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Speaker 3: Hey, it's Wilfridell and Sabrina Brian and we're.

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Speaker 1: The hosts of the new podcast Magical Rewind.

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Speaker 4: You may know us from some of your favorite childhood

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Speaker 4: TV movies like My Date with the President's Daughter.

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Speaker 3: And the Cheetah Girls movies.

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Speaker 4: Together, we're sitting down to watch all the movies you

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Speaker 4: grew up with and chat with some of your favorite

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Speaker 4: stars and crew that made these iconic movies happen.

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Speaker 3: So kick back, grab your popcorn and join us.

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Speaker 5: Listen to Magical Rewind on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts

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Speaker 5: or wherever you get your podcasts brought to you by

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Speaker 5: State Farm, like a good neighbor State farm is there?

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Speaker 1: Hey, Kelly, do you guys have solar power over there

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Speaker 1: at the science Farm?

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Speaker 6: We do.

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Speaker 3: We actually pretty recently installed solar panels on top of

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Speaker 3: one of our barns.

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Speaker 1: Ooh, and so does it give you like all the

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Speaker 1: energy you could ever want?

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Speaker 3: Uh? No, not all the energy we could ever want.

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Speaker 3: I married a man who would like to build a

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Speaker 3: giant laser, and so he's always going to be disappointed.

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Speaker 3: But it gives us some power.

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Speaker 1: Well, does it give you all the energy you need?

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Speaker 3: I mean not quite. It's cloudy where we live, and

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Speaker 3: then there's nighttime and the batteries aren't quite up to

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Speaker 3: the task.

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Speaker 1: Who needs energy at nighttime?

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Speaker 7: Geez?

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Speaker 1: Or like in the winter, you guys are way too demanding.

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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, we could just put on like five layers

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Speaker 3: of socks. That might get hard for Zack to wear

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Speaker 3: socks and sandals, but I'm sure he'd persevere.

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Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist, and I'm the

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Speaker 1: co host of our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I'm an adjunct professor with Rice

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Speaker 3: University and I study parasites.

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Speaker 1: And welcome to the podcast in which we talk about

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Speaker 1: everything out there in the universe, the tiny little particles

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Speaker 1: that will go around beneath your toes and in your toes,

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Speaker 1: and the huge mysteries of the universe, How it began,

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Speaker 1: how it will end, how it all works. We talk

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Speaker 1: about all that crazy stuff and try to break it

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Speaker 1: down and explain it to you. My normal co host,

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Speaker 1: Jorge cham the creator PhD Comics, isn't here today, but

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Speaker 1: we're very lucky to have our returning regular guest host,

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Speaker 1: Kelly Wienersmith. Kelly, thanks for joining us again.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, my pleasure. I'm excited to be back. It's a

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Speaker 3: lot of fun.

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Speaker 1: While we try to have fun, and we also try

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Speaker 1: to talk about science, and we talk about the mysteries

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Speaker 1: of the universe. We talk about the time little particles,

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Speaker 1: but we also like to talk about how things work

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Speaker 1: and weather things will work. We'd like to explore technologies.

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Speaker 1: We've talked in this podcast about how LED's work. We've

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Speaker 1: talked about how solar panels work, and we've talked about

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Speaker 1: things like space elevators. And I understand Kelly, that you're

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Speaker 1: becoming something of an expert in how space technology and

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Speaker 1: space colonization works. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Our upcoming book is sort of on that topic. So

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Speaker 3: we've been spending a lot of time reading about these

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Speaker 3: sorts of things, and soon Ash had a chapter on

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Speaker 3: space elevators.

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Speaker 1: And are you excited to think about this kind of

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Speaker 1: stuff because you think like everything in the future will

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Speaker 1: be based in space, of space farms and space schools

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Speaker 1: and space grocery stores.

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Speaker 3: Well, I have this sense that we are maybe a

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Speaker 3: little bit too overly optimistic about how great it's going

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Speaker 3: to be to live in space. But I do think

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Speaker 3: that at some point we'll have space settlements and we'll

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Speaker 3: have lots of cool stuff going on in space. And

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Speaker 3: how we're going to power all of that and make

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Speaker 3: this awful environment habitable is a very interesting question, I.

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Speaker 1: Think, because it is kind of environment. I think it's

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Speaker 1: amazing that space has this sort of like cool sheen

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Speaker 1: to it, right, and it is awesome out there. It's

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Speaker 1: like part of the universe, but it's also kind of awful, right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's like not a cozy place to be.

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Speaker 3: No, I mean, I think you look at a picture

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Speaker 3: of the moon our Mars, and you can sort of

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Speaker 3: imagine places on Earth that looks sort of similar and

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Speaker 3: sort of convince yourself like, oh, it's not that different,

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Speaker 3: But no, it's super different and it's super unpleasant and

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Speaker 3: it's definitely trying to kill you all the time.

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Speaker 1: And that really makes us cherish life down here on Earth.

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Speaker 1: You know, we are really lucky to get to live

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Speaker 1: in this warm, atmospheric little slice of the universe that's

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Speaker 1: wet but not too wet and has all the right

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Speaker 1: conditions for our kind of life and our cozy lifestyle.

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Speaker 1: And so I think another way to look at space

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Speaker 1: is like as a resource, a way to support and

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Speaker 1: improve life here on Earth, rather than as an alternate

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Speaker 1: for life on Earth.

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Speaker 3: And I think there's a lot of enthusiasm about that.

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Speaker 3: But I also think there's a lot of reasons why

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Speaker 3: getting things from space to Earth is really difficult, and

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Speaker 3: those are maybe some of the big things we need

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Speaker 3: to overcome so that we can make space improve our

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Speaker 3: lives down here.

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Speaker 1: Right, We need like a better highway between here and

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Speaker 1: space so we can take better advantage of all of

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Speaker 1: its resources.

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Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. And also we have to be careful about

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Speaker 3: Earth being a gravity well, so you don't bring, for example,

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Speaker 3: an asteroid with great resources too close and then have

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Speaker 3: a sort of dinosaur event happen again. So it's a

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Speaker 3: little sensitive.

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Speaker 1: Talk about cell phones, right, oops?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right ooops, extinction level event my bed.

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Speaker 1: Well, one of the big issues of course facing us

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Speaker 1: down here on Earth is energy and how to get

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Speaker 1: clean sources of renewable energy that are cheap and that

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Speaker 1: are easy to distribute, and that are consistent, and that

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Speaker 1: can heat your toes on a cold winter night, even

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Speaker 1: on the science farm.

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Speaker 3: So what are some proposals.

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Speaker 1: Well, obviously there's been a big surge down here on

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Speaker 1: Earth of solar panels and green energy such as wind,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. So that's been helping a little bit. But

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Speaker 1: I get a little worried when I look at these

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Speaker 1: projections from the IPCC about like the various paths we're

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Speaker 1: going on if we only use like twenty or thirty

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Speaker 1: or fifty percent renewable energies for the next few years,

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Speaker 1: Like the curves for increasing global surface warming temperatures still

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Speaker 1: look pretty dire.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm not super optimistic that we'll be able

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Speaker 3: to switch to more climate friendly technologies like nuclear because

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Speaker 3: they have sort of other big downsides when you've got

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Speaker 3: humans using it.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, and so people have been talking about crazy new

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Speaker 1: proposals to supercharge our solar power industry, to make it

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Speaker 1: much more efficient, much more dramatic, much more available by

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Speaker 1: connecting it to space.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so what would that look like? How the heck

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Speaker 3: do you do that?

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Speaker 1: And that's the topic of today's podcast today. In the program,

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Speaker 1: we're asking the question is space based solar power realistic?

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Speaker 1: Because you know, we can talk about space based whatever,

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Speaker 1: and you can spend ten billion dollars doing some proof

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Speaker 1: of principal or one hundred billion dollars, But if we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about something like delivering power to people

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Speaker 1: down here on Earth, it's got to be economical, right,

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Speaker 1: It's got to be robust, it's got to be actually realistic.

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Speaker 1: We've got to be developing an industry people actually want

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Speaker 1: to invest in and work in, not just some fancy

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Speaker 1: thing for a nationalistic pride.

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Speaker 3: Totally and so okay, so we've got solar panels on

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Speaker 3: Earth and the price of solar panels is plummeting quickly.

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Speaker 3: So like Zach and I've been together for something like

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Speaker 3: fourteen years now, and almost every year in our relationship

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Speaker 3: we've checked the price of solar panels just because we're

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Speaker 3: both excited about renewable energy. And last year we were like,

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Speaker 3: we can afford it now, And partly that was because

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Speaker 3: of tax credits and stuff, but also it's because the

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Speaker 3: price of these panels is going down a lot. And

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Speaker 3: so when you can put these cheap panels on your houses,

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Speaker 3: why would you bother putting them in space?

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Speaker 1: Right, So let's dig into that in a moment, But

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Speaker 1: first I want to ask you, like, what made you

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Speaker 1: pull the trigger? Was it really like it's below the

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Speaker 1: threshold where we can afford it. We keep looking at

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Speaker 1: this and keep thinking, you know what, next year they'll

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Speaker 1: be cheaper, and if we just wait another year, they'll

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Speaker 1: be cheaper. So what point do you decide, Well, they're

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Speaker 1: cheap enough that now is the time to buy them.

