1
00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:05,880
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. From how Stop

2
00:00:05,920 --> 00:00:26,960
Speaker 1: Works by Carlo ground Control to Major Tom Ground Control

3
00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:31,240
Speaker 1: to Major Tom, take your protein pills and put your

4
00:00:31,280 --> 00:00:37,040
Speaker 1: helmet on ground control to Major Tom five commencing count

5
00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:41,400
Speaker 1: of engines on three three check ignitions, Who to make

6
00:00:41,440 --> 00:00:57,240
Speaker 1: God's Love people one lift off. Hey, welcome to stuff

7
00:00:57,280 --> 00:00:58,880
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

8
00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:01,280
Speaker 1: I am Christians. Say so you may have gotten the

9
00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:03,800
Speaker 1: idea from our little intro there that that was our

10
00:01:03,840 --> 00:01:07,160
Speaker 1: homage to David Bowie. We're recording this two days after

11
00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:08,840
Speaker 1: he passed away, so we thought it would be fun

12
00:01:08,880 --> 00:01:11,959
Speaker 1: to do a little space oddity routine since we're gonna

13
00:01:11,959 --> 00:01:17,160
Speaker 1: be talking about space mirrors. So how how do these work?

14
00:01:17,600 --> 00:01:19,920
Speaker 1: Why are we putting mirrors in outer space? It's not

15
00:01:19,959 --> 00:01:22,720
Speaker 1: to look at ourselves, is not to look at planet Earth? Right,

16
00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:26,160
Speaker 1: There's many reasons behind this. Yeah, though I will say

17
00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:28,760
Speaker 1: that I did run across at least one scenario in

18
00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:31,160
Speaker 1: which they were talking about using mirrors and space as

19
00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:35,759
Speaker 1: a means to to to better analyze conditions on the Earth.

20
00:01:35,959 --> 00:01:37,600
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah? But for the most part, yeah,

21
00:01:37,600 --> 00:01:39,280
Speaker 1: we're not putting them up there, but they're not putting

22
00:01:39,720 --> 00:01:42,240
Speaker 1: haunted mirrors up in space, right, not like the mirror

23
00:01:42,280 --> 00:01:45,640
Speaker 1: from Oculus. Not yet. That's the sequel. I just came

24
00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:48,640
Speaker 1: up with it, right there, Oculus to space mirror. The

25
00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:52,080
Speaker 1: Oculus mirror, as you is used in a telescope. It

26
00:01:52,080 --> 00:01:55,200
Speaker 1: gets put in the Hubble Yeah, Hubble space telescope or

27
00:01:55,200 --> 00:01:58,880
Speaker 1: the James Webb Yeah, exactly. And it's worth mentioning the

28
00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:02,560
Speaker 1: haunted mirrors because haunted mirrors, I feel, capture a lot

29
00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:06,320
Speaker 1: of the mystique of the mirror itself. Even if you

30
00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:09,080
Speaker 1: sort of know how a mirror works, uh, there's still

31
00:02:09,120 --> 00:02:12,640
Speaker 1: something kind of magical and uncanny about it. And therefore

32
00:02:12,680 --> 00:02:15,440
Speaker 1: the idea of putting them in space, putting them out there,

33
00:02:15,919 --> 00:02:20,560
Speaker 1: uh in orbit, uh, is inherently kind of weird and

34
00:02:20,760 --> 00:02:25,840
Speaker 1: mystical feeling. Yeah, potential event horizons scenario. Ye. So before

35
00:02:25,840 --> 00:02:27,679
Speaker 1: we dive into the mirror stuff, I just want to

36
00:02:27,720 --> 00:02:29,959
Speaker 1: remind everybody you know, Stuff to Blow your Mind is

37
00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:32,720
Speaker 1: a podcast, and most of you know us from listening

38
00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:34,880
Speaker 1: to the show, and thank you for doing so. But

39
00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:36,880
Speaker 1: we do a bunch of other stuff too, and we

40
00:02:37,080 --> 00:02:39,840
Speaker 1: love if you check that out. So we've got videos

41
00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:42,880
Speaker 1: that we produce uh and star in. We've got articles

42
00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:45,160
Speaker 1: that we write, and the best way that you can

43
00:02:45,240 --> 00:02:47,520
Speaker 1: find most of that stuff is by visiting us at

44
00:02:47,560 --> 00:02:49,880
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your Mind dot com. That is the

45
00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:54,160
Speaker 1: landing site for everything that Joe, Robert and I are producing. Indeed,

46
00:02:54,160 --> 00:02:56,520
Speaker 1: and hey, we don't we don't care how you listen

47
00:02:56,520 --> 00:02:58,919
Speaker 1: to us. There are various different ways to listen to

48
00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:01,160
Speaker 1: a podcast these days. But if you want to help

49
00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:06,519
Speaker 1: us out, whatever system you use, be it iTunes or Google, Spotify,

50
00:03:06,720 --> 00:03:09,320
Speaker 1: you name it, uh, give us a little love there.

51
00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:11,640
Speaker 1: If they have a way to review us, give us

52
00:03:11,639 --> 00:03:14,280
Speaker 1: some stars. Do that. It helps us out, helps out

53
00:03:14,280 --> 00:03:17,760
Speaker 1: the algorithm, help support the show, and we loved here.

54
00:03:17,960 --> 00:03:20,000
Speaker 1: Not just if you've done those, but we love to

55
00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:23,200
Speaker 1: hear your reactions to the episodes or maybe some ideas

56
00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:25,760
Speaker 1: that you've had, or or facts that we maybe didn't

57
00:03:25,760 --> 00:03:28,160
Speaker 1: find in our research. So you can always reach out

58
00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:29,960
Speaker 1: to us on social media and let us know about

59
00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:32,639
Speaker 1: those things. We're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're on Tumblr.

60
00:03:32,680 --> 00:03:35,440
Speaker 1: We are blow the Mind on those platforms. We also

61
00:03:35,480 --> 00:03:39,720
Speaker 1: do periscopes every Friday at noon Eastern Standard time, So

62
00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:41,280
Speaker 1: if you want to hang out with us for twenty

63
00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:43,320
Speaker 1: minutes or so and talk about what's going on with

64
00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:45,480
Speaker 1: the show this week, what we're working on for articles

65
00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:48,120
Speaker 1: or whatever. Uh, that's that's the best way to do that,

66
00:03:48,200 --> 00:03:51,440
Speaker 1: to talk to us directly, throw us those hearts on periscope,

67
00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:55,600
Speaker 1: all right, you know. But as we get going here, Uh,

68
00:03:55,680 --> 00:04:00,720
Speaker 1: this is not an episode that deals exclusively with telescope. Uh.

