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Speaker 3: Everyone loves getting good advice and staying in the know.

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Speaker 3: There's nothing like getting a heads up on something before

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Speaker 4: Hey Daniel, have you guys made any progress on that

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Speaker 4: new spaceship engine that can cross the vast distances between stars?

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Speaker 1: Nothing to report yet?

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Speaker 4: Sorry, Oh man, I feel kind of cheated. Thought I

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Speaker 4: made that a rush order.

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Speaker 1: Well, no problem, you know, once we finish building it,

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Speaker 1: delivery is going to be a snap.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, are you going to deliver my spaceship on a spaceship?

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Speaker 1: Now? It's sort of like when you buy a new car,

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Speaker 1: it comes on a huge truck.

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Speaker 4: Oh nice, So I can expect a huge, giant space

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Speaker 4: truck pulling up next to my house soon.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, the kids are gonna love it.

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Speaker 4: Is it gonna come with a nice big bowl tied

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Speaker 4: around it?

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Speaker 1: For an extra twenty million dollars, I'll put a bow

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Speaker 1: on it.

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Speaker 4: Hi am Jorge Maad, cartoonist and the creator of PhD Comics.

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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I've never

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Speaker 1: actually bought a new car.

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Speaker 4: You've never bought a new car, never.

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Speaker 1: Bought a new car, always a used car.

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Speaker 4: Wow, I guess you are cheaper, right, because as soon

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Speaker 4: as you buy a car, they start depreciating.

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Speaker 1: That's right. But I've never had that amazing experience of

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Speaker 1: seeing your brand new, shiny, zero mile car pull up

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Speaker 1: on the fancy truck.

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Speaker 4: What's new to you? So it is technically a new car.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And we like to drive our cars into

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Speaker 1: the ground until they're falling apart around.

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Speaker 4: Us instead of like a podcast. Is that we're what

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Speaker 4: we're doing here now?

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Speaker 1: Is this a used podcast?

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Speaker 4: Technically? It is right because we record this a few

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Speaker 4: weeks in advance, so by the time people will listen

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Speaker 4: to it, it's got.

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Speaker 1: Some mileage on it, but it's new to them.

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Speaker 4: That's right. Let's maybe spray some of that new car

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Speaker 4: smell around.

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Speaker 1: That's right, new podcast smell.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, wif an end people, But anyways, welcome to our

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Speaker 4: podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 4: which we take.

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Speaker 1: You around this very very old universe that's been around

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Speaker 1: longer than we have and try to answer some questions

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Speaker 1: about it. What questions do we ask? We ask all

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Speaker 1: the questions. We ask the biggest questions, the hardest questions,

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Speaker 1: the silliest questions, and the deepest questions, and we try

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Speaker 1: to find answers. And when we don't find them, we

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Speaker 1: are happy to admit what science doesn't know. We take

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Speaker 1: all that, we mix it around, we throw in some bananas,

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Speaker 1: and we serve it to you as a podcast smoothie.

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Speaker 4: That's right, because the universe might be old and it

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Speaker 4: might be used. In fact, it's actually a several billions

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Speaker 4: of years old, but it's still full of amazing and

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Speaker 4: new things to discover for us puny humans.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Do you think we have to pay full

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Speaker 1: price for this universe? I mean it's like really pretty

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Speaker 1: old by the time we got it, we should have

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Speaker 1: gotten some kind of discount.

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Speaker 4: Really, did you think we have an option? Do we

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Speaker 4: have like other newer universe we could have bought.

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Speaker 1: I guess you've got to have another option if your

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Speaker 1: negotiation is going to be credible, right, I you're gonna

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Speaker 1: be able to walk out of the universe dealership and

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Speaker 1: say I'm just going to go down the street and

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Speaker 1: get a universe somewhere else.

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Speaker 4: We have no leverage.

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Speaker 1: We have no leverage.

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Speaker 4: We're stuck with this universe, and we love it. It

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Speaker 4: is the only car and the lot, that's.

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Speaker 1: Right, And let's not pretend we don't love it. It's

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Speaker 1: a wonderful, amazing, crazy place filled with all sorts of mysteries.

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Speaker 1: I just sometimes wish we could see more of it.

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Speaker 4: Well, we can see a lot of it, right, We

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Speaker 4: can see up to billions and billions and billions of

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Speaker 4: light years away. But the hard part is getting to

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Speaker 4: those places and seeing them up close.