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Speaker 3: So I think the trigger for us was that there

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Speaker 3: was a tax break for something like thirty percent, where

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Speaker 3: thirty percent of the cost of the solar panels you

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Speaker 3: could apply to your taxes, and that was set to expire,

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Speaker 3: and so we decided we needed to do it right away.

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Speaker 3: And actually a bunch of the local solar companies were

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Speaker 3: just way overburdened because a bunch of people must have

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Speaker 3: made that same calculation just a couple months before the

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Speaker 3: taxes were about to expire. And so for us, it

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Speaker 3: was the tax break that made us decide we weren't

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Speaker 3: going to wait for the price to go down anymore

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Speaker 3: because we thought it would be a while. And also

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Speaker 3: we had finally purchased our own house, and this is

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Speaker 3: something we'd been dreaming about for a long time, so

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Speaker 3: we decided it was time to go for it.

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Speaker 1: And it's really interesting to see the evolution of this.

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Speaker 1: Twenty or ten years ago, solar panels were really pretty expensive.

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Speaker 1: They were hard to make, they didn't last very long,

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Speaker 1: they weren't that good, but you know, people were buying them,

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Speaker 1: and the industry got started and the government gave it

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Speaker 1: some pushes, and now we have this very vibrant solar

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Speaker 1: panel industry where the prices are falling rapidly and lots

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Speaker 1: of people are buying them, and so it sort of

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Speaker 1: builds on itself. It's sort of like consumer electronics, you know,

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Speaker 1: once it gets going and the big marketplace comes in

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Speaker 1: with all of his capital. Then things just get cheaper

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Speaker 1: and cheaper and easier and easier and better and better.

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Speaker 3: But one thing that is not getting cheaper and cheaper

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Speaker 3: as fast as I think we would like is the

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Speaker 3: batteries that go with the solar panels. So we live

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Speaker 3: out in the middle of nowhere, and we sometimes will

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Speaker 3: lose power for like a week. The previous owner at

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Speaker 3: least told us that, and so we asked the solar

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Speaker 3: panel company, like, so we should buy batteries, right, and

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Speaker 3: we'll store up a week of power and when our

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Speaker 3: power goes out in the middle of winter, we'll live

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Speaker 3: off of the batteries. And the guy was like, no, no, no,

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Speaker 3: you should still buy a propane power generator because the

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Speaker 3: batteries are way too expensive. We're not there yet. That's

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Speaker 3: totally not worth it. And so I feel like solar

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Speaker 3: isn't going to be a really great solution until you

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Speaker 3: can actually be storing the power from the sun even

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Speaker 3: when you don't need it. And things like Tesla are

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Speaker 3: helping it drive down the cost of these batteries because

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Speaker 3: they're you know, making them more efficient and better to

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Speaker 3: put in electric cars. But I think it's still in

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Speaker 3: a lot of cases the technology is still not there

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Speaker 3: yet at a res price point.

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Speaker 1: And I think you put your finger on what motivates

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Speaker 1: space based solar power, which is that you can't get

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Speaker 1: solar power on Earth twenty four hours a day, three

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five days a year because it's nighttime

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Speaker 1: sometimes and you know it's cloudy sometimes, and so what

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Speaker 1: if you could like beam that power from space anytime,

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Speaker 1: any day, no matter how cold it is and how

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Speaker 1: overcast it is. But we'll get into that in a moment. First,

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Speaker 1: we surveyed our listeners to hear what they thought about

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Speaker 1: the prospects of having solar power come down from space.

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Speaker 1: So thank you to everybody who volunteer to answer random

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Speaker 1: questions on the internet. If you're excited to participate and

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Speaker 1: hear your voice speculating baselessly in the future, please write

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Speaker 1: to us too questions at Danielanjorge dot com. So here's

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Speaker 1: what people had to say.

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Speaker 6: I think, yes, maybe not for us on the ground,

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Speaker 6: to the limits of currently available extension codes, but definitely

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Speaker 6: important for everyone who is already stationed in space.

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Speaker 8: I think it is something assuming that would be either

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Speaker 8: a dice and sphere or a what do you call

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Speaker 8: it solar sail. I think very large scale is impossible.

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Speaker 8: I don't think we have enough matter in the Solar

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Speaker 8: system to make a dicing sphere, but I think some

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Speaker 8: things can be made of it.

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Speaker 9: I guess the problem would be getting the power from

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Speaker 9: space down to Earth. Again, I guess it would be

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Speaker 9: a good idea to have solar panels outside of the

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Speaker 9: Earth's atmosphere because you'd probably get more power because there's

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Speaker 9: no clouds and things. But then you'd have to get

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Speaker 9: the power down to the surface. So I don't know

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Speaker 9: if you can beam power. Is that too star trek

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Speaker 9: I don't know. Otherwise you could do it with batteries,

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Speaker 9: I guess, and then transport it, but that would be

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Speaker 9: very expensive.

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Speaker 10: Space spased solar power is not realistic now because I

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Speaker 10: don't think we know how to get this power back

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Speaker 10: to the Earth. If we're going to use it on

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Speaker 10: the Earth, I feel like that would be a very

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Speaker 10: hard engineering problem, Like we already have trouble sending solar

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Speaker 10: power distances here on Earth.

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Speaker 1: So if it's collected in.

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Speaker 10: Space, that seems logistically like impossible.

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Speaker 1: Well, it depends how the technology will evolve. But for

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Speaker 1: no no, but who knows what we will do in

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Speaker 1: the future. Why not. So what'd you think of their answers, Kelly.

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Speaker 3: I thought those were super interesting answers, and I thought

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Speaker 3: they brought up some important points, like how do you

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Speaker 3: get the power back to Earth? So they were well

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Speaker 3: sought out answers. What about you.

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Speaker 1: I heard a lot of skepticism there, which I think

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Speaker 1: is well motivated. There's at least one person who misunderstood

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Speaker 1: the question. I think I was talking about, like solar

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Speaker 1: sales and whether you could sail on photons from stars

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Speaker 1: while you're sort of far away from a solar system,

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Speaker 1: which is another totally vascinating question and would require like

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Speaker 1: massive lasers to push on those solar sales. But I

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Speaker 1: think the question of like building solar power in space

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Speaker 1: and being it down to Earth does seem pretty complicated

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Speaker 1: and problematic. But you know, maybe we're just at the

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Speaker 1: early stages of this industry, back when solar panels on

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Speaker 1: your roof were expensive and flaky and hard to arrange.

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Speaker 1: Maybe we're just sort of in the early days and

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Speaker 1: we need to sort of get the ball rolling. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: we'll dig into it.

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Speaker 3: So you mentioned in the IPCC reports that it just

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Speaker 3: didn't seem like renewables were maybe going to be enough

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Speaker 3: to deal with the climate change problem, Like, what is

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Speaker 3: holding us back? Why can't we just use renewables for

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Speaker 3: all of our energy and you know, stop using things

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Speaker 3: like coal.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think you put your finger on it earlier,

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Speaker 1: which is that you don't get sunlight all the time.

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Speaker 1: And in some cases there are places where you get

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Speaker 1: like a lot of sunlight exactly when you need it.

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Speaker 1: For example, if you live in Arizona and you need

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Speaker 1: energy in order to cool your house, then you're getting

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Speaker 1: a lot of sunlight right when you need to cool

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Speaker 1: the house. Inst the energy production produced by the solar

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Speaker 1: panels are very close to the energy needs where you

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Speaker 1: needed to drive that air conditioning. That's not always the case. If,

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Speaker 1: for example, you're living in the dark, cold northern Scandinavian winter,

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Speaker 1: then you're not getting a lot of solar power and

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Speaker 1: you need power in the winter to stay warm. And

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Speaker 1: so the bottleneck there is, as you said earlier, storage

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Speaker 1: and transportation, Like you could have a huge solar farm

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Speaker 1: somewhere in the Sahara or in the Mojave Desert that

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Speaker 1: produces enough powerful whole country, but getting it from there

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Speaker 1: to somewhere else, and storing it is very very expensive.

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Speaker 1: Battery technology and transmission losses make it essentially totally uneconomical.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So solar panels are just never going to take

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Speaker 3: care of some parts.

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Speaker 1: Of Earth, that's right, because they can't get energy twenty

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Speaker 1: four hours a day and they can't get energy three

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five days a year. And a similar

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Speaker 1: problem for wind. Right. Wind also directly produces electricity, and

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Speaker 1: electricity is hard to store efficiently and hard to transfer efficiently.

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Speaker 3: Is this the kind of thing where if we improved

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Speaker 3: our grid dramatically things could improve a lot, or are

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Speaker 3: we limited by the physics of transmission loss as you go,

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Speaker 3: even with a great grade, we still couldn't get the

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Speaker 3: power to place as we need it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, transmission losses are pretty tough. And we're talking about

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Speaker 1: you know, across the country or across the world, and

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Speaker 1: we're talking about storage, and storage is pretty expensive, so

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Speaker 1: you know, you can't rule out future breakthroughs in battery technology.

