WEBVTT - Save Your Spacebucks 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:15.480 Forward Thinking. Hey everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.000 podcast that looks at the future and says, the sun 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:19.959 and you and me and all the stars that we 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:22.160 can see are moving at a million miles a day. 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.440 I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Folkebon, and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:32.319 I'm totally paying attention. Alright, so we're we're here, we're 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:35.440 sitting around the microphones. I expect that means we're going 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.480 to talk about something space tourism again. I was about 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.760 to say we we literally just talked about space tourism, 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.239 but we didn't talk enough about money, the really exciting 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.320 part of space. Alright, Joe had mentioned that he was 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.760 upset that he wasn't able to afford it. Yeah, all 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:52.600 of the cool things I want to do are way 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.040 too expensive. Well, Joe, come on, give me a rundown. 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.040 What how what are we talking about with too expensive? Well, 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.800 just a few examples there were come and he's offering 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:04.160 suborbital space flight. And as a reminder, that's where you 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.280 sort of you go up in a spacecraft. It's pressurized 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:11.560 vehicle and you technically enter space, but you don't orbit 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.440 the Earth only just a ninety minute johnt Yeah, you 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:17.200 stay up there briefly, you experience a little bit of weightlessness, 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.200 you see the curvature of the Earth and the stars, 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.919 and that sounds really cool. But Virgin Galactic is citing 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.720 that that's going to cost you two dollars per person's 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:34.240 that's just the proposal. Yeah. Um, so there is orbital 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.160 space tourism, So that's where you would go up and 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.440 in a vehicle, say join with the space station like 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.640 the International Space Station, or maybe a little bit further 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.640 in the future with some kind of private space station. Um, 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.440 and you would orbit the Earth there. Trips like that 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.640 so far of cost in the range of fifty million. 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.600 It's pretty expensive. Yeah. If you want to go to 0:01:57.760 --> 0:01:59.880 the moon, and I totally want to go to the Moon, 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.680 it sounds great, doesn't it. Yeah, well it's going to 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.160 cost you seven fifty million dollars, or if you want 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:08.480 to take your wife with you or somebody else, I 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.880 don't know, it's going to be one point five billion 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:13.440 dollars for the two of you. I have so many 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:15.080 jokes I want to make right now, but I also 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.560 want to remain married, So I'm going to not joke 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:19.600 about going to the moon without my wife. Let's be 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.040 so sweet. Yeah, that would be a would be a 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:27.519 romantic vacation, Gray, Gray, romantic adventure. You could have another 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:35.840 honey moon. Congratulations sir, with across the line, with a quiet, 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:42.240 quiet disinterce in space. No one can hear your scowling disapproval. Okay. 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:47.399 So yeah, so expensive. There's no way anybody. I don't 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.440 know about y'all's personal financials, there's no way I could 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.840 ever ever afford to do this. And in fact, I 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.920 remember reading an interview actually it was more of a 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.560 more of a report that someone wrote about Richard Garriott, 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.320 who is the one member of the the space tourists 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.480 they hate that term, but the people, the private citizens 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.239 who have paid to go up in the space private restaurants. 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.680 He was the He's one that is considered to be 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:16.120 kind of an evangelist for for uh space exploration among 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:19.679 private citizens and um also the only one that I've 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.680 ever personally met. But he was saying that he felt 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.200 that that his work was going very far into the 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:30.519 democratization of space travel. And the person who wrote the 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.919 article critiqued that a little bit by saying, well, at 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.720 and at thirty million dollars to go up, that's not 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.680 really democratization you're talking. You know, Yes, you've opened it 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:41.600 up in that private citizens have gone up there, but 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.680 it's such a small number who can afford to that, 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.560 it's not really democratization. Well, so we should ask the question, 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.080 are these prices ever going to come down? And if so, 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.160 how how can we make it cheaper for the average 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:57.280 person to go to space. We need to know why 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.280 is it so expensive to start with the FRA In 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.360 order for it cannot be cheaper, we have to know 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:04.880 why is it so expensive? Yeah, so one of the 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.160 things is rockets, right, Yeah, they're not cheap. They're not cheap. 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.560 The American Space Shuttle Endeavor cost some one point seven 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:15.000 billion dollars to build um and NASA said that each 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.520 launch of it costs some four hundred and fifty millions. 