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Speaker 1: Yes, exactly that's why. I mean that we could visit

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Speaker 1: more of them, that we could go there, that we

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Speaker 1: could walk on the surface of Pluto, or we could

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Speaker 1: see what the atmosphere of Venus is like. It feels

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Speaker 1: like there are so many amazing mysteries of science and

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Speaker 1: physics that are right in our neighborhood, and yet it's

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Speaker 1: still so strangely hard to get there.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, not just even our solar system. It'd be cool

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Speaker 4: to travel to other galaxies and see if things are

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Speaker 4: quite the same as they are here in the Milky Way.

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Speaker 1: That's right. I'd like to be home before dinner, though,

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Speaker 1: so I'm not sure I'm going to join you on

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Speaker 1: that intergalactic voyage, but somebody should go, and somebody should

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Speaker 1: report back.

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Speaker 4: What if you make the spaceship your home, Daniels, then

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Speaker 4: you'll always be home.

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Speaker 1: Ooh like a space RV. That sounds great.

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Speaker 4: The couch and a rocket and rocket fuel. That's all

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Speaker 4: you need.

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Speaker 1: Really, Well, if my family is going along, then my

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Speaker 1: kids definitely need their own rooms, because there's no way

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Speaker 1: they're getting along if they're sharing a room in the

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Speaker 1: space RV.

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Speaker 4: Al Right, we can add an addition to the extra

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Speaker 4: couches there you go. But yeah, getting around space is

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Speaker 4: difficult because space is so big. It's gigantic, it's ginormous,

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Speaker 4: it's a pretty spacious it's.

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Speaker 1: Hard to really wrap your mind around how big space is.

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Speaker 1: We have this image of the Solar System. It's sort

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Speaker 1: of this cozy place where all the planets are zooming

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Speaker 1: around the Sun and kind of near each other. But

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Speaker 1: there are vast distances. You know, even just from the

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Speaker 1: Earth to the Moon is a much bigger distance than

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Speaker 1: most people imagine. Did you know that if you took

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Speaker 1: all the planets in the Solar System you could fit

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Speaker 1: them in the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

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Speaker 4: Wow, I take it that's a bad idea that you're

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Speaker 4: not actually planning on doing that.

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Speaker 1: You know what, I'd love to see it. So if

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Speaker 1: you have somehow the power to do that, go ahead

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Speaker 1: from your underground.

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Speaker 4: Layer, well you just want to see it, then, you know,

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Speaker 4: I can do that in photoshop pretty easily. But the

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Speaker 4: idea I think is that space is big. Right like

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Speaker 4: between here in the Moon, it's several hundred thousand miles

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Speaker 4: even right.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's really really far, and you know, the outer

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Speaker 1: planets are really really far away, like we are much

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Speaker 1: much closer to the Sun than we are to Jupiter,

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Speaker 1: for example.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we used to maybe thinking of our

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Speaker 4: Solar System as this cozy, little like collection of planets,

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Speaker 4: but really it's quite sparse. It's quite empty, Like if

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Speaker 4: you took a picture of it, you would only see

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Speaker 4: little tiny dots as the planets.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why Jupiter seems like almost a star because

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Speaker 1: it's so big, but it's so so far away, and

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Speaker 1: so the Solar System is hard to get around because

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Speaker 1: everything is so far away. And when we launch even

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Speaker 1: robotic probes to the outer Solar System, it can take ten, fifteen,

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Speaker 1: twenty years to reach those places.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. I think the trip to Mars, just to Mars,

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Speaker 4: it takes several months, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's if you're lucky, right, Earth and Mars

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Speaker 1: are near each other sometimes and far apart other times,

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Speaker 1: and so the sureness trip to Mars is like more

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Speaker 1: than half a year, and so it'd be awesome to

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Speaker 1: be able to get to Mars much faster. It make

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Speaker 1: it easier to explore the Solar System, to send people

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Speaker 1: there if they didn't have to spend like seven months

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Speaker 1: in a tin can together.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the big question is like, how can

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Speaker 4: we get to these planets faster? Like, how can we

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Speaker 4: you know, make a new kind of spaceship or a

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Speaker 4: new kind of propulsion technology to basically push us there faster,

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Speaker 4: because traveling through space is really hard.

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Speaker 1: It's all about the speed.

