WEBVTT - The Evening Rocket: Planet B 0:00:16.115 --> 0:00:16.595 Pushkin. 0:00:21.915 --> 0:00:25.075 You are looking at a live view of the Falcon Heavy. 0:00:25.955 --> 0:00:30.395 In twenty eighteen, Elon Musk's company SpaceX launched a rocket 0:00:30.395 --> 0:00:33.715 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida under blue skies 0:00:33.915 --> 0:00:37.955 streaked with clouds. A giant white rocket attached to two 0:00:37.995 --> 0:00:41.395 smaller white boosters stood perched on the launch pad. 0:00:41.715 --> 0:00:43.955 All systems are Golfer launch. 0:00:44.395 --> 0:00:47.915 A crowd assembled at mission control giddy and loud. This 0:00:48.075 --> 0:00:51.595 was the company's splashiest launch yet of its biggest rocket 0:00:52.115 --> 0:00:54.155 built for a Mars crossing orbit. 0:00:54.595 --> 0:00:58.275 Stacked inside the firing is Elon's cherry red Tesla Roadster. 0:00:58.795 --> 0:01:01.795 Then there was the payload described by SpaceX in its 0:01:01.835 --> 0:01:03.315 live broadcast. 0:01:02.795 --> 0:01:05.595 And inside of it a passenger. His name is Starman, 0:01:05.795 --> 0:01:07.075 but don't worry, he's not human. 0:01:07.795 --> 0:01:10.595 There was also an arc, a sort of Noah's Ark 0:01:10.635 --> 0:01:14.675 of an archive on a space Proof Courts compact disc. 0:01:15.115 --> 0:01:17.355 On the arc that's being launched today. The Foundation has 0:01:17.395 --> 0:01:21.155 stored Isaac Asimov's classic sci fi series, the Foundation Trilogy. 0:01:21.755 --> 0:01:24.075 One objective of this test flight was to put a 0:01:24.195 --> 0:01:28.075 Tesla Roadster carrying the works of Isaac Asimov into orbit 0:01:28.435 --> 0:01:29.595 for a billion. 0:01:29.315 --> 0:01:31.195 Years three two. 0:01:48.195 --> 0:01:52.075 Welcome to X Man The Elon Musk origin story. I'm 0:01:52.155 --> 0:01:55.195 Jill Lapour. I'm a professor at Harvard. I'm a US 0:01:55.315 --> 0:01:58.235 political historian, and for a long time I've been studying 0:01:58.235 --> 0:02:03.555 the relationship between technological and political change. I'm fascinated by 0:02:03.635 --> 0:02:07.555 visions of the future in political discourse, in literature and 0:02:07.675 --> 0:02:14.875 science fiction, and even common bucks. The series, I'm exploring 0:02:14.915 --> 0:02:20.515 a new kind of capitalism, call it Muskism, extravagant extreme capitalism, 0:02:20.915 --> 0:02:24.635 extra terrestrial capitalism, where stock prices can be driven by 0:02:24.675 --> 0:02:32.595 dreams and fantasies that come from science fiction. Last episode, 0:02:32.915 --> 0:02:35.995 I looked at Musk's early life in South Africa, growing 0:02:36.075 --> 0:02:39.355 up reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He ended 0:02:39.395 --> 0:02:42.355 up in Silicon Valley in the nineteen nineties, founding a 0:02:42.395 --> 0:02:46.515 company called x dot com that merged with PayPal. eBay 0:02:46.595 --> 0:02:50.515 bought PayPal for one point five billion dollars. Musk use 0:02:50.555 --> 0:02:54.715 that money to start SpaceX. He also started talking about 0:02:54.875 --> 0:02:58.315 very big plans for the future of humanity. 0:02:58.755 --> 0:03:01.635 When I was in the university, I thought about what 0:03:01.875 --> 0:03:04.915 would most affect the future of the world, and the 0:03:04.955 --> 0:03:07.635 three areas that I came up with the Internet, sustainable 0:03:07.715 --> 0:03:10.315 energy and making life multiplanet. 0:03:09.915 --> 0:03:13.395 Terry Musk began to argue that his plan was to 0:03:13.475 --> 0:03:17.955 save the human race, including by going to Mars. But 0:03:18.115 --> 0:03:21.915 why future of humanity questions used to belong to religion 0:03:22.075 --> 0:03:27.435 and philosophy. Under Muskism, they belonged to engineering and entrepreneurship. 