two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, but they've already proven that it works with
Speaker 1: that first proof of concept vehicle that was able to
Speaker 1: stay up in the air for twenty six hours. The
Speaker 1: fact that it was able to charge the batteries, fly
Speaker 1: all the way through the night and continue, um, you
Speaker 1: know they're fully certified to fly at night. It shows
Speaker 1: that there's been a lot of work done here. So
Speaker 1: we've got, uh, the energy side covered the fact that
Speaker 1: it's going to be using solar power to drive the
Speaker 1: electric motors and day switched to battery at night. It's
Speaker 1: going to be able to to fly really for as
Speaker 1: long as the pilot and co pid can stand. That
Speaker 1: was my question. Yeah, what's this going to be like
Speaker 1: for the pilot incopilot? Um? Okay, have you ever, Joe,
Speaker 1: have you ever traveled first class? Oh? No, okay, so
Speaker 1: I've traveled first class. Uh, not to brag, but it's
Speaker 1: pret sweet. And once you traveled first class, how is
Speaker 1: the champagne and cheese selection. We didn't have champagne. We
Speaker 1: had real pain, thank you, none of this champagne you
Speaker 1: guys talked about. Um No, But but I mean it's
Speaker 1: anyone who's traveled first or business class and then goes
Speaker 1: back to travel coach. The belly aching is unbearable, right,
Speaker 1: it's just this idea. Oh no, yeah, you can't go back,
Speaker 1: by the way. I haven't traveled first or business in years,
Speaker 1: and and frankly, I'm still amazed that planes work, so
Speaker 1: I'm happy either way. But but there was a period
Speaker 1: shortly after that time where I was able to travel
Speaker 1: first or business, where I was one of those unbearable
Speaker 1: people for that particular reason. I'm unbearable for many other
Speaker 1: reasons now, but for that particular reason where I can't
Speaker 1: believe this little wonderful complaining. I know. Flying coach, though,
Speaker 1: would seem like an amazing luxury compared to what the
Speaker 1: pilot and co pilot are going to have to be
Speaker 1: able to endure to make this round the world flight
Speaker 1: a possibility, because one of the things they're gonna have to,
Speaker 1: like I said, to stay in the air for some
Speaker 1: of the estimates are as long as five days and nights,
Speaker 1: or perhaps even longer for just one leg of this journey.
Speaker 1: So for five days and nights, you are in a
Speaker 1: chair in a plane and you cannot go anywhere because
Speaker 1: there's no space. Every single ounce matters on that plane,
Speaker 1: every single inch counts, so there's no space in the
Speaker 1: back for one person to go and and collapse while
Speaker 1: the other one flies the plane. Instead, their chairs are
Speaker 1: going to be designed in such a way where they
Speaker 1: can lay back into a cot form and you can
Speaker 1: the plane is going to have an autopilot, so they
Speaker 1: can sit there there heading and course and both catch
Speaker 1: them Z S while they need to, and then a
Speaker 1: cup and everything should be fine. Um, somehow I don't
Speaker 1: suspect that will happen. Well, sounds freaky. I think it's
Speaker 1: probably more likely that they're going to do their best
Speaker 1: to take shifts. But the nice thing is that they
Speaker 1: can sit on autopilot and catch some rest if they
Speaker 1: need to. But alright, so we've got we've got laying
Speaker 1: down to rest, and we've got sitting up to operate.
Speaker 1: But there's still one important human activity besides the whole
Speaker 1: eating and drinking thing. They'll obviously have some food and
Speaker 1: water up there on the plane as well. There's one
Speaker 1: other important activity that we can't avoid. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: about to ask have the engineers factored into the plane's
Speaker 1: course the fact that it might be losing a bit
Speaker 1: of mass as it travels. So what we're alluding to
Speaker 1: is where do you poop? I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 1: one of the most popular questions on how stuff works,
Speaker 1: as main site is all about space toilets um. In
Speaker 1: this case, those fancy chairs I was talking about they
Speaker 1: double up as as both chairs cots. Well really they
Speaker 1: do triple duty because they're also lavatories. I had to
Speaker 1: do it Joe. Joe is rolling his eyes. So everybody,
Speaker 1: we've already achieved some horrible pun hat trick. Everybody who
Speaker 1: misses Lauren's eye rolling, just know that her spirit is
Speaker 1: living in Joe right now, even though Lauren herself is
Speaker 1: not in thet Yeah so um, but no, it's it's true.