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Speaker 5: You know.

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Speaker 1: One hundred years ago, the Earth seemed much bigger because

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Speaker 1: it was a bigger deal to get to the other

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Speaker 1: side of it. To go to China two or three

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Speaker 1: hundred years ago was a days, weeks, months long endeavor.

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Speaker 1: Now you can do it in just you know, eighteen

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Speaker 1: hours or so on an airplane. It's not that big

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Speaker 1: a deal. And that transformation came because we had new technology,

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Speaker 1: new engines that could take us there faster. And so

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Speaker 1: we hope we fantasize about a technology that could take

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Speaker 1: us around the Solar System faster, that could effectively compress

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Speaker 1: the Solar system so it doesn't seem so big.

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Speaker 4: To shrink the Solar System. In a sort of metaphorical

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Speaker 4: way of speaking.

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Speaker 1: Right, maybe one day you could buy a ticket to

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Speaker 1: Jupiter and all you have to worry about is like

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Speaker 1: how many movies am I going to watch? Have they

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Speaker 1: made enough Avengers movies? So I could just watch them

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Speaker 1: all between here and Jupiter.

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Speaker 4: Well, by then maybe they will make five months worth

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Speaker 4: of Avenger movies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe by then the Avengers movies will each

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Speaker 1: be forty hours long.

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Speaker 4: So right, yeah, they seem to could be getting longer

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Speaker 4: and longer.

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Speaker 1: That's right. It's the opposite of time dilation. It's movie dilation,

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Speaker 1: which works in the opposite direction.

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Speaker 4: It's marvel dilation.

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Speaker 1: Marvel dilation.

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Speaker 4: It's like the quantum realm.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, what if I watch the Avengers movies while

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Speaker 1: moving at high speed, Maybe they'll shrink it back down

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Speaker 1: to two hours long.

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Speaker 4: Maybe you'll actually like them.

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Speaker 1: I like those movies. Come on.

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Speaker 4: But anyways, there are people out there working on new

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Speaker 4: technologies that might get us to other planets and other

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Speaker 4: stars faster and faster. And in particular, there's kind of

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Speaker 4: a new exciting technology with a pretty cool name.

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Speaker 1: That's right. People are working on this. People try and

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Speaker 1: develop ideas. People have all sorts of different plans for

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Speaker 1: how to develop new engines for spaceships.

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Speaker 4: So today on the program, we'll be asking the question

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Speaker 4: how do plasma thrusters work? Now, Daniel, I just like

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Speaker 4: to say the word plasma thrusters. I feel like that's so,

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Speaker 4: you know, science fiction. I feel like, you know, some

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Speaker 4: something out of a movie.

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Speaker 1: I know, it sounds a lot like plasma blaster, right,

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Speaker 1: it sounds like a weapon you could use against something

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Speaker 1: with like lots of limbs and gooey insides.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, some sort of glowing technology that you know, kind

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Speaker 4: of like what you see behind the starship Enterprise.

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Speaker 1: Yes, but that's the exciting thing about science fiction is

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Speaker 1: that it gives people ideas and then we try to

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Speaker 1: make it real. Scientists watch science fiction and go, man,

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Speaker 1: why can't we actually do that. I've got an idea,

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Speaker 1: maybe we could actually do that, And then they go

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Speaker 1: off into their laboratories and they tinker until boom, it's

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Speaker 1: a reality.

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Speaker 4: And the funny thing is that those science fiction writers

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Speaker 4: probably got these names and these ideas from science itself,

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Speaker 4: Like plasma is a real thing and thrusters are a

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Speaker 4: real thing. They just thought, Hey, why don't we put

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Speaker 4: the two together and sell more books?

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Speaker 1: Is that the process of science fiction? You're like, take

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Speaker 1: two things, stick them together. If we get a banana

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Speaker 1: thruster or a plasma.

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Speaker 4: Banana, yeah, it's like taking two words like science and

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Speaker 4: fiction and then sticking them together and see what happens.

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Speaker 1: Boom, new genre invented. Yeah, I think that's the whole process.

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Speaker 4: So plasma thruster sounds cool, but what is it? So

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Speaker 4: we were wondering why people out there knew about these

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Speaker 4: two words stuck together and whether or not they can

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Speaker 4: actually be real. So, as usual, Daniel went out there

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Speaker 4: into the Internet to ask people if they knew how

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Speaker 4: a plasma thruster works.