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:19.479 And I gotta tell you, guys, the ice maker on 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:24.320 the Endeavor totally does not work. Yeah, it's just I 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:26.279 can't believe that you're in space. Can't you just stick 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:28.599 water out the window? You can't, You can't. I don't 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.919 recommend drawing sticking your whole arm outside the window. But 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:34.039 and and the thing is is that is that four 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.479 fifty million dollar expenditure is relatively low really when you 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.680 consider the lifetime cost of the entire program though, of 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.359 the Shuttle program overall, it's been estimated at a hundred 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:50.240 ninety two billion in two yeah. Yeah, and that would 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:54.120 put the average cost per launch from th at some 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:58.159 one point five billion dollars. Yeah. Now, if you're talking 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:02.159 about just launching a vehicle costs that much, that would 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:06.040 go a long way to explaining why a ticket aboard 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.680 any of these experiences would cost, you know, that huge 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.279 amount of money. You're you're not if you're talking about 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:16.600 paying a government agency. So, for example, the space the 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.440 private astronauts we talked about in the last episode, they 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.640 were all going through Space Adventures, which was coordinating with 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:25.880 the Russian Space Agency, right, While the Russian Space Agency 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.440 is a governmental agency that was looking to offset maintenance costs, 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:34.040 and so this for them was a way of offsetting 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:37.479 that that expense. Space Adventures obviously took some sort of cut. 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.479 We have no idea how much of a cut they took, 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:43.880 but they took a cut as as coordinating this whole 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.760 thing between the astronaut and the Russian Space Agency. But 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:50.880 if you're talking about a private company that is making 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:55.679 its main business as taking people from Earth into space, 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.599 they have to be able to offset all costs and 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:02.240 make a profit. Right. That's assuming that they're operating a 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:06.040 business the way we traditionally want a business to run, 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.560 which is that you are generating enough revenue to offset 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:10.120 all your costs so that you're making a profit at 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:11.760 the end of the day. Well, if you're talking about 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.320 something that's this expensive, that explains why those tickets had 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:16.440 to be so high. Well. And and people have given 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.359 a lot of flat to NASA about the amount that 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:21.640 they've spent on their Shuttle program. Um numbers aren't really 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.960 available for the Russian space Shuttle program. Russians are not 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.560 terribly communicative when it comes to that kind of thing. Yeah, 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:30.760 but they've been rumored to cost as little as forty 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.599 five to eighty million dollars per launch. That's uh, yeah, 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:37.320 significantly less money. Yeah. And and you know, like SpaceX 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.400 can send the Falcon nine. It advertises being able to 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:44.000 send the Falcon Um up for for sixty million or 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.120 under sixty million, even for the record space x is 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:52.520 one of the private space companies right right, Elon Musk founded, right, 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.440 although those are unmanned, um and they are still in 0:06:55.560 --> 0:07:00.040 testing phases for the manned Dragon capsules. Uh with it, 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.400 I mean it's it's you know, they they've got they're 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.320 supposedly going to be doing some safety tests as early 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.719 as Q two in so that's pretty exciting, But those 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.840 would still be unmanned because they're still not entirely sure 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:13.400 that the reason that they want to do some safety 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.080 tests is to make sure that um, if things start exploding, 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.120 that they can kind of throw the people to safety. 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:22.800 Sure this isn't an early stage and yeah, yeah, no, 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.400 it makes perfect sense. Yeah it. As it turns out, 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:30.880 rockets specifically are incredibly expensive. They're expensive to build, their 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.800 expensive of fuel, they're expensive to operate. Uh. When you 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.000 listen to our last podcast when we're talking about the 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:41.400 suborbital flights, and they were much lower in price. Part 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:43.560 of that is because you're talking about a lot of 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.360 aircraft that are launched from other aircraft. Right, They're not 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.320 the piggyback game. Yeah, exactly, they're not. They're not launching 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:52.560 from by a rocket from the surface of the Earth. 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.200 And then have to reach escape velocity and then get 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.360 out of Earth that way. So one of the big 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.240 expenses is not really a concern there, you know, you 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.440 don't have the have to worry about the rocket stuff. 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.920 So yeah, I mean, as it turns out, getting into 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.760 space pretty pricey, right, But this is a problem that 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:10.720 people are working on. I mean, it's it's to everyone's 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.120 advantage to to bring these costs down. Sure, yeah, yeah, 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.720 I mean everything from being able to do research and 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:21.640 development to other types of scientific endeavors. Obviously, if you're 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:24.600 able to lower that financial barrier, then you can do 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.200 a lot more stuff, right right, You can start actually 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:31.720 funding the projects, right instead of just getting them up there. Okay, 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.719 so so some of these high costs involved. I mean, 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:36.760 you know, first of all, the startup costs are just 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.920 absolutely crazy. I mean you have to be astronomical. Oh dear, um, 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:43.320 you have to worry about regulations. I mean, first we 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:46.200 have to build a regulation industry for this sort of thing. Yeah, well, 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.080 I mean startup that's a problem for any new technology, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.840 right when you talk about people to space, it's it's 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:55.040 more than doubly so but yes, well, there you have 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.480 to do extensive testing and stuff because you're dealing with 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:00.800 human safety. But with any new tech chnology, there's going 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.280 to be a problem with not not many other people 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.040 are doing this yet, so you don't have like a 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:08.280 lot of standardized parts you can use and stuff like that. Sure. 