1
00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:04,800
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the all New Toyota Corolla. Welcome

2
00:00:04,840 --> 00:00:14,560
Speaker 1: to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,

3
00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:17,720
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and Charles W.

4
00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:20,360
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant's with me. Jerry's over there, so it's stuck,

5
00:00:20,400 --> 00:00:22,720
Speaker 1: you should know. On a Friday here, it's a sleepy

6
00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:25,439
Speaker 1: Friday here. Yeah, there's like two other people in the

7
00:00:25,440 --> 00:00:28,360
Speaker 1: whole office. Yeah. I think the work from home program

8
00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:32,839
Speaker 1: is great and I think that apparently us utilize that

9
00:00:32,920 --> 00:00:36,400
Speaker 1: on Friday's. Yeah, I need I like it. Oh, it's awesome.

10
00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:39,159
Speaker 1: It's nice and quiet. Yeah. You know, these companies like

11
00:00:39,320 --> 00:00:41,479
Speaker 1: that are trying to get people to come back in

12
00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:47,199
Speaker 1: not telework. Oh really? Is that a new movement, the

13
00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:51,600
Speaker 1: non teleworking movement? All I didn't make mouch sense. I'm

14
00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:54,880
Speaker 1: going backwards back in time. Yeah, you know, I might

15
00:00:54,920 --> 00:00:57,640
Speaker 1: as well make them drive to work in a horse

16
00:00:57,760 --> 00:01:02,160
Speaker 1: drawn carriage and wear a suit and tie on for days. Uh.

17
00:01:02,240 --> 00:01:04,200
Speaker 1: Good to see you, my friend. Thanks, good to see

18
00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:07,160
Speaker 1: you too. Man. Are we gonna sail through the galaxy together? Yeah?

19
00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:11,600
Speaker 1: I've got one intro. So about four years ago, okay,

20
00:01:11,800 --> 00:01:15,440
Speaker 1: there was an astronomer named johann Kepler. I heard of him,

21
00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:21,240
Speaker 1: Johannes Kepler, take your pick is the s silent? Who knows?

22
00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:26,520
Speaker 1: I think Johannes he founded the Kepler effect. Yeah. So

23
00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:31,800
Speaker 1: he also had this idea that, um, there was a

24
00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:35,959
Speaker 1: what's called the solar wind, that there was a wind

25
00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:39,520
Speaker 1: that blew through space, and it was evidenced by the

26
00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:43,120
Speaker 1: curvature of comets tales. You could see them just kind

27
00:01:43,120 --> 00:01:45,560
Speaker 1: of bending a little bit, and that was because they

28
00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:48,800
Speaker 1: were being blown by the wind. So Kepler, as was

29
00:01:48,840 --> 00:01:51,880
Speaker 1: pretty much the thinking at the time, during the age

30
00:01:51,880 --> 00:01:55,880
Speaker 1: of exploration when he lived, UM, he said, maybe we

31
00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:59,040
Speaker 1: should construct some sales, some mighty sails that can survive

32
00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:03,840
Speaker 1: in outer space and just sail around the galaxy. That's

33
00:02:03,880 --> 00:02:08,280
Speaker 1: pretty forward thinking. It is forward thinking. And Kepler was

34
00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:11,880
Speaker 1: wrong about the solar wind. There isn't a wind in space,

35
00:02:11,960 --> 00:02:17,120
Speaker 1: although there is solar wind now, but it's just some ion,

36
00:02:17,639 --> 00:02:21,440
Speaker 1: positively charged ions that hit the magnetosphere of the Earth

37
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:25,840
Speaker 1: and um create the northern and Southern lights. It's not

38
00:02:25,919 --> 00:02:30,280
Speaker 1: like a warm wind literally blowing through space exactly. Um.

39
00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:35,880
Speaker 1: But Kepler's suggestion led to just this huge, incredible irony

40
00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:40,799
Speaker 1: wherein we have figured out now how to sail through

41
00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:46,440
Speaker 1: space not using wind but using sunlight. And it's been done. Yeah,

42
00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:48,840
Speaker 1: it's been It's been proven now several times. Think in

43
00:02:48,880 --> 00:02:52,200
Speaker 1: two thousand ten Japan did it and uh in two

44
00:02:52,200 --> 00:02:56,880
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen. A pretty major one is gonna set. Yeah,

45
00:02:56,919 --> 00:02:59,920
Speaker 1: the biggest one, for sure, it's gonna literally set sail.

46
00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:03,399
Speaker 1: I think it's square feet. That one is huge. Yeah,

47
00:03:03,400 --> 00:03:07,679
Speaker 1: it's a I think ten city blocks. No, that was

48
00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:10,880
Speaker 1: a different one. I'm sorry. Square feet though, was definitely

49
00:03:10,919 --> 00:03:12,799
Speaker 1: the largest one that will have been put in space.