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Speaker 1: And so my eternal gratitude to those of you who

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Speaker 1: volunteered to answer random physics questions for the podcast and

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Speaker 1: enjoy hearing your voice speculating on the podcast. If you'd

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Speaker 1: like to contribute your voice as well, please write to

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Speaker 1: me to questions at Danielandjorge dot com.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so think about it for a second. Do you

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Speaker 4: know how a plasma thruster works? Here's what people had

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Speaker 4: to say. I have absolutely no idea what a plasma

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Speaker 4: thruster is or how it works, but it sounds pretty naughty.

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Speaker 1: Well, I don't know exactly, but it's way better than

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Speaker 1: a chemical like we have now would luck to us.

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Speaker 6: I'm guessing the plasma thrusters would work by igniting this

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Speaker 6: ionized gas in one direction that causes a force that

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Speaker 6: pushes whatever rocket or object it's in in the other direction.

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Speaker 7: I'm one hundred percent sure that the plasma thrust is

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Speaker 7: a dance move that particle physicists do parties.

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Speaker 5: Well, this is a guess on my part based on

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Speaker 5: the words, but I assume that it excites an atom

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Speaker 5: to the point where the electron is stripped off, and

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Speaker 5: it throws the nucleus through some sort of magnetic or

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Speaker 5: field at rather high velocity out the back, which gives

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Speaker 5: you thrust the same way any normal rocket motor would work,

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Speaker 5: except that instead of using chemical energy, you're using magnetic

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Speaker 5: or electric energy to throw out plasma nuclei.

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Speaker 4: All right, pretty cool answers. I like the one that

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Speaker 4: says it's a dance move that particle physicists do at parties.

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Speaker 1: You like that. You really want to imagine a bunch

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Speaker 1: of particle physicists dancing. I mean, is that a mental

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Speaker 1: image you want in your mind? I've seen it, and

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Speaker 1: trust me, if you.

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Speaker 4: Don't do particle physicists have party coal parties.

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Speaker 1: There are particularly good parties.

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Speaker 4: Yes, particularly awkward, as I think, say.

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Speaker 1: When we discover a nice particle, then yes, we have

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Speaker 1: a party, we celebrate, we drink champagne, we shake our

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Speaker 1: booties just like everybody else.

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Speaker 4: Wow. Sounds exciting, all right, And so a lot of

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Speaker 4: people don't seem to have a pretty good idea, although

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Speaker 4: they definitely, you know, have some ideas of what plasma is,

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Speaker 4: but maybe not what a plasma thruster is.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but they're excited about it. They want this thing

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Speaker 1: to be a reality. That sounds like a promising step

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Speaker 1: in the direction of getting us around the Solar System.

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Speaker 1: And so I think everybody's in favor.

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Speaker 4: All right, Well, Daniel, let's talk about first why we

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Speaker 4: might need a plasma thruster. You know why this idea

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Speaker 4: of creating something that can push you in the vacuum

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Speaker 4: of space, why is that so hard?

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Speaker 6: Right?

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Speaker 1: So, one of the reasons that this is a hard

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Speaker 1: problem is that when you are in space, you need

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Speaker 1: to push against something. Right. If you're in space and

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Speaker 1: you want to get speed, what you have to do

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Speaker 1: is throw something out the back of your rocket ship.

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Speaker 1: Because of conservation momentum, if you're going to go in

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Speaker 1: one direction, something else has to go in the other direction.

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Speaker 1: So this is like the reaction you know, you could

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Speaker 1: like fire a bullet, for example, out the back of

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Speaker 1: your spaceship, and the gun will push you in one

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Speaker 1: direction and the bullet in the other direction. So the

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Speaker 1: basic elements you need of any thruster are some energy

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Speaker 1: and then something to throw out the back, some reaction

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Speaker 1: mass to push the other direction.

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Speaker 4: Right, Because I guess when you're out in space, if

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Speaker 4: you're out there floating, it's not like you can swim

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Speaker 4: your way to Mars or to the moon. You can't

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Speaker 4: just there's something to like push against, right, So you

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Speaker 4: need to throw something out the back, and for that

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Speaker 4: you need energy. So that's what you're saying. You need

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Speaker 4: energy and then something to throw out the bag using

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Speaker 4: that energy.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, you have to carry with you stuff that you

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Speaker 1: can throw away so that you can move along. As

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Speaker 1: you say, you can't like grab space and swim through

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Speaker 1: space itself. Right, it's not like air or water that

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Speaker 1: you can pull against.