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Speaker 1: And actually we're going to do an episode in a

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Speaker 1: few weeks about electric airplanes, which require innovation in batteries

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Speaker 1: to make them lighter and more powerful. But current ideas

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Speaker 1: don't have us getting there, and so we have this

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Speaker 1: limitation of just sort of producing the power at the

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Speaker 1: right time and in the right place where it needs

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Speaker 1: to be used.

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Speaker 3: All right, So solar power is great, but you've got

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Speaker 3: these problems with trying to get it from place to

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Speaker 3: place and problems with not having enough of it in

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Speaker 3: some of the places that you need it. How does

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Speaker 3: spending the incredible cost of putting solar power in space

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Speaker 3: help us overcome these problems.

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Speaker 1: Well, the basic idea is that it's always sunny in space,

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Speaker 1: So you can have these solar panels up in space

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Speaker 1: and they're always seeing the sun. Right there are going

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Speaker 1: to be a high enough orbit that they're not going

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Speaker 1: to be in the Earth's shadow for very long at all,

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Speaker 1: like a very tiny fraction of their time. And of

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Speaker 1: course they're above the clouds, and so they have basically

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Speaker 1: continuous generation of power. And you know a lot of

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Speaker 1: energy is lost when the sunlight passes through the atmosphere.

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Speaker 1: There's like reflection and absorption and that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: So the idea is that you start out collecting much

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Speaker 1: more solar power five six, seven, eight times as much

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Speaker 1: as the equivalent ground based array, and so that provides

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Speaker 1: you the ability to gather more power and also to

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Speaker 1: gather power all the time.

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Speaker 3: And because you're in space, you can reach anyone who

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Speaker 3: might need that power anywhere? Is that the idea? So

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Speaker 3: like you can get those people who are living in

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Speaker 3: Norway in the winter.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's the other issue is like you generate

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Speaker 1: this power in space, then what do you do with it? Right,

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Speaker 1: Because we have already solar panels in space, like every

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Speaker 1: satellite that's out there, and the ISS has solar panels.

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Speaker 1: It's a very well established way to generate power in

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Speaker 1: space for use in space. But if want to generate

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Speaker 1: power in space and then use it to build you know,

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Speaker 1: Zach's big laser or whatever, then you need to get

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Speaker 1: it down to Earth. Right, So you might beging like

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Speaker 1: big wires draped from satellites down to Earth. Obviously that's

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Speaker 1: not going to work right, huge problems there, And so

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Speaker 1: the idea is to beam it down to Earth. So

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Speaker 1: you collect the power in space and then you transform

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Speaker 1: it into microwaves or lasers and beam that down to

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Speaker 1: Earth to some receiver which then picks it up.

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Speaker 3: And we have a fair amount of experience with working

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Speaker 3: with solar powers in space, right, So you mentioned the

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Speaker 3: ISS has solar panels, solut Skylab mirror. They probably all

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Speaker 3: I'm fairly certain they all had solar panels.

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Speaker 1: Also, the rovers on Mars have solar panels yep.

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Speaker 3: Yep, yep. And so we have some information about how

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Speaker 3: solar panels persist in a vacuum and how long they

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Speaker 3: survive and how well they do as they move in

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Speaker 3: and out of the sunlight. So, which would mean they're

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Speaker 3: dealing with these massive temperature changes as you go in

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Speaker 3: the area where you get hit with the sun versus

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Speaker 3: when you go in the shadow of the Earth. And

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Speaker 3: so I guess we have a fair bit of information

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Speaker 3: about the use of solar panels in space. Do you

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Speaker 3: think that's fair to say?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we definitely have some experience. I don't

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Speaker 1: know what the history of repair is for those missions,

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Speaker 1: if they're like constantly repairing and replenishing the solar panels

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Speaker 1: on the ISS because of micromedia rites and radiation damage.

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Speaker 3: So how long have people been thinking about this idea?

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Speaker 3: Is this like a brand new idea or an idea

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Speaker 3: that's sort of been floating around for a while.

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Speaker 1: I was doing a little bit of reading, and it

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Speaker 1: turns out this is an idea that's been bubbling up

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Speaker 1: for decades. Actually, there was a first paper about it

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Speaker 1: by a Russian scientist who the name I can't pronounce.

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Speaker 1: Can't pronounce that.

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Speaker 3: Name, Konstantine Solkovski.

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Speaker 1: There you go, in the nineteen twenties. It's sort of

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Speaker 1: speculative idea, and then I think it sort of burst

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Speaker 1: into public imagination because of a short story by Isaac

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Speaker 1: Asimov nineteen forty one. He had this device where it

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Speaker 1: would collect soul of power and then beam it to

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Speaker 1: various planets, like around the Solar System, but you know,

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Speaker 1: that's science fiction. And then it trickled back into academia.

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Speaker 1: In the late sixties. There was a paper by Peter

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Speaker 1: Glazer sort of like trying to take this topic seriously

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Speaker 1: and break it down and ask the questions about what

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Speaker 1: would work and how much it would cost. So it's

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Speaker 1: been bubbling around for you know, several decades, and now

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Speaker 1: people are really starting to work on it, developing the technologies,

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Speaker 1: thinking about how to beam it down to Earth, how

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Speaker 1: to make it economical. The advent of cheaper launches from

441
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442
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443
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Speaker 3: All right, so let's take a moment to talk more

444
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445
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446
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447
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Speaker 1: into your mouth or enjoy a rich spoonful of Greek yogurt,

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Speaker 1: you're probably not the thinking about the environmental impact of

498
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499
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Speaker 1: industry are US. Dairy has set themselves some ambitious sustainability goals,

500
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:12,680
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501
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502
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503
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504
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505
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506
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512
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514
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515
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:04,320
Speaker 3: Okay, so it's a little hard for me to imagine

516
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:07,120
Speaker 3: all of the details about what will the solar panels

517
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 3: look like, how much energy will they be creating? Do

518
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 3: they need to be prepared, how do you get the

519
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 3: power down to earth? So can you give us some

520
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 3: more details about how this is all going to come together?

521
00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:17,359
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different ideas for how to

522
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:20,119
Speaker 1: make this work. Lots of different sort of conceptions. Some

523
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 1: of them have, for example, huge mirrors that focus light

524
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: onto a few solar cells and gather it together, so

525
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:28,959
Speaker 1: you're like capturing sunlight from a large area and then

526
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: focusing onto just a few solar cells. Other ideas are

527
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,479
Speaker 1: just have like massive sheets of solar cells, just like

528
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:37,399
Speaker 1: you know, lots and lots and lots of them to

529
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 1: capture the energy. So there's a lot of different sort

530
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:42,480
Speaker 1: of strategies for how to build this thing and how

531
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:44,440
Speaker 1: to make it work. And we'll talk maybe in a

532
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: little bit about which ones are more economical, which ones

533
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:49,000
Speaker 1: are more feasible. But one of the biggest questions that

534
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:51,119
Speaker 1: have to deal with is how to get this power

535
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:54,119
Speaker 1: down to Earth? Right? And it seems a little weird,

536
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: like you collect the power up in space and then

537
00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 1: you need to beam it down to Earth. It's a

538
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:02,120
Speaker 1: little counterintuitive because it was already sort of getting beamed

539
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 1: down to Earth, Like the Sun is already beaming its

540
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: power to Earth, right, So like why do you need

541
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:09,640
Speaker 1: to capture it and then like beaming down to Earth.

542
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 1: I was thinking initially, maybe it's more energetic. Maybe they're

543
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:15,479
Speaker 1: like focusing, so the beam of power from the space

544
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: array of solar panels is like more intense than sunlight.

545
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: But that's not actually the case, and that would actually

546
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: be quite dangerous because that's basically building like a huge

547
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 1: space weapon and shooting it at the Earth. And so

548
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 1: there's this limitation where you basically can't beam down energy

549
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:34,680
Speaker 1: at higher intensity than natural sunlight.

550
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 3: So when I hear that, my first thought is, well,

551
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 3: then obviously it's not worth it. So what am I

552
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 3: not understanding?

553
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,159
Speaker 1: No, that's a very reasonable reaction, because you have to

554
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 1: like build this space array to capture the energy and

555
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: then beam down to Earth, and then you still need

556
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:52,159
Speaker 1: to build an array on Earth that's you know, about

557
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: the same size, because if you want to capture this

558
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:56,919
Speaker 1: energy on Earth, you need to build something that's going

559
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 1: to grab it. And for example, if you're using microwaves,

560
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 1: microway have a really long wavelength and so you might need,

561
00:26:03,280 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: for example, like a rais on Earth that are one,

562
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:09,439
Speaker 1: two three kilometers wide just to capture this energy. And

563
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: if that energy doesn't have more intensity than sunlight, you

564
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 1: might as well just have built a ground based solar

565
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: panel right there, right Why capture it in terms of

566
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 1: microwaves from space instead of just like natural sunlight falling

567
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 1: on the Earth. And the answer is that the source

568
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: of light from space should be more constant, right like,

569
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:30,879
Speaker 1: if you're on Earth and you're just lying on sunlight,

570
00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: then you're not going to be getting it at nighttime,

571
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 1: you're not going to be getting when it's cloudy. And

572
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:37,440
Speaker 1: people who don't live in southern California like I do,

573
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:39,879
Speaker 1: know that they don't get more than a few hours

574
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 1: of like really equivalent solid sunlight on an average day.