50
00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:16,480
Speaker 1: There was one that was ten square called the Nano

51
00:03:16,560 --> 00:03:20,160
Speaker 1: sale that was that worked just fine, that NASA launched,

52
00:03:20,520 --> 00:03:23,760
Speaker 1: was up in orbit for a year and then came

53
00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:26,160
Speaker 1: back down and they were able to do all sorts

54
00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:29,359
Speaker 1: of cool stuff with it. And even before then, apparently

55
00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:34,640
Speaker 1: the the idea of sailing through space, this analogy between

56
00:03:35,400 --> 00:03:40,040
Speaker 1: space and the oceans, um is not lost on anybody

57
00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:46,160
Speaker 1: who's into this whole idea and um, even before this,

58
00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:50,840
Speaker 1: the current incarnation, there were uses of solar sales, like

59
00:03:50,920 --> 00:03:56,000
Speaker 1: in the seventies. I think Voyager two UM, which is

60
00:03:56,040 --> 00:03:59,240
Speaker 1: one of those deep space probes, was having trouble with

61
00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:03,120
Speaker 1: its attitude it was having attitude problem and it needed

62
00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:06,320
Speaker 1: an adjustment. So the the controllers down on the ground

63
00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:10,880
Speaker 1: turned its solar arrays and used UM them like a

64
00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:15,119
Speaker 1: solar sale to correct its attitude. Worked. UM, and then

65
00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:19,080
Speaker 1: it worked enough that in the seventies, remember Haley's comment, Okay,

66
00:04:19,120 --> 00:04:21,960
Speaker 1: well that was six that it came through, and we're

67
00:04:21,960 --> 00:04:25,120
Speaker 1: going to be the last generation to be able to

68
00:04:25,120 --> 00:04:28,800
Speaker 1: see it twice. Probably when's it coming back? I think

69
00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:32,440
Speaker 1: it was sixty years or sixty years, so let's see.

70
00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:38,200
Speaker 1: That would be two thousand fifty four. We'll make it.

71
00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:43,800
Speaker 1: We'll see. Um. The the there was a whole NASA

72
00:04:43,880 --> 00:04:49,400
Speaker 1: program that lasted about a year to rendezvous with a

73
00:04:49,440 --> 00:04:52,799
Speaker 1: solar sale, using a solar sale to rendezvous with Haley's comment,

74
00:04:53,279 --> 00:04:54,880
Speaker 1: I don't know what they were gonna do when they

75
00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:58,240
Speaker 1: came upon it, but um, the idea of a solar

76
00:04:58,279 --> 00:05:01,359
Speaker 1: sale and the fact that a solar sale will work

77
00:05:01,920 --> 00:05:05,320
Speaker 1: has been proven and known since at least the nineteen seventies,

78
00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:08,279
Speaker 1: but only recently have we been launching these things and

79
00:05:08,320 --> 00:05:11,600
Speaker 1: getting them to do what we want, which is travel

80
00:05:11,640 --> 00:05:15,159
Speaker 1: through space without the use of rocket fuel. Yeah, because

81
00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:19,880
Speaker 1: that's a huge thing, man, Rockets use a lot of fuel,

82
00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:23,320
Speaker 1: and it's a constraint. It is, in fact, the weight

83
00:05:23,320 --> 00:05:28,359
Speaker 1: of the Space Shuttle, the dearly departed Space Shuttle was fuel.

84
00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:36,000
Speaker 1: And the way rockets work in general is they expend there,

85
00:05:36,400 --> 00:05:40,360
Speaker 1: they shoot their payload to get them going, and then

86
00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:44,400
Speaker 1: they cruise basically. But that's a lot of payload and

87
00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:47,440
Speaker 1: a lot of fuel, and but they they're not just

88
00:05:47,560 --> 00:05:50,159
Speaker 1: constantly like have their foot on the accelerator, you know,

89
00:05:51,520 --> 00:05:53,680
Speaker 1: because they can't tote around all that fuel. No. Well,

90
00:05:53,720 --> 00:05:55,880
Speaker 1: even if they did just sit there and have the

91
00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:58,960
Speaker 1: gas pedal to the metal all the way, eventually they're

92
00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:00,880
Speaker 1: going to run out of fuel too. So it's a

93
00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:04,279
Speaker 1: double constraint. You have a finite amount of fuel and

94
00:06:04,440 --> 00:06:08,560
Speaker 1: you can't accelerate constantly. Um. Plus there's also a third

95
00:06:08,640 --> 00:06:11,360
Speaker 1: one too that the solar sale pretty much has over

96
00:06:11,640 --> 00:06:15,640
Speaker 1: a rocket um it can return to Earth, which is

97
00:06:15,680 --> 00:06:20,479
Speaker 1: called de orbiting UM. So let's talk about this, like,

98
00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:22,279
Speaker 1: what do you need to have a solar sale? Like?