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Speaker 4: Right, You can't just like blow out the back like

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Speaker 4: or maybe you can can.

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Speaker 1: You Yeah, actually that would work. I mean that is

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Speaker 1: a form of a rocket engine, right, you blow air

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Speaker 1: out the back. And you could even use a flashlight, right,

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Speaker 1: if you turn on a flashlight on a spaceship out

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Speaker 1: the back of your spaceship. Then that's a form of

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Speaker 1: a thruster because you're shooting energy in one direction and

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Speaker 1: so the spaceship will go the other direction.

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Speaker 4: Right, that would be a photon thruster. That's a different episode.

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Speaker 1: That's a different episode. Yeah, exactly. But you know, it

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Speaker 1: reminds me some listener wrote in and asked about their headlights.

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Speaker 1: Every time you turn on headlights in your car, are

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Speaker 1: those effectively like photon brakes? And they kind of are,

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Speaker 1: because you're like throwing energy forwards, sort of like having

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Speaker 1: tiny little thrusters pointing forwards. So yeah, every time you

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Speaker 1: turn on your headlights, your car slowed down the tiniest

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Speaker 1: little bit.

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Speaker 4: And it just made me think when you hit the

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Speaker 4: brakes and you turn on the brake lights in the back,

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Speaker 4: and you're also sort of working against yourself there because

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Speaker 4: you're breaking, but you're also kind of propelling yourself using photons.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, brake lights should be in the front. Oh my god,

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Speaker 1: so much better.

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Speaker 4: I think that would defeat the purpose of brake lights.

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Speaker 1: So one of the problems with using a rocket is

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Speaker 1: that you've got to have all this stuff on board.

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Speaker 1: You've got to have the fuel. You've got to have

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Speaker 1: the stuff to throw out the back. And then the

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Speaker 1: further you want to go, the more fuel you need,

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Speaker 1: and the more fuel you need, the more fuel you

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Speaker 1: need to push that fuel. And so pretty quickly this

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Speaker 1: is sort of like a runaway mass problem. You need

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Speaker 1: to have a really really big ship to get anywhere

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Speaker 1: at all, because you need fuel to push all the

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Speaker 1: fuel that you're pushing with all the fuel.

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Speaker 4: Right, And that's kind of how rockets work right now,

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Speaker 4: right like the ones in current spaceships and spacecraft and rockets.

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Speaker 4: That's how they work. They use a chemical reaction to

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Speaker 4: explode something and then that explosion pushes the stuff out

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Speaker 4: the back.

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Speaker 1: That's right. The fuel itself is the propellant and the

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Speaker 1: source of energy, right, Like you have something along like

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Speaker 1: diesel fuel or liquid oxygen or something that has energy

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Speaker 1: stored inside of it, and then you release that energy

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Speaker 1: and at the same time creates something at high velocity

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Speaker 1: which can get thrown out the back. So most chemical

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Speaker 1: rockets work in that way. They're both the propellant and

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Speaker 1: the source of energy. And that's how, for example, rockets

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Speaker 1: lift off the Earth, and that's how the space shuttle

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Speaker 1: maneuvers in space. All these are chemical rockets.

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Speaker 4: Right, And what makes it work, I think is the

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Speaker 4: idea is this kind of this difference or this ratio

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Speaker 4: between the energy and the mass of what you're throwing

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Speaker 4: behind you. If your plan was to like throw out

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Speaker 4: you know, your trash or throwout your couch to propel

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Speaker 4: yourself in space, that wouldn't last very long, right, because

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Speaker 4: you would run out of couches soon. Yeah, and you

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Speaker 4: know maybe RVs and children. You wouldn't get very far.

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Speaker 4: But the idea with the chemical fuel is that it

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Speaker 4: has a lot of energy stored in it, right, So

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Speaker 4: like it you really that energy. It throws a little

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Speaker 4: bit of mass out the back, but with so much

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Speaker 4: energy it actually pushes you forward.