Speaker 1: The the actual chairs are going to do this this
Speaker 1: triple job of being the place where you sit, the
Speaker 1: place where you sleep, in the place where you have
Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom because they couldn't incorporate a
Speaker 1: separate lavatory because again, every single bit of weight counts.
Speaker 1: It seems like there would be ventilation shoes. Yeah, I haven't.
Speaker 1: I haven't actually seen any illustrations or animations of how
Speaker 1: this actually works, Like, does does the does a little
Speaker 1: bit of the bottom of the chair just open up
Speaker 1: to the to the I mean, who knows. I honestly
Speaker 1: do not know the answer to that, because I haven't
Speaker 1: seen the illustrations I've seen. I've seen footage of them
Speaker 1: testing out the chairs laying it back into cot form,
Speaker 1: but not the pooping. Well, here's a question I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know the answer to is the cabin pressurized?
Speaker 1: Are they flying at such an altitude that they don't
Speaker 1: have to pressurize the cabin. Now, the the pictures I've seen,
Speaker 1: i've seen them wearing essentially air masks as well, So
Speaker 1: I would imagine that the cabin is not pressurized. But
Speaker 1: I also imagine they're not typically flying in an altitude
Speaker 1: where that's too much of a problem. They did, as
Speaker 1: I saw, have have masks there because I saw a
Speaker 1: guy who essentially he pulls the mask aside in order
Speaker 1: to eat a little snack cake, drink a little water,
Speaker 1: put the mask back on, go on his merry way. Um.
Speaker 1: But whether or not the whole thing is pressurized, I
Speaker 1: don't think it is, because again, that would require a
Speaker 1: lot of weight to be able to put in the
Speaker 1: systems necessary. You have to seal everything off, obviously, because
Speaker 1: if if you don't seal everything off, you can't maintain
Speaker 1: a pressure, and you know, I would just be escaping
Speaker 1: the whole time. Plus then you would have to have
Speaker 1: the mechanisms necessary to pressurize the cabin, and all of
Speaker 1: that adds weight. So really, when it comes to solar
Speaker 1: aircraft in general, not just the solar Impulse, but any
Speaker 1: solar aircraft, anything that's not absolutely necessary to maintain flight
Speaker 1: tends to be left behind, so you don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of the systems and a lot of the other niceties.
Speaker 1: In fact, a lot of solar aircraft don't even have
Speaker 1: landing gear. They have they have wheels that allow them
Speaker 1: to roll around when they're before they take off. Then
Speaker 1: once they take off, they jettison the wheels because that's weight,
Speaker 1: like the fuel containers on the Space Shuttle. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it means that when you're landing, you're not so much
Speaker 1: landing as you are having as controlled to crash as
Speaker 1: you possibly can, which I'm sure is nerve racking, but
Speaker 1: that's part of the design. So the plane is designed
Speaker 1: to have that kind of landing. It's not, you know,
Speaker 1: an emergency type thing. This is this is standard operating
Speaker 1: procedure onboard solar aircraft. And uh yeah, so, I mean
Speaker 1: it's kind of I'm curious to see really how this
Speaker 1: continues to develop, what the experience ends up really being
Speaker 1: like for the pilot and co pilot, what it you know,
Speaker 1: whether or not they're able to make this. By the way,
Speaker 1: I didn't mention this their plan for the entire journey.
