WEBVTT - Will solar sails take us to the stars? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:04.800 Brought to you by the all New Toyota Corolla. Welcome 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:14.560 to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.720 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and Charles W. 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.360 Chuck Bryant's with me. Jerry's over there, so it's stuck, 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:22.720 you should know. On a Friday here, it's a sleepy 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:25.439 Friday here. Yeah, there's like two other people in the 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.360 whole office. Yeah. I think the work from home program 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:32.839 is great and I think that apparently us utilize that 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.400 on Friday's. Yeah, I need I like it. Oh, it's awesome. 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.159 It's nice and quiet. Yeah. You know, these companies like 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:41.479 that are trying to get people to come back in 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:47.199 not telework. Oh really? Is that a new movement, the 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.600 non teleworking movement? All I didn't make mouch sense. I'm 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:54.880 going backwards back in time. Yeah, you know, I might 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.640 as well make them drive to work in a horse 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:02.160 drawn carriage and wear a suit and tie on for days. Uh. 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.200 Good to see you, my friend. Thanks, good to see 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.160 you too. Man. Are we gonna sail through the galaxy together? Yeah? 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:11.600 I've got one intro. So about four years ago, okay, 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.440 there was an astronomer named johann Kepler. I heard of him, 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:21.240 Johannes Kepler, take your pick is the s silent? Who knows? 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:26.520 I think Johannes he founded the Kepler effect. Yeah. So 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:31.800 he also had this idea that, um, there was a 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.959 what's called the solar wind, that there was a wind 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.520 that blew through space, and it was evidenced by the 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:43.120 curvature of comets tales. You could see them just kind 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:45.560 of bending a little bit, and that was because they 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:48.800 were being blown by the wind. So Kepler, as was 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:51.880 pretty much the thinking at the time, during the age 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.880 of exploration when he lived, UM, he said, maybe we 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:59.040 should construct some sales, some mighty sails that can survive 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:03.840 in outer space and just sail around the galaxy. That's 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.280 pretty forward thinking. It is forward thinking. And Kepler was 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:11.880 wrong about the solar wind. There isn't a wind in space, 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:17.120 although there is solar wind now, but it's just some ion, 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:21.440 positively charged ions that hit the magnetosphere of the Earth 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.840 and um create the northern and Southern lights. It's not 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:30.280 like a warm wind literally blowing through space exactly. Um. 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:35.880 But Kepler's suggestion led to just this huge, incredible irony 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:40.799 wherein we have figured out now how to sail through 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:46.440 space not using wind but using sunlight. And it's been done. Yeah, 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:48.840 it's been It's been proven now several times. Think in 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:52.200 two thousand ten Japan did it and uh in two 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:56.880 thousand fifteen. A pretty major one is gonna set. Yeah, 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.920 the biggest one, for sure, it's gonna literally set sail. 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.399 I think it's square feet. That one is huge. Yeah, 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:07.679 it's a I think ten city blocks. No, that was 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.880 a different one. I'm sorry. Square feet though, was definitely 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:12.799 the largest one that will have been put in space. 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.480 There was one that was ten square called the Nano 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:20.160 sale that was that worked just fine, that NASA launched, 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.760 was up in orbit for a year and then came 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.160 back down and they were able to do all sorts 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.359 of cool stuff with it. And even before then, apparently 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:34.640 the the idea of sailing through space, this analogy between 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:40.040 space and the oceans, um is not lost on anybody 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:46.160 who's into this whole idea and um, even before this, 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:50.840 the current incarnation, there were uses of solar sales, like 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:56.000 in the seventies. I think Voyager two UM, which is 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.240 one of those deep space probes, was having trouble with 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.120 its attitude it was having attitude problem and it needed 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.320 an adjustment. So the the controllers down on the ground 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.880 turned its solar arrays and used UM them like a 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:15.119 solar sale to correct its attitude. Worked. UM, and then 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:19.080 it worked enough that in the seventies, remember Haley's comment, Okay, 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:21.960 well that was six that it came through, and we're 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.120 going to be the last generation to be able to 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.800 see it twice. Probably when's it coming back? I think 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.440 it was sixty years or sixty years, so let's see. 