69
00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:03,760
Speaker 1: That is a topic that deserves its own episode or

70
00:04:03,800 --> 00:04:06,920
Speaker 1: a couple of episodes to explore some of this amazing

71
00:04:07,920 --> 00:04:12,080
Speaker 1: terrestrial and orbital observatories that we've rolled out over the years.

72
00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:15,280
Speaker 1: But in discussing the role of mirrors in space, we

73
00:04:15,400 --> 00:04:19,039
Speaker 1: have to talk at least briefly about their role in

74
00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:24,400
Speaker 1: the telescope. Yeah. So, the basic gist of reflector telescopes,

75
00:04:24,400 --> 00:04:28,039
Speaker 1: which is the kind of telescope that uses mirrors instead

76
00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:32,520
Speaker 1: of lenses, is that the mirrors collect light within them

77
00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:35,559
Speaker 1: from a distant object, bring that light to a point

78
00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:37,520
Speaker 1: or to a focus, and then through an I P

79
00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:40,720
Speaker 1: S lens, take that focus and magnify it for our

80
00:04:40,839 --> 00:04:44,720
Speaker 1: human retina, right, so we can see through. Its ability

81
00:04:44,760 --> 00:04:48,000
Speaker 1: to collect light is directly related to the diameter of

82
00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:51,479
Speaker 1: the mirror being used to gather the light. Okay, and

83
00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:55,040
Speaker 1: Isaac Newton was the first one to develop this idea

84
00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:58,720
Speaker 1: for the reflector telescope back in sixteen eighty. He used

85
00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:01,920
Speaker 1: a curved metal mirror to collect the light and reflect

86
00:05:01,960 --> 00:05:05,880
Speaker 1: it into focus. Then in seventy two, John Hadley developed

87
00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:09,880
Speaker 1: a design using parabolic mirrors, and these are relatively still

88
00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:15,160
Speaker 1: in popular use today. The disadvantage of reflector telescopes, though,

89
00:05:15,240 --> 00:05:18,239
Speaker 1: is that you have to clean and realign these mirrors,

90
00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:20,760
Speaker 1: and that actually comes into play with the Hubble telescope.

91
00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:24,800
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because there's some some flaw to it. But

92
00:05:25,080 --> 00:05:28,159
Speaker 1: reflectors are also subject to some light loss as well.

93
00:05:28,720 --> 00:05:31,200
Speaker 1: So Hubble we mentioned it before. We thought we joked

94
00:05:31,200 --> 00:05:34,600
Speaker 1: about putting the oculus mirror inside of it. Uh, it's

95
00:05:34,680 --> 00:05:38,320
Speaker 1: a cassa grain, that's the title of it. Reflector telescope

96
00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:41,440
Speaker 1: where the light enters through a small opening and bounces

97
00:05:41,480 --> 00:05:45,080
Speaker 1: off primary and secondary mirrors inside of it. It's sort

98
00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:47,159
Speaker 1: of in like a w formation, is how the light

99
00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:50,680
Speaker 1: is bouncing around in there, and there's other smaller mirrors

100
00:05:50,720 --> 00:05:53,840
Speaker 1: inside to distribute the light to the eventual instruments that

101
00:05:53,880 --> 00:05:57,239
Speaker 1: then broadcast them back to us. The mirrors are made,

102
00:05:57,640 --> 00:06:00,120
Speaker 1: you know, different from how Newton made his with just

103
00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:03,640
Speaker 1: a sheet of metal. Uh. They are glass coated with

104
00:06:03,760 --> 00:06:08,640
Speaker 1: layers of pure aluminum and magnesium fluoride. But the hubble

105
00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:11,679
Speaker 1: has a couple of flaws. It had a flaw in

106
00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:14,039
Speaker 1: in its mirrors UM, and so what they used to

107
00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:16,680
Speaker 1: do is they had several small mirrors inside of it

108
00:06:16,960 --> 00:06:20,840
Speaker 1: that were called co star UH. And the idea was

109
00:06:20,920 --> 00:06:24,000
Speaker 1: that they would intercept the beam from the primary mirror

110
00:06:24,040 --> 00:06:26,520
Speaker 1: that had a flaw, refocus it, and then make it

111
00:06:26,560 --> 00:06:29,520
Speaker 1: so that you know, is able to be uh parsed out.

112
00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:32,880
Speaker 1: But today the instruments that are built into it have

113
00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:36,880
Speaker 1: corrective optics that compensate for that flaw, so they don't

114
00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:39,719
Speaker 1: need the co Star mirrors anymore. And then the big

115
00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:41,240
Speaker 1: one that I'm sure a lot of you have heard

116
00:06:41,279 --> 00:06:45,159
Speaker 1: about is James Webb Telescope, which is coming up. It

117
00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:48,480
Speaker 1: is an even bigger mirror that is twenty ft in diameter.

118
00:06:48,560 --> 00:06:51,840
Speaker 1: In fact, we just sent a team here uh from

119
00:06:51,880 --> 00:06:55,120
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works up to the NASA Observatory there where

120
00:06:55,120 --> 00:06:57,440
Speaker 1: they're working on the James Web telescope, and a couple

121
00:06:57,480 --> 00:06:59,800
Speaker 1: of videos were produced by our team, primarily led by

122
00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:03,680
Speaker 1: all Fry from the History podcast. But I'm looking forward

123
00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:06,080
Speaker 1: to seeing that stuff because they've they apparently got real

124
00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:08,720
Speaker 1: up close and personal with the James Webb telescope and

125
00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:11,360
Speaker 1: the production and maybe even the Haunted mirror. That's you

126
00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:14,000
Speaker 1: gotta ask Hollie if that Oculus mirror made its way

127
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:17,200
Speaker 1: in there. Um. There's also some considerations for something that's

128
00:07:17,200 --> 00:07:20,440
Speaker 1: called a liquid mirror telescope that could potentially be mounted

129
00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:23,640
Speaker 1: on the Moon. It would be between sixties six and

130
00:07:23,800 --> 00:07:26,760
Speaker 1: three hundred and twenty eight feet long, which would collect

131
00:07:26,840 --> 00:07:29,920
Speaker 1: a thousand and seven hundred and thirty six times more

132
00:07:30,040 --> 00:07:33,600
Speaker 1: light than the Hubble telescope does. Now, so that's just

133
00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:37,760
Speaker 1: my brief primer here on telescopes and their role. And yes,

134
00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:41,240
Speaker 1: we have space we have mirrors in space four telescopes,

135
00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:44,239
Speaker 1: but we're going to talk a little bit beyond using

136
00:07:44,280 --> 00:07:47,320
Speaker 1: them to see far and look into other ways that

137
00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:50,000
Speaker 1: you could use them potentially as weapons or just to

138
00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:54,320
Speaker 1: make people happier. Apparently. Yeah, and you know it's also