99
00:06:23,320 --> 00:06:27,000
Speaker 1: It's a pretty basic simple it really is, but it's

100
00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:30,360
Speaker 1: pretty much the future of space travel. We've talked about

101
00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:33,839
Speaker 1: antimatter spacecraft before, Yeah, that might have been where we

102
00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:38,320
Speaker 1: mentioned this. Actually definitely touched on this once to put

103
00:06:38,360 --> 00:06:42,640
Speaker 1: these two together. If the solar sale is definitely the winner, Um,

104
00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:45,960
Speaker 1: anti matter spacecraft requires us to be able to produce

105
00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:50,640
Speaker 1: something that doesn't exist yet, which is in I can't remember,

106
00:06:50,839 --> 00:06:55,640
Speaker 1: an anti proton maybe yeah, I can't remember. Um, this

107
00:06:55,720 --> 00:06:57,880
Speaker 1: is like, we've got everything we need right now to

108
00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:02,280
Speaker 1: do this, so let's do it. What we need continuous

109
00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:06,080
Speaker 1: force from the sunlight. You need a large mirror that's

110
00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:09,480
Speaker 1: really thin. We'll get into that, and you need something

111
00:07:09,480 --> 00:07:14,040
Speaker 1: to launch it. You can't launch these things from the ground. Um,

112
00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:16,160
Speaker 1: they do great once you get them up there, but

113
00:07:16,200 --> 00:07:18,200
Speaker 1: you're still gonna have to launch it into space. Yeah.

114
00:07:18,240 --> 00:07:21,440
Speaker 1: Even still, it's such a minor constraint. It's it's ridiculous.

115
00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:24,920
Speaker 1: A scoff at its inclusion. And the reason this works

116
00:07:25,120 --> 00:07:31,240
Speaker 1: is because light, uh, it releases electromagnetic radiation in the

117
00:07:31,280 --> 00:07:35,680
Speaker 1: form of protons. And these protons even though they don't

118
00:07:35,720 --> 00:07:39,680
Speaker 1: have mass. Photons, what say protons? These photons, even though

119
00:07:39,680 --> 00:07:42,080
Speaker 1: they're on a mass, they have momentum, and that is

120
00:07:42,480 --> 00:07:46,080
Speaker 1: that momentum when it hits a solar sale is just

121
00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:48,760
Speaker 1: like a little wind blowing a sale. It transfers its

122
00:07:48,880 --> 00:07:52,200
Speaker 1: energy and it's just it's almost the same thing as

123
00:07:52,200 --> 00:07:54,320
Speaker 1: a wind blowing a sale. Yeah, when you put a

124
00:07:54,320 --> 00:07:56,680
Speaker 1: bunch of them together, it is very much like that.

125
00:07:56,920 --> 00:07:59,640
Speaker 1: Especially if you think of wind as little discrete packets

126
00:07:59,640 --> 00:08:03,440
Speaker 1: of wind, this is little discrete packets of light and

127
00:08:03,800 --> 00:08:07,480
Speaker 1: also chuck. When a photon hits a reflective surface, a

128
00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:11,560
Speaker 1: highly reflective surface, it transfers its momentum twice. The first

129
00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:14,120
Speaker 1: time when it hits it pushes it along, and then

130
00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:17,680
Speaker 1: when it pushes off to bounce off to reflect so

131
00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:22,160
Speaker 1: it transfers momentum twice. So photons hitting a reflective surface

132
00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:25,960
Speaker 1: in outer space, the vacuum of space where there's no resistance,

133
00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:29,120
Speaker 1: that's something that you know you can kind of get behind. Yeah,

134
00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:31,960
Speaker 1: it's significant. And if you look at an individual photon

135
00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:35,520
Speaker 1: or even um sunlight as a whole, it doesn't have

136
00:08:35,600 --> 00:08:37,800
Speaker 1: a lot of it doesn't exert a lot of force.

137
00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:41,880
Speaker 1: It's something like nine Newton's per square mile. Yeah, like

138
00:08:42,080 --> 00:08:45,120
Speaker 1: that's the reason they can't take off from the ground. Um.

139
00:08:45,280 --> 00:08:50,880
Speaker 1: Nine Newton's is what you get from the Sun to

140
00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:55,280
Speaker 1: the Earth, right, and in an astronomical unit, right nine

141
00:08:55,440 --> 00:08:58,520
Speaker 1: three million miles, you're gonna get about nine Newton's of force.

142
00:08:58,720 --> 00:09:00,680
Speaker 1: That's how much Yeah, by the time they reach this

143
00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:02,760
Speaker 1: this area, that's how much force there, Which is the

144
00:09:02,800 --> 00:09:06,160
Speaker 1: reason why you can't take off from the Earth with

145
00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:09,360
Speaker 1: a solar sale because you need about one point six

146
00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:13,679
Speaker 1: seven million newtons of force for a liftoff of like

147
00:09:13,760 --> 00:09:16,520
Speaker 1: a rocket, and they're they're way behind as far as

148
00:09:16,559 --> 00:09:18,320
Speaker 1: lifting off from the ground, right, and once it's out

149
00:09:18,360 --> 00:09:21,840
Speaker 1: of space to a rocket is clearly superior for quick

150
00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:25,040
Speaker 1: acceleration because it can produce like two point one million

151
00:09:25,080 --> 00:09:29,800
Speaker 1: newtons of thrust and again sunlight produces nine two point