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:38.200 That would be two thousand fifty four. We'll make it. 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:43.800 We'll see. Um. The the there was a whole NASA 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:49.400 program that lasted about a year to rendezvous with a 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.799 solar sale, using a solar sale to rendezvous with Haley's comment, 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:54.880 I don't know what they were gonna do when they 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.240 came upon it, but um, the idea of a solar 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.359 sale and the fact that a solar sale will work 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.320 has been proven and known since at least the nineteen seventies, 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.279 but only recently have we been launching these things and 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.600 getting them to do what we want, which is travel 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.159 through space without the use of rocket fuel. Yeah, because 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.880 that's a huge thing, man, Rockets use a lot of fuel, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.320 and it's a constraint. It is, in fact, the weight 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:28.359 of the Space Shuttle, the dearly departed Space Shuttle was fuel. 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:36.000 And the way rockets work in general is they expend there, 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.360 they shoot their payload to get them going, and then 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.400 they cruise basically. But that's a lot of payload and 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.440 a lot of fuel, and but they they're not just 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.159 constantly like have their foot on the accelerator, you know, 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:53.680 because they can't tote around all that fuel. No. Well, 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:55.880 even if they did just sit there and have the 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.960 gas pedal to the metal all the way, eventually they're 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:00.880 going to run out of fuel too. So it's a 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:04.279 double constraint. You have a finite amount of fuel and 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.560 you can't accelerate constantly. Um. Plus there's also a third 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.360 one too that the solar sale pretty much has over 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:15.640 a rocket um it can return to Earth, which is 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:20.479 called de orbiting UM. So let's talk about this, like, 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:22.279 what do you need to have a solar sale? Like? 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.000 It's a pretty basic simple it really is, but it's 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.360 pretty much the future of space travel. We've talked about 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.839 antimatter spacecraft before, Yeah, that might have been where we 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:38.320 mentioned this. Actually definitely touched on this once to put 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:42.640 these two together. If the solar sale is definitely the winner, Um, 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.960 anti matter spacecraft requires us to be able to produce 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.640 something that doesn't exist yet, which is in I can't remember, 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:55.640 an anti proton maybe yeah, I can't remember. Um, this 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:57.880 is like, we've got everything we need right now to 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:02.280 do this, so let's do it. What we need continuous 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:06.080 force from the sunlight. You need a large mirror that's 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.480 really thin. We'll get into that, and you need something 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:14.040 to launch it. You can't launch these things from the ground. Um, 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:16.160 they do great once you get them up there, but 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:18.200 you're still gonna have to launch it into space. Yeah. 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.440 Even still, it's such a minor constraint. It's it's ridiculous. 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.920 A scoff at its inclusion. And the reason this works 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:31.240 is because light, uh, it releases electromagnetic radiation in the 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:35.680 form of protons. And these protons even though they don't 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.680 have mass. Photons, what say protons? These photons, even though 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.080 they're on a mass, they have momentum, and that is 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:46.080 that momentum when it hits a solar sale is just 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:48.760 like a little wind blowing a sale. It transfers its 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.200 energy and it's just it's almost the same thing as 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:54.320 a wind blowing a sale. Yeah, when you put a 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.680 bunch of them together, it is very much like that. 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.640 Especially if you think of wind as little discrete packets 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.440 of wind, this is little discrete packets of light and 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.480 also chuck. When a photon hits a reflective surface, a 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:11.560 highly reflective surface, it transfers its momentum twice. The first 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.120 time when it hits it pushes it along, and then 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.680 when it pushes off to bounce off to reflect so 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:22.160 it transfers momentum twice. So photons hitting a reflective surface 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.960 in outer space, the vacuum of space where there's no resistance, 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.120 that's something that you know you can kind of get behind. Yeah, 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.960 it's significant. And if you look at an individual photon 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:35.520 or even um sunlight as a whole, it doesn't have 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:37.800 a lot of it doesn't exert a lot of force. 