139
00:07:54,320 --> 00:07:58,280
Speaker 1: worth noting that, um, you know, especially with terrestrial observatories,

140
00:07:58,760 --> 00:08:02,040
Speaker 1: you have mirrors that are solid one piece, and then

141
00:08:02,080 --> 00:08:05,120
Speaker 1: you also have mirrors that are composed of of of

142
00:08:05,320 --> 00:08:10,200
Speaker 1: of various segments that all come together. Um, you mentioned

143
00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:12,880
Speaker 1: the liquid mirror, and I have to to throw in

144
00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:17,080
Speaker 1: about a new proposition. This just came out. This made

145
00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:21,440
Speaker 1: a made the rounds from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, good

146
00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:26,840
Speaker 1: old JPL. Yeah, two thousand fifteen orbiting rainbows. So and

147
00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:28,480
Speaker 1: you already know it's gonna be good at the title

148
00:08:28,520 --> 00:08:31,520
Speaker 1: like that. But this would be a reflective cloud. This

149
00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:35,199
Speaker 1: is theoretical. This would be a reflective cloud of glitter

150
00:08:35,360 --> 00:08:38,600
Speaker 1: light grains that are just floating there in space, and

151
00:08:38,600 --> 00:08:42,520
Speaker 1: they're trapped and manipulated by multiple laser beans. So you

152
00:08:42,520 --> 00:08:45,480
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about structure or backing material. You

153
00:08:45,640 --> 00:08:49,080
Speaker 1: have to worry about, you know, unfurling the sails, et cetera.

154
00:08:49,480 --> 00:08:52,040
Speaker 1: The pressure of the laser light coming in from different

155
00:08:52,080 --> 00:08:55,840
Speaker 1: directions ship would shape the cloud and push the small

156
00:08:55,880 --> 00:09:00,160
Speaker 1: grains to a line in the same direction. So kind

157
00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:04,600
Speaker 1: of a nano mirror cloud. Yeah, that sounds interesting, curious.

158
00:09:04,840 --> 00:09:06,559
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like it would be a long

159
00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:09,280
Speaker 1: way off, given given how long the work on James

160
00:09:09,280 --> 00:09:11,560
Speaker 1: Webb has been going on. Yeah, but it's there's certainly

161
00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:15,560
Speaker 1: an innovation that is worth thinking about in terms of

162
00:09:15,600 --> 00:09:19,280
Speaker 1: these various applications that we're going to discuss here, some

163
00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:22,560
Speaker 1: of which you know, are a little more feasible than others. Um,

164
00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:27,000
Speaker 1: we should also mention solar sales because that that's an

165
00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:30,959
Speaker 1: important aspect of the use of mirrors in space as well,

166
00:09:31,080 --> 00:09:34,560
Speaker 1: or at least mirrord surfaces. So the concept itself goes

167
00:09:34,600 --> 00:09:38,640
Speaker 1: back to the sixteenth century UH astronomer mathematician Johannes Kepler

168
00:09:39,200 --> 00:09:42,360
Speaker 1: UH noticed that comet tails always point away from the sun,

169
00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:46,640
Speaker 1: implying that sunlight itself was pushing them around like they

170
00:09:46,679 --> 00:09:50,560
Speaker 1: were little wind solar breeze. Yeah, and there is there

171
00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:53,680
Speaker 1: is a solar win We know that now. Um. We

172
00:09:53,679 --> 00:09:55,440
Speaker 1: we know now that sunlight is a little more than

173
00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:58,360
Speaker 1: a stream of photons, tiny particles of light, and they

174
00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:02,280
Speaker 1: don't possess mass, but they do boast a linear momentum,

175
00:10:02,320 --> 00:10:05,240
Speaker 1: and when they bounce off a reflective surface, they push

176
00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:08,559
Speaker 1: against that surface. And UH, and then this has been

177
00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:12,240
Speaker 1: demonstrated because of the solar sales. UH. The Mariner Tin

178
00:10:12,320 --> 00:10:15,800
Speaker 1: probe successfully demonstrated the technology in seventy four when Nassy

179
00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:20,959
Speaker 1: used the probe solar arrays UH as an impromptu solar sale. UH.

180
00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:25,200
Speaker 1: Subsequent American, Russian, Indian, and Japanese missions have also uh

181
00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:29,920
Speaker 1: further proven the technology's feasibility. But we really haven't taken

182
00:10:29,960 --> 00:10:33,880
Speaker 1: the solar sale concept and uh and and fleshed it

183
00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:37,240
Speaker 1: out in a more uh you know, remarkable way. We

184
00:10:37,280 --> 00:10:41,080
Speaker 1: haven't created like full full on solar sale vessels. Yeah.

185
00:10:41,080 --> 00:10:44,240
Speaker 1: The idea is that like, eventually, the continuous force of

186
00:10:44,280 --> 00:10:48,720
Speaker 1: all those sunlight particles would propel a spacecraft potentially five

187
00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:52,560
Speaker 1: times faster than traditional rockets. Yeah, and then if you

188
00:10:52,559 --> 00:10:56,520
Speaker 1: could also throw in varying uh theoretical means of boosting

189
00:10:56,520 --> 00:10:59,760
Speaker 1: them with lasers, so you point the laser beams at

190
00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:02,559
Speaker 1: the sale and add a little bit of artificial win

191
00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:06,240
Speaker 1: to those solar sales. So this sounds good, right. We're

192
00:11:06,320 --> 00:11:09,040
Speaker 1: using mirrors in space as a as a as a

193
00:11:09,120 --> 00:11:11,720
Speaker 1: real means and as a and as a near future

194
00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:17,160
Speaker 1: means to gaze at the cosmos, and propulsion as a

195
00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:20,200
Speaker 1: means to move through it. But what else can we do? Well,

196
00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:23,200
Speaker 1: apparently we can hurt each other, which is one of

197
00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:25,760
Speaker 1: our favorite ways to examine space. Right. We love talking

198
00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:28,319
Speaker 1: about space weapons here and stuff to blow your mind. Yeah,

199
00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:30,280
Speaker 1: and we've seen time and time again that if you want,

200
00:11:30,960 --> 00:11:34,760
Speaker 1: you want any kind of a science program funded. If

201
00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:38,240
Speaker 1: it has a weapon aspect to it, then all the better.

202
00:11:38,320 --> 00:11:41,720
Speaker 1: That's that's how human civilization gets excited about science. And

203
00:11:41,760 --> 00:11:45,839
Speaker 1: that's exactly the case with something called the sun gun. Uh.