0:03:28.235 --> 0:03:33.395 How did that happen? This episode of X Man is 0:03:33.395 --> 0:03:37.675 called Planet b strap in to head to Mars, which 0:03:37.675 --> 0:03:40.275 is where Elon Musk was headed before he took a 0:03:40.315 --> 0:03:43.875 detour to the White House. In twenty sixteen, the year 0:03:43.955 --> 0:03:47.395 Donald Trump was elected president for the first time, Musk 0:03:47.475 --> 0:03:50.395 spoke to an audience at a SpaceX event about the 0:03:50.395 --> 0:03:51.915 ship he'd like to take to Mars. 0:03:52.315 --> 0:03:54.555 I think like maybe the name of the first ship 0:03:54.755 --> 0:03:55.755 that goes to Mars. 0:03:56.155 --> 0:03:59.635 My current favorite is Heart of Gold from The Hitchhiker's 0:03:59.635 --> 0:04:01.475 Guide to the Galaxy, and. 0:04:01.395 --> 0:04:04.635 I like the fact that it's driven by infinite improbability. 0:04:05.155 --> 0:04:07.915 I think ourship is also extremely improbable. 0:04:08.515 --> 0:04:11.995 One pretty useful way of understanding Musk's vision for SpaceX 0:04:12.075 --> 0:04:15.555 is that it's Douglas Adams fan fiction. Or you could 0:04:15.555 --> 0:04:19.355 make a fair argument that SpaceX's inspiration comes from the 0:04:19.395 --> 0:04:20.355 Foundation series. 0:04:21.715 --> 0:04:30.955 Titally Foundation author Isaac Asimos Encyclopedia Galactica one hundred and 0:04:30.995 --> 0:04:31.715 sixteenth edition. 0:04:33.515 --> 0:04:38.035 This Encyclopedia Galactica runs through all the Foundation Series, and 0:04:38.115 --> 0:04:41.795 if that sounds familiar, that's because the Hitchhiker's Guide is 0:04:41.795 --> 0:04:42.755 a lampoon of it. 0:04:43.235 --> 0:04:47.915 The Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the Great Encyclopedic Galactica 0:04:47.955 --> 0:04:51.875 as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom because, 0:04:51.915 --> 0:04:55.555 although it has many omissions contains much that is apocryphal 0:04:55.755 --> 0:04:59.315 or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, 0:04:59.595 --> 0:05:04.075 more pedestrian work in two important ways. First, it is 0:05:04.195 --> 0:05:08.675 slightly cheaper, and second, it has the words don't Panic 0:05:08.795 --> 0:05:11.635 inscribed in large, much friendly letters on the cover. 0:05:12.555 --> 0:05:15.155 That Tesla roadster that must send up into space had 0:05:15.195 --> 0:05:18.795 a copy of Asimov inside, and it also had don't 0:05:18.835 --> 0:05:23.995 Panic on its dashboard. Asimov's Foundation Series revolves around a 0:05:24.035 --> 0:05:26.835 scholar named Harry Selden. 0:05:26.795 --> 0:05:29.875 W Nine hundred and eighty eight years of the Galactic 0:05:29.915 --> 0:05:32.755 Event died twelve sixty nine. 0:05:33.315 --> 0:05:39.435 Birthplace Heliconnor of Toardus sector. Harry Selden is responsible for 0:05:39.475 --> 0:05:43.795 the future of humanity. His plan Engineers will save us 0:05:44.635 --> 0:05:47.955 Selden knows that the Galactic Empire will soon collapse, after 0:05:47.995 --> 0:05:50.795 which the galaxy will endure a dark age. He's got 0:05:50.795 --> 0:05:53.595 a plan to hide away two sets of experts, one 0:05:53.675 --> 0:05:56.515 at each end of the galaxy, the two Foundations, to 0:05:56.555 --> 0:06:00.675 store the knowledge of civilization. Elon Musk read the story 0:06:00.715 --> 0:06:02.915 as a kid, and later said that the lesson he 0:06:02.995 --> 0:06:05.475 drew from it was that you should try to take 0:06:05.515 --> 0:06:08.475 the set of actions that are likely to prolong civilization, 0:06:08.915 --> 0:06:11.995 to minimize the probability of a dark age, and reduce 0:06:12.075 --> 0:06:18.555 the length of a dark age. If there is one 0:06:21.755 --> 0:06:28.115 anxiety about the imminent end of civilization. Existential catastrophism is 0:06:28.155 --> 0:06:32.875 an essential feature of Muskism. Humanity, in this understanding of 0:06:32.875 --> 0:06:37.355 the world is always at risk of extinction. Entrepreneurs and 0:06:37.475 --> 0:06:39.475 engineers are trying to save us. 0:06:39.475 --> 0:06:39.675 All. 0:06:40.355 --> 0:06:43.075 I got to wondering where this idea came from. When 0:06:43.075 --> 0:06:46.235 did people begin worrying about human extinction? 