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.880 It's something like nine Newton's per square mile. Yeah, like 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.120 that's the reason they can't take off from the ground. Um. 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:50.880 Nine Newton's is what you get from the Sun to 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:55.280 the Earth, right, and in an astronomical unit, right nine 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.520 three million miles, you're gonna get about nine Newton's of force. 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:00.680 That's how much Yeah, by the time they reach this 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:02.760 this area, that's how much force there, Which is the 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.160 reason why you can't take off from the Earth with 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.360 a solar sale because you need about one point six 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:13.679 seven million newtons of force for a liftoff of like 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.520 a rocket, and they're they're way behind as far as 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:18.320 lifting off from the ground, right, and once it's out 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.840 of space to a rocket is clearly superior for quick 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.040 acceleration because it can produce like two point one million 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:29.800 newtons of thrust and again sunlight produces nine two point 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:33.280 one million compared to nine. But the big advantages again, 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:37.000 your solar sale doesn't use any kind of fuel once 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:42.760 it's unfurled and deployed, and it can accelerate constantly. And 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.319 this is the big advantage that it has over rockets. Yeah, well, 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:51.880 that flashy rocket might blast off and shoot its payload 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.840 and go zooming through space. The little solar sale is 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.839 just kind of going about its way, getting little faster, 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.760 getting little faster. And eventually that rocket, though, is gonna 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.960 go through all its fuel and the little solar sale 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.599 is going to catch up to it because it constantly 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:09.320 has its foot on the gas. As a matter of fact, 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:12.160 there's a really good UM analogy in here. I guess 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.440 it's not even an analogy, it's some sort of statement 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.840 maybe that if we launched the Solar Sale right now, 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.360 it would take about eight years for it to catch 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.800 up the Voyager one, which is the most distant rocket 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:30.200 based or fuel based UM spacecraft in the in the universe. 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.520 Now we've launched, it's towards the edge of the Solar 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.480 System right now. Which, by the way, did you know 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.160 that all of the images you've seen of the swirling 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:44.200 Milky Way galaxy overhead are fake? I didn't know that. 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.000 We don't have any way to produce that photograph. We've 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:48.840 reached the edge of our solar system. We have no 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:52.200 way of looking above the entire galaxy. So all of 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:57.040 this is what we surmise this. Yeah, but it's never 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.280 presented that way. You think like, well, it's the that's 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.000 our photos of the Milky Way. I never thought like, right, 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.240 that's impossible, Like we're not even sure how many arms 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:10.760 the thing has. Wow. I just think it's a little 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:15.240 arrogant too two produce pictures like that and not say 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:17.720 this is an artist rendering. This is an artist rendering 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.760 it probably says that at some point, right, I never 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:24.680 noticed that. It's like those fake newspaper articles where you 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:26.040 get to the end of it, this is this is 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:30.760 an advertisement, right yeah? Um, alright, So we were talking 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:36.079 about the it would take eight years to reach the voyager. Yeah, 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:38.920 and that's like one of the big which has been 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:41.280 sailing for twenty years. Yeah, and that's one of the 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.400 b and that that maybe the biggest advantage of a 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.240 solar sale is deep space exploration because the problem with 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.280 anything else is gonna eventually gonna run out of fuel. 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.600 And that's what this one. I think it is set 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.640 to go deeper into space than anything ever. Yeah, if 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.640 it makes it, and probably pretty quickly. So like the 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:04.000 whole advantage of um of this is that when the 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.120 solar sales starts to pick up, let's talk about how 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.400 fast it moves? Real quick you want to does it? Hall? 