575
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: So the difference is that it should be constant, that

576
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 1: you should be always getting this microwave power beamed down

577
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five

578
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:52,200
Speaker 1: days a year.

579
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 3: So the power would get sent to some giant station

580
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:57,360
Speaker 3: that collects it, and then it would be sent through

581
00:26:57,400 --> 00:26:59,159
Speaker 3: the grid to our houses.

582
00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:01,679
Speaker 1: And you could have several stations scattered all around, and

583
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 1: these solar panels in space could direct the energy where

584
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 1: it's needed, so it's not like linked up necessarily for

585
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: all time. Between one set of solar panels in space

586
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: and a receiving station on Earth, you could decide, oh,

587
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 1: Australia needs more power, or oh we need more power

588
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: in Scandinavia, and you could redirect this power as needed,

589
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: because you're just pointing it from space. It's like you're

590
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,640
Speaker 1: shooting it from space down to the receiver on Earth.

591
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 3: And that would be sent as microwaves.

592
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 1: So there are two sort of technologies people are considering.

593
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 1: One is microwaves and the other is lasers. Microwaves, you know,

594
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 1: are just photons. There's just another kind of light, but

595
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,400
Speaker 1: it's light with a very specific wavelength. It's the same

596
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 1: kind of radiation, the same kind of light that exists

597
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:46,439
Speaker 1: in your microwave oven to heat up your food. So

598
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: you know, if you beam microwaves as something, you will

599
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:51,639
Speaker 1: heat it up. They contain power, and the microwaves just

600
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,640
Speaker 1: tell you, like roughly what the wavelength is of the light.

601
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 1: And so we're talking about centimeter length wavelengths, which is

602
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 1: not actually that small, you know, compared to like visit light,

603
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: but it's microwave compared to you know, like much longer

604
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:06,679
Speaker 1: wavelengths radio light. And so these are great because they

605
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 1: can pass through clouds. For example, so you shoot a microwave,

606
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: it's basically clouds are invisible to it. The clouds are

607
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 1: totally transparent and so that's pretty nice. And these things

608
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 1: could be like up really far away in sort of

609
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:21,679
Speaker 1: middle Earth orbit or geosynchronous orbit, like thirty five thousand

610
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:23,920
Speaker 1: kilometers above the Earth, and they could beam the light

611
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:26,959
Speaker 1: down in terms of microwaves, and then on the Earth's surface.

612
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 1: You just need some sort of like microwave antenna, which

613
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 1: is just like a big chain link fence essentially to

614
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:33,640
Speaker 1: capture these microwaves.

615
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 3: So this might be a silly question, but so I

616
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 3: wouldn't want to be in my microwave. That would be

617
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 3: a bad place to be. Do you have to worry

618
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 3: about like if a plane passes underneath the microwaves that

619
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 3: are getting sent down to the power stations on Earth.

620
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 3: Would that be a problem or not.

621
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 1: It's not a silly question at all. I don't want

622
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: to be in a microwave either, especially a space based microwave.

623
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: They could like track me and shoot me wherever I go.

624
00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: The idea is to limit the intensity to the intensity

625
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: normal sunlight, so you don't get any problems like that

626
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: because you don't just have to worry about airplanes. What

627
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: about like birds? You don't want to create like a

628
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: death zone where you have like a column of birds

629
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 1: that are like constantly dying and falling onto your microwave

630
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: array because you're killing them more insects or anything else, right,

631
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: you don't want to be changing the weather. So that's

632
00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: why they limit it to the roughly the intensity of

633
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: natural life. But that is definitely an experiment. I mean,

634
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: we talked once on this program about five G, which

635
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 1: operates in the same sort of wavelengths. We don't have

636
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: sort of knowledge about what it's like to live under

637
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 1: low intensity, constant sources of microwave radiation because people haven't

638
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: done it before. So we might discover some bad news,

639
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: some bad consequences of this if you live near the station,

640
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: But current understanding of physics and biology is that that

641
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 1: wouldn't be dangerous to humans.

642
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 3: Okay, And that's different questions. So you had mentioned that

643
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 3: the solar panels would be in geosynchronous orbit, and geosynchronous

644
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:56,760
Speaker 3: orbit is like really high up. So the International Space

645
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 3: Station is in low Earth orbit. Geosynchronous orbit, as I

646
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 3: understand it is really high up, and that's where you

647
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 3: need it to make sure that an object stays over

648
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 3: the same spot in Earth all the time. And so

649
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 3: if you are super far away, like farther than where

650
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 3: a lot of the satellites, you know, Starlink for example,

651
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 3: is do you lose power on the way and is

652
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 3: that a problem or do microwaves not sort of dissipate

653
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 3: over distance.

654
00:30:20,320 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: You definitely lose power and that's definitely a problem, and

655
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: when we talk about the economics of it, that's definitely

656
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: an issue. You can't transmit energy one hundred percent efficiently basically, ever,

657
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: and if you're beaming power over long distances, you're also

658
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: going to lose some power. They're hoping for efficiencies of

659
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: like fifty to eighty percent. They actually have done some

660
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: tests they beamed power using microwaves. This is a test

661
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: that did in Hawaii and went for one hundred miles

662
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: and they were able to get a reasonable efficiency. But

663
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 1: it's definitely an issue. At every stage you're going to

664
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 1: be losing some energy. You know, converting the sunlight into

665
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: electricity is like maybe thirty forty percent efficient if you

666
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 1: think very optimistically, and then transforming that into microwaves is

667
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: not going to be one hundred percent efficient, and then

668
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 1: the transmission down to Earth is not going to be

669
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: one hundred percent efficient, and then the conversion from microwaves

670
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: back to electricity is not going to be one hundred

671
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: percent efficient, And so you multiply all these numbers together

672
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 1: and it starts to get smaller and smaller. So this

673
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 1: whole question of whether it's feasible relies on balancing this

674
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 1: like the multiplier factor of you're getting more power consistently

675
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 1: with the expense factor of you got more steps in

676
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 1: the chain where you can lose efficiency. And also it's

677
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: pretty expensive chain to build. I mean, this thing is

678
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 1: going to be in space.

679
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 3: That all sounds super complicated. And so you had mentioned

680
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 3: they could do microwaves or lasers. Do lasers make any

681
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 3: of those equations play a little bit more nicely?

682
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: So microwaves and lasers the two ideas. Lasers are a

683
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 1: different idea, And the goal here is to make smaller

684
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: devices because lasers can be more focused and they can

685
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: be narrower beams just because the frequency of the light

686
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 1: is higher and so it doesn't like disperse as much

687
00:31:57,520 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: as it comes down to Earth. And so for example,

688
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 1: you have like a two meter wide beam instead of

689
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: a one kilometer wide beam, So you can have like

690
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:07,960
Speaker 1: smaller stations where you're capturing this energy. You don't need

691
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: to have like a massive area on the Earth. It's

692
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: like a more intense, narrow focused beam. And the idea

693
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 1: there is that also the lasers could be closer, like

694
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 1: they don't need to be as far away, so you

695
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:22,479
Speaker 1: can have like a larger number of smaller satellites beaming

696
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 1: the energy down with lasers instead of microwaves. But of course,

697
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 1: you know there's some dangers there, Like you're talking about

698
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 1: more intensity in your beam. You talking about literally shooting

699
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 1: lasers at the Earth from space. That gives me the hebgbs.

700
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 3: So it gives me the hebgbs too, But like microwaves,

701
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 3: is it the case that you would just have to

702
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 3: make sure that you never are generating more power than

703
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 3: the sun? Like, are these just going to be super

704
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 3: weak lasers?

705
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you need to not be creating death rays

706
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: from space, so they would have to be pretty weak

707
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 1: lasers and that limits the power there, right, So I

708
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 1: think these days microwaves are sort of on the ascendants

709
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 1: when it comes to space based solar power because you

710
00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: have this limit on the intensity, which means that in

711
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: order to get in enough power, you would still need

712
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: a very large receiving array, So you just need lots

713
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:07,240
Speaker 1: of lasers, and so it might be that you would

714
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 1: need like a huge number of these lasers. The other

715
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 1: problem with lasers is that clouds aren't as transparent to

716
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: lasers as they are to microwaves. Microwaves can mostly pass

717
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: through the atmosphere and the clouds without losing energy, but

718
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: not true for lasers. Like clouds can block lasers much

719
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: more efficiently than they can block microwave beams.

720
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 3: That sounds like a pretty big problem.

721
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 1: Is a pretty big problem exactly.

722
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 3: So I wonder if there's a geopolitical problem here too.

723
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 3: So you know, when you create the system, you make

724
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 3: sure that you're not blasting the earth with lasers that

725
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 3: are super powerful. But like, for example, when we feel

726
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 3: comfortable with North Korea saying we have a power problem

727
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 3: and we want to use space based solar power, you know,

728
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:51,400
Speaker 3: to generate power. So is this the kind of thing

729
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 3: where you might be able to say, the international community

730
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 3: is okay with, for example, the United States having this

731
00:33:57,240 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 3: power because we think they'll follow our rules, but we

732
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 3: won't let North Korea anyway. Do you think there's geopolitical

733
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 3: issues that might come to play here?