Speaker 1: You know, we're talking about the eighty eight miles per
Speaker 1: hour top speed. It's going to take them five months
Speaker 1: to go all the way around the world, and that's
Speaker 1: in various legs of the journey, so it's going to
Speaker 1: be lots of stopping and starting, but five months total.
Speaker 1: So it's, uh, you know, it's it's it's not something
Speaker 1: that's going to take place super fast, obviously, but I'm
Speaker 1: really curious to see if they're able to make it
Speaker 1: all the way around the world. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I love about this is that it's and it's
Speaker 1: really a pure engineering challenge, right. The whole thing was
Speaker 1: this idea of let's build a heavier than air aircraft
Speaker 1: only by solar energy. Um, the batteries are charged by
Speaker 1: solar energy, so that's how you can say that it's
Speaker 1: only powered by solar energy and be able to fly
Speaker 1: it all the way around the world. All right, that's
Speaker 1: our goal. How do we achieve that? And honestly, when
Speaker 1: they first started thinking about this, they started talking about
Speaker 1: it back in when they first started thinking about it,
Speaker 1: it was not something that could have been achieved just
Speaker 1: based upon the technology they had at their disposal. The
Speaker 1: team had to innovate and and invent things and tweak
Speaker 1: stuff in order for this to happen. And that's what
Speaker 1: I find so exciting, because it's one of those projects
Speaker 1: where even if you think it's a ridiculous endeavor to
Speaker 1: fly around the world and a solar powered aircraft, the
Speaker 1: truth is the work that they're doing can inform other
Speaker 1: industries and other technologies that end up benefiting us in
Speaker 1: the long run. Yeah. Well, before I read about this
Speaker 1: particular story, I would have thought a solar powered aircraft
Speaker 1: was just impossible, that there's no way you can generate
Speaker 1: enough power to create the thrust you need to stay
Speaker 1: aloft and heavier than air aircraft obviously if you have
Speaker 1: a balloon or something. But right, right, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: it just blows my mind that they can do this
Speaker 1: at all. Not to mention the the extent to which
Speaker 1: they're taking this technology, we should talk about how this
Speaker 1: is almost certainly not going to be the passenger plane
Speaker 1: of the future because all of the First of all,
Speaker 1: I think all the reasons that we gave of what
Speaker 1: they had to do in order to make this possible.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that your average frequent flyer doesn't want
Speaker 1: to poop in their chair, right, that would be a
Speaker 1: big one. Well, and you can't get enough people on it,
Speaker 1: it doesn't go fast enough, you can't pressurize it, or
Speaker 1: at least that's what I assume. I could be wrong
Speaker 1: about that. I didn't see anything about pressurization on about
Speaker 1: the solar impulse. If I'm wrong about that, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I would want to read more about that. How they
Speaker 1: achieve that using this lightweight approach. But well, even if
Speaker 1: you table that one, I mean, all the other concerns
Speaker 1: make this This is not going to replace the passenger jet, No, no,
Speaker 1: they What it could do is you could take a
Speaker 1: look at all the different considerations the team made in
Speaker 1: order to make the aircraft as efficient as it possibly can,
Speaker 1: and some of those lessons you might be able to
Speaker 1: apply to aircraft designs in the future. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: would think one thing to focus on, or at least
Speaker 1: for us to remember, is that the advances that come
Speaker 1: with this kind of aircraft that are really important to
Speaker 1: future aircraft that people might fly in or not necessarily
Speaker 1: like the solar panels or the solar implementation. It might
Speaker 1: be the ways the aircraft like this use clever tricks
Speaker 1: to become lighter and still stay have enough stability in
Speaker 1: the in the fuselage not to come apart, right right, yeah,
Speaker 1: because one of the things, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: big reasons why this is so important is that we
Speaker 1: didn't really address this, but air travel generates a lot
Speaker 1: of pollution. Right Yeah. Your standard your standard jet, like
Speaker 1: your stay entered commercial jet, can create as much as
Speaker 1: point four two point six five pounds of greenhouse gas
Speaker 1: per mile travel. It all depends on the destination and paradoxically,
Speaker 1: perhaps uh, the further you go, the less you're generating
Speaker 1: per mile. But the reason for that is because takeoff
Speaker 1: and landing are where you generate the most greenhouse gases
Speaker 1: because they require the most power. Yeah, there are people
Speaker 1: who talk about buying carbon offset credits when you take
Speaker 1: an air travel journey. That's not a bad idea, even
Speaker 1: though through through air travel it's not necessarily just carbon emissions.