0:06:46.995 --> 0:06:49.595 That's a good question, So it depends on what you 0:06:49.795 --> 0:06:51.115 mean by worrying. 0:06:51.795 --> 0:06:55.475 That's Thomas moynihan, author of the twenty twenty book X Risk, 0:06:55.715 --> 0:06:59.795 How Humanity Discovered its own extinction. I called it moynihan 0:06:59.835 --> 0:07:01.915 to ask him about the history of the panic. Don't 0:07:01.955 --> 0:07:05.715 panic about human extinction, which is different from a religious 0:07:05.715 --> 0:07:07.515 worry about the coming apocalypse. 0:07:07.715 --> 0:07:11.875 The apocalypse scures a senseiment ending, where extinction anticipates the 0:07:11.955 --> 0:07:12.755 ending of sense. 0:07:13.235 --> 0:07:17.115 According to Moynan, people started worrying about human extinction sometime 0:07:17.155 --> 0:07:21.475 in the eighteenth century during the Enlightenment, partly because scientists 0:07:21.715 --> 0:07:25.875 studying fossils had begun to observe and to document the 0:07:25.995 --> 0:07:31.395 extinction of other species, like dinosaurs. This fascinated romantic poets. 0:07:31.875 --> 0:07:36.755 Byron himself refers to using steam engines to deflect incoming 0:07:36.795 --> 0:07:39.715 asteroids and stop them from wiping out humanity. 0:07:40.355 --> 0:07:43.995 Mary Shelley, a decade after she wrote Frankenstein, wrote The 0:07:44.115 --> 0:07:48.235 Last Man, the first novel in English that imagines human 0:07:48.275 --> 0:07:52.435 extinction by way of a global pandemic. By the end 0:07:52.475 --> 0:07:55.435 of the nineteenth century, you get science fiction that imagines 0:07:55.435 --> 0:07:58.155 a risk coming from other planets. 0:07:58.515 --> 0:08:00.675 Nothing out of the shadow, like a gray snake. 0:08:01.355 --> 0:08:04.075 Martians came to Earth in H. G. Wells's eighteen ninety 0:08:04.115 --> 0:08:07.355 eight novel War of the World, But as morning Hand 0:08:07.355 --> 0:08:10.555 points out, Wells also thought of other plants as a 0:08:10.555 --> 0:08:12.075 way to avoid human extinction. 0:08:12.395 --> 0:08:14.675 Thankies a gentleman, sind describers, I can highly force myself 0:08:14.715 --> 0:08:15.035 to keep. 0:08:14.955 --> 0:08:17.075 Working at it. At the end of War of the 0:08:17.075 --> 0:08:23.275 World's he mentions that humanity might be able to migrate 0:08:23.315 --> 0:08:26.155 to Venus in the long term, and that would somehow 0:08:26.635 --> 0:08:29.075 prolong the lifespan of civilization. 0:08:29.795 --> 0:08:32.915 But of course, early science fiction emerged during an era 0:08:33.155 --> 0:08:38.235 of imperialism. After all, as Cecil Rhodes himself said, I 0:08:38.235 --> 0:08:39.995 would annex the planets. 0:08:39.515 --> 0:08:40.075 If I could. 0:08:45.155 --> 0:08:45.435 HG. 0:08:45.475 --> 0:08:48.955 Wells wasn't actually promoting a colony on Venus. He was 0:08:48.995 --> 0:08:52.395 opposing British colonies on Earth. He began War of the 0:08:52.435 --> 0:08:56.875 Worlds by talking about British colonial expansion into Tasmania, writing 0:08:56.915 --> 0:09:00.275 that the Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were 0:09:00.435 --> 0:09:03.395 entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination 0:09:03.835 --> 0:09:06.995 waged by European immigrants in the space of fifty years. 0:09:07.355 --> 0:09:09.835 Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain? And 0:09:09.915 --> 0:09:14.155 if the Martians warred in the same spirit, the line 0:09:14.235 --> 0:09:17.635 from Welles to Musk is a line of rupture to 0:09:17.715 --> 0:09:21.875 recycle age of imperialism. Science fiction absent the criticism of 0:09:21.915 --> 0:09:28.955 imperialism is to erase history. Moynan argues that in the 0:09:28.955 --> 0:09:32.475 middle decades of the twentieth century, fears of human extinction 0:09:32.595 --> 0:09:36.235 got ratcheted up after Harshima and during the Cold War, 0:09:36.675 --> 0:09:41.035 with its concern about nuclear armageddon. The danger was an 0:09:41.075 --> 0:09:45.835 alien invasion, the danger was us. By the nineteen eighties, 0:09:46.035 --> 0:09:49.155 people concerned about what's come to be called existential risk, 0:09:49.755 --> 0:09:53.275 especially people fighting for arms control, came up with some 0:09:53.395 --> 0:09:56.155 fancy calculations to try to win the argument. 