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.680 But and not at first? So it picks up one 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:20.719 millimeter per second of movement every second once it starts, 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.400 So it's moving a millimeter a second at first. That 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:30.000 is not fast at all. Um. By comparison, a a 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:34.880 rocket moves about fifty six a second something like that. 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:40.880 That's right. So it begins very slowly, right, but then 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:43.920 it starts to accelerate. There's constant acceleration, and by the 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:50.840 end of a day, it'll have reached three kilometers per hour. See, 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.360 and it will have already traveled for miles. By the 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.800 end of twelve days, it will have accelerated to thirty 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:05.520 seven hundred kilometers per hour. That's fast. And eventually, chuck um, 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.440 it's going to start traveling about up to two hundred 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:14.160 thousand miles an hour. That's three d thousand kilometers per hour. 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.480 That's basically you would make it from New York to 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.680 Los Angeles on the ground in less than a minute. 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:24.480 That's pretty quick. It is quick. But get this. They 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:28.160 figured out that if you use ground based light propulsion, 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.000 which would use a lot of energy um to direct 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:34.679 the lasers at this thing, you could get it up 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:39.040 to something like eighteen thousand miles per second eight thousand, 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.200 six hundred miles per second, which is a tenth of 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.680 the speed of light. And once we do that, we 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.680 could make it to a nearby star in about twenty years. 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.880 That's pretty good. We could make it to outer planets 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.320 within a couple of weeks, so The potential for this 0:13:55.400 --> 0:14:00.960 thing is enormous because it's proven it uses no fuel 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.560 at least if you're using the sun, and it's the 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:09.120 technology that could get us into interstellar travel. That's pretty awesome. 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.680 So what's it made of? Well, the sale itself is 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.120 key because it's got to be super lightweight and super thin. 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.800 You can't just fly a big mirror up there. Um. 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:22.360 What NASA is working with today is something called CP 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.920 one and it is one d times thinner than a 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:31.480 sheet of stationary um. But that is crazy. I know. 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:35.400 They worked with Milar for a little while, aluminum reinforced miler, 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:38.840 which if you've ever seen Milar balloons, like, that's super thin. 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:41.960 It's like a foil um and it's a one fourth 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.120 the thickness of a one ply plastic bag. And that 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.400 was the Cosmos one that used the Milar sale. But 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.960 basically all these sales are are reflective. It's got to 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.440 be reflective because the photon has to bounce off of it, 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:57.560 and it's got to be super lightweight and super thin. 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.280 And like any sale, the larger the better. Yeah, you know, 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:03.720 the more photons you can catch, the more speeds are 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.000 gonna get. I guess eventually he said, the one that's 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.880 going up two thousand fifteen is called the solar Sale Demonstrator. 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.560 It's dubbed the sun Jammer, which is after an Arthur C. 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.760 Clark story. Um, and then apparently is where solar sailing 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:21.840 was term was coined. Yeah. I love that guy. Yeah, 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.120 but that's the one that's going up in two thousand fifteen. 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.200 He was two thousand and one of space outsy right. Um, 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:32.280 and it apparently collapses down to something the size of 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:34.680 a dishwasher and weighs a hundred and ten pounds. You 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.640 and I could lift that together, Um, and I could 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.440 lift that by myself. They Wow. They pack the thing 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:45.160 into a rocket, shoot it up into space. Once it's 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.640 in space and orbit, it gets kind of shot out 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:52.000 a little bit, and then it, I guess inflates. I 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.240 believe the booms that hold the sales in place are inflatable, 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.600 which makes them even more lightweight. Yeah. It's almost like 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.120 a kite. Um. If you imagine in the supports of 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.440 a kite, we're all just inflatable, and you would just 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:08.200 blow it up. Those would those forms would take shape 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:12.600 as buttresses, and then the sale would unfurrel and then 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:18.600 then your sun Jamin. Yeah, land Ho Um, you talked 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:22.040 about lasers. That is one of the um I guess 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.320 co fuels, even though it's not a fuel that these 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.520 things might use. If there aren't enough photons, maybe they 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:33.920 can use lasers to continue to power these um but 