734
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sure there are, and I'm not up to

735
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 1: speed on, like what the treaties are about how we

736
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 1: use space and what the rules are up there? Who's

737
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: allowed to launch these things? I think it's essentially there

738
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: are no rules, right. We certainly haven't been able to

739
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 1: like limit North Korea from launching satellites or missiles or

740
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: anything like that. So as we move into an era

741
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:26,799
Speaker 1: where space is a international resource and one where there

742
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: are competing interests, will definitely have to figure all this

743
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:31,399
Speaker 1: stuff out. Maybe a model for this is, you know,

744
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:36,319
Speaker 1: how we handle international seawaters or antarctica or stuff like that.

745
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been talking to some space lawyers and it

746
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:41,319
Speaker 3: seems like, if nothing else, it's a very interesting time

747
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 3: to be a space layer.

748
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:45,920
Speaker 1: What are space lawyers? Are they lawyers in space or

749
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: are they lawyers about space? Or what's the deal with

750
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: a space lawyer?

751
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:51,799
Speaker 3: This is a job that will always seem fake to make.

752
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:53,880
Speaker 3: It will always seem like something that belongs in a

753
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:56,839
Speaker 3: sci fi novel. But no, those are lawyers working on

754
00:34:57,080 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 3: questions related to space and it's a super active feat

755
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 3: and I think they've got tons of work to do

756
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:03,840
Speaker 3: right now as space gets cheaper, and.

757
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 1: So what do they think is going to happen to,

758
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:08,720
Speaker 1: like how we'd handle these competing claims and interests in space.

759
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 3: It depends on what topic you're referring to in particular.

760
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,840
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of debate right now on topics

761
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 3: like our countries allowed to go to the Moon and

762
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 3: extract their resources and use them, and the Outer Space

763
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 3: Treaty has some sort of vague language about how you're

764
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:26,839
Speaker 3: not supposed to be able to like take stuff, and

765
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:29,560
Speaker 3: it's supposed to be for everyone, everyone is supposed to benefit.

766
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,319
Speaker 3: But the US is sort of interpreting right now that

767
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 3: we can go up there and if we extract resources,

768
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:37,759
Speaker 3: our companies can then sell them, and that's not the

769
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:39,719
Speaker 3: same as claiming sovereignty. So the big thing the Outer

770
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 3: Space Treaty says is that you can't claim sovereignty of

771
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:45,040
Speaker 3: any part of space, and so they would be saying, well,

772
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,800
Speaker 3: we're not claiming sovereignty. We're just extracting resources and selling

773
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 3: those resources. We're not saying we own the land where

774
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 3: we did the extractions. So space lawyers are sort of

775
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 3: trying to figure out what to do about those claims

776
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 3: and how sound those claims are. And I don't know

777
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 3: how that would relate to things like are you allowed

778
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 3: to put space based solar power up when it has

779
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 3: the potential to be used as a weapon, So you're

780
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 3: not allowed to put you know, for example, weapons of

781
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 3: mass destruction up in space. But there's this problem with

782
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 3: dual use where there's things that you can say like, well, no,

783
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 3: I'm just doing this for power. I'm trying to, you know,

784
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 3: make sure my people stay warm. But it can also

785
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 3: be used as a weapon, and so it becomes hard

786
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 3: to categorize. And so you know, space lawyers are working

787
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 3: on questions like that.

788
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:29,800
Speaker 1: That definitely sounds very space lawyery, Like we're not claiming

789
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 1: we own it, We're just taking stuff out of it

790
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:34,280
Speaker 1: and selling it for money. You know, I'm not claiming

791
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 1: sovereignty over your house, but I'm taking your flat screen

792
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 1: TV and selling it on eBay and keeping the cash.

793
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 1: It gets very complicated, it sounds like it does. And

794
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of the lesson here is like

795
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,359
Speaker 1: everything in space is complicated, not just from a legal

796
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: point of view, but from a logistical point of view.

797
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: You know, one big problem I have with space based

798
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:55,360
Speaker 1: solar power is that it's really inaccessible. Like if you

799
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:57,799
Speaker 1: build a solar power array on your roof. It's hard

800
00:36:57,880 --> 00:36:59,360
Speaker 1: enough to get up there to fix something or you

801
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 1: got to get a laugh or maybe break your neck

802
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 1: getting up there. But like, if we're talking about building

803
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 1: something and putting it in space, right, like you got

804
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 1: to repair that thing. It's a huge problem. Remember when

805
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 1: they built the Hubble and it had an issue and

806
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:13,839
Speaker 1: you know, one of the lenses was fuzzy. They had

807
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 1: to like send astronauts up there in the Space Shuttle

808
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 1: to go and repair that thing. And like, if you've

809
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:21,279
Speaker 1: waited a long time to get your cable provider to

810
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: come by and fix something, imagine on Massa's launch schedule, right.

811
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:27,799
Speaker 3: And we don't you know, the Space Shuttle was a

812
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 3: more versatile vehicle than the things that we have now

813
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 3: that bring us to the International Space Station and dock

814
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:35,279
Speaker 3: and then come back down again. And so I don't

815
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 3: know what it would actually take if you wanted to

816
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:40,360
Speaker 3: have a human go to repair your space based solar panel.

817
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 3: I don't know that we have good technology available currently

818
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 3: for that sort of delicate like going to a very

819
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 3: particular spot in space kind of job.

820
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we'll talk in the next segment about the

821
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: idea of how to do these kinds of repairs, and

822
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 1: what it might entail, and what's going on with the economics.

823
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:56,959
Speaker 1: When we talked to an expert was really excited about

824
00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: the prospects of it. But before we talk about that,

825
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:00,319
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit more about something

826
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,320
Speaker 1: that you mentioned earlier, which is sort of the hostile environment.

827
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: Right If you have solar panels in your backyard, obviously

828
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:09,359
Speaker 1: you know it's gonna be rain and snow and hail,

829
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:11,319
Speaker 1: all these things you have to deal with, but they

830
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: have the benefit of the protection of the Earth's atmosphere.

831
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: But if you're out there in space, right then you're

832
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:21,879
Speaker 1: susceptible to rocks and debris and radiation and all sorts

833
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 1: of stuff. It's a very hostile environment. It's not a

834
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:27,360
Speaker 1: nice place to be for humans or for solar panels.

835
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 7: Yeah.

836
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 3: No, the radiation is super intense and it definitely breaks

837
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:32,680
Speaker 3: things down. And then in addition to the radiation, the

838
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 3: dramatic temperature changes are a problem. So on the International

839
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:39,400
Speaker 3: Space Station you can hear the station creaking as it

840
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 3: goes from areas where it's in the sun to areas

841
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:43,879
Speaker 3: where it's in the dark. And if you've got things

842
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,319
Speaker 3: that are in the shadow of the Earth. Every once

843
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:48,759
Speaker 3: in a while, they're expanding and contracting as they get

844
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 3: superheated by the sun, and then they get super cold

845
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 3: in the vacuum of space when there's no sunlight, they

846
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 3: contract again, and that's not good for materials over long

847
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:00,640
Speaker 3: periods of time. So between the intense radiation and the

848
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 3: dramatic temperature changes, that's a lot to ask your materials

849
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:04,280
Speaker 3: to handle.

850
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like station quakes right Like it literally is

851
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 1: like shaking and creaking as it expands and contracts. That's amazing.

852
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:14,640
Speaker 3: And then in addition to those problems, you have micrometeorites

853
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 3: out there which are traveling incredibly fast and could easily

854
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 3: be poking holes into your solar panels. And there's space debris.

855
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:25,399
Speaker 3: Space debris is a problem that becomes harder every single year,

856
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:28,800
Speaker 3: and it becomes harder the more silly humans do silly

857
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 3: human things. And so I think it was two thousand

858
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 3: and seven China wanted to prove that they could shoot

859
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 3: a satellite in space just as a way of being like,

860
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:39,480
Speaker 3: look at how precise we are in our ability to

861
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:41,880
Speaker 3: shoot at things in space. US has done that, Russia

862
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 3: has done that, India has done that. It's not just China,

863
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 3: but anyway, they picked a satellite that was still high

864
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 3: enough in orbit that it generated thousands I think of

865
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 3: pieces of debris. I wish I could remember the number

866
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 3: that are still floating around in space. And over time,

867
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,759
Speaker 3: you know, we'd leave satellites and we don't decay them

868
00:39:57,760 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 3: and have them go down into the atmosphere. There's just

869
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 3: more and more stuff up there that could run into

870
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,279
Speaker 3: your space based solar panels. And so this is a

871
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:08,239
Speaker 3: problem that becomes harder over time. And if you have

872
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 3: a giant array, you've got essentially a giant target to

873
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 3: get hit by space debris. And for important things satellites

874
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 3: the International Space Station, they have the ability to move

875
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:20,239
Speaker 3: out of the way, but that requires some fuel to

876
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 3: be able to move when you know that something is

877
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:25,239
Speaker 3: coming your way. So these solar panels might also need

878
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 3: to be mobile to stay out of the way. And

879
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 3: one way or another, they're probably still getting hit with

880
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 3: stuff because we can't track the super tiny stuff with

881
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 3: our sensors.