0:09:56.675 --> 0:09:59.755 We shouldn't be thinking about human extinction as just the 0:09:59.755 --> 0:10:02.355 death of the seven billion people that are currently alive. 0:10:02.835 --> 0:10:06.475 We need to think about it more as the foreclosure 0:10:06.595 --> 0:10:09.715 of all the future generations of people that could have been, 0:10:09.795 --> 0:10:11.235 who could have had worthwhile lives. 0:10:11.835 --> 0:10:16.755 This idea really took off. This to me strange calculation 0:10:17.395 --> 0:10:20.235 by which our lives, the lives of everyone here on Earth, 0:10:20.755 --> 0:10:23.115 just don't amount too much compared to the lives of 0:10:23.195 --> 0:10:26.155 all the future beings who won't live if we don't 0:10:26.275 --> 0:10:30.515 establish colonies on other planets. Then, in the nineteen nineties, 0:10:30.635 --> 0:10:33.675 moynihan says, a lot of tech people involved in early 0:10:33.715 --> 0:10:37.915 message boards came together to really panic about a long 0:10:38.075 --> 0:10:39.795 list of existential risks. 0:10:40.195 --> 0:10:46.035 Asteroid or comet impact, super volcanic eruptions, stellar explosions, nuclear war, 0:10:46.475 --> 0:10:49.315 climate degradation, and then one that also gets a lot 0:10:49.315 --> 0:10:51.635 of attention as well is artificial intelligence. 0:10:52.235 --> 0:10:54.795 At the time this list was growing on tech message boards, 0:10:55.155 --> 0:10:57.875 Elon Musk was in college and then in Silicon Valley 0:10:58.155 --> 0:11:04.915 developing his sense of mission. A few years back, Bernie 0:11:04.955 --> 0:11:08.315 Sanders tweeted, We're in a moment in history where two guys, 0:11:08.355 --> 0:11:11.315 Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, own more wealth than the 0:11:11.315 --> 0:11:15.435 bottom forty percent of people in this country. Musk tweeted back, 0:11:16.075 --> 0:11:19.395 I am accumulating resources to help make life interplanetary and 0:11:19.475 --> 0:11:23.955 extend the light of consciousness to the stars. Not everyone 0:11:23.995 --> 0:11:27.635 thinks Musk and Bezos are heroically saving humanity from extinction. 0:11:28.315 --> 0:11:31.035 My question is why do they think they're doing that. 0:11:32.915 --> 0:11:36.355 Jeff Bezos was born in New Mexico in nineteen sixty four. 0:11:37.275 --> 0:11:40.875 Both he and Elon Musk grew up on stories about 0:11:40.915 --> 0:11:44.715 the Apollo eleven moon landing. The US ended its moon 0:11:44.755 --> 0:11:48.635 program in nineteen seventy two, Bezos, a Star Trek fan, 0:11:49.035 --> 0:11:52.315 always wanted to go back to the moon. Musk tells 0:11:52.315 --> 0:11:54.555 a story about how, as a kid he went to 0:11:54.555 --> 0:11:57.355 the NASA website to look up the schedule for going 0:11:57.395 --> 0:12:02.955 to Mars, and was disappointed to find there wasn't one. 0:12:02.995 --> 0:12:06.755 In nineteen sixty four, NASA had launched the Mariner for Probe, 0:12:07.115 --> 0:12:09.715 the first spacecraft to fly by Mars. 0:12:10.115 --> 0:12:13.675 The great question is what will matter no reveal, of course, 0:12:13.715 --> 0:12:16.795 the possibility of life on Mars has been debated for 0:12:16.835 --> 0:12:20.355 many years. A faint lines seen on the surface have 0:12:20.995 --> 0:12:23.755 led to the idea that these were canals dug by 0:12:23.755 --> 0:12:26.315 the Martians. But I don't think anybody gives that far 0:12:26.435 --> 0:12:27.035 these days. 0:12:27.235 --> 0:12:29.995 The Probe sent back twenty one photographs unveiled at the 0:12:30.035 --> 0:12:34.275 White House before Lyndon Johnson, but the photographs revealed a barren, 0:12:34.595 --> 0:12:38.795 dusty wasteland, all but crushing any hope. As Johnson said 0:12:39.275 --> 0:12:42.715 that there was life on Mars, it may be. 0:12:42.795 --> 0:12:47.715 It may just be that life as we know it, 0:12:49.635 --> 0:12:56.875 with its humanity, is more unique than many have thought. 