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.559 I mean like Elon Musk when he was working on SpaceX, 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:14.360 talked about how when they were first looking at getting 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:18.200 rockets from the Russian Space Agency, that they'd be quoted 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:20.640 a price for something like, you know, five rockets will 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:22.840 be twenty million dollars, and they would agree upon that price, 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:24.480 and then they would go to Russia and they would say, oh, no, 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.640 I'm sorry, it's twenty million dollars per rocket, and suddenly 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.839 your your prices quintupled. Right, You've not had a hundred 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.280 million to get those five rockets. And he said that 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:35.959 the problem is that there weren't a lot of other 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.120 places you could go. It's not like you had any alternatives. 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:41.400 You you had a very few number of players in 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.000 this game, so that was part of the problem. Although 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:48.160 he's definitely invested in SpaceX to try and work around 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.120 that now. Right, Sure, and and that's one of the 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.840 big things that people are talking about, getting you know, 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.520 allowing for multiple launch providers and vehicles, um, so that 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.000 you can cut down on on launch failure costs. For example, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:05.440 well about nine uh only about of launches are successful, um, 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.840 the the other ten percent having to be taken down 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:11.640 for a few days in order to uh, you know, 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:13.640 figure out what went wrong and to get it back 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:15.800 up there, get it up safely. So when we're saying 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:17.720 that there's a ten percent failure rate, we're not telling 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.360 catastrophic failure right, certainly not um, You're you're not looking 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.280 at the challenger happening of the time. Of course, then again, 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:29.800 a catastrophic failure on a rocket is much worse than 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.840 a catastrophic failure on a toaster. Yes, absolutely, And that 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:35.920 is one of those things that that one of the 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.240 reasons why testing is so expensive for this kind of thing. Um. 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.880 I mean also when you're dealing with equipment that has 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.760 cost you a few hundred million dollars to put together 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.040 and it does go wrong in testing, that's that's a 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.160 more that's a bigger setback than again a toaster. Um. 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:54.720 But but but once you get multiple manufacturers working in 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.839 this field, and uh, some some industry standards for how 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.600 to build these parts. Uh, you know, you're you're not 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.480 going to have the example of um, of a single 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:08.760 company creating all the parts for something like with NASA 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:12.040 back in the day. One of those big famous reasons 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.800 why stuff got so expensive for NASA so quickly was 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.440 that these companies that were making parts for them had 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.280 basically gone out of business and all other sectors. They 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.520 were only making parts of the Space program and uh, 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:25.760 and no one else had the technology to make them, 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.320 so they can determine what the prices NASA would have 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:31.960 to pay it because it wasn't an alternative. And and furthermore, 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:36.760 their costs of creating this stuff was we're way higher 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:38.920 than they otherwise would have been because they weren't doing 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:42.240 anything else to make income happen. Um. But you know, 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:44.040 there was that one time that I think NASA had 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:46.640 to buy some stuff on eBay because they ran out 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.480 of parts and no one was making them anymore. Yeah, 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:53.360 it's it's not not the most useful A lovely little 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.600 Yoda cookie Di Spenser. What they needed was like an 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.200 out of print grateful dead boot leg LP from the 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:03.760 nineties seventies, a lot of black light posters to go 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.199 aboard the I s we're very quickly disassembling this serious 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:11.240 podcast anyway. Yeah, but there there are other problems with 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:13.600 rocket launch, include the fact that you've got a lot 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:17.760 of like material and part waste in it, right, you 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.320 don't have enough reusable parts and materials. Like there's this 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.880 idea of the single stage to orbit rocket. You've heard 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.800 of this, right, that it's a single vehicle that can 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.959 launch itself into space without having to just basically throw 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.040 the rocket away and let it fall into the ocean. Yeah, 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.760 if you could get some reusable tanks for stuff like that, 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.880 then that would or or even better recycling processes would 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.200 be much better. But as far as i'm a where, 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.880 no technology like this has been even close to realize. No, 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.520 they're thinking really hard about it, but right now it's 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:54.079 it's all right in those early dangerous testing stages. Also, 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.960 just infrastructure, you know, we would need to add a 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.760 lot to either I mean to make it really cheap. 