204
00:11:45,880 --> 00:11:50,560
Speaker 1: And this comes from a Life magazine article. Basically, there

205
00:11:50,600 --> 00:11:54,160
Speaker 1: were U. S. Army technical experts that were in Germany

206
00:11:54,520 --> 00:11:57,280
Speaker 1: and they came across notes for the sun gun. And

207
00:11:57,400 --> 00:12:02,160
Speaker 1: the concept was by a German rocket scientists named Herman

208
00:12:02,280 --> 00:12:06,520
Speaker 1: O Berth, and he pitched this idea in ninete. Now,

209
00:12:06,880 --> 00:12:10,079
Speaker 1: his idea for this was totally peaceful, right. He wanted

210
00:12:10,120 --> 00:12:13,720
Speaker 1: to use it to do things like illuminate ports or

211
00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:17,240
Speaker 1: thaw out frozen rivers. Uh. He also thought that you

212
00:12:17,280 --> 00:12:19,480
Speaker 1: could potentially use this as a I mean he was

213
00:12:19,480 --> 00:12:23,000
Speaker 1: thinking way ahead as a refueling station for spaceships. So

214
00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:26,520
Speaker 1: there were some sort of sci fi ash ideas here. Yeah. Oh,

215
00:12:26,600 --> 00:12:28,520
Speaker 1: Berth is one of those names you see thrown around

216
00:12:28,520 --> 00:12:31,320
Speaker 1: at times with Verna von Braun. He was very much

217
00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:34,320
Speaker 1: involved with the German rocket program in the creation of

218
00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:39,760
Speaker 1: the V two. Yeah exactly. But you know, in this situation,

219
00:12:39,840 --> 00:12:41,880
Speaker 1: ober comes up with this idea and the nazis going,

220
00:12:41,960 --> 00:12:45,000
Speaker 1: you know, what, what if we could use that to

221
00:12:45,080 --> 00:12:48,120
Speaker 1: take the rays and burn our enemy cities and boil

222
00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:52,120
Speaker 1: the ocean. Yeah. I mean it comes down again to

223
00:12:52,200 --> 00:12:55,960
Speaker 1: this case where you have you have scientists who who

224
00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:58,160
Speaker 1: have this in their areas of expertise, they have their

225
00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:03,560
Speaker 1: research they cared dearly about, but you're ultimately you're you're

226
00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:07,719
Speaker 1: you're ultimately having to deal with a warlike and dogmatic

227
00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:10,320
Speaker 1: force at the top of the chain, and you have

228
00:13:10,320 --> 00:13:13,240
Speaker 1: to appeal to those masters. And it's like that nowadays.

229
00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:15,040
Speaker 1: Like you know, a lot of the scientists that I

230
00:13:15,080 --> 00:13:16,760
Speaker 1: know who get funding for their work get it from

231
00:13:16,760 --> 00:13:18,720
Speaker 1: the d O D. I mean, one of my closest

232
00:13:18,760 --> 00:13:21,679
Speaker 1: friends used to do work out of M I T.

233
00:13:22,280 --> 00:13:25,240
Speaker 1: And he always reminds me that the GPS was first

234
00:13:25,280 --> 00:13:27,360
Speaker 1: developed with do O D money. And I'm talking about

235
00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:32,040
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense in the United States for international listeners. Yeah,

236
00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:34,439
Speaker 1: So the scenario more or less remains the same. It's

237
00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:39,200
Speaker 1: easier to uh to cast a nefarious I obviously on

238
00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:43,319
Speaker 1: on a scientific experiments going on in scientific endeavors going

239
00:13:43,320 --> 00:13:46,679
Speaker 1: on during the Third Reich and under the Third Reich.

240
00:13:46,760 --> 00:13:48,880
Speaker 1: But it has always been the case. And if you

241
00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:52,280
Speaker 1: have a big project, war is the way it gets green. Well,

242
00:13:52,640 --> 00:13:55,360
Speaker 1: there don't seem to be any surviving schematics to actually

243
00:13:55,400 --> 00:13:57,880
Speaker 1: show how they're going to build this mirror sun gun.

244
00:13:58,240 --> 00:14:01,680
Speaker 1: But the Life magazine article has like drawings and illustrations

245
00:14:01,679 --> 00:14:05,400
Speaker 1: in it, which I'm assuming that they came with the

246
00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:08,400
Speaker 1: notes that were uncovered by these technical experts unless they

247
00:14:08,440 --> 00:14:12,000
Speaker 1: were drawn for the article. And those illustrations are are available,

248
00:14:12,040 --> 00:14:14,240
Speaker 1: you can find them, i think, on on Google and

249
00:14:14,240 --> 00:14:18,720
Speaker 1: and they're wonderful. They're just fabulous retro futurist visions of

250
00:14:18,720 --> 00:14:21,960
Speaker 1: what life space could consist of. Um, they didn't really

251
00:14:21,960 --> 00:14:24,360
Speaker 1: have a plan either on how they were going to

252
00:14:24,960 --> 00:14:27,880
Speaker 1: have a rocket actually get the get the sun gun

253
00:14:28,080 --> 00:14:31,040
Speaker 1: up into space, but the idea here was that it

254
00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:34,240
Speaker 1: would be pre assembled before it even got up there. Uh.

255
00:14:34,280 --> 00:14:37,320
Speaker 1: And in the same article that hypothesized that at the

256
00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:39,840
Speaker 1: distance that the Germans were planning to set up the mirror,

257
00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:43,880
Speaker 1: which was five thousand, one hundred miles up, the image

258
00:14:43,880 --> 00:14:46,200
Speaker 1: it would cast on Earth once they actually crunched the

259
00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:49,640
Speaker 1: math would be forty miles in diameter and it would

260
00:14:49,680 --> 00:14:52,280
Speaker 1: not be hot enough to do any damage, so there

261
00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:55,920
Speaker 1: would be like a forty mile uh sunburst that I

262
00:14:55,920 --> 00:14:57,360
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe it would give you a bit of

263
00:14:57,400 --> 00:15:00,040
Speaker 1: a tan. Yeah, that's uh, And that's one of the

264
00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:02,440
Speaker 1: um the cool things about that Life article is they

265
00:15:02,640 --> 00:15:05,920
Speaker 1: just immediately tear down the idea. Um. Of course, it's

266
00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:09,600
Speaker 1: also worth noting that that the German scientists themselves, they

267
00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:12,760
Speaker 1: were saying that this thing, this would be like years anyway,

268
00:15:12,840 --> 00:15:16,200
Speaker 1: so they weren't saying we can do this next year, guys. Um.