152
00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:33,280
Speaker 1: one million compared to nine. But the big advantages again,

153
00:09:34,080 --> 00:09:37,000
Speaker 1: your solar sale doesn't use any kind of fuel once

154
00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:42,760
Speaker 1: it's unfurled and deployed, and it can accelerate constantly. And

155
00:09:42,880 --> 00:09:47,319
Speaker 1: this is the big advantage that it has over rockets. Yeah, well,

156
00:09:47,360 --> 00:09:51,880
Speaker 1: that flashy rocket might blast off and shoot its payload

157
00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:55,840
Speaker 1: and go zooming through space. The little solar sale is

158
00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:58,839
Speaker 1: just kind of going about its way, getting little faster,

159
00:09:58,840 --> 00:10:01,760
Speaker 1: getting little faster. And eventually that rocket, though, is gonna

160
00:10:01,760 --> 00:10:04,960
Speaker 1: go through all its fuel and the little solar sale

161
00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:07,599
Speaker 1: is going to catch up to it because it constantly

162
00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:09,320
Speaker 1: has its foot on the gas. As a matter of fact,

163
00:10:09,320 --> 00:10:12,160
Speaker 1: there's a really good UM analogy in here. I guess

164
00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:14,440
Speaker 1: it's not even an analogy, it's some sort of statement

165
00:10:14,559 --> 00:10:17,840
Speaker 1: maybe that if we launched the Solar Sale right now,

166
00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:21,360
Speaker 1: it would take about eight years for it to catch

167
00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:24,800
Speaker 1: up the Voyager one, which is the most distant rocket

168
00:10:24,880 --> 00:10:30,200
Speaker 1: based or fuel based UM spacecraft in the in the universe.

169
00:10:30,320 --> 00:10:32,520
Speaker 1: Now we've launched, it's towards the edge of the Solar

170
00:10:32,559 --> 00:10:35,480
Speaker 1: System right now. Which, by the way, did you know

171
00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:39,160
Speaker 1: that all of the images you've seen of the swirling

172
00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:44,200
Speaker 1: Milky Way galaxy overhead are fake? I didn't know that.

173
00:10:44,280 --> 00:10:47,000
Speaker 1: We don't have any way to produce that photograph. We've

174
00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:48,840
Speaker 1: reached the edge of our solar system. We have no

175
00:10:48,920 --> 00:10:52,200
Speaker 1: way of looking above the entire galaxy. So all of

176
00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:57,040
Speaker 1: this is what we surmise this. Yeah, but it's never

177
00:10:57,120 --> 00:11:00,280
Speaker 1: presented that way. You think like, well, it's the that's

178
00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:03,000
Speaker 1: our photos of the Milky Way. I never thought like, right,

179
00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:06,240
Speaker 1: that's impossible, Like we're not even sure how many arms

180
00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:10,760
Speaker 1: the thing has. Wow. I just think it's a little

181
00:11:10,840 --> 00:11:15,240
Speaker 1: arrogant too two produce pictures like that and not say

182
00:11:15,600 --> 00:11:17,720
Speaker 1: this is an artist rendering. This is an artist rendering

183
00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:20,760
Speaker 1: it probably says that at some point, right, I never

184
00:11:20,840 --> 00:11:24,680
Speaker 1: noticed that. It's like those fake newspaper articles where you

185
00:11:24,679 --> 00:11:26,040
Speaker 1: get to the end of it, this is this is

186
00:11:26,040 --> 00:11:30,760
Speaker 1: an advertisement, right yeah? Um, alright, So we were talking

187
00:11:30,800 --> 00:11:36,079
Speaker 1: about the it would take eight years to reach the voyager. Yeah,

188
00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:38,920
Speaker 1: and that's like one of the big which has been

189
00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:41,280
Speaker 1: sailing for twenty years. Yeah, and that's one of the

190
00:11:41,320 --> 00:11:44,400
Speaker 1: b and that that maybe the biggest advantage of a

191
00:11:44,440 --> 00:11:48,240
Speaker 1: solar sale is deep space exploration because the problem with

192
00:11:48,280 --> 00:11:51,280
Speaker 1: anything else is gonna eventually gonna run out of fuel.

193
00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:54,600
Speaker 1: And that's what this one. I think it is set

194
00:11:54,640 --> 00:11:57,640
Speaker 1: to go deeper into space than anything ever. Yeah, if

195
00:11:57,679 --> 00:12:00,640
Speaker 1: it makes it, and probably pretty quickly. So like the

196
00:12:00,679 --> 00:12:04,000
Speaker 1: whole advantage of um of this is that when the

197
00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:07,120
Speaker 1: solar sales starts to pick up, let's talk about how

198
00:12:07,160 --> 00:12:10,400
Speaker 1: fast it moves? Real quick you want to does it? Hall?