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:04.000 If could add something to existing airports or or spaceports 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:07.240 I guess um, uh, space centers, then that would help 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:09.439 out a lot. But you know, we don't have the 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:15.079 capacity to send tourist flights up. You know, one of 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.640 the ones I like to talk about is um Spaceport America, 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.240 which is in New Mexico. Real thing, Ill, I'm not joking, 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:27.199 yea Spaceport America. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, it's it's a thing. 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.080 So that would be a rare example. You guys are 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:32.960 looking at me like I'm crazy. It really is. Never 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.880 sounds like we're usually looking at you like you're crazy, 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.120 but it's it's really, it's really a spaceport that's been 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:44.800 built for commercial uh space endeavors. So it's you know, 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:47.840 look it up. It really, I've got believe you. So anyway, 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.120 it's it's um, that's a that's a rare example of 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.920 someone getting together, raising the money and building out something 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:59.880 from the ground up that is not an additive for 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:04.360 facility on something that pre exists. Right, So, like you're saying, 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:06.360 that's the exception of the rule because to do that 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.400 costs even more money, right to just build the place 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:13.400 where the spacecraft are gonna take off and land. Yeah. 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.920 So okay, So so people are working on solutions to 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.200 these problems, and Joe, I think that you had some 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:21.960 numbers on how that's going. Yeah, I'm gonna quote from 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.240 the abstract of a paper by Powell Maze and rather 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.400 that I'm going to refer to in a minute here. 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.320 But what they say is, quote, despite decades of efforts 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:36.440 to reduce rocket launch costs, improvements are marginal. Launch cost 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.320 for l e oh, for cargo is about ten thousand 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.880 dollars per kilogram of payload, and to hire orbit and 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.480 beyond much greater and human access to the I s 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.800 s still costs about twenty million dollars for a single passenger. 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.800 So that sounds like absolutely no progress at all, or 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.640 maybe marginal progress depending on inflation. Right, can you take 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.720 inflation into account? We have, uh, we have made progress, 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.960 but it is hard to illustrate because the actual amounts 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:07.920 it's like that race that you get that is almost 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:12.280 it's supposed to be that whole cost of living. Um. Yeah, 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.680 So all right, so this is depressing. What other alternatives 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.040 might we have to this whole really costly rocket business. 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:23.360 Well you might have seen that video of a frog 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.040 that had been on the side of the rocket and 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:28.440 tried to hitch a ride up. I don't recommend that 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:31.720 that that is still I I feel really bad for 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:34.400 that frog, and it is still one of my favorite photos. 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:41.800 So it's also still rocket, still rockets. But but but 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.840 if you're hitching a ride that's free, that's what hitching means. 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.240 There's no such thing as a free rocket. Okay, okay, 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:53.880 so non rocket space launch. How do you get into 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:58.240 space without a rocket? Well, being there already is great, 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.080 But be born and born on the surface of the 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.240 Earth from Earth to space, in fact, not just the space, 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:10.080 but to orbit, because that's what really matters. So right now, 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.040 we don't really have a way of doing that, but 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.480 we have several ways that kind of border between science 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:20.640 fiction and science fact. Like the principles we understand and 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:22.440 we think, you know, on paper, we can get them 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.160 to work. Whether we can ever make them practical is 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.560 a matter of engineering. Yeah, So we've got hundreds of 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.680 really interesting ideas on how to do this, but none 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.880 are proven. So space elevator obviously one of our favorites. 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:37.160 We've talked about this before on the show. Right. The 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:39.840 idea is that you've got a essentially a line that 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.520 is anchored at two points. One is on the surface 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.080 of the Earth, somewhere on the equator, and another one 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.840 is in on an anchor that's in orbit around the Earth. 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:51.720 So you've got this tether that connects the the anchor 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.160 point that's around orbit to the Earth to the Earth surface, 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.680 and then you have an elevator, a device that can 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:02.080 climb said tether from the surface of the Earth all 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.639 the way out to the anchor point out in space, 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.679 where you would then be able to launch off into 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.320 wherever you need to go at a much lower cost 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.880 of energy because you don't have to escape the Earth's gravity, 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:17.920 you don't have to have that escape velocity because the 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.479 elevator has done all that work for you. Yeah, and uh. 