269
00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:19,720
Speaker 1: But yeah, it seems like if you try to extrapolate

270
00:15:20,440 --> 00:15:23,480
Speaker 1: over it's work into a weapon, as as some of

271
00:15:23,480 --> 00:15:26,240
Speaker 1: the Nazi individuals may have seemed to have done, it's

272
00:15:26,240 --> 00:15:31,920
Speaker 1: not gonna work, but as a means to slightly heat areas, right, Yeah, yeah,

273
00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:34,440
Speaker 1: And I'm curious, like, especially given what we're going to

274
00:15:34,480 --> 00:15:37,200
Speaker 1: talk about Russian applications for this as well. But you know,

275
00:15:37,240 --> 00:15:39,240
Speaker 1: maybe they could thaw or ever, but at the very

276
00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:44,240
Speaker 1: least they could literally shed some light on the situation. So, Okay,

277
00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:48,320
Speaker 1: here's the basic breakdown of ober'st thing. Even if we

278
00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:51,160
Speaker 1: don't have access to as sschematics. The idea is that

279
00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:54,800
Speaker 1: the mirror would be a concave disk that's one mile

280
00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:56,880
Speaker 1: in diameter. So we keep coming back to this, the

281
00:15:56,880 --> 00:16:00,200
Speaker 1: importance of how big the diameter is mirror. The crew

282
00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:04,280
Speaker 1: would live inside the mirror and they would breathe air

283
00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:08,400
Speaker 1: produced by thousands of pumpkin plants. I loved that. And

284
00:16:08,440 --> 00:16:10,200
Speaker 1: even in some of the drawings they sort of show

285
00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:12,920
Speaker 1: where these pumpkin plants would be placed that they would

286
00:16:12,920 --> 00:16:15,600
Speaker 1: be generating oxygen for the car. Wonder why, I guess

287
00:16:15,600 --> 00:16:17,440
Speaker 1: because of the buyer, if they feel like that would

288
00:16:17,440 --> 00:16:20,640
Speaker 1: be a good support structure for us. Yeah, it wasn't clear.

289
00:16:20,880 --> 00:16:26,120
Speaker 1: It wasn't clear, and you know, unfortunately, oh Birth's actual

290
00:16:26,200 --> 00:16:28,680
Speaker 1: reasoning for it was kind of lost to time. There

291
00:16:28,760 --> 00:16:32,560
Speaker 1: was also some weird stuff because they the design was

292
00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:36,720
Speaker 1: pitched to have centrifugial rotation and mimic gravity, kind of

293
00:16:36,720 --> 00:16:39,320
Speaker 1: like we're familiar with now from two thousand one of

294
00:16:39,360 --> 00:16:43,560
Speaker 1: Space that classic scene. Yeah. Um, but they also would

295
00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:46,320
Speaker 1: wear magnet shoes that would allow them to stick to

296
00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:49,440
Speaker 1: the floors and walls at the same time to compensate

297
00:16:49,480 --> 00:16:51,560
Speaker 1: for the gravity loss. So maybe it's sort of like

298
00:16:51,800 --> 00:16:53,800
Speaker 1: I'm I'm thinking of that scene in Star Trek the

299
00:16:53,800 --> 00:16:56,640
Speaker 1: Next Generation where they put on those like magnet boots

300
00:16:56,640 --> 00:16:58,560
Speaker 1: and walk along in the hull of the Star Trek

301
00:16:58,640 --> 00:17:02,480
Speaker 1: Enterprise to the star Reck enterprise, the spaceship enterprise. Uh.

302
00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:04,320
Speaker 1: And so the idea here is that there would be

303
00:17:04,320 --> 00:17:07,440
Speaker 1: tiny little rocket motors that are attached to the mirror

304
00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:09,760
Speaker 1: and they would fire those off to control where it

305
00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:12,119
Speaker 1: was turned, so they could aim the light at Earth.

306
00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:16,280
Speaker 1: But after World War Two, you know, the Nazis were

307
00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:19,400
Speaker 1: done for in terms of the weapon building business, and

308
00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:22,119
Speaker 1: oh Berth went to other nations to see if they

309
00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:24,439
Speaker 1: would pick up his idea for the peacetime applications. He

310
00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:27,399
Speaker 1: originally came up with him for he thought the US

311
00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:31,840
Speaker 1: could build a mirror that's three hundred miles in diameter.

312
00:17:32,040 --> 00:17:35,800
Speaker 1: That's huge, uh, to terraform the Earth. So he had

313
00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:41,080
Speaker 1: some big ideas, o Berth did. He even suggested, well,

314
00:17:41,119 --> 00:17:43,560
Speaker 1: you know it would be expensive, Yes, but why don't

315
00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:46,119
Speaker 1: we just mind all the materials from the Moon to

316
00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:48,680
Speaker 1: keep the costs down. I keep in mind, we hadn't

317
00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:50,480
Speaker 1: even been to the moon. He doesn't know what's on

318
00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:54,040
Speaker 1: the moon. But sure enough, we're gonna he pitches, Yeah,

319
00:17:54,080 --> 00:17:55,960
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. We'll just we'll make this mirror

320
00:17:55,960 --> 00:17:58,880
Speaker 1: from moonbits. See he's very much thinking a few steps

321
00:17:58,920 --> 00:18:03,000
Speaker 1: ahead of hurrent science. Yeah, I mean this concept is,

322
00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:06,240
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, more sci fi than science.

323
00:18:06,359 --> 00:18:09,719
Speaker 1: But it was, you know, initially pitched to be developed.

324
00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:13,040
Speaker 1: You know. It's it's interesting that he was already at

325
00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:17,240
Speaker 1: this point talking about it's use for terraforming, because in

326
00:18:17,640 --> 00:18:21,240
Speaker 1: recent decades you've you've see space mirrors occasionally pop up

327
00:18:21,240 --> 00:18:27,200
Speaker 1: as a means to terraform Mars. The red planets too cold,

328
00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:29,880
Speaker 1: so you know, you just deploy fleets of orbiting reflective

329
00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:32,280
Speaker 1: balloons to collect sunlight and reflect it down on the

330
00:18:32,359 --> 00:18:37,119
Speaker 1: chili surfaces. Um that that in particular was it was

331
00:18:37,160 --> 00:18:41,360
Speaker 1: a scheme that was proposed by University of Arizona's rogol Waida,

332
00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:45,160
Speaker 1: who theorizes that such a scheme could raise the Martian

333
00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:49,320
Speaker 1: temperature in a one fifty acre patch to Earth like

334
00:18:49,560 --> 00:18:55,479
Speaker 1: levels of interesting. And likewise, you you see various theories

335
00:18:55,480 --> 00:18:57,679
Speaker 1: about how you could you could use space mirrors as

336
00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:01,240
Speaker 1: a geo engineering or plan at hacking measure here on

337
00:19:01,320 --> 00:19:06,040
Speaker 1: Earth to counteract global warming. Yeah, I've heard that as well.