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:35.720 not for launch though, right, or could they use them 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:39.280 for launch? I I it looks like they did launch it, 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.920 son somehow, I think you could. I think it'd just 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:47.680 be slow. Um, But I think that the probably the 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:52.400 most immediately usable method would be to launch it into 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:54.960 space and then hit it with the laser once it's 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.640 in space. Right. I also saw microwave beams have been 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.240 used too. Yeah, there's a whole other kind kind of 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.480 competing microwave sale. But the problem is they have to 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.560 be a lot bigger because of the larger wavelength of 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.200 a microwave. Seems like using all these things in conjunction 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.159 together it is probably a good way to go. You know, well, 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.720 microwave juice, LI laser juice. Why not use whatever you can? 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.200 But the yeah, the difference between just using sunlight. One 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.679 of the problems with sunlight is you have to be 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.800 going away from the sun because that's the way the 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.679 direction the photons are gonna gonna so yeah, I think 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.280 about that, and um, they've pointed out where you can 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.120 go towards the sun, but you have to basically go 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:38.720 out and then come back around and use the photons 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:43.280 to slow you down. Um it just seems kind of Yeah, 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:44.879 I wonder if any of these are ever gonna be 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.600 manned them. They could be if we can figure out 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.439 how to not crush people in eighteen thousand, six hundred 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.960 miles per second speed. Yeah, I guess that's true, because 0:17:56.000 --> 0:18:00.440 can you slow these things down? I don't know. That's 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:02.840 a good question. Yeah, I don't know. The other question 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.280 I had about this that I couldn't find anything on 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:10.560 is if these things are a hundreds the thickness of 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.440 a sheet of stationary and I've seen gravity, so there's 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:18.080 a lot of debris space. How are what's keeping the 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.960 space debris from just punching holes right in it and 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:23.399 just tearing it to shreds. Well, I think it's probably 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.760 stronger than you would think considering how thin it is, 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:31.119 because it's reinforced. But yeah, you're right, Well, there there's 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.359 a gravity man, and like solid things were just blown 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.840 to bits. That guy's face did you like that movie? Yeah? 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:41.840 I did. Yeah, I didn't. Um. I didn't go into 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.600 it expecting the best movie ever, like a lot of 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:46.840 people did, and like you know, a lot of hype 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:51.159 Crank Neil deGrasse Tyson. We should call it angular momentum, 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:55.840 not gravity. It's like, this is a blockbuster Hollywood movie. 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.480 You know, it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. I 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:01.119 thought it was. I thought it was great. Yeah. And 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.880 if you're learning your science from Sandra Bullock, yeah you're 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.160 in trouble. Yeah. Yeah, you should learn it from other 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:11.879 people like yellow graphs, dice um. The other thing that 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.320 I saw that solar sales can be easily used for 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:20.119 is de orbiting that space debris. Apparently you can send 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:22.439 some stuff up there, have it go into US uh 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.399 an orbit, capture a bunch of the space debris. I guess, 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.719 just basically wrap itself around it and then bring it down. Uh. 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.120 I think the way that you bring it down cleaning 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:37.600 up space is pretty much it's a big deal. Yeah. Uh. 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:39.520 And I think the way that you bring solar sales 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:41.959 down so easily is because when you don't need fuel 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.720 to bring them down, um, and you can just angle 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:47.960 them in certain way, so that the sunlight pushes them 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:51.280 down towards Earth and they burn up. Oh yeah, that's 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:53.680 pretty nifty. It is. So we may be using them 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:57.000 just around Earth first, but these are the things that 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:02.280 could very easily lead to inner sellar travel within our lifetime. 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.520 That's pretty cool. We're talking twenty years right now. You 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:07.800 take a lot longer than that without this. Yeah, I'm 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:12.280 definitely we should follow up in on the Is that 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:16.720 the sun Jammer? Yeah? Which is next year now? Because 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:21.520 this is our our New Year's Eve episode, isn't it. Yeah? 