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Speaker 1: That's right. The key thing is having high exhaust velocity

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Speaker 1: so that those particles you're throwing out, whatever they are,

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Speaker 1: particles of counter particles of smoke, or particles of burnt

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Speaker 1: rocket fuel, whatever, are carrying a lot of momentum. Because

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Speaker 1: any momentum that's going out the back is equivalent to

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Speaker 1: the momentum gained by your rocket ship. Right. This is

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Speaker 1: all about conservation of momentum, and so the higher speed

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Speaker 1: the higher exhaust velocity that goes out the back, the

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Speaker 1: more momentum you're throwing away in your exhaust, and so

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Speaker 1: the more momentum your rocket ship is going to get.

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Speaker 4: Right, because momentum is like mass times velocity. So if

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Speaker 4: you want to conserve on how much stuff you throw

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Speaker 4: out the back the mass, then you just need a

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Speaker 4: lot of velocity.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, that's the way to do it.

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Speaker 4: So those are chemical kind of rockets, and that's what

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Speaker 4: we used to get off the Earth, but those are

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Speaker 4: kind of tough for going across to other planets or stars, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, If you wanted to travel, for example, to the

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Speaker 1: nearest star system like Alpha Centauri, and get it up

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Speaker 1: to a reable speed, like you know, a few percent

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Speaker 1: into the speed of light, so that the trip, which

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Speaker 1: is just a few light years would only take you know,

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Speaker 1: fifty or one hundred years, you would need an enormous

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Speaker 1: amount of chemical fuel to accelerate you up to that speed.

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Speaker 1: And because you'd need so much fuel, you'd need a

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Speaker 1: lot more fuel to push that fuel, and so you'd

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Speaker 1: end up with like a toothpick sized chip pushing a

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Speaker 1: Jupiter sized gas tank.

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Speaker 4: That sounds crazy, I think A good analogy I think

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Speaker 4: we've read once was that it's sort of like if

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Speaker 4: you're trying to drive a truck across the country without

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Speaker 4: stopping for fuel, you sort of need to bring all

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Speaker 4: your fuel with you. But then the more fuel you bring,

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Speaker 4: the more fuel you have to use because you're heavier, exactly.

443
00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:45,399
Speaker 1: And then pretty quickly you're driving basically like a stadium

444
00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:48,600
Speaker 1: size gas tank behind you, and that's pretty inefficient and

445
00:19:48,720 --> 00:19:51,640
Speaker 1: takes a lot of fuel, so it really limits how

446
00:19:51,680 --> 00:19:52,679
Speaker 1: far you can go.

447
00:19:52,800 --> 00:19:55,040
Speaker 4: Right, And that's kind of why rockets are so big.

448
00:19:55,119 --> 00:19:57,000
Speaker 4: Like if you look at a rocket the ghost of space,

449
00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:59,480
Speaker 4: most of it is just a giant fuel tank, right.

450
00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:01,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure sure people really understand how massive

451
00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:04,639
Speaker 1: these things are. Like the Saturn five rockets, one of

452
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:07,959
Speaker 1: the workhorses of the American space program, is taller than

453
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:11,240
Speaker 1: the Statue of Liberty. Like, this thing is enormous, but

454
00:20:11,560 --> 00:20:13,720
Speaker 1: most of the actual active part of it is this

455
00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:17,160
Speaker 1: tiny little nose cone on the very top. Basically it's

456
00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:20,720
Speaker 1: a huge gas tank with a tiny little cab on top.

457
00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:22,720
Speaker 4: Because you need to bring a lot of that fuel

458
00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:25,200
Speaker 4: with you, and so that's really the hard part about

459
00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:27,720
Speaker 4: space travel is like, bring all the fuel that you'll

460
00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:31,760
Speaker 4: need later, because there are no gas stations in other planets, right,

461
00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:33,480
Speaker 4: there are no gas stations out there in space.

462
00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:36,520
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're identifying a business opportunity here, you know,

463
00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:40,080
Speaker 1: rocket fuel for sale on Pluto or halfway between here

464
00:20:40,119 --> 00:20:41,920
Speaker 1: and Alpha Centauri. You could sell a lot of slim

465
00:20:41,960 --> 00:20:42,840
Speaker 1: gyms also, you.

466
00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:47,040
Speaker 4: Know, yeah, there you go and turkey jerky. But then

467
00:20:47,119 --> 00:20:49,399
Speaker 4: what do you do with the restroom waist. That's the

468
00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:50,000
Speaker 4: hard part.