199
00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:14,680
Speaker 1: But and not at first? So it picks up one

200
00:12:14,840 --> 00:12:20,719
Speaker 1: millimeter per second of movement every second once it starts,

201
00:12:20,760 --> 00:12:24,400
Speaker 1: So it's moving a millimeter a second at first. That

202
00:12:24,559 --> 00:12:30,000
Speaker 1: is not fast at all. Um. By comparison, a a

203
00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:34,880
Speaker 1: rocket moves about fifty six a second something like that.

204
00:12:35,160 --> 00:12:40,880
Speaker 1: That's right. So it begins very slowly, right, but then

205
00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:43,920
Speaker 1: it starts to accelerate. There's constant acceleration, and by the

206
00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:50,840
Speaker 1: end of a day, it'll have reached three kilometers per hour. See,

207
00:12:51,240 --> 00:12:54,360
Speaker 1: and it will have already traveled for miles. By the

208
00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:57,800
Speaker 1: end of twelve days, it will have accelerated to thirty

209
00:12:57,920 --> 00:13:05,520
Speaker 1: seven hundred kilometers per hour. That's fast. And eventually, chuck um,

210
00:13:05,559 --> 00:13:08,440
Speaker 1: it's going to start traveling about up to two hundred

211
00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:14,160
Speaker 1: thousand miles an hour. That's three d thousand kilometers per hour.

212
00:13:14,559 --> 00:13:17,480
Speaker 1: That's basically you would make it from New York to

213
00:13:17,480 --> 00:13:20,680
Speaker 1: Los Angeles on the ground in less than a minute.

214
00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:24,480
Speaker 1: That's pretty quick. It is quick. But get this. They

215
00:13:24,559 --> 00:13:28,160
Speaker 1: figured out that if you use ground based light propulsion,

216
00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:32,000
Speaker 1: which would use a lot of energy um to direct

217
00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:34,679
Speaker 1: the lasers at this thing, you could get it up

218
00:13:34,679 --> 00:13:39,040
Speaker 1: to something like eighteen thousand miles per second eight thousand,

219
00:13:39,120 --> 00:13:41,200
Speaker 1: six hundred miles per second, which is a tenth of

220
00:13:41,200 --> 00:13:43,680
Speaker 1: the speed of light. And once we do that, we

221
00:13:43,720 --> 00:13:47,680
Speaker 1: could make it to a nearby star in about twenty years.

222
00:13:48,080 --> 00:13:50,880
Speaker 1: That's pretty good. We could make it to outer planets

223
00:13:50,920 --> 00:13:55,320
Speaker 1: within a couple of weeks, so The potential for this

224
00:13:55,400 --> 00:14:00,960
Speaker 1: thing is enormous because it's proven it uses no fuel

225
00:14:01,559 --> 00:14:04,560
Speaker 1: at least if you're using the sun, and it's the

226
00:14:04,600 --> 00:14:09,120
Speaker 1: technology that could get us into interstellar travel. That's pretty awesome.

227
00:14:09,360 --> 00:14:12,680
Speaker 1: So what's it made of? Well, the sale itself is

228
00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:16,120
Speaker 1: key because it's got to be super lightweight and super thin.

229
00:14:16,600 --> 00:14:19,800
Speaker 1: You can't just fly a big mirror up there. Um.

230
00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:22,360
Speaker 1: What NASA is working with today is something called CP

231
00:14:22,520 --> 00:14:25,920
Speaker 1: one and it is one d times thinner than a

232
00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:31,480
Speaker 1: sheet of stationary um. But that is crazy. I know.

233
00:14:31,600 --> 00:14:35,400
Speaker 1: They worked with Milar for a little while, aluminum reinforced miler,

234
00:14:35,440 --> 00:14:38,840
Speaker 1: which if you've ever seen Milar balloons, like, that's super thin.

235
00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:41,960
Speaker 1: It's like a foil um and it's a one fourth

236
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:45,120
Speaker 1: the thickness of a one ply plastic bag. And that

237
00:14:45,240 --> 00:14:49,400
Speaker 1: was the Cosmos one that used the Milar sale. But

238
00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:52,960
Speaker 1: basically all these sales are are reflective. It's got to

239
00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:55,440
Speaker 1: be reflective because the photon has to bounce off of it,

240
00:14:55,720 --> 00:14:57,560
Speaker 1: and it's got to be super lightweight and super thin.

241
00:14:58,040 --> 00:15:01,280
Speaker 1: And like any sale, the larger the better. Yeah, you know,

242
00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:03,720
Speaker 1: the more photons you can catch, the more speeds are

243
00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:06,000
Speaker 1: gonna get. I guess eventually he said, the one that's

244
00:15:06,040 --> 00:15:08,880
Speaker 1: going up two thousand fifteen is called the solar Sale Demonstrator.

245
00:15:09,040 --> 00:15:12,560
Speaker 1: It's dubbed the sun Jammer, which is after an Arthur C.

246
00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:16,760
Speaker 1: Clark story. Um, and then apparently is where solar sailing

247
00:15:17,400 --> 00:15:21,840
Speaker 1: was term was coined. Yeah. I love that guy. Yeah,

248
00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:24,120
Speaker 1: but that's the one that's going up in two thousand fifteen.