0:12:58.195 --> 0:13:01.195 That view of Mars started to change in the nineteen nineties, 0:13:01.755 --> 0:13:05.795 which marked a convergence. Tech types had become consumed with 0:13:05.835 --> 0:13:09.995 the possibility of human extinction. Jeff Bezos and e On 0:13:10.075 --> 0:13:13.195 Musk were starting to make millions, even billions of dollars 0:13:13.835 --> 0:13:16.835 and writers and scientists had begun to imagine ways Mars 0:13:17.115 --> 0:13:20.715 could be made habitable. The science fiction writer Kim Stanley 0:13:20.795 --> 0:13:24.555 Robinson published the Mars Trilogy, in which scientists from Earth 0:13:24.715 --> 0:13:29.035 have terraformed Mars. In nineteen ninety eight, an aerospace engineer 0:13:29.155 --> 0:13:32.635 named Robert Zubrin published a book called The Case for Mars. 0:13:33.155 --> 0:13:36.195 There's three reasons why Mars. 0:13:35.955 --> 0:13:40.715 Should be the goal of our space program, and in short, 0:13:40.835 --> 0:13:43.395 it's because Mars is where the sciences, it's where the challenges, 0:13:43.435 --> 0:13:44.515 and it's where the future is. 0:13:44.955 --> 0:13:48.315 Bezos founded his space company Blue Origin in the year 0:13:48.395 --> 0:13:53.195 two thousand. Musk started SpaceX two years later. In the 0:13:53.235 --> 0:13:57.715 two and a half decades since, despite painful setbacks, SpaceX 0:13:57.755 --> 0:14:02.595 has been an engineering wonder, a juggernaut revitalizing space exploration. 0:14:03.435 --> 0:14:05.755 But even as the richest men on this planet were 0:14:05.755 --> 0:14:09.275 thinking about traveling to other planets, more and more Earthlings 0:14:09.355 --> 0:14:11.835 where we'reried about life here on Earth. 0:14:12.475 --> 0:14:15.395 Five million students around the world took to the streets 0:14:15.395 --> 0:14:18.835 and a climate strike Last Friday. Students flood of the 0:14:18.875 --> 0:14:22.595 streets with a clear message, there is no planet B. 0:14:23.475 --> 0:14:26.555 Well, Musk and Bezos were building rockets. There is no 0:14:26.715 --> 0:14:30.995 planet B. Became the motto of the environmental movement, a 0:14:31.035 --> 0:14:35.115 way for people to say that space exploration not only 0:14:35.195 --> 0:14:38.555 fails to address the risk of human extinction, but is 0:14:38.635 --> 0:14:42.555 instead part of the problem. Even Kim Stanley Robinson took 0:14:42.595 --> 0:14:43.235 this line. 0:14:43.435 --> 0:14:46.155 I still speak positively about us going to Mars and 0:14:46.235 --> 0:14:49.675 even perhaps some day terraforming Mars, but it's a project 0:14:49.715 --> 0:14:53.715 for like the year three thousand a d. What I 0:14:53.795 --> 0:14:56.555 feel I have to say now is to remind people 0:14:56.835 --> 0:14:59.835 there is no planet b. It's not simple, it's not fast, 0:14:59.915 --> 0:15:02.395 it isn't going to happen anytime soon, and so we 0:15:02.435 --> 0:15:04.475 can't be thinking that Earth is disposable. 0:15:04.915 --> 0:15:08.195 About twenty years ago, Elon must began to change the 0:15:08.235 --> 0:15:10.555 way he talked about going to Mars. 0:15:10.995 --> 0:15:13.355 Have we screwed it up so badly here on this 0:15:13.435 --> 0:15:16.675 planet that our only hope is to build a new 0:15:16.995 --> 0:15:19.915 civilization out there? No, not at all. I Actually I'm 0:15:19.955 --> 0:15:22.315 quite optimistic about the future of humanity on Earth. So 0:15:22.395 --> 0:15:26.035 what is the benefit to humanity then to inhabit Mars. Well, 0:15:26.075 --> 0:15:28.035 I think if you consider two paths, one where we're 0:15:28.075 --> 0:15:29.955 forever confined to Earth, and the other where we are 0:15:29.995 --> 0:15:32.955 space frank civilization out exploring the Stars. I think the 0:15:33.035 --> 0:15:34.315 latter is far more exciting. 