WEBVTT - Our Moon, with Rebecca Boyle 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:15.000 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.320 name is Robert Plant. In this episode of the podcast, 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.400 I'm going to be chatting with science journalist and author 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:25.360 Rebecca Boyle about her new book, Our Moon, How Earth's 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.800 Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet. It's such a good read, 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.360 highly recommend it, as I'll touch on later in the 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.239 interview itself. This is a great week to read a 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.960 book about the moon, because of course we're getting into 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:43.120 celebrations of lunar New Year. So without further ado, let's 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:49.280 get right to that interview. Hi, Rebecca, welcome to the show. 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:50.360 Thanks for having me. 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.680 So the new book is Our Moon, How Earth's Celestial 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.960 Companion Transformed the Planet, out now in physical, ebook and 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:59.720 audio formats. Can you tell us what inspired you to 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:00.360 write book. 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:04.280 I remember being a kid and sitting on the floor 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:08.120 of my elementary school library, probably in fifth grade, and 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:12.560 listening to a vinyl record of the Apollo Transcript or 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:16.360 the the Apollo Recordings, and just being blown away and 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.920 like I couldn't believe that they were actually up there. 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:22.120 And I would look at the moon at night and 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.360 it felt so far away but also so close and 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.040 so much a part of my life that this sort 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:30.760 of just it blew my mind the idea of people 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.360 walking around up there, and I think I never lost 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:36.520 that connection, you know. I write about astronomy a lot 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.480 right now, and often the moon is sort of like 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.760 it gets short shrifts, it's kind of annoying for astronomers, 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:45.640 like it's really bright, it's up all the time. If 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.040 you're trying to study distant galaxies and quasars and things 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.920 like that, it's actually an obstacle. So I often find 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.640 myself kind of defending it and like, no, the moon 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:56.840 is really special and the moon is cool, you know. 0:01:57.280 --> 0:01:59.360 And I think that's sort of how I first approached this, 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.160 was like I want this to be an appreciation of 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.160 the moon, and then as I started writing it, it 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.160 became more like, no, the moon is really actually super 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:13.120 important for everything that's ever happened here, and the book 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.040 turned into more of an argument about that, like the 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.720 moon is central to our existence and it's not just 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:20.680 this beautiful thing that we should care about. It's like 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:22.240 it's the reason we're here. 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:26.000 In your first chapter, you discuss the environment of the moon, 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.200 and I guess some of this we perhaps get from 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:31.880 just by being familiar with the famous footage of lunar 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.520 landings and sort of general mainstream understanding of the moon. 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:39.679 But what details of the lunar environment do you feel 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.240 are most often lacking from sort of mainstream understanding of 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:44.040 this environment. 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:46.880 I think the thing that I go back to is 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.680 the sharpness, and I mean sharp in terms of the light, 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.760 like the contrast between light and dark. There's no atmosphere 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.240 to refract the light at all and soften the sun's 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:00.560 glare or to kind of bring light into the sh shadows. 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.840 It's all literally black or white, like there's either complete 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:09.080 sunlight or complete darkness and sharpness just physically, the rocks 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:14.280 themselves are really jagged and blocky, and you know, crystalline sharp. 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:18.920 Literally the dust itself is sharp. Dust on Earth is soft, 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.480 and it's mostly from life. I mean most dust is 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.520 from like human skin and pet dander and pollen and 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.480 sort of the discards of living things. And it's always 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:32.320 sort of rounded and kind of you know, softened by 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.640 life and by by Earth itself, by wind and rain 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.560 and erosion. And there's nothing like that on the Moon. 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:43.400 So even the dust is like little knives, And I 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:45.440 don't think people think about that, you know, when we 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.880 imagine being back up there. It was really annoying for 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:50.560 the Apollo astronauts. They would breathe it in and they'd 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.160 go inside the Lunar lander and take their helmets off, 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.200 and they would all reported this like stuffy nose congestion. 0:03:57.800 --> 0:03:59.880 It was like itchy and they would be coughing. You know, 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.600 was really irritating, and it's because it was really abrasive. 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.560 It's really terrible to breathe it in and to have 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.200 it on you, and it's also really staticky, like it's 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:13.760 really difficult to get off because you know, again there's 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:17.560 no water, there's no atmosphere, there's no moisture at all 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.240 to sort of take the edge off, and so it 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.200 sticks to everything with static electricity and it's really difficult 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:26.200 to remove. So the dust is going to be a 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:28.720 huge obstacle I think for people going back up there. 