249
00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:28,200
Speaker 1: He was two thousand and one of space outsy right. Um,

250
00:15:28,280 --> 00:15:32,280
Speaker 1: and it apparently collapses down to something the size of

251
00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:34,680
Speaker 1: a dishwasher and weighs a hundred and ten pounds. You

252
00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:37,640
Speaker 1: and I could lift that together, Um, and I could

253
00:15:37,640 --> 00:15:41,440
Speaker 1: lift that by myself. They Wow. They pack the thing

254
00:15:41,480 --> 00:15:45,160
Speaker 1: into a rocket, shoot it up into space. Once it's

255
00:15:45,200 --> 00:15:47,640
Speaker 1: in space and orbit, it gets kind of shot out

256
00:15:47,680 --> 00:15:52,000
Speaker 1: a little bit, and then it, I guess inflates. I

257
00:15:52,040 --> 00:15:55,240
Speaker 1: believe the booms that hold the sales in place are inflatable,

258
00:15:55,440 --> 00:15:57,600
Speaker 1: which makes them even more lightweight. Yeah. It's almost like

259
00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:01,120
Speaker 1: a kite. Um. If you imagine in the supports of

260
00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:04,440
Speaker 1: a kite, we're all just inflatable, and you would just

261
00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:08,200
Speaker 1: blow it up. Those would those forms would take shape

262
00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:12,600
Speaker 1: as buttresses, and then the sale would unfurrel and then

263
00:16:13,720 --> 00:16:18,600
Speaker 1: then your sun Jamin. Yeah, land Ho Um, you talked

264
00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:22,040
Speaker 1: about lasers. That is one of the um I guess

265
00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:25,320
Speaker 1: co fuels, even though it's not a fuel that these

266
00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:28,520
Speaker 1: things might use. If there aren't enough photons, maybe they

267
00:16:28,520 --> 00:16:33,920
Speaker 1: can use lasers to continue to power these um but

268
00:16:33,960 --> 00:16:35,720
Speaker 1: not for launch though, right, or could they use them

269
00:16:35,760 --> 00:16:39,280
Speaker 1: for launch? I I it looks like they did launch it,

270
00:16:39,440 --> 00:16:42,920
Speaker 1: son somehow, I think you could. I think it'd just

271
00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:47,680
Speaker 1: be slow. Um, But I think that the probably the

272
00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:52,400
Speaker 1: most immediately usable method would be to launch it into

273
00:16:52,400 --> 00:16:54,960
Speaker 1: space and then hit it with the laser once it's

274
00:16:55,000 --> 00:16:57,640
Speaker 1: in space. Right. I also saw microwave beams have been

275
00:16:57,720 --> 00:17:00,240
Speaker 1: used too. Yeah, there's a whole other kind kind of

276
00:17:00,280 --> 00:17:03,480
Speaker 1: competing microwave sale. But the problem is they have to

277
00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:06,560
Speaker 1: be a lot bigger because of the larger wavelength of

278
00:17:06,600 --> 00:17:09,200
Speaker 1: a microwave. Seems like using all these things in conjunction

279
00:17:09,200 --> 00:17:12,159
Speaker 1: together it is probably a good way to go. You know, well,

280
00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:15,720
Speaker 1: microwave juice, LI laser juice. Why not use whatever you can?

281
00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:19,200
Speaker 1: But the yeah, the difference between just using sunlight. One

282
00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:21,679
Speaker 1: of the problems with sunlight is you have to be

283
00:17:21,720 --> 00:17:24,800
Speaker 1: going away from the sun because that's the way the

284
00:17:24,840 --> 00:17:28,679
Speaker 1: direction the photons are gonna gonna so yeah, I think

285
00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:32,280
Speaker 1: about that, and um, they've pointed out where you can

286
00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:36,120
Speaker 1: go towards the sun, but you have to basically go

287
00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:38,720
Speaker 1: out and then come back around and use the photons

288
00:17:38,760 --> 00:17:43,280
Speaker 1: to slow you down. Um it just seems kind of Yeah,

289
00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:44,879
Speaker 1: I wonder if any of these are ever gonna be

290
00:17:44,880 --> 00:17:48,600
Speaker 1: manned them. They could be if we can figure out

291
00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:52,439
Speaker 1: how to not crush people in eighteen thousand, six hundred

292
00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:55,960
Speaker 1: miles per second speed. Yeah, I guess that's true, because

293
00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:00,440
Speaker 1: can you slow these things down? I don't know. That's

294
00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:02,840
Speaker 1: a good question. Yeah, I don't know. The other question

295
00:18:02,880 --> 00:18:05,280
Speaker 1: I had about this that I couldn't find anything on

296
00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:10,560
Speaker 1: is if these things are a hundreds the thickness of

297
00:18:10,600 --> 00:18:14,440
Speaker 1: a sheet of stationary and I've seen gravity, so there's

298
00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:18,080
Speaker 1: a lot of debris space. How are what's keeping the

299
00:18:18,160 --> 00:18:20,960
Speaker 1: space debris from just punching holes right in it and

300
00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:23,399
Speaker 1: just tearing it to shreds. Well, I think it's probably

301
00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:26,760
Speaker 1: stronger than you would think considering how thin it is,

302
00:18:27,040 --> 00:18:31,119
Speaker 1: because it's reinforced. But yeah, you're right, Well, there there's

303
00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:33,359
Speaker 1: a gravity man, and like solid things were just blown

304
00:18:33,359 --> 00:18:36,840
Speaker 1: to bits. That guy's face did you like that movie? Yeah?