0:15:34.795 --> 0:15:37.955 SpaceX is about taking science fiction stories and turning them 0:15:37.995 --> 0:15:41.235 into fact. But what if SpaceX is actually fulfilling the 0:15:41.315 --> 0:15:44.675 vision of dystopian science fiction by way of Muskism, not 0:15:44.715 --> 0:15:49.555 only as extraterrestrial capitalism, but as a new political order. 0:15:56.275 --> 0:15:59.475 Isaac Asimov's Foundation series first appeared as a book in 0:15:59.595 --> 0:16:03.355 nineteen fifty one, but a more prophetic science fiction story 0:16:03.395 --> 0:16:06.955 about money and politics and the future of humanity came 0:16:06.955 --> 0:16:08.155 out in nineteen fifty two. 0:16:09.955 --> 0:16:14.475 Merchants, Frederick Poles and C. M. Cornbliss's modern classic about 0:16:14.475 --> 0:16:18.795 the future when the wizards of high pressure salesmanship take over. 0:16:21.035 --> 0:16:25.155 The Space Merchants is dystopian science fiction, later made into 0:16:25.155 --> 0:16:28.835 a radio drama. The story opens on a blighted, depleted, 0:16:28.995 --> 0:16:32.555 overcrowded Earth had a board meeting of an advertising agency 0:16:32.795 --> 0:16:34.955 called Fouler shockun. 0:16:34.675 --> 0:16:38.595 Associates, gentlemen, Good morning, good morning. 0:16:38.675 --> 0:16:39.555 That's the shotgun. 0:16:39.875 --> 0:16:42.315 Now sit down, sit down. I'm going to stand for 0:16:42.355 --> 0:16:44.675 a moment. I have just come back on the Moon rocket. 0:16:44.715 --> 0:16:46.275 As you know, I want to streatch my legs. 0:16:46.875 --> 0:16:50.315 How he alright, there's a shockun. 0:16:50.235 --> 0:16:53.835 Gentlemen, I am proud, and I'm humble when I say 0:16:53.835 --> 0:16:56.715 it's successful. The mining ventures are bringing the people here 0:16:56.755 --> 0:16:59.875 on Earth many of the metals our forefathers exhausted long ago. 0:17:00.475 --> 0:17:03.995 The colonist seemed quite untouched by the Kanci revolutionists, only 0:17:04.195 --> 0:17:06.595 six instances of kanci' sabitage in the past week. 0:17:08.235 --> 0:17:11.915 On this desperate, dying earth, Fowler Shakun is worried about 0:17:12.115 --> 0:17:17.035 Conci's conservationists, or what we'd call environmentalists gentlemen. 0:17:17.115 --> 0:17:19.435 On my trip back from the Moon, I begin to 0:17:19.595 --> 0:17:24.715 wonder are we getting soft? But now I've decided, Fowler 0:17:24.795 --> 0:17:28.235 Shotgun Associates is not soft, that it's ready to meet 0:17:28.275 --> 0:17:31.035 a challenge greater than our development of the Moon, the 0:17:31.155 --> 0:17:34.235 greatest challenge the world of advertising and promotion has ever met. 0:17:34.595 --> 0:17:38.515 The colonizing of Beabus. 0:17:38.755 --> 0:17:42.035 The Space Merchants wasn't the first version of this dystopian vision. 0:17:42.675 --> 0:17:45.195 In his story from nineteen oh one with the excellent 0:17:45.275 --> 0:17:49.035 title to Mars with Tesla, that is, with Nikola Tesla, 0:17:49.595 --> 0:17:52.315 a guy advertising a rocket trip to Mars turns out 0:17:52.315 --> 0:17:55.395 to be a con man. In twenty twenty two, in 0:17:55.475 --> 0:17:59.755 Fowler Shokun Fashion, SpaceX was involved in the first fully 0:17:59.835 --> 0:18:03.955 private entirely for profit mission to the International Space Station. 0:18:04.675 --> 0:18:08.755 It carried three space tourists, paying fifty five million dollars 0:18:08.795 --> 0:18:12.435 each for a seven seventeen day trip. The Washington Post 0:18:12.435 --> 0:18:15.195 has reported that SpaceX might be involved in a project 0:18:15.195 --> 0:18:18.835 to build the first hotel in space. Next up, the 0:18:18.955 --> 0:18:25.755 Red Planet buzzed back to the past to the US 0:18:25.875 --> 0:18:30.195 presidential election year of twenty twelve. During that year's contest 0:18:30.235 --> 0:18:34.395 for the Republican nomination, moderates like Mitt Romney said a 0:18:34.435 --> 0:18:36.755 plan to go to the Moon was crazy. 0:18:37.115 --> 0:18:38.875 I spent twenty five years in business. 