469
00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:52,080
Speaker 1: That's just more rocket fuel. Man, you could just mix

470
00:20:52,119 --> 00:20:52,480
Speaker 1: it all in.

471
00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:56,560
Speaker 4: Oh, there you go, biomass, biomass.

472
00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:57,439
Speaker 1: Fuel, biofuels exactly.

473
00:20:57,520 --> 00:21:00,560
Speaker 4: Solutions solved all at once. All right. So that's the

474
00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:04,520
Speaker 4: main problem with thrusters and getting around the solar system

475
00:21:04,560 --> 00:21:06,879
Speaker 4: in space. And so there's this new idea of using

476
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:10,320
Speaker 4: plasma based thrusters. So let's get into that and whether

477
00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:13,640
Speaker 4: or not they're real and whether they can work. But first,

478
00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:14,720
Speaker 4: let's take a quick break.

479
00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:22,240
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530
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532
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547
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Speaker 4: All right, we're talking about plasma based thrusters. Now, this

548
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:03,359
Speaker 4: sounds really sci fi, Daniel plasma. Anything I think with

549
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:07,160
Speaker 4: the word plasma sounds cool, but it's the opposite. It's

550
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:07,639
Speaker 4: not cool.

551
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: No, it's not cool. It's very, very hot, and it's

552
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,679
Speaker 1: actually one of the most common forms of matter in

553
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:13,400
Speaker 1: the universe.

554
00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:13,560
Speaker 9: Right.

555
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 1: People think of plasma's weird and rare and unusual, but

556
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: it's really just weird and rare and usual here on Earth,

557
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 1: where it's sort of weirdly cold, Like the Sun is

558
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,640
Speaker 1: basically a huge ball of plasma. And since the Sun

559
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: is most of the stuff in the Solar system, the

560
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:30,600
Speaker 1: Solar system is basically all plasma with a few crumbs

561
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 1: like us, we.

562
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,639
Speaker 4: Should just call the Sun the plasma ball, the giant

563
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 4: plasma ball in the sky.

564
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: It basically is, it's such a big hot plasma that

565
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: we can feel it even ninety three million miles away.

566
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 4: And thank goodness, but maybe step us through what is

567
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 4: exactly a plasma? You said, it's a state of matter.

568
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're familiar with several states of matter. Right. There's

569
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 1: solids when the atoms are cool and sort of locking

570
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 1: into a crystal structure, so they become solid and then liquid.

571
00:25:55,840 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 1: If you heat it up, then those atoms get liberated

572
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 1: from those bonds and squish around. Keep heating something and

573
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: it becomes a gas, as those atoms like to whizz

574
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: around and aren't even connected to each other. If you

575
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 1: keep heating it, then what happens is that the electrons

576
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: that are whizzing around those atoms get so much energy

577
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 1: that they're no longer held on by the nucleus. So

578
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:19,679
Speaker 1: you have a positive nucleus and a negative electron, and

579
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 1: usually the strength of that electromagnetic bond is enough to

580
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 1: keep the electrons bound to the nucleus of the atom.

581
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 1: But if you get them hot enough, then they escape

582
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:31,159
Speaker 1: and then you have something which just has nuclei and

583
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:35,439
Speaker 1: electrons floating around, whizzing around. You have charged particles. So

584
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: plasma is like a gas that's been heated up so

585
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 1: much that it becomes ionized that the electrons are now free.

586
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 4: Right, it's basically like just regular matter, right, that's heated

587
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,639
Speaker 4: up so much that it breaks the atoms. Like the

588
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:49,160
Speaker 4: atoms kind of break apart.

589
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're broken apart, and it's sort of like the

590
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: original state, you know, before things cool down. Electrons got

591
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:59,080
Speaker 1: captured by the nuclei. They were free. Electrons were born free.

592
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: They were captured, and some of them have been in

593
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 1: this state for millions of years. And now if you

594
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 1: heat something up, you were returning them back to their

595
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 1: original state of freedom.

596
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:09,679
Speaker 4: Oh man, Now you make me sad for the atoms

597
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 4: in my body and the electrons in my body. You

598
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 4: make it sound like I'm trapping them and I'm keeping

599
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:15,160
Speaker 4: them from being free.

600
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 1: No, some atoms are very happy to be married forever,

601
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 1: you know, but other ones want to be single, and

602
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: so you know.

603
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 4: There's good side both to each your own.

604
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, but a plasma is basically like a singles bar

605
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 1: right now.