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:31.040 But I don't think we think about just like the 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.279 sharpness of the moon, it's not like Earth. 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.040 Now. One of the things that I love about the book, 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.080 and I think our listeners are going to really get 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.040 into as well, is that, of course you discuss the 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:44.080 history as we understand it of the moon. You get 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:46.880 into the human and also the human history of our 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:52.120 understanding of it, and both scientific and folklore, mythological, etc. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.400 What did the ancient Sumerians seemingly get right about the 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:58.640 creation of Earth's moon? 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.599 Yeah, I love that. This was something I found just 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.520 researching the book. I got really into Samerian history and 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.080 Babylonian history and a Syrian you know, all these different 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.440 cultures that spanned the area what's now Iraq and parts 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.640 of Syria and Iran, and this is sort of the 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.200 first literate civilizations on Earth. The first written records come 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.960 from Sumerian culture, and some of the oldest creation stories 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:27.080 are from Sumerian age, and one of them is this, 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.760 they're the creation tablets, which are these literally like tablets 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.560 like you imagine, you know, Moses holding these clay tablets 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.080 that were handed down and it's the same that literally 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:39.960 is the same thing. This is how people were keeping 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.120 written records at the time on clay tablets that would 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.680 harden in the sun. And the Sumerian creation tales have 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:49.760 these whole long stories of how the Earth and the 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.080 moon and the oceans came to be and the story 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.320 is that there were these two kind of god monsters 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:03.520 and they were separate deities, but then they got married, 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:07.800 you know, they united, and their union gave birth to 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:12.240 all the other lesser gods, and then these gods kind 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:16.360 of started conspiring, you know, as many mythologies hold these 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:21.120 sorts of stories. People were arguing about, you know, who 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.000 was in charge, who was more powerful, And these are 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.719 like spirit deities but also human, you know, human form. 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:34.080 There were two main gods, Apsu and Tiamat. And I'm 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:41.120 probably butchering the pronunciation. So Tiamat is salty water, which 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:47.000 is the oceans, Apsu is fresh water. And after they 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.880 you know, are united in this sacred marriage, Tiamat gives 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.200 birth to all the other gods of creation. And there 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.520 are a few different translations of this story, and the 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:02.520 one that I liked is Stephanie Dolly translation missed from Mesopotamia. 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.600 And in this version, the younger gods and newer gods 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:11.600 are like loud and annoying and braddy and disrespectful and so, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.040 and Apsu can't sleep, so he decides to destroy them. 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.280 Tiamat is upset about this and wants to protect her 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.040 young so she alerts the older son Anki, who's the 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.760 god of wisdom, and Enki kills Apsu, and it's this 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:28.920 great battle, and in the battle, you know, the gods 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.880 are destroyed and torn apart. Tiamat herself doesn't survive, and 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.800 she's rendered in two and one half of her becomes 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.200 the heavens and the other half becomes the Earth. And 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.400 I just enjoyed reading about this mythology as I was 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.560 reading about the Sumerians, because I was trying to connect 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:49.880 the oldest written languages to our understanding of the moon. 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:52.440 But it turned out to be a really useful metaphor 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.600 for the formation of the moon, because a very similar 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.880 thing happens. You know, this sort of other being of 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:05.560 their planet arrives in Earth's orbit and destroys Earth, and 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.760 one half becomes the Earth and one half becomes the Moon. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.720 And I felt like it was a helpful way for 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.560 me to imagine this event, and it just seemed like 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.200 a useful metaphor for what actually. 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.480 Happened now, which is the most widely accepted moon formation 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:23.320 theory today. 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:26.480 So this is still a pretty active area of debate, 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:28.480 which I find is super interesting because I mean, it's 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:30.960 the moon like shouldn't we know, Like don't you think 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.720 we should have a better idea of what happened. But 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.200 there are some really interesting things about the Moon, and 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:38.360 one is that it's very unique in the Solar System. 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.000 There's nothing else like this. It's huge relative to Earth. 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.200 It's really far away from Earth, and you know, it 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.120 has this sort of density that's lighter than Earth, but 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.480 yet it's materials. It's like down to the atoms in 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.640 the rocks of the Moon, it's almost identical to Earth. 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.240 In some cases it is identical to Earth. So there's 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:59.440 all these sort of weird characteristics. And this is a 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:03.160 difficult story to disentangle. You know, we think, and we've 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.240 learned in Apollo that probably would happen was this giant impact. 