0:18:39.475 --> 0:18:41.515 If I had a business executive. 0:18:40.995 --> 0:18:42.395 Come to me and say they want to spend a 0:18:42.435 --> 0:18:44.915 few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on. 0:18:44.875 --> 0:18:46.315 The Moon, I'd say you're fired. 0:18:47.755 --> 0:18:50.155 The idea that corporate America wants to go off to 0:18:50.195 --> 0:18:51.755 the Moon and build a colony there. 0:18:52.035 --> 0:18:53.435 It may be a big idea, but it's not a 0:18:53.475 --> 0:18:53.955 good idea. 0:18:54.355 --> 0:18:58.395 But far right Republicans like Newt Gingrich endorse this idea. 0:18:58.675 --> 0:19:00.755 I'll tell you I do not want to be the 0:19:00.795 --> 0:19:03.915 country that, having gotten to the moon first turned around 0:19:03.995 --> 0:19:05.435 and said it doesn't really matter. 0:19:05.755 --> 0:19:07.515 Let the Chinese dominate space. 0:19:07.595 --> 0:19:08.475 What do we care? 0:19:08.955 --> 0:19:13.235 During the US residential election year of twenty sixteen. Gingrich 0:19:13.475 --> 0:19:17.155 was one of Trump's closest advisors. Then, in the weeks 0:19:17.155 --> 0:19:21.075 between Trump's election and his inauguration, Elon Musk and Jeff 0:19:21.115 --> 0:19:24.235 Bezos both went to see him in Trump Tower. In 0:19:24.315 --> 0:19:28.115 twenty seventeen, after Trump took office, people started talking about 0:19:28.195 --> 0:19:31.675 moon fever. As one commentator put it, Trump wanted to 0:19:31.715 --> 0:19:36.275 make the Moon American again. Americans, though, weren't much behind 0:19:36.315 --> 0:19:39.395 this project. A poll found that sixty three percent of 0:19:39.435 --> 0:19:43.955 Americans wanted NASA to focus instead on climate research. Only 0:19:43.995 --> 0:19:47.355 thirteen percent favored another trip to the moon. But this 0:19:47.435 --> 0:19:48.395 didn't stop Trump. 0:19:48.795 --> 0:19:52.955 Thank you very much, Vice President Pence for helping. Where's 0:19:52.955 --> 0:19:58.595 our vice president? Great job? To restore American leadership in space. 0:19:58.955 --> 0:20:01.755 Trump directed NASA to alter its schedule and make a 0:20:01.835 --> 0:20:04.035 priority of sending Americans. 0:20:03.515 --> 0:20:03.995 To the Moon. 0:20:04.395 --> 0:20:07.075 Our journey into space will not only make us stronger 0:20:07.115 --> 0:20:10.875 and more prosperous, but will unite it us behind grand 0:20:10.955 --> 0:20:14.475 ambitions and bring us all closer together. 0:20:14.635 --> 0:20:15.875 Wouldn't that be nice? 0:20:16.315 --> 0:20:18.595 Can you believe that space is going to do that? 0:20:18.995 --> 0:20:21.195 At the end of twenty seventeen, at the White House, 0:20:21.675 --> 0:20:24.515 Trump made a formal announcement of a new destination. 0:20:24.915 --> 0:20:28.355 This time, we will not only plant our flag and 0:20:28.435 --> 0:20:32.195 leave our footprint, we will establish a foundation for an 0:20:32.235 --> 0:20:38.115 eventual mission to Mars and perhaps someday to many worlds beyond. 0:20:38.555 --> 0:20:40.755 It wasn't only about science, he said. 0:20:40.635 --> 0:20:44.035 Space has so much to do with so many other applications, 0:20:44.075 --> 0:20:46.075 including a military application. 0:20:46.635 --> 0:20:48.595 What he meant by that became clear A year and 0:20:48.635 --> 0:20:49.355 a half later. 0:20:49.795 --> 0:20:52.795 We're gathered here in the Rose Garden to establish the 0:20:52.875 --> 0:20:58.675 United States Space Command. It's a big deal. Spacecom will 0:20:58.715 --> 0:21:03.395 soon be followed very importantly by the establishment of the 0:21:03.555 --> 0:21:09.515 United States Space Force as the sixth branch of the 0:21:09.835 --> 0:21:11.395 United States Armed Forces. 