338
00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:09,199
Speaker 1: But Overth already had all that uh teaming around in

339
00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:12,159
Speaker 1: that brain age. Yeah, back in the twenties, he had

340
00:19:12,200 --> 00:19:14,119
Speaker 1: the whole thing figured out. He just didn't have the

341
00:19:14,200 --> 00:19:16,840
Speaker 1: means to achieve it. I'm gonna go back to the

342
00:19:16,880 --> 00:19:20,760
Speaker 1: sun gun one more time though. Um that edition of

343
00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:23,639
Speaker 1: Life magazine in busting It, these are some of the

344
00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:26,119
Speaker 1: particulars that they laid out. They said that the German

345
00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:30,520
Speaker 1: plan for building may be proved physically impossible by a

346
00:19:30,640 --> 00:19:34,720
Speaker 1: simple axiom of optics. Uh. This is that light cannot

347
00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:37,840
Speaker 1: be brought to a sharp pointed focus with lenses or

348
00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:41,719
Speaker 1: mirrors unless it comes from a sharp pointed source. Uh.

349
00:19:41,760 --> 00:19:44,080
Speaker 1: It goes on to say that since the Sun appears

350
00:19:44,160 --> 00:19:46,359
Speaker 1: in the sky as a disk and not as a point,

351
00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:49,000
Speaker 1: the best any optical system could do would be to

352
00:19:49,040 --> 00:19:52,960
Speaker 1: produce an image of that disc. So at very short

353
00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:56,040
Speaker 1: focal length, the image is small and hot, but the

354
00:19:56,280 --> 00:20:00,440
Speaker 1: focus length is increased the image becomes progressively bigger and cooler.

355
00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:03,640
Speaker 1: So at the distances that the Germans what we're dealing with,

356
00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:06,600
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, they wouldn't be able to cast that

357
00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:10,920
Speaker 1: laser like beam of heated intensity on anything. They would

358
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:13,879
Speaker 1: just be able to warm things up like ha ha.

359
00:20:14,119 --> 00:20:19,120
Speaker 1: Enemies enjoy slightly warmer temperatures in this general vicinity, which

360
00:20:19,119 --> 00:20:21,880
Speaker 1: actually would work out pretty well for the next next

361
00:20:21,880 --> 00:20:25,760
Speaker 1: space mirror. We're gonna talk about projects, Zin Maya. That's right.

362
00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:28,399
Speaker 1: When we come back, we're gonna discuss Soviet attempts to

363
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:32,119
Speaker 1: cast a little light on the on the world using

364
00:20:32,280 --> 00:20:39,520
Speaker 1: space mirrors. Hey, everybody having a professional looking website. It's

365
00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:42,560
Speaker 1: just an important part of doing business or just representing

366
00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:45,640
Speaker 1: yourself in today's world. But it can be a real pain, right,

367
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:48,600
Speaker 1: You're trying to build this professional looking thing and you

368
00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:50,959
Speaker 1: feel like you don't. You don't have the right coding

369
00:20:50,960 --> 00:20:52,920
Speaker 1: tools at your disposal, you don't have the right skill

370
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:55,480
Speaker 1: set to make it happen. But that's where square space

371
00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:59,199
Speaker 1: comes into play. They offer you intuitive and easy to

372
00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:02,600
Speaker 1: use tools to give you that professional design look regardless

373
00:21:02,640 --> 00:21:04,520
Speaker 1: of your individual skill level. You don't have to be

374
00:21:04,560 --> 00:21:07,080
Speaker 1: a coding wizard at all, and you get a free

375
00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:09,280
Speaker 1: domain if you sign up for a year. You can

376
00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:11,840
Speaker 1: start your free trial today at square space dot com.

377
00:21:11,840 --> 00:21:13,719
Speaker 1: And when you decide to sign up for squarespace, make

378
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:16,880
Speaker 1: sure to use the offer code mind blown to get

379
00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:20,080
Speaker 1: ten percent off your first purchase. Again, the promo code

380
00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:23,480
Speaker 1: is mind blown, the product is square Space. Go try

381
00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:25,640
Speaker 1: it out and build that website you've been dreaming off.

382
00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:33,600
Speaker 1: All right, we're back and we're talking about Project Znamia.

383
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:37,880
Speaker 1: Znamia is Russian for banner, because essentially we're talking about

384
00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:40,840
Speaker 1: a big reflective banner in space. And this is that

385
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:45,159
Speaker 1: this was the brainchild of the Space Regathera Consortium or

386
00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:48,600
Speaker 1: s r C, a partnership of seven Russian aerospace management

387
00:21:48,640 --> 00:21:53,640
Speaker 1: and engineering companies who proposed and ultimately got off the ground. Uh,

388
00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:59,560
Speaker 1: two different variations of this space mirror technology. And the

389
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:02,560
Speaker 1: interesting and maybe confusing thing about this too was the

390
00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:06,200
Speaker 1: first one that went up was the Jennaia too, not

391
00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:09,280
Speaker 1: Jean Maya one. So I wonder whatever happened to the

392
00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:11,480
Speaker 1: first one, or maybe they just jumped right to two

393
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:13,960
Speaker 1: after a prototype. Yeah, And then the second one is

394
00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:19,080
Speaker 1: Namia two point five, right, and the third proposed one

395
00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:22,080
Speaker 1: that never actually happened was going to be Namia three. Yeah.

396
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:26,560
Speaker 1: It's sort of like an iOS operating systems that they

397
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:29,160
Speaker 1: just kind of jumped around with the numbers there. So

398
00:22:29,240 --> 00:22:32,040
Speaker 1: the idea here is that it's a spinning space reflector,

399
00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 1: apparently sort of similar to the sun gun. I guess

400
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:38,080
Speaker 1: in the idea was that it would reflect a three

401
00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 1: mile wide patch or a five kilometer wide patch of

402
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:47,080
Speaker 1: light across a swath of pre dawn Europe. Uh. And now,

403
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 1: unfortunately when they tested it, the clouds obscured much of this.

404
00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 1: But there were some observers who reported seeing a one

405
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 1: second flash that was as bright as a full moon,

406
00:22:56,359 --> 00:22:58,000
Speaker 1: and they were able to see this on top of

407
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:00,600
Speaker 1: the Alps. Apparently there were astronomers knew that it was

408
00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:02,920
Speaker 1: being tested, so they were looking for it. Yeah, full

409
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:06,920
Speaker 1: moon shows up a lot as a descriptor for how

410
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 1: bright this thing actually was. Yeah, which is you know, granted,

411
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 1: full moon level of luminosity is pretty significantly sent right,

412
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:17,959
Speaker 1: especially for the purposes that they came up with. At

413
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 1: least so the scientists at the Space Regatican Sortium. Their

414
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:28,399
Speaker 1: hope was that Zimaya two would lead to a constellation

415
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:31,160
Speaker 1: of space mirrors that would be an orbit around Earth

416
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: and they would use these to light up cities with

417
00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:36,919
Speaker 1: up to a hundred times the full moon's brightness. So

418
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:40,520
Speaker 1: you have multiple mirrors operating at the same time, um

419
00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 1: combining their efforts to illuminate an area. Yeah, and they

420
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:48,159
Speaker 1: thought that this would improve morale during the winter, and

421
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:51,000
Speaker 1: they would they would use it just after sun set

422
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: or just before sunrise. And my first thought was that

423
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 1: is so Russian like that is the coming from New England,

424
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:01,879
Speaker 1: which is is nowhere year as harshest a Russian winter.