Speaker 1: Is other greenhouse gas more prevalent in jet fuel exhaust.
Speaker 1: But I mean it's it's a huge amount, like you're talking,
Speaker 1: you know, point forward two point six five pounds of
Speaker 1: greenhouse gases. I mean, I don't know if you've weighed
Speaker 1: a gas recently, but it takes a lot for it
Speaker 1: to make a pound, So you're talking about a truly
Speaker 1: massive amount of greenhouse gasses every time an aircraft is flying.
Speaker 1: Uh And again, depending on the type of aircraft and
Speaker 1: how far it's going, that's what tells you how much
Speaker 1: average you are generating. So if we're able to take
Speaker 1: lessons from things like the solar impulse to aircraft and
Speaker 1: incorporate them into future aircraft design so that aircraft are
Speaker 1: more efficient and using less fuel than we are, having
Speaker 1: a smaller negative impact on the environment overall. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: while as we said, there's probably not going to be
Speaker 1: a solely solar powered aircraft, there may be hybrid aircraft
Speaker 1: in the future for standard commuters. And you know, you
Speaker 1: can see the possibility of using solar power for things
Speaker 1: other than the thrust, right, You can use solar panels
Speaker 1: to do things like help power some of the various
Speaker 1: systems aboard the aircraft, depending upon what kind of aircraft
Speaker 1: it is. I mean, you probably don't want all the
Speaker 1: avionics powered by solar power, but things like cabin lighting,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff could certainly be all ammenuted through
Speaker 1: solar power either probably in a more uh analogous way
Speaker 1: to the way the solar impulse has batteries, you would
Speaker 1: probably use the solar power to charge batteries and then
Speaker 1: the systems would draw electricity from the batteries, not have
Speaker 1: a direct line solar panel to system because that wouldn't
Speaker 1: be as useful in in you know, all the different
Speaker 1: situations that aircraft go in the other thing about to
Speaker 1: keep in mind is the aircraft tend to fly higher
Speaker 1: than your your regular cloud level commercial aircraft do, so
Speaker 1: they actually have better access to sunlight than say something
Speaker 1: that can't go that high. Um. Yeah, and also we're
Speaker 1: seeing this technology being incorporated into unmanned aerial vehicles. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's already proposals for u a v s that could
Speaker 1: use solar panels and never have to land. They could
Speaker 1: just stay in the air prepelled, you know, until they
Speaker 1: needed some form of maintenance. So until something breaks, they're fine,
Speaker 1: in which case they'd probably just crash. Yeah. If there's
Speaker 1: enough of a warning where you know something's going to
Speaker 1: end up, or you just have you know, a set
Speaker 1: schedule for when things need to have regular maintenance, then
Speaker 1: you might be fine. But if you get a note saying, oh,
Speaker 1: propeller failed, and probably like, well, I lost that one.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting because it could be used for all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff, not just I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: people sit there and think of surveillance, but that's not
Speaker 1: the only use. You can use it for things like
Speaker 1: sending it into a dangerous area that's been hit by
Speaker 1: a disaster or other sort of calamity and get a
Speaker 1: really good idea of what's going on before you send
Speaker 1: any kind of first responders in, or in a example
Speaker 1: like the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster, you want to be
Speaker 1: able to send in you know, robots and that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff without having to put people in harm's way,
Speaker 1: because that's that's potentially a really dangerous situation. And having
Speaker 1: something that can maintain its position for a longer amount
Speaker 1: of time is more useful than something that just gets
Speaker 1: a snapshot and then that's all. You know, the battery
Speaker 1: life is only twenty minutes or forty minute and then
Speaker 1: you have to fly it back. Uh, that's not as useful.