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:09.760 And this is just called the giant impact theory, so 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.559 that at some point early in Earth's history, another planet 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.360 was moving around the same orbit as Earth collided with 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:21.360 our early planet and both this impact are Thea, which 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:23.920 is the Greek god that's the mother of the moon 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.920 Seline in Greek mythology, So we name this planet THEA 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:32.000 crashes into Earth. Earth and Thea are totally destroyed, and 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.800 somehow in the cloud of debris that follows Earth and 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.120 the Moon both coalesce, and this is one way of 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.040 describing how they can look so alike but yet be 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:46.000 so different and distinct worlds. But the particulars of this 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.880 are still really hotly debated, actually, and we're not really 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:51.360 sure how this went down. And some of it is 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.160 because we know that the Moon is there, we know 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.280 its size, we know its speed relative to Earth, how 0:09:57.360 --> 0:09:59.880 far it's moving away from us, how quickly it's leaving us, 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.400 and all its rotation speed, our rotation speed, all these 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.120 factors have to come into play, like there are some 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:11.200 just physical facts that we have to explain, and yet 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.280 some of the other physical evidence doesn't really seem to 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.520 match up with our models of how this could be. 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:18.520 So there's a lot of people working on this and 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.439 trying to figure out exactly how this could have happened. 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:23.720 And it's interesting to me for a few reasons. And 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.080 one is just I mean, like I said, it's the Moon, 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:27.120 like we should know. 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:28.440 Don't you want to know? 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:28.800 Like is it? 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:30.880 Wouldn't it be amazing to know how the Moon got 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:32.559 here and how we all got here and how those 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.679 things are related. And I think it's also just really 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:39.640 interesting because it has implications for the history of evolution 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.000 on Earth. You know, if this is a really unique system, 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.720 if there's no other place like Earth and our moon 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.880 in the Solar system, which that's the case, maybe that's 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:51.320 the case for other Solar systems, you know, maybe other 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:55.360 stars that have rocky planets in the habitable zones, maybe 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.800 those need a large moon sort of sculpting their existence 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.520 for life to be able to take hold. And I 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:04.800 think if we can come to understand a little bit 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.200 more about how our moon got here, that will give 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.880 us some insight into how unique we are maybe in 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:13.520 the whole broader universe. 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.600 Based on your research, and you get into this quite 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.680 a bit in the book, do you think life would 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.959 have been possible on Earth without our moon and or 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:27.600 what might life have looked like without the moon's influence? 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.240 Yeah, I think about this a lot. I mean, we 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.120 don't know, you know, how life arose here. We don't 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.840 know exactly when, we don't know exactly where. We have 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.520 some good ideas we think probably it was in the oceans, 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:42.960 either in deep ocean events on these mid ocean ridges 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:46.080 where Earth's crust sort of has these rifts in it, 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.800 or somewhere closer to the surface in tidal pools, and 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:55.160 these sort of like cycles of hydration and dehydration where 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:59.280 the tide comes in, it moistens the rocks, it flows 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.280 in more fresh water, and then the tide recedes and 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:04.920 the water dries up, and you know, it sort of 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:09.440 becomes thicker and murkier, and some interesting chemical reactions can 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:11.760 happen in that sort of cycle of ebb and flow, 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.480 And you know, I think the Moon is really responsible 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.760 for both of those effects. If life evolved in tidal pools, 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:23.600 if it originated there, then we can thank the moon 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.120 for that flux of water. If life originated in the 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:31.240 deep ocean, the Moon's probably what dragged it up and 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.520 mixed the entire ocean and stirred it, you know, like 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:38.280 a ladle stirring a pot of soup. Like imagine spinning 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.320 your spoon around in a big stock pot and all 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.040 of the onions kind of like flow up to the surface. 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.320 You know, that's what the moon does through its tide. 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.560 And so either way, I think the Moon played a 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.760 huge role in fostering the evolution of life, if it 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.600 didn't spark it into being in the first place, and 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.440 maybe that also happened. We never We're never gonna know, 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.800 but I do think the Moon's role in early evolution 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:03.400 has probably been overlooked. 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:05.600 I like the soup analogy though, because, yeah, you can 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:09.680 imagine like a soup that has never stirred as ingredients 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:11.680 are added. So even as I guess, as you have 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:15.400 increasingly more complex forms of life, right, they're not going 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.360 to necessarily be moved around the entire planet, right, Yeah. 