425
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: I can understand wanting to dispel the grayness of winter.

426
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:09,639
Speaker 1: Uh So, And I also thought about this, I wonder

427
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 1: what they would do to human circadian rhythms, given how

428
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:15,359
Speaker 1: light interacts with the human eye and brain. Well, that

429
00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:18,879
Speaker 1: was I think one of the the criticisms that that

430
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:21,000
Speaker 1: you saw is that people were saying, well, what was it?

431
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:23,680
Speaker 1: What is this due to the human circadian rhythm, essentially

432
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 1: rolling out light pollution, more light pollution than uh the

433
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,880
Speaker 1: urban areas are already produced producing. So how's that gonna

434
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 1: mess with the surrounding wildlife? Yeah. In fact, astronomers, other astronomers,

435
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:36,399
Speaker 1: not the ones that we're working on this, we're a

436
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: little bit upset about it because they thought that it

437
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 1: was going to obscure their view of the universe. But

438
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:42,960
Speaker 1: if they're looking up with the telescopes we're talking about earlier,

439
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:45,680
Speaker 1: they're gonna be getting all kinds of reflections and problems

440
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:49,440
Speaker 1: from the constellation of space mirrors. Um. But the other

441
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 1: idea that they had, and this seems like a good

442
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:54,119
Speaker 1: one to me, is is that they could provide emergency

443
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 1: lighting during disasters. So if a city loses its power,

444
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 1: they you know, rotate the mirror is in boom, you've

445
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:03,880
Speaker 1: got light for an evening if you have to clear out.

446
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,159
Speaker 1: You know, probably given during a natural disaster. And I

447
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 1: guess you could imagine it being used to in a

448
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 1: scenario where all right, this area doesn't have power now,

449
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,439
Speaker 1: or for some reason there's an energy shortage. Instead of

450
00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: lighting up all the streets, you just cast the mirror

451
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:20,520
Speaker 1: and you down and then you can provide the at

452
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:25,719
Speaker 1: least the level of illumination necessary for driving around town. Yeah. Yeah,

453
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:29,800
Speaker 1: uh so this was fairly successful. They thought, okay, the

454
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:32,919
Speaker 1: one second of full moon light, that's enough for us

455
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 1: to call this a success. So let's try it again

456
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: with Zemmaya two point five in. Yeah, this is six

457
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:43,679
Speaker 1: years later that set out to try it again. This

458
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 1: one was U and they were hoping to cast a

459
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:52,879
Speaker 1: seven kilometer diameter bright spot. Uh that was expected to

460
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: have five to ten moon luminosity. So it's gonna be bigger, better,

461
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 1: And this was gonna gonna be again a first step

462
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:04,640
Speaker 1: in establishing that constellation that we're talking about earlier constellation

463
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:08,920
Speaker 1: of reflectors that would allow us to really dose south

464
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:14,879
Speaker 1: the illumination. Um. The problem is that when they began

465
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 1: to deploy this thing, um, the the the Z two's

466
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 1: membrane caught on one of space station mirrors antenna and

467
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: ripped it up. So that was not a success. And

468
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: they didn't even get there their one second of full

469
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 1: moon brightness apparently. Yeah, and eventually they just have to

470
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,200
Speaker 1: jettison in and it burns up on reentry. So that's

471
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 1: so despite that, they still had you know, I guess

472
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 1: it was already on the books, but they had proposed

473
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: in MAYA three and the idea for this was that

474
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 1: it would have been even larger, and its goal was

475
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 1: to test a new reflector concept using something called film photovoltaics.

476
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: And it was proposed to go up somewhere around two

477
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,159
Speaker 1: thousand or two thousand one. As far as I can tell,

478
00:26:56,359 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 1: that never happened. Uh, but there's very little formation on

479
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:02,880
Speaker 1: it actually when you go to look it up. Uh.

480
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 1: There is a BBC article that came out right after

481
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: two point five failed that's basically like Nan and Nan,

482
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 1: You're never gonna get three up. It's kind of fascinating

483
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 1: little piece. It read a lot more like an editorial

484
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:20,440
Speaker 1: than it did like a science article. They're basically, uh,

485
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: speculating that you know, this thing was way too expensive,

486
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 1: it was beyond the resources that Russia had at the time,

487
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 1: and that it was a leftover from when the Soviets

488
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: had really big space aspirations. So they said, it's probably

489
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: gonna stop, and as far as I can tell, it

490
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 1: seems like it did. Um. But there's an interesting article

491
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 1: that's out there after the antenna problem happened with I'm

492
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 1: gonna call it Z two point five by a guy

493
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 1: named n. Chapawkowski, and he comes up with five different

494
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: proposals that they could have used to fix two point five,

495
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 1: so that three would have been more operational. And I'll

496
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 1: just go over these real quick. I mean, his papers

497
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: very long and academic in nature. But he talks about

498
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: using something called rational membrane unfolding technology that would leave

499
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:10,199
Speaker 1: some of the folds free, so peripherals like the antennas

500
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 1: would stretch together with the rest of the mirrors to

501
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:15,880
Speaker 1: make it so that it is less likely to rip

502
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,159
Speaker 1: apart upon first deployment. Yep. Uh. The other idea he

503
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 1: had was to increase the spin so that the membrane

504
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: needed would have to be heavy enough to withstand the

505
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:28,879
Speaker 1: centrifugeal forces, but light enough to unfold quickly. And his

506
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: idea was they use compressed air to rapidly unfold the memorane.

507
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: They have little bursts of compressed air cheot out uh.