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.240 In contrast to the figures we cited a minute ago, 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:27.000 the numbers that usually float around or that people estimate 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:29.360 the space elevator would cost about a hundred to four 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.920 hundred dollars per pound, but significant total estimate, we don't 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.040 really know because there's nothing and we don't know how 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:39.640 expensive it would be to build. So when you take 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.840 into that that that lifetime cost or if it's even possible, 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.760 because we don't know that we can find anything that 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:50.359 will have the tent stile strength necessary to be able 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:54.680 to to provide that tether. And of course people really 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:58.240 like saying things about carbon nanotubes, so well, carbonano tubes 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:01.000 may not even have the tense stream. They are stronger 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:02.920 than diamond, but they may not have the tin cil 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:07.520 strength necessary to be a viable cable. There are some 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:12.200 other possible alternatives that are even stronger than carbon nanotubes, 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:16.200 but all of those are are uh materials that are 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.200 so experimental that we're able to Yeah, you're able to 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.640 produce like a one atom thick strand of it, which 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:28.040 obviously would not work for something like an elevator tether. Okay, 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.160 are there any cookie non rocket launch ideas out there 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.920 that don't involve exotic materials of something? Heard? Let me 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.960 talk about a launch loop. A launch loop. Yeah, this 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:40.760 was one that I had to read. I had to 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:44.920 read for about an hour. It sounds so crazy, it's 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:49.159 pretty crazy. So alright, so a launch loop, imagine that 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.840 you've got a really long um they call it a sheath. 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:55.639 Think of it as a a tube. It's an enclosed 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.000 tube in which you are able to create a vacuum. 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:00.760 So it's a hyper loop to space. Hyper loop to 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:04.720 space is it's not totally wrong, but that's a little 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:07.119 it's a little different. You don't have a little air 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:09.720 air bearings to go on. So yeah, but think of 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:11.840 a tube. So you've got a tube that's got a 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:15.720 vacuum inside of it. Uh. And also inside this tube 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.679 is a second tube. This tube is made out of iron. 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.920 It's called a rotor and it's uh. You use magnets 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.919 so that it ends up being suspended within the first tube, right, 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.040 because irons, you know, uh, ferrest materials. You should do that. 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.600 So you you create this system where the iron is 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:37.639 essentially floating within the confines of this sheath. Then you 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:42.240 use electro magnets, linear motors essentially to start um spinning 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:46.440 that iron rotor within the sheath. Once it starts spinning, 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.080 that's going to create angular momentum, which will actually cause 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:53.440 the sheath to rise up into the air if you 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.840 start spinning it fast enough. We're talking super fast, so 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:01.520 fast that uh for a four thoul in kilometer length 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:06.000 sheath in in one loop, uh, the iron would make 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:09.760 a full revolution in six minutes for four thousand kilometers UM. 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.159 That's really fast. So you're going super fast at that 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:18.080 speed it rises up this this it's anchored at the 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.199 on the earth at two points um. Some cables actually 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.600 are also anchoring it so it doesn't fly into the 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:28.520 wrong shape it eventually, at around eighty kilometers, ends up 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:30.760 becoming more or less parallel to the ground. It also 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.600 has to be somewhere close to the equator, probably on 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.520 the ocean somewhere. Uh. You would have two stations that 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.440 would be elevated, UH, the East station in the West station. 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:43.560 You would travel from the west to the east. So 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:45.400 the way this would work is, first you would catch 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:48.800 essentially what would amount to be an elevator UH that 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.480 would climb the cable up until you got to the 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.119 West station. For the West station, you would then board 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:57.359 a capsule which would they be propelled across the length 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.520 of the of the the cable that's like two thousand 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.879 kilometers long. At this point toward the East station. Along 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:07.440 the way, you would reach orbital velocity and be released 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.639 out into space, where then you would use whatever your 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:15.000 capsule's UH propulsion mechanism is to orient yourself properly and 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:19.159 then go on your mary little way. UM. This sounds 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.359 crazy to me because the amount of energy you would 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:27.240 need to move that much iron, essentially four thousand kilometers 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:31.639 of iron that fast, would be equivalent to what you 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:35.240 would see in a nuclear explosion. UH. You would be 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:39.600 using these really super powerful linear motors to to achieve that. 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.280 But I can't imagine where you get all that power, 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:47.240 And if something bad happens, I can't imagine what the 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:49.159 fallout would be. And now granted it would not be 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:52.800 a nuclear explosion, there's no nuclear reaction going on with 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:56.000 this purely physical. Also, you would have to worry about 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:00.520 heat if any leak happened along that sheath. Uh an 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.960 air got in those little bitty air molecules which would 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.400 seem to be harmless to anybody, are going to interact 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.120 with that rotor moving at incredible speeds, generate tons of heat, 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.639