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:19.760 They're not going to be able to move round. They're 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:21.800 not going to be able to access the nutrients they 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.640 need to feed themselves. You know, even if it's not 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.600 just the life forms themselves, but the nutrients in the 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:32.800 ocean and just material from runoff from the land into 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.360 the water and how those things mix, those would have 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.360 all sunk to the bottom and just been silt and 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.400 couldn't have been used by the chain of life. And 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.080 I think, you know, the Moon's tide has a huge 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.439 influence on the movement of water from the deep ocean 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:49.600 up to the surface. And we know that that's true, 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:51.720 and we know that was true when it was much 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:55.080 closer earlier in Earth history, and it was probably having 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:58.080 an even bigger effect on all that material in the water. 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:10.800 You mentioned just how familiar we are with the moon. 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.480 It's easy to sort of take it for granted. One 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:17.240 of the interesting things about the moon that you point 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:18.680 out in the book of this of that, of course, 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:23.240 the moon is roughly the same size as our Sun 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.480 as visible from the earth, like making things like a 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:30.320 solar eclipse possible. How do you think that you cover 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.440 multiple ancient and traditional interpretations of the moon in your book, 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:36.320 how do you think the general flavor of global traditions 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.360 might have differed if the Sun and the Moon were 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.840 not roughly the same size in the sky. 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.200 That's a good question. I mean, this is a fun 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:46.640 thing to think about because I think it makes so 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.239 much sense to people that they were sort of opposites 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:51.800 because of the fact that they look the same. You know, 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.720 occasionally the moon blocks the Sun. People for a long 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.080 time had no idea that was happening physically, like people 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:00.800 guessed at it in antiquity, but a until you know, 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:04.080 the earliest sort of written literate cultures, people had no 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.120 way of understanding what was happening. And even the ancient 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:09.080 Greeks didn't really understand what was happening. They didn't know 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:13.360 what the moon was and I think because they're roughly 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:15.800 the same size. I mean, they look the same size 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:20.080 in the sky. It's sort of an obvious, you know. 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:22.920 The idea of opposite yin and yang is one of 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:27.120 the Chinese traditions, you know, coming and going, black and white, 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:31.200 male and female, all these sort of dualities that people have, 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.360 death and life and death and resurrection. The moon is 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.880 an interesting way to represent those ideas. And the moon 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.440 and the sun together there's one that lights the day 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.479 and one that lights the night. I mean, that's in Genesis. 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.120 It's one of the first lines of the Old Testament 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.800 that you know, on the seventh day, you know, Earth 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.240 is created, but he gives us the sun to light 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:53.440 the day and the moon to light the night, and 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.800 the second light is the moon. So I think it's 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.320 just a natural way of imagining the cosmos, like, of 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:02.720 course there is one in the day, and of course 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.600 there's one at night. Like why wouldn't that be, you know, 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.040 And so if the moon was very different, or if 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.160 it was small, or if it was maybe like the 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:14.280 moons of Mars, these like dinky little asteroid crumbs, you know, 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:19.520 maybe we wouldn't have had that mythic grasp on opposites 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.320 the way that we do because of this lunar symbolism. 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:26.920 Now dipping into a current and future lunar exploration. Did 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.760 you think there's a substantial scientific advantage to sending human 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:34.920 beings back to the Moon and as opposed to sticking 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:37.280 strictly with probes and so forth. 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:39.920 Yes, I definitely do, And I think there's a few 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.440 reasons why. You know, there's no substitute for human eyes, 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.160 and no substitute for human judgment, and a human pilot, 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.360 you know, I mean, one of them, maybe lesser known 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.640 now but more well known examples from Apollo is Neil 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.640 Armstrong's landing. Like he's. They were pretty off their target 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.680 when they first arrived, and the eagles descending toward the 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.640 lunar's surface, they missed their landing spot by a few miles, 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.280 and you know, they're running out of fuel. He has 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.000 to land, and he has to make a decision really 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:13.320 quickly and set down without dipping over. Not on the 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:15.679 rim of a crater, but in a pretty flat area, 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.040 not on one leg on a boulder, but like in 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.159 a pretty clear field, so that the whole thing is 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.560 standing upright. So they can get home, and you know, 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.240 he pulls it off. And I think, if we didn't 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.720 have a human pilot, an exceptional human pilot in Neil Armstrong, 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.719 we've seen what happens. I mean, japan just landed on 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:36.080 the Moon a few weeks ago in January, and it 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:40.359 flipped over and it sent telemetry. This lander, slim Is 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.800 its acronym, is still there and they're hoping that sunlight 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.040 on the panels will continue to let it wake up. 