305
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:41,840
Speaker 1: I did. Yeah, I didn't. Um. I didn't go into

306
00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:44,600
Speaker 1: it expecting the best movie ever, like a lot of

307
00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:46,840
Speaker 1: people did, and like you know, a lot of hype

308
00:18:47,280 --> 00:18:51,159
Speaker 1: Crank Neil deGrasse Tyson. We should call it angular momentum,

309
00:18:51,200 --> 00:18:55,840
Speaker 1: not gravity. It's like, this is a blockbuster Hollywood movie.

310
00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:58,480
Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. I

311
00:18:58,560 --> 00:19:01,119
Speaker 1: thought it was. I thought it was great. Yeah. And

312
00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:04,880
Speaker 1: if you're learning your science from Sandra Bullock, yeah you're

313
00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:07,160
Speaker 1: in trouble. Yeah. Yeah, you should learn it from other

314
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:11,879
Speaker 1: people like yellow graphs, dice um. The other thing that

315
00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:14,320
Speaker 1: I saw that solar sales can be easily used for

316
00:19:15,280 --> 00:19:20,119
Speaker 1: is de orbiting that space debris. Apparently you can send

317
00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:22,439
Speaker 1: some stuff up there, have it go into US uh

318
00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:26,399
Speaker 1: an orbit, capture a bunch of the space debris. I guess,

319
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:29,719
Speaker 1: just basically wrap itself around it and then bring it down. Uh.

320
00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:32,120
Speaker 1: I think the way that you bring it down cleaning

321
00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:37,600
Speaker 1: up space is pretty much it's a big deal. Yeah. Uh.

322
00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:39,520
Speaker 1: And I think the way that you bring solar sales

323
00:19:39,520 --> 00:19:41,959
Speaker 1: down so easily is because when you don't need fuel

324
00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:45,720
Speaker 1: to bring them down, um, and you can just angle

325
00:19:45,760 --> 00:19:47,960
Speaker 1: them in certain way, so that the sunlight pushes them

326
00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:51,280
Speaker 1: down towards Earth and they burn up. Oh yeah, that's

327
00:19:51,280 --> 00:19:53,680
Speaker 1: pretty nifty. It is. So we may be using them

328
00:19:53,760 --> 00:19:57,000
Speaker 1: just around Earth first, but these are the things that

329
00:19:57,040 --> 00:20:02,280
Speaker 1: could very easily lead to inner sellar travel within our lifetime.

330
00:20:02,359 --> 00:20:05,520
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. We're talking twenty years right now. You

331
00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:07,800
Speaker 1: take a lot longer than that without this. Yeah, I'm

332
00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:12,280
Speaker 1: definitely we should follow up in on the Is that

333
00:20:12,320 --> 00:20:16,720
Speaker 1: the sun Jammer? Yeah? Which is next year now? Because

334
00:20:16,760 --> 00:20:21,520
Speaker 1: this is our our New Year's Eve episode, isn't it. Yeah?

335
00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:25,920
Speaker 1: I think so. Actually nice. So we're already or we're

336
00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:28,040
Speaker 1: about to be, depending on when you're listening to this

337
00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:29,960
Speaker 1: or when it comes out, So in just a year

338
00:20:30,080 --> 00:20:33,240
Speaker 1: or more, the sun Jammer will be doing this thing. Yeah,

339
00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:35,240
Speaker 1: we should do a follow up on it. My money

340
00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:40,520
Speaker 1: is on this one. Maglev trains. Yeah, uh, people going

341
00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:45,639
Speaker 1: without refrigerators, that's the future. Wiping your butt with cloth?

342
00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:49,640
Speaker 1: All right, you got anything else? I got nothing else?

343
00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:52,600
Speaker 1: I'd like this one. I think the solar sale Is

344
00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:55,159
Speaker 1: is literally the thing of the future. Yeah, I like

345
00:20:55,200 --> 00:20:57,720
Speaker 1: it too. Man Um. You want to wish everybody a

346
00:20:57,760 --> 00:21:00,480
Speaker 1: happy New Year. Happy New Year, Everyone be new year.

347
00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:02,760
Speaker 1: And I'd also like to say a very happy birthday

348
00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:04,920
Speaker 1: to my sweet wife. That's right, I always forget it's

349
00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:11,080
Speaker 1: uh what what's the date birthday? Uh? Well, happy birthday, Umi,

350
00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:13,840
Speaker 1: and happy New Year's everyone, and be safe and uh

351
00:21:14,320 --> 00:21:18,320
Speaker 1: we sail into the future. If you want to know

352
00:21:18,359 --> 00:21:21,240
Speaker 1: more about solar sailing, you can type that word in

353
00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:23,160
Speaker 1: the search part how stuff works dot com. And since

354
00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:27,440
Speaker 1: I said search bar, it's time for a message break.