882
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 1: No, you're absolutely right, and they might not just be

883
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 1: a target of space debris. There might be a source

884
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:39,280
Speaker 1: of space debris, right if they break and stuff falls

885
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: off of them, and you're talking about like replacing components,

886
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:44,839
Speaker 1: they're going to be contributing to space debris. And this

887
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: problem comes as a crescendo. Right. The more space debris

888
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 1: you have, the more junk you create as it collides

889
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:52,920
Speaker 1: into other stuff, and then you get this cascading effect

890
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 1: where basically all of spaces just filled with junk and

891
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 1: becomes unusable.

892
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 3: I think that's called the Kessler syndrome.

893
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: Exactly. It's just sort of like your office, you know,

894
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 1: you can't get any work done when your desk is

895
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 1: just like so covered in things you need to do

896
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:08,720
Speaker 1: that you're like frozen. You're like can't use it anymore.

897
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:10,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that would be horrible for us in so

898
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 3: many different ways because of all the ways our lives

899
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 3: rely on satellites at this point. So in the proposals

900
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,680
Speaker 3: that you've looked at for space based solar power, do

901
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 3: they propose like regular repair missions or do they just

902
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 3: plan on these not being up there for so long?

903
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:25,600
Speaker 3: What do you do about this problem?

904
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:28,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I asked an expert about this, and he

905
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:31,400
Speaker 1: basically just accepts that you're going to have some losses

906
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:33,439
Speaker 1: and that you're going to go up there every year

907
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,759
Speaker 1: and spend a certain amount of money repairing it, and

908
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 1: he tries to factor that into his accounting.

909
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 3: Look, there's a lot of factors to keep track of.

910
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:42,239
Speaker 1: There are a lot of factors to keep track of,

911
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:44,799
Speaker 1: and those factors are probably hard to estimate now. And

912
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: so you know, there's a lot of lively debate about

913
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 1: whether these estimates for the cost of maintenance of space

914
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 1: based solar power are reasonable or wildly optimistic.

915
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:57,080
Speaker 3: And that sounds like an exciting topic for after our break.

916
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 1: When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth

917
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:06,760
Speaker 1: or enjoy a rich spoonful of Greek yogurt, you're probably

918
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: not thinking about the environmental impact of each and every bite.

919
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:13,480
Speaker 1: But the people in the dairy industry are US. Dairy

920
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:17,839
Speaker 1: has set themselves some ambitious sustainability goals, including being greenhouse

921
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,439
Speaker 1: gas neutral by twenty to fifty. That's why they're working

922
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:22,800
Speaker 1: hard every day to find new ways to reduce waste,

923
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 1: conserve natural resources, and drive down greenhouse gas emissions. Take water,

924
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:30,720
Speaker 1: for example, most dairy farms reuse water up to four times.

925
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: The same water cools the milk, cleans equipment, washes the barn,

926
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: and irrigates the crops. How is US dairy tackling greenhouse gases.

927
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:41,000
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928
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 1: maneure into renewable energy that can power farms, towns, and

929
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: electric cars. So the next time you grab a slice

930
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:48,600
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931
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:51,319
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932
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:55,160
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933
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934
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952
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953
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955
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956
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957
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958
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959
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960
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961
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962
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963
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964
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965
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966
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967
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Speaker 3: So you mentioned that Sulkowski, who's a Russian guy, was

968
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 3: excited about space based solar power, and the idea has

969
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:45,879
Speaker 3: sort of gotten people excited in the US. Are those

970
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:48,120
Speaker 3: the only countries that are excited about this, or is

971
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 3: this idea taking off in other places?

972
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:52,440
Speaker 1: It's taking off all around the world. There's a project

973
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 1: in China called Omega that is aiming to be like

974
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:59,480
Speaker 1: operational by twenty to fifty, which sounds crazy futuristic, but

975
00:44:59,520 --> 00:45:02,360
Speaker 1: then you twenty twenty one also sounds crazy futuristic, so

976
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:05,120
Speaker 1: it's not actually that far away. And they want to

977
00:45:05,120 --> 00:45:08,400
Speaker 1: be able to supply two gigawatts of power into the

978
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 1: Earth's grid, which is not a small amount, right to

979
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 1: make that much solar power on Earth, you did like

980
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:16,960
Speaker 1: six million solar panels. So they have this project to

981
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:19,680
Speaker 1: like actually implement this and sort of like be on

982
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 1: the cutting edge of space based solar power.

983
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 3: And is this a government funded project or is this

984
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:26,879
Speaker 3: just sort of an idea at the moment.

985
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:29,040
Speaker 1: No, it's a government funded project, and like you know,

986
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:31,320
Speaker 1: all the ideas in China, all the research in China

987
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:33,480
Speaker 1: is funded by the government. It's a funny system the

988
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 1: way they organize everything over there. But it's definitely government funded,

989
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: and it's a project. And you know, the cool thing

990
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:41,719
Speaker 1: about projects in China is that they can make plans

991
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 1: for twenty thirty, forty years and keep them because they

992
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:47,359
Speaker 1: don't have a change in government every two four six

993
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 1: years where they're changing direction like throwing up their political

994
00:45:50,560 --> 00:45:53,400
Speaker 1: opponents plans and tearing them up. So one advantage of

995
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,360
Speaker 1: an autocracy is that you can make long range science

996
00:45:56,440 --> 00:45:58,919
Speaker 1: plans and you can stick to them. So that's something

997
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:00,040
Speaker 1: cool that China can do.

998
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 3: Silver lining Exactly. They've been doing a good job of

999
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:05,680
Speaker 3: keeping up with their plans for like getting humans in

1000
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 3: space and putting up their space stations. They have actually

1001
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 3: been fairly consistent in their timelines. I'm sure a US

1002
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:13,840
Speaker 3: official at NASA would be envious of China's ability to

1003
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 3: stick to their schedule.

1004
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, the trains run on time. But then there

1005
00:46:16,680 --> 00:46:19,439
Speaker 1: are also plans involving some folks here in the United

1006
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 1: States to build a system that works in Australia. They

1007
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 1: see Australia as a potential good test case. And this

1008
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 1: is a project pioneered by John Mankin, who's spent a

1009
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:30,920
Speaker 1: long time working at NASA and at JPL, and he's

1010
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 1: very excited about the idea of space based solar power.

1011
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: And I had a conversation with him about the prospects

1012
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:41,000
Speaker 1: and how he sees this working and the challenges involved

1013
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:42,200
Speaker 1: in building this kind of system.

1014
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 6: Yeah.

1015
00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 3: So one of the things I think is interesting about

1016
00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 3: his proposal is that earlier in the show we were

1017
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:50,400
Speaker 3: talking about maybe having like a giant panel or a

1018
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 3: giant mirror that focuses things onto a big panel, and

1019
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:56,400
Speaker 3: this proposal is for lots of tiny pieces, which I

1020
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:58,479
Speaker 3: think does a better job of dealing with the fact

1021
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 3: that you're going to get damna to them from radiation

1022
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 3: and micro meteorites. It makes it easier to switch them out.

1023
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:05,799
Speaker 3: What do you think about the proposal of using lots

1024
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 3: of smaller pieces.

1025
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 1: I think it makes a lot of sense. I think

1026
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 1: he's trying to move away from the concept of like,

1027
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:15,440
Speaker 1: let's spend one hundred billion dollars building one Rolls Royce,

1028
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 1: but instead, let's build up the industry to manufacture these

1029
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:21,319
Speaker 1: things and get the economics of scale. And if we

1030
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: can produce lots and lots of these things, we can

1031
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: get these factories pumping them out, then we can build

1032
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 1: a large system out of small, modular components. So I'm

1033
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 1: impressed that he's actually thinking about, you know, how we

1034
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:35,320
Speaker 1: can get industry connected and drive the prices down to

1035
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:38,280
Speaker 1: make this thing economically feasible. So I think that sounds

1036
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:40,759
Speaker 1: a lot more promising than you know, building one big,

1037
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 1: expensive one which is going to cost a lot of

1038
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 1: money and then need a lot of sort of boutique repairs.

1039
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:49,560
Speaker 3: I was listening to John Mankin's interviewed on The Space

1040
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 3: Show the other night, and he was saying that he

1041
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 3: envisions it sometime in the for future, we'll have these

1042
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:58,360
Speaker 3: lots of tiny panels and rather than when one gets broken,

1043
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 3: just kind of throwing it out and being done with that.

1044
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:02,799
Speaker 3: You know, it's made of materials that if you had

1045
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 3: a space settlement you might like to use again, and

1046
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:08,600
Speaker 3: so you would go out there and you'd sort of

1047
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 3: just like legos, take out one piece and put in

1048
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:12,480
Speaker 3: another piece. But then you'd take the piece you're not

1049
00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 3: using anymore and then break it down and use it

1050
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:17,920
Speaker 3: for something else in your space settlement. And you know,

1051
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 3: that is a super far off idea, but I do

1052
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 3: sort of like the idea of starting to think about

1053
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:25,520
Speaker 3: how we can recycle the stuff that we're using in space.