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.920 I think so. Actually nice. So we're already or we're 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:28.040 about to be, depending on when you're listening to this 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:29.960 or when it comes out, So in just a year 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.240 or more, the sun Jammer will be doing this thing. Yeah, 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:35.240 we should do a follow up on it. My money 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:40.520 is on this one. Maglev trains. Yeah, uh, people going 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:45.639 without refrigerators, that's the future. Wiping your butt with cloth? 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.640 All right, you got anything else? I got nothing else? 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.600 I'd like this one. I think the solar sale Is 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:55.159 is literally the thing of the future. Yeah, I like 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:57.720 it too. Man Um. You want to wish everybody a 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.480 happy New Year. Happy New Year, Everyone be new year. 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:02.760 And I'd also like to say a very happy birthday 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:04.920 to my sweet wife. That's right, I always forget it's 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:11.080 uh what what's the date birthday? Uh? Well, happy birthday, Umi, 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:13.840 and happy New Year's everyone, and be safe and uh 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:18.320 we sail into the future. If you want to know 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:21.240 more about solar sailing, you can type that word in 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:23.160 the search part how stuff works dot com. And since 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:27.440 I said search bar, it's time for a message break. 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:35.119 Uh now, Chuck, it's time for listener mail. What am 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:37.280 I gonna call this? I'm gonna call this from Roanoke, 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:41.639 Virginia just because it's easy death metal for moan Oak. Hey, guys, 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:45.480 I was listening to the episode Why Does Music Provoke Emotion? 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:47.959 Love that episode, by the way, because music has been 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:50.680 such an integral part of my life and everything I do. 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:53.240 And it also reminded me of an experience I had recently. 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:56.520 Metal music has always been my favorite genre. I know 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.960 this email? Uh did you read it? I guess id 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.000 is really connect with it. Anyway, I recently decided to 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.800 try out the black metal subgenre. I guess he'd previously 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:13.320 was into light metal, right, um, so I purchased Dark 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:19.040 Thrones Transylvanian hunger, put it in my car CD player 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:21.679 and started driving with the music. When the music started, 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:26.000 I got the strangest feeling. It reminded me of Christmas. Well, 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:28.200 this seems like the last reaction when we get from 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:30.440 such a type of music. I think I figured it out. 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:34.320 The music itself makes me think of icy, snowy winters, 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:37.520 which I of course associate with the joy of snow 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:40.680 around Christmas as a child. Between this and the relaxing 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:44.919 tremorow guitars that were carrying the music, the cool breeze 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:47.360 that I felt through the car windows, and the pale moonlight, 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:50.880 the whole experience made me feel a happiness that resembled 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:53.320 the kind of usually get around Christmas time. I just 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:56.560 found it really fascinating. Is something that I found so relaxing, 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.919 would probably make most listeners want to scream and if 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:03.639 ash and not unlike the vocalist of most of these bands. Uh, 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:06.000 It's so true that music can yield a different reaction 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:11.400 from everyone or anyway, I just thought you might find 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:13.200 it interesting and thanks for the great show that is 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:18.200 from Patrick Hagar Hagar in Roanoke, Virginia. I think you 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:22.480 see Hagar well I wanted, but it's h a G 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:25.680 and not a R. You should change his name to 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:28.320 Hagar with a couple of them wounts. Yeah, it's like 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:33.440 then you're listening to Transylvanian Nightmare. What was it called? Yeah, 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:38.919 I think that was right, Transylvanian hungar Uh which Manhattan transfer? No, No, 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:43.200 that's the opposite of death metal. Um. If you want 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:47.800 to let us know about some strange reaction you had, 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:53.480 it's something we've discussed right aside from drowsiness, right because 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:55.720 we've put a lot of people to sleep. Yeah. I 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:57.879 heard Jesse Thorn talking about the other day about what 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:00.480 a backhanded compliment that is or how it always makes 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:03.639 them feel bad. It doesn't bother me, no, And it 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:05.960 was on Judge John Hodgman, and Hodgeman was like, no, man, 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:08.800 people are saying there in a very intimate moment, you 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:12.040 were relaxing them into sleep, and that's a compliment. So 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:14.320