0:21:14.235 --> 0:21:18.555 Space isn't so much the next frontier as the next battleground, 0:21:19.155 --> 0:21:22.595 and Elon Musk and his dream of a multiplanetary civilization 0:21:23.435 --> 0:21:28.195 that is being funded by American taxpayers. SpaceX and Space 0:21:28.235 --> 0:21:33.435 Force are two sides of the same bitcoin. SpaceX's military 0:21:33.475 --> 0:21:37.795 projects have included manufacturing missile tracking satellites and new rockets 0:21:37.795 --> 0:21:41.595 for Space Force, and developing a rocket capable of delivering 0:21:41.635 --> 0:21:46.875 weapons anywhere in the world. By twenty twenty four, SpaceX 0:21:46.915 --> 0:21:51.635 had received nearly twenty billion dollars in government contracts Trump 0:21:51.755 --> 0:21:56.435 vowed to increase that funding. We approached SpaceX for a response, 0:21:56.715 --> 0:21:59.315 but at the time of recording we hadn't received a reply. 0:22:02.395 --> 0:22:06.915 There is a politics of space. Lately, it looks less 0:22:06.955 --> 0:22:10.915 like the politics of star Trek, a jfcase New Frontier 0:22:10.995 --> 0:22:14.755 of exciting science and good government, then like the politics 0:22:14.755 --> 0:22:18.955 of star wars, a swaggering generals and imperial death stars. 0:22:19.755 --> 0:22:23.675 There's also something of a party politics of space, and 0:22:23.755 --> 0:22:27.795 in the US it's been generally Republican and conservative. This 0:22:27.995 --> 0:22:30.675 was true long before Musk became a Trump supporter and 0:22:30.755 --> 0:22:34.555 the GOP's most generous donor in the Senate. The race 0:22:34.595 --> 0:22:37.315 to space was, for a long time most fiercely endorsed 0:22:37.355 --> 0:22:42.235 by the Texas Senator and one time presidential aspirant Ted Cruz. 0:22:42.915 --> 0:22:45.995 No longer is space just an uninhabited void or a 0:22:46.035 --> 0:22:47.075 scientific novelty. 0:22:47.475 --> 0:22:50.435 That's Cruz in twenty nineteen, sharing a hearing on the 0:22:50.475 --> 0:22:54.835 emerging space environment. Cruz grew up reading the science fiction 0:22:55.035 --> 0:22:58.795 of Robert Heinlein, a noted libertarian and author of The 0:22:58.875 --> 0:23:02.835 Man Who Sold the Moon. Heindline's estate awards the Heinland 0:23:02.875 --> 0:23:07.035 Prize for Space commercialization. Both Musk and Bezos have won it. 0:23:07.595 --> 0:23:11.515 By some estimates, the space sector will grow to nearly 0:23:11.715 --> 0:23:17.795 three trillion dollars in value in the next three decades alone. 0:23:18.075 --> 0:23:21.395 It is also my belief that the world's first trillionaire 0:23:22.355 --> 0:23:23.355 will be made in space. 0:23:24.235 --> 0:23:27.875 One purpose of Space Force is to protect the space merchants. 0:23:28.355 --> 0:23:31.035 Bernie Sanders wasn't the only person on the left to 0:23:31.115 --> 0:23:35.995 notice the ironies here this daggering inequalities. In twenty nineteen, 0:23:36.435 --> 0:23:39.195 Trevor Noah, the mixed race South African who hosts the 0:23:39.275 --> 0:23:42.515 Daily Show on Comedy Central in the US, pictured Elon 0:23:42.635 --> 0:23:44.755 Musk bringing colonists to Mars. 0:23:45.115 --> 0:23:46.755 You gotta admit it would have been kind of funny 0:23:46.795 --> 0:23:49.595 if Elon Musk waited until they landed on Mars to 0:23:49.675 --> 0:23:51.835 be like, oh, I forgot to mention you are my 0:23:51.995 --> 0:23:56.195 space slaves. Now get to work building my base, because 0:23:56.235 --> 0:23:59.035 then uralize all those rich white people would be slaving 0:23:59.155 --> 0:24:01.075 away on the Martian fields. 0:24:01.195 --> 0:24:03.315 They'll be singing their old Caucasians virtuals. 0:24:03.515 --> 0:24:07.595 Trevor Noah tied race to space, but they got tied 0:24:07.635 --> 0:24:11.115 together again. In twenty twenty, George Floyd was killed in 0:24:11.155 --> 0:24:15.715 Minneapolis on May twenty fifth, a Monday. Protests began in 0:24:15.755 --> 0:24:19.675 Minneapolis that night. By Wednesday, they'd begun to spread across 0:24:19.675 --> 0:24:23.235 the country. On Thursday, the governor of Minnesota called in 0:24:23.235 --> 0:24:28.835 the National Guard. On Friday, Trump delivered an ultimatum, tweeting 0:24:29.235 --> 0:24:33.075 when the looting starts, the shooting starts. That night, as 0:24:33.115 --> 0:24:36.595