1054
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 3: I thought that was fun. I always get excited when

1055
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 3: I hear him interviewed because he's so enthusiastic and he

1056
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 3: makes me enthusiastic.

1057
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:33,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is very enthusiastic. And I like the idea

1058
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:35,240
Speaker 1: of space recycling. But you know, we haven't even figured

1059
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:39,480
Speaker 1: out like aluminum recycling down here on Earth. So where

1060
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:42,120
Speaker 1: can I recycle my aluminum can up in space? It

1061
00:48:42,160 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 1: seems like a much harder problem. But you know, I

1062
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:47,239
Speaker 1: do like the forward looking nature, the imagining that this

1063
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 1: is going to be like a whole space based ecosystem

1064
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:52,440
Speaker 1: in which this concept could fit and it can support

1065
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: it and provide it. But as with all these things,

1066
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:56,319
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem, right.

1067
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 1: You know, you could support these things if you had

1068
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 1: all these other elements, but and you need to space

1069
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:04,520
Speaker 1: power to get those elements, And so somebody's got to

1070
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 1: be out there advocating for this thing, making it happen,

1071
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:10,200
Speaker 1: pushing it forward so that it does build up that momentum. Anyway,

1072
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:12,279
Speaker 1: I had a fun conversation with John and I asked

1073
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 1: him what he thought was the most promising architecture, how

1074
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: he would build this if he was going to build

1075
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:19,359
Speaker 1: this thing today. Here's what John had to say.

1076
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 11: The architectural approach that I think is most promising is

1077
00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 11: one that involves a very large number of identical modular

1078
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 11: system elements, probably about ten or twelve different families of

1079
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 11: these system elements. And so the Solar Power satellite, rather

1080
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 11: than looking like a huge conventional spacecraft or like the

1081
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 11: International Space Station or something, instead would very much resemble

1082
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:53,719
Speaker 11: almost a living organism.

1083
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:55,399
Speaker 9: So like a.

1084
00:49:55,400 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 11: Coral reef comprises trillions of individual coral and and those

1085
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 11: are course extraordinarily tiny, but then there are also various

1086
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:07,000
Speaker 11: fish and anemonies and so on, and all of these

1087
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:12,439
Speaker 11: species cooperate to make what is essentially a miniature biosphere

1088
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:13,720
Speaker 11: out in the midst of the ocean.

1089
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you can hear there, Kelly, how he's describing

1090
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 1: his like swarm of little mini pieces that build up

1091
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:21,399
Speaker 1: a large space farm.

1092
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's probably a better design than the

1093
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 3: big space solar panel that we talked about earlier in

1094
00:50:26,960 --> 00:50:27,239
Speaker 3: the show.

1095
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:28,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that makes a lot more sense. I

1096
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:31,319
Speaker 1: don't really want somebody building like a huge mirror to

1097
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,280
Speaker 1: focus energy that could be potentially used as a weapon.

1098
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1099
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 3: No, I agree, We're on the same page. So did

1100
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:39,560
Speaker 3: you ask John, like how long you think it would

1101
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:41,520
Speaker 3: take for this technology to mature? So I know we

1102
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 3: know a little bit about solar panels on the International

1103
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 3: Space Station. But there's probably still a lot of things

1104
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:47,600
Speaker 3: that we would need to figure out to make this

1105
00:50:47,640 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 3: all work.

1106
00:50:48,440 --> 00:50:50,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did. And so I asked him if he

1107
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 1: thought this is like something in the far future that

1108
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 1: he's laying the groundwork for, or something he was going

1109
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 1: to be like alive to actually see in operation. Here's

1110
00:50:59,040 --> 00:50:59,800
Speaker 1: what he had to say.

1111
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:04,759
Speaker 11: The time to develop a modular solar power satellite do

1112
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:10,040
Speaker 11: the first demonstration is like thirty six months. The time

1113
00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:16,040
Speaker 11: to develop the first operating pilot plant is like five years.

1114
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 11: The time to have the first full scale solar power

1115
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 11: satellite delivering thousands of megawatts to the ground is like

1116
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:28,239
Speaker 11: eight or ten years. And it's because the pieces are

1117
00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 11: the size of a three or six U cube SAT.

1118
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:36,439
Speaker 11: There's just a lot of them, and it's not this colossus.

1119
00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:41,560
Speaker 11: One single thing is just legos. You're just making the

1120
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:46,160
Speaker 11: moral equivalent of tinker toy pieces or lego pieces, and

1121
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 11: you're plugging them together in space.

1122
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 1: So what do you think about that, Kelly? You think

1123
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: this thing is actually to be up there in space

1124
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:54,720
Speaker 1: beaming power to Australia in ten years?

1125
00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:57,439
Speaker 3: Well, I have a couple. The one I don't feel

1126
00:51:57,480 --> 00:51:59,880
Speaker 3: like there's enough public push for this technology yet that

1127
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:03,120
Speaker 3: it's going to get enough momentum to happen in ten years.

1128
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:05,480
Speaker 3: It would be cool if I was wrong. I also

1129
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:08,799
Speaker 3: think the geopolitical stuff might need to be dealt with

1130
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:11,360
Speaker 3: a little bit more carefully and that could flow this

1131
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:14,560
Speaker 3: technology down too. So I guess I'm not super optimistic

1132
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:16,520
Speaker 3: about the ten year time point, but it would be

1133
00:52:16,520 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 3: great if I was wrong. What do you think.

1134
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:21,080
Speaker 1: I think you got to be aspirational and nobody really

1135
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 1: believes these projections. I mean, if you look at like

1136
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:27,920
Speaker 1: every single space project we've ever launched, it's always had, like,

1137
00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 1: you know, a target date well in the past, you know,

1138
00:52:30,880 --> 00:52:33,239
Speaker 1: like the James Web Space Telescope, or like look at

1139
00:52:33,280 --> 00:52:35,440
Speaker 1: the development of the Space Shuttle. All of these things

1140
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:38,799
Speaker 1: are always like ten, twenty thirty years behind. But in

1141
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 1: order to make them happen, you have to sort of

1142
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 1: push them right. You have to say we're aiming for

1143
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 1: ten years from now, and then know in the back

1144
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:45,839
Speaker 1: of your mind it's going to slip a decade or two.

1145
00:52:46,239 --> 00:52:48,320
Speaker 1: If you say, you know this is going to happen

1146
00:52:48,480 --> 00:52:50,360
Speaker 1: in fifty years, then it's just sort of hard to

1147
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:52,920
Speaker 1: get it organized. It seems like the next generation to problems.

1148
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:53,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, fair enough.

1149
00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: So I asked John about the economics of it also

1150
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 1: because I was curious, like, how do you think this

1151
00:52:58,320 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 1: is going to happen? Who's going to pay for this?

1152
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:02,960
Speaker 1: How do you cut down the cost of getting up there,

1153
00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:05,560
Speaker 1: like having to launch out there into space to actually

1154
00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 1: build these things? And so you can hear John's enthusiasm

1155
00:53:08,719 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 1: in his response.

1156
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:14,240
Speaker 11: Everybody's got a rocket company, but almost nobody is building

1157
00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:18,040
Speaker 11: new kinds of satellites because it's just not what they're

1158
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:20,120
Speaker 11: investing in. We actually think that this will be like

1159
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:23,239
Speaker 11: a snowball. Once this gets going, We think lots of

1160
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:25,760
Speaker 11: people will want to have a play, as it's called

1161
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:30,440
Speaker 11: in space solar power. But we need that catalyst. We

1162
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:35,360
Speaker 11: need a catalyst to do the initial prototyping, build these modules,

1163
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:38,480
Speaker 11: put them together, validate that they work the way that

1164
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:41,000
Speaker 11: they have to work. There's no magic in the engineering,

1165
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 11: but people are going to want to see it once

1166
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 11: that happens. We see these power plants as being developed

1167
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:51,560
Speaker 11: and deployed through a mixture of more or less conventional

1168
00:53:51,600 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 11: private sector investment, where private entities invest maybe fifteen twenty

1169
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 11: twenty five percent in a new power plant and the

1170
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:02,959
Speaker 11: rest debt. The Golden gate Bridge was paid for by debt.

1171
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:06,759
Speaker 11: It was secured by the then newly formed Bank of America.

1172
00:54:06,840 --> 00:54:09,400
Speaker 11: Debt helped pay for the big dig in Boston. For

1173
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 11: the full scale systems, it'll be a mix of debt

1174
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:16,399
Speaker 11: and more conventional large scale investors who want to own

1175
00:54:16,440 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 11: a share of selling two gigawatts per twenty four hours

1176
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 11: per three hundred and sixty five days a year forever.

1177
00:54:26,760 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 1: So you can hear his enthusiasm there, Kelly, He's like

1178
00:54:29,160 --> 00:54:31,879
Speaker 1: hoping that these costs are really going to come down,

1179
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:34,960
Speaker 1: that people are going to be developing cheaper launches, and

1180
00:54:35,000 --> 00:54:37,440
Speaker 1: that it's going to be so like the next Gold Rush.