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:48.119 As the Moon or wits the Earth and the Sun 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:51.199 and the angle of light changes, it brings more sunlight 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.480 onto its solar panels. But it landed belly up, essentially. 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:58.520 And you know, this was a very complicated and very 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:02.320 detailed so built by the Japanese Space Agency, which just 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.320 had an incredibly success landing on asteroids, you know and 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:09.159 other planets like Jack say's one of the best space 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.240 agencies in terms of successes, and they still had issues 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:14.720 and they crashed a few months prior to that in 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:18.040 a different lunar attempt, and so you know, I think 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:22.600 there's even just getting there physically. There's no substitute for 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:26.399 a really well trained and equipped pilot. And then you know, 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:28.680 when they were on the Moon. The astronauts have spent 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.560 a lot of time doing geology training in Hawaii and Arizona, 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.320 just sort of being able to understand how rocks looked 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.040 different from one another and what that might mean. And 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:42.200 Neil Armstrong grabbed the first samples and within a few 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.840 minutes of touching down and there still some of the 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.119 best samples we got because he knew what he was 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:52.080 looking for. And successive missions too had really detailed astronaut training. 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:55.119 The last Apaullo mission, A Paulo seventeen had a geologist, 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.000 Jack Schmidt, was a trained field geologist, and he had 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.800 some specific things he wanted and he knew what to 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.879 look for him and these are really important samples to 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.679 this day. So I think, you know, having people up 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.439 there walking around making judgment calls, snap decisions the way 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.400 humans can do. There's even with the most advanced technology 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.360 we have, robots are no substitute, I think for human brains. 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.879 And I think there's something more sort of just fundamental 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.200 about it. I don't think I think that humans being 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.080 up there and connecting the rest of humanity to the 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:35.159 Moon through their presence is just an irreplaceable phenomenon like 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:37.480 a robot being up there is not quite as impressive, 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:40.360 and their robots are awesome, you know. We've landed cars 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.320 on Mars and helicopter on Mars, you know, and these 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:47.680 are incredible pieces of technology that are our extensions of 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:52.040 our ideas and our ingenuity. But I still think humans 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:55.560 being able to walk up there and transcend that boundary 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:57.400 is just irreplaceable. 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:01.560 Now, human spacecraft first reached the Mids in nineteen fifty nine, 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:04.640 and humans landed on the Moon for the first time 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:08.800 in nineteen sixty nine. What might we expect to happen 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.479 on the Moon with humans and or probes between now 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.720 and twenty fifty nine and twenty sixty nine. 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:18.760 I mean, it depends on how you ask. I think 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:20.800 there are a lot of people who are really excited 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:24.760 about people being up there permanently, and that the beginning 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.160 of that will be happening here pretty soon. In twenty 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:31.280 twenty four, NASA's Artemis program intends to land the first woman, 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.199 the first person of color on the Moon, become you know, 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:36.080 the first to go back to the Moon since we 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:39.720 left it in nineteen seventy two, And there's a lot 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:43.639 of momentum for that, and I think you know, we'll see, 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.600 we'll see how quickly it happens. At NASA's goal is 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.560 to land by no earlier than September of twenty twenty 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.480 six as of right now, but that could change and 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:56.359 probably will change, because they have a lot of reasons 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.640 to be thlowing things down, because some of the companies 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.280 building equipment to get there are having issues or taking 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:05.040 a long time to finish their tasks. So these things 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:07.000 take time. And I think, you know, no one's really 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.879 expecting it to happen overnight, but I think by twenty 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.720 fifty nine, by twenty sixty nine, you know, a century 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:17.160 after the first lunar landings, I think it's very likely 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.960 that we'll have permanent human habitation up there in some 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:26.120 sort of modest settlement, you know, with with really austere conditions, 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:28.679 and you know, people who are really well trained and 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:30.600 well equipped to be able to live there for chunks 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.479 of time. I don't think it's going to be, you know, 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.760 a city. I don't envision it being this permanent, like 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.399 you know. I one analogy I think of sometimes looking 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:43.959 at moon exploration in the future is sort of Western 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.040 expansion in the US, and I think this is sometimes 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:51.880 problematic because some of that language is still very much, 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.840 you know, wrapped up in colonial mindsets and sort of 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.080