508
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:39,479
Speaker 1: And then building off of that, he adds the idea, well,

509
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: why don't we put pipes into the membrane and run

510
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: the compressed air through those. So three is really just

511
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 1: kind of a two point five if we're sticking with

512
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 1: the right of the note numbering uh. And then this

513
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 1: fourth idea was you would have a compact packing of

514
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 1: the membrane. It would unpack like an accordion in outer space,

515
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: So it would go up all folded together, and then

516
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,479
Speaker 1: it would come out like an accordion. And this this

517
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 1: led to his fifth idea, which is another similar thing,

518
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: but the bands of the membrane would unfold in a

519
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: concertina fashion. Okay, so I'm imagining essentially a big, vaguely

520
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: accordion shaped reflective space balloon. Yeah, I mean, I think

521
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: you know the conclusion of his article is basically like,

522
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: maybe we could combine a little bit of idea number

523
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 1: three with idea number one and idea number five and

524
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: we can make this thing work out. But and never

525
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: and never never went up. So with this and uh

526
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: and some of these other applications of space mirrors, I mean, ultimately,

527
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: what you're getting down to is the manipulation of light. Uh,

528
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 1: not only in terms of illumination, but also as as

529
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 1: far as energy is concerned. And so really the applications

530
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 1: apply to any situation in which you would want to

531
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: redirect solar energy for propulsion, as we've mentioned, for observation,

532
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 1: as we've mentioned also just for the energy usage. You

533
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: could potentially use these mirrors to to refocus solar energy

534
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: onto some sort of a solar up into onto a

535
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: solar energy collector. And that's what I was thinking about,

536
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: is it if you wanted to get really serious about

537
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 1: solar panels. Again, the State of the Union was last

538
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 1: night and President Obama was talking a lot about solar energy.

539
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 1: Build something like this and have it just beamed down

540
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: the energy right at it. But I don't know that

541
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 1: if that's practical or not. Yeah, that's always the challenge

542
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:29,720
Speaker 1: with with solar energy, whether you're talking something with space

543
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: meters or just say passive solar home design. How do

544
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:38,960
Speaker 1: you best design the system so that you maximize uh,

545
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: the benefits of the solar energy harvesting? Uh, and that

546
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 1: it's not just some sort of you know, expensive plus

547
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: one right exactly. Yeah, I would assume that given the

548
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: costs involved. We've talked about how much it costs to

549
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 1: fly things up and out or space before, especially we

550
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: talked about space weapons and our rods from God episode.

551
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 1: Uh that I don't know if would if the cost

552
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: benefit analysis works out. Yeah, indeed. And now when you

553
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: start getting into that far future area, yeah, you know,

554
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: kind of like over it was discussing, you know, where

555
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 1: we already have the Moon base in place, and then

556
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: you can dream outward from that you get into a

557
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 1: lot of really far fetched and and and really remarkable

558
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: ideas about how you could use a space mirror. So,

559
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: what if you had a space mirror large enough to

560
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 1: reflect the Sun's rays back on itself in a in

561
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 1: a meaningful amount, say you know, a giant space mirror

562
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: position on the other side of the Sun perhaps uh,

563
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: from Earth. Could you essentially make the Sun into its

564
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: own solar sale and then you utilize this effect to

565
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: propel the solar system in the direction of your choice. Wait,

566
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 1: so the Solar system itself becomes a spaceship. Yeah, yeah,

567
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: that's kind of the idea here. And now it's definitely

568
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: a type to Cardassian civilization, uh concept. But yeah, the

569
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 1: idea is that if you had a basically a megastructure

570
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: in space, this big reflective megastructure, you would have what

571
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: is referred to as a class A stellar engine that

572
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: would use the impulse of the radiation emitted by a

573
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: star to produce thrust. And this is also called a

574
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 1: Shakadov thruster. I imagine navigating spaceship Milky Way or sorry,

575
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 1: not Milky Way, but spaceship Solar System would be extremely difficult.

576
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: The calculations involved, uh, would be mind blowing. Yeah. It

577
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 1: would definitely be the domain of a of a type too,

578
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: sumplation as opposed to us um And I think I've

579
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: seen this rolled out occasionally in sci fi. There's any

580
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: n Ebanks book where the the the Earth becomes threatened

581
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 1: by an orc cloud that is going to block out

582
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: most of the Sun's rays and so therefore it becomes

583
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 1: necessary to move the Solar system to to a different

584
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: location um or perhaps they merely move the Earth in

585
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:05,600
Speaker 1: that in that's in that particular novel. I'm having trouble

586
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 1: remembering off the top of my head. But yeah, when

587
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 1: you start talking about capturing all of the energy in

588
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: the solar system and the utilizing that, you're in this uh,

589
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: this type two level of far future technology, and I'm

590
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 1: just it's only just now dawning on me. I didn't

591
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:23,640
Speaker 1: even write down a note about this. And I don't

592
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: want to spoil the spoil the movie for anybody who

593
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 1: hasn't seen it yet. But there is something like this

594
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 1: in the new Star Wars movie. Okay, yeah, you haven't

595
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: seen I have not seen it yet. Plans keep falling apart.

596
00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: I don't know that it's mirrors necessarily, but they harness

597
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: the power of the sun. Okay, some sort of some

598
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 1: sort of solar super weapon. Then yeah, I'm the last

599
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: person on Earth too that that has not seen I

600
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 1: don't know about that. I'm sure that some of you

601
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 1: out there haven't seen it yet either. That's why I

602
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: don't want to go too far into it. But yeah,

603
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: but hey, that's one more thing I have to look

604
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,959
Speaker 1: forward to when I see the new Star Wars film.

605
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 1: So there you have it. We've We've rolled through just

606
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: a number of the key key points in the history

607
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 1: of space mirrors and some of their their actual and

608
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:08,360
Speaker 1: theoretical uses. But we're curious, you know, what else is

609
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 1: out there, what's popping around your your head when it

610
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: comes to either sci fi visions of space mirrors or

611
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 1: just sort of possible UH uses for them, Like, for instance,

612
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:22,319
Speaker 1: what about the possibility of using solar UH mirrors in

613
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: space to illuminate a particular growing area for crops. Yeah, yeah, right,

614
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 1: that seems like it would be a natural one. And

615
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: I didn't get the impression from either the German or

616
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: Russian designs that they were thinking along those lines. Yeah,

617
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: but you could essentially have your own It's like having

618
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 1: your own hydroponic growing area, except you could have just

619
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 1: an enormous field somewhere. All you need isn't is the

620
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,239
Speaker 1: oribital mite of a It's like you just gotta have

621
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: this multi billion dollar steaking up there. So yeah, if

622
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:54,359
Speaker 1: you if you have ideas about this or or more

623
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:56,839
Speaker 1: resources for us to follow up on, please let us know.

624
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: And you know, like I said at the top, we

625
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: are always of llable on social media Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler.

626
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: We don't just post our own stuff on there either.

627
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,880
Speaker 1: We like to uh curate a lot of the weird science,

628
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 1: the information that we find or across the web that

629
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:13,799
Speaker 1: we don't have time to put into our episodes. Yeah,

630
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: so follow us on those accounts, uh if you use them,

631
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:19,319
Speaker 1: and you can keep up keep up with us that way.

632
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 1: And hey, if you want to reach out to us directly,

633
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 1: you can always hit us up on email. That blow

634
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:36,839
Speaker 1: the mind at how stuff works dot com. Well more

635
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:39,719
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics How stuff works

636
00:35:39,760 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 1: dot com. Bla bla fine nine nine nine nine