Speaker 1: Having something that can maintain its presence and keep an
Speaker 1: eye on developing situations is incredibly useful. So I think
Speaker 1: we're going to see that kind of technology more widely
Speaker 1: deployed over time as well. So I'm really really excited
Speaker 1: by this project. I mean, I love any kind of
Speaker 1: engineering challenge where it makes people think creatively about how
Speaker 1: to solve these problems. So maybe in the future will
Speaker 1: do an episode about some of the amazing DARPA challenges
Speaker 1: to like some of the ones that have incredibly difficult
Speaker 1: tasks that engineering teams have to figure out how do
Speaker 1: they achieve these these goals. I like the problems that
Speaker 1: are specifically like this, where you're trying to squeeze every
Speaker 1: last drop of efficiency out of a mechanical system. Like
Speaker 1: the same way. I might not admire the way they
Speaker 1: drive in terms of safety reasons, but I like reading
Speaker 1: about the hyper milers, the people who try to get
Speaker 1: every possible efficiency advantage they can out of their car. Well,
Speaker 1: Joe in an in an offline conversation that we had
Speaker 1: earlier this week, we've already determined that Mrs Todd shortcut
Speaker 1: isn't interesting. King short story about, you know, finding that
Speaker 1: most efficient, most efficient route, even if it costs you
Speaker 1: your sanity. Um, yeah, but no, I agree. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where you always think, like
Speaker 1: there are those moments where you think, all right, we've
Speaker 1: hit it. We've hit the pinnacle. There is no squeezing
Speaker 1: a single ounce of efficiency more out of this. Somebody
Speaker 1: smart can probably figure something out. Yeah, which is that's
Speaker 1: always fantastic. I mean, because again, we all stand to benefit.
Speaker 1: It might not be immediate, it might not be that
Speaker 1: the next day you wake up and suddenly the world
Speaker 1: is a magical place, but it could mean that another
Speaker 1: five or ten years down the road, technology that we
Speaker 1: had not thought was possible is a mundane reality because
Speaker 1: of the things we learned from these engineering challenges. It's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. So yeah, I think, Uh, first I want
Speaker 1: to say thank you Joe for coming on the podcast,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. I'm really visiting Tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: Hell well, you know, the hunters are all ours and
Speaker 1: now that we're done patting ourselves in the back, but
Speaker 1: uh yeah, no, it's great to be able to pop
Speaker 1: in here. Lauren will be back for our next episode,
Speaker 1: so no fear and uh yeah, guys, if you have
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes of Tech Stuff, maybe you want
Speaker 1: to hear specifically about those DARPA challenges and you just
Speaker 1: think I want to know more about the crazy, crazy
Speaker 1: things we have taken on ourselves. As saying you know,
Speaker 1: this is something that's impossible. How do I change that
Speaker 1: and make it possible? Let us know because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of great stories and technology that relate to
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Also, don't worry, we are going
Speaker 1: to be recording the episode about how to surf the
Speaker 1: Web like a superspy very soon. We've heard you guys.
Speaker 1: You all want to know a brief conversation with the FBI.
Speaker 1: But now you've got to go ahead. Yeah, yeah, the
Speaker 1: men in black have wandered off. They forgot to use
Speaker 1: their little red thing, so we're totally cool. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do it. So stay tuned because that episode
Speaker 1: is coming up soon. And any other suggestions you have,
Speaker 1: make sure you write us. Our address is tech stuff
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com, or drop us a line on Facebook,
Speaker 1: Twitter or Tumbler or handle at all three is tech
Speaker 1: stuff hs wth and Lauren and I will talk to
Speaker 1: you again. Really sick for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it have stuff works dot com