1181
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 3: And I hope he's right. I worry that the cost

1182
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 3: of solar panels going down is going to make this

1183
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:45,320
Speaker 3: stuff even less likely, because it'll be easier and easier

1184
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:47,600
Speaker 3: for more of us to put solar panels on our house.

1185
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:51,200
Speaker 3: And I know that doesn't solve the problem about nighttime

1186
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:54,400
Speaker 3: or clouds. But as battery technology gets better too, I

1187
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:56,680
Speaker 3: wonder if we'll be less and less inclient to invest

1188
00:54:56,760 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 3: tons of money in putting this stuff in space. But again,

1189
00:54:59,560 --> 00:55:01,520
Speaker 3: it would be super cool. If I was wrong, it.

1190
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:03,840
Speaker 1: Would be super cool. And I think it's sort of

1191
00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:07,800
Speaker 1: awesome to have competing strategies here right, Like we're pushing

1192
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:10,800
Speaker 1: on space based solar power, but at the same time,

1193
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:12,799
Speaker 1: you know, we are, as you say, trying to make

1194
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:15,840
Speaker 1: batteries and transmission more effective down here on Earth. So

1195
00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:18,200
Speaker 1: who knows which technology is going to win, but definitely

1196
00:55:18,320 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 1: humanity is going to win. Right If either of these

1197
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:24,000
Speaker 1: things come out being cheaper and more robust and more reliable,

1198
00:55:24,080 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 1: then we're fine, right. I think it'd be sort of

1199
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:29,640
Speaker 1: cooler to have space based technology, but I'm a little

1200
00:55:29,680 --> 00:55:32,120
Speaker 1: skeptical of it. I read an analysis of John's proposal

1201
00:55:32,239 --> 00:55:36,520
Speaker 1: from another JPI guy, Casey Hammer, and he was, to say, politely,

1202
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 1: completely skeptical. He's not believing that this thing is ever

1203
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 1: going to be a thing. And his number one problem

1204
00:55:43,880 --> 00:55:47,440
Speaker 1: is that he feels like John consistently makes optimistic estimates

1205
00:55:47,440 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 1: of construction and launch costs by at least an order

1206
00:55:50,680 --> 00:55:54,439
Speaker 1: of magnitude beyond current best industry standards, And I think

1207
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:57,080
Speaker 1: that's really the key. In a conversation I had with John,

1208
00:55:57,280 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 1: he agreed that the launch costs are probably the most

1209
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:02,480
Speaker 1: expensive part of their system. You've got to go up

1210
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:04,480
Speaker 1: there every year in order to repair this stuff, or

1211
00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:07,040
Speaker 1: even just to like send new robots up there to

1212
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 1: repair it. John estimates that would be three percent of

1213
00:56:10,560 --> 00:56:12,360
Speaker 1: the cost of the system. So if you have a

1214
00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:14,960
Speaker 1: ten billion dollar cost or your Australian system, then you're

1215
00:56:14,960 --> 00:56:17,719
Speaker 1: going to be paying essentially another ten billion dollars over

1216
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:20,719
Speaker 1: the next ten years to maintain this thing. And according

1217
00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:24,360
Speaker 1: to John, the economics workout and you're still making money

1218
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:26,600
Speaker 1: and you're going to pay off your investors, and so

1219
00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 1: you can attract interest from investors because it's going to

1220
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:31,719
Speaker 1: be positive cash loow in the future. But I think

1221
00:56:31,719 --> 00:56:34,880
Speaker 1: that relies in really great detail on those launch costs

1222
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 1: coming down so quickly.

1223
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:38,840
Speaker 3: And they are coming down pretty quickly. I'd be interested

1224
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:42,000
Speaker 3: to hear how that three percent in operation cost compares

1225
00:56:42,040 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 3: to operation costs for the upkeep of like a coal

1226
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:47,919
Speaker 3: powered power plant or something. Presumably it's much lower, but boy,

1227
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 3: I need to learn more about power.

1228
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:51,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely much lower. I mean, the price of

1229
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:54,440
Speaker 1: coal is ridiculously low. You know, you can buy like

1230
00:56:54,480 --> 00:56:57,600
Speaker 1: a ton of coal for tens of dollars. You can

1231
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:00,719
Speaker 1: build a coal fired power plant very very cheaply, but

1232
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:02,160
Speaker 1: then you know, then you got to keep paying for

1233
00:57:02,200 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 1: the fuel all year. And the nice thing about the

1234
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:07,360
Speaker 1: fuel for your solar power plant is it's free. It

1235
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 1: just comes from the sun. But of course then you

1236
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:11,759
Speaker 1: got to get into space to repair these things. So

1237
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 1: I think what we're looking at here is sort of

1238
00:57:13,160 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 1: a race between like bringing down the cost of the

1239
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:18,560
Speaker 1: launches to get up there and to maintain these things,

1240
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:21,960
Speaker 1: and improving solar panels here on Earth. So, Kelly, in

1241
00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:24,840
Speaker 1: the end, are you more or less skeptical about the

1242
00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:27,080
Speaker 1: prospects for space based solar power?

1243
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:30,600
Speaker 3: Well, I think the more that we talked about the physics,

1244
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:33,840
Speaker 3: the more concerned I got about the equation for balancing

1245
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:36,360
Speaker 3: it all out. I remain hopeful that I'm wrong, and

1246
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:39,160
Speaker 3: I've actually had it so in soonish we wrote a

1247
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:41,640
Speaker 3: little section about how we thought space based solar power

1248
00:57:41,680 --> 00:57:43,240
Speaker 3: was probably not going to pan out, and so many

1249
00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:45,200
Speaker 3: nice people have written me to be like, no, no, no,

1250
00:57:45,240 --> 00:57:47,880
Speaker 3: you have to be wrong. I love this community like

1251
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:49,640
Speaker 3: it's a bunch of nice people who are trying to

1252
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:51,480
Speaker 3: make the world a better place. And I'm still not

1253
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:53,880
Speaker 3: totally sure about the equations. But I do hope that

1254
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:54,959
Speaker 3: I'm wrong. What do you think.

1255
00:57:55,200 --> 00:57:58,880
Speaker 1: I'm also skeptical, but I've been skeptical before, and you know,

1256
00:57:58,960 --> 00:58:02,680
Speaker 1: there's no limit to human ingenuity, and what it takes

1257
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:05,840
Speaker 1: to get over those problems is believing that it's possible

1258
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:09,360
Speaker 1: and saying, let's work harder them, let's figure out which

1259
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:12,200
Speaker 1: part of this problem is the hardest, and let's get

1260
00:58:12,240 --> 00:58:14,480
Speaker 1: cracking on it. And I think that's the first step.

1261
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:18,280
Speaker 1: So I'm skeptical little ever happen, but I'm hopeful that

1262
00:58:18,360 --> 00:58:18,960
Speaker 1: maybe it might.

1263
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:21,520
Speaker 3: Well, this community has a lot of hard working believers,

1264
00:58:21,560 --> 00:58:24,040
Speaker 3: so if anyone can make it happen, I think these

1265
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:25,840
Speaker 3: people can make it happen. So I guess we'll see.

1266
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:29,080
Speaker 1: But I'm not investing in any of these projects personally,

1267
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:31,320
Speaker 1: so then maybe that tells you on a more personal

1268
00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:33,520
Speaker 1: level whether I believe it's actually going to work. Yeah,

1269
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:35,880
Speaker 1: same here, all right, Well, thanks for listening to us

1270
00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:38,600
Speaker 1: talk about space based solar power. You know, I think

1271
00:58:38,640 --> 00:58:41,360
Speaker 1: that humanity does have a future out there in space,

1272
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:44,280
Speaker 1: but there's definitely a lot of hard problems to solve

1273
00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:47,040
Speaker 1: along the way. Amen, and thanks again to Kelly for

1274
00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:47,560
Speaker 1: joining us.

1275
00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:49,960
Speaker 3: Thanks again for the invitation I had a blast as always.

1276
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:53,560
Speaker 1: All right, everybody out there, so stay curious, keep asking questions,

1277
00:58:53,560 --> 00:58:55,680
Speaker 1: and if you'd like us to talk about some other

1278
00:58:55,920 --> 00:58:59,120
Speaker 1: crazy futuristic technology and how the physics of it might work,

1279
00:58:59,280 --> 00:59:02,480
Speaker 1: and whether they can building deathrays to shoot into your bedroom,

1280
00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:06,480
Speaker 1: please write to us two questions at Danielanjorge dot com.

1281
00:59:06,480 --> 00:59:17,240
Speaker 1: Tune in next time. Bye, Thanks for listening, and remember

1282
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:20,080
Speaker 1: that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production

1283
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:25,480
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1284
00:59:25,760 --> 00:59:29,280
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01:00:32,960 --> 01:00:35,080
Speaker 5: offer subject to change terms apply.

1302
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:41,120
Speaker 1: Starbucks Iced Apple Crisp Oat Milk shaken Espresso made with

1303
01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:45,320
Speaker 1: blonde espresso, creamy oat milk and spiced apple flavors. It's

1304
01:00:45,320 --> 01:00:48,600
Speaker 1: a nicey crispsip you can enjoy all autumn long Order

1305
01:00:48,640 --> 01:00:49,840
Speaker 1: ahead on the Starbucks app