355
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:35,119
Speaker 1: Uh now, Chuck, it's time for listener mail. What am

356
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:37,280
Speaker 1: I gonna call this? I'm gonna call this from Roanoke,

357
00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:41,639
Speaker 1: Virginia just because it's easy death metal for moan Oak. Hey, guys,

358
00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 1: I was listening to the episode Why Does Music Provoke Emotion?

359
00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:47,959
Speaker 1: Love that episode, by the way, because music has been

360
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,680
Speaker 1: such an integral part of my life and everything I do.

361
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:53,240
Speaker 1: And it also reminded me of an experience I had recently.

362
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 1: Metal music has always been my favorite genre. I know

363
00:21:56,600 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 1: this email? Uh did you read it? I guess id

364
00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:02,000
Speaker 1: is really connect with it. Anyway, I recently decided to

365
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:05,800
Speaker 1: try out the black metal subgenre. I guess he'd previously

366
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:13,320
Speaker 1: was into light metal, right, um, so I purchased Dark

367
00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:19,040
Speaker 1: Thrones Transylvanian hunger, put it in my car CD player

368
00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:21,679
Speaker 1: and started driving with the music. When the music started,

369
00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:26,000
Speaker 1: I got the strangest feeling. It reminded me of Christmas. Well,

370
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,200
Speaker 1: this seems like the last reaction when we get from

371
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:30,440
Speaker 1: such a type of music. I think I figured it out.

372
00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 1: The music itself makes me think of icy, snowy winters,

373
00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:37,520
Speaker 1: which I of course associate with the joy of snow

374
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:40,680
Speaker 1: around Christmas as a child. Between this and the relaxing

375
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:44,919
Speaker 1: tremorow guitars that were carrying the music, the cool breeze

376
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:47,360
Speaker 1: that I felt through the car windows, and the pale moonlight,

377
00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:50,880
Speaker 1: the whole experience made me feel a happiness that resembled

378
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:53,320
Speaker 1: the kind of usually get around Christmas time. I just

379
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:56,560
Speaker 1: found it really fascinating. Is something that I found so relaxing,

380
00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:59,919
Speaker 1: would probably make most listeners want to scream and if

381
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:03,639
Speaker 1: ash and not unlike the vocalist of most of these bands. Uh,

382
00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:06,000
Speaker 1: It's so true that music can yield a different reaction

383
00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:11,400
Speaker 1: from everyone or anyway, I just thought you might find

384
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:13,200
Speaker 1: it interesting and thanks for the great show that is

385
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:18,200
Speaker 1: from Patrick Hagar Hagar in Roanoke, Virginia. I think you

386
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 1: see Hagar well I wanted, but it's h a G

387
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:25,680
Speaker 1: and not a R. You should change his name to

388
00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 1: Hagar with a couple of them wounts. Yeah, it's like

389
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:33,440
Speaker 1: then you're listening to Transylvanian Nightmare. What was it called? Yeah,

390
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:38,919
Speaker 1: I think that was right, Transylvanian hungar Uh which Manhattan transfer? No, No,

391
00:23:39,359 --> 00:23:43,200
Speaker 1: that's the opposite of death metal. Um. If you want

392
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 1: to let us know about some strange reaction you had,

393
00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:53,480
Speaker 1: it's something we've discussed right aside from drowsiness, right because

394
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:55,720
Speaker 1: we've put a lot of people to sleep. Yeah. I

395
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:57,879
Speaker 1: heard Jesse Thorn talking about the other day about what

396
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 1: a backhanded compliment that is or how it always makes

397
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 1: them feel bad. It doesn't bother me, no, And it

398
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:05,960
Speaker 1: was on Judge John Hodgman, and Hodgeman was like, no, man,

399
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 1: people are saying there in a very intimate moment, you

400
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:12,040
Speaker 1: were relaxing them into sleep, and that's a compliment. So

401
00:24:12,119 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 1: that's that's how I just to take it. Hodgements guys

402
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:17,399
Speaker 1: such a great perspective on things. Jesse, Come on, buddy,

403
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: lighten up. Uh. Yeah, if you want to tell Jesse

404
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:22,960
Speaker 1: to lighten up, or if you want to tell us

405
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:25,719
Speaker 1: about some weird reaction you've had, We want to hear

406
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:27,399
Speaker 1: about it. You can tweet to us at s Y

407
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:30,680
Speaker 1: s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,

408
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:34,479
Speaker 1: slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an

409
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:37,399
Speaker 1: email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and you

410
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:39,640
Speaker 1: can hang out with us at our home on the web,

411
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:43,399
Speaker 1: your gateway to the New year. Stuff you Should Know

412
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

413
00:24:51,840 --> 00:25:01,199
Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot Com. Brought to you

414
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: by the all new twenty fourteen Toyota Corolla