606
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 4: It can anything be a plasma, Like, can any kind

607
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 4: of matter be a plasma if I heat it up enough?

608
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, anything can be a plasma as long as you

609
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:35,679
Speaker 1: heat it up enough. That it starts to lose its

610
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 1: electrons and it's made out of ions and its components

611
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 1: are now charged instead of neutral. Then that's a plasma.

612
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: So yeah, you can have a plasma out of hydrogen.

613
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:44,920
Speaker 1: That's what most of the universe is. You can also

614
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: have a plasma out of like iron. You heat of

615
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: iron enough, you get an iron plasma.

616
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 4: And you know, you said it happens in the sun,

617
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 4: and it happens when you heat things up a lot.

618
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 4: But there are other ways that you can make plasma

619
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 4: that doesn't heat them up that much, right, Like there's

620
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,120
Speaker 4: I think you can use radio waves or some sort

621
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:02,040
Speaker 4: of radiation to create a plasma, like in your desktop.

622
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have plasma all around us. Like fluorescent lights

623
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: have a plasma in them, right, that's why they glow.

624
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 1: You know, you can talk about the definition of temperature.

625
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 1: I find it's a little fuzzy. You are making those

626
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:15,679
Speaker 1: particles move fast than if you're giving them enough energy

627
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 1: to be released from their atoms, so they have that

628
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: high velocity even if there's not that much actual heat. Right,

629
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 1: A plasma doesn't have to be very very hot, even

630
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 1: if it's high temperature, because it doesn't store a lot

631
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 1: of heat because the gas is very diffuse and dilute.

632
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: Then you might not like burn yourself from touching a

633
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 1: container that has plasma in it, but it still would

634
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: be officially high temperature because the particles are moving fast.

635
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 4: So fluorescent lights, like the lights we all have in

636
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 4: our offices in stores and stuff, that's plasma. That's like

637
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:45,719
Speaker 4: a canister of plasma.

638
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: Right, that's a canister of plasma. And neon for example,

639
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: neon lights, those have plasma inside them. So those are

640
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: atoms that are whizzing around and they have so much

641
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: energy that they glow and they give off photons. Right,

642
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: They're just like shedding energy constantly.

643
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 4: I wonder if they had named those plasma lights, if

644
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 4: we would feel the same way we feel about fluorescence

645
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 4: lights right now, Like it would be this name that's

646
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 4: associated with something like unpleasant, boring, unpleasant.

647
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, a fluorescent blaster. I'm gonna shoot fluorescent light

648
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: at you and give you a headache.

649
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, there you go. That will make for enough for science.

650
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: Fiction Medel the headache gun.

651
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 4: All right, So that's plasma. So how does a plasma

652
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 4: thruster work? Like, how would you use something like fluorescent

653
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 4: light to push yourself through space.

654
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: Well, a plasma is glowing, it's giving off energy, it's

655
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: stuff moving around fast. The problem with the plasma is

656
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: that generally glows in every direction, and so it's sort

657
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 1: of throwing momentum off in every direction. Like the sun

658
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 1: isn't an engine, it's not flying in one direction because

659
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:49,479
Speaker 1: it's giving off energy in every direction. So if you

660
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: want to take a plasma and turn it into a thruster,

661
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: what you need to do is make it only point

662
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 1: its glow, only shoot particles out, only send momentum away

663
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: in one erection. And the way you do that is

664
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: you just take a plasma and you put it in

665
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 1: basically a magnetic bottle. I mean, the plasmas are charged particles,

666
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: and charge particles bend in magnetic fields, and so it's

667
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: hard to contain a plasma because there's so much energy.

668
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: You'll basically eat through anything. It's sort of like acid.

669
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: But if you could build a bottle around it that

670
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:21,480
Speaker 1: bends the particles back into the plasma, but leave a

671
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 1: hole in one side, then particles will shoot out through

672
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: that hole and effectually push the whole plasma the other direction.

673
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 4: I see, it's like you're heating a water kind of

674
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 4: like you're making a water a gun, kind of like

675
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 4: you heat up the water, it steams up, it becomes

676
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:38,960
Speaker 4: a high pressure gas, and then you shoot it on

677
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 4: one side, and that's kind of what would push you

678
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 4: in space, but you're doing it with a plasma material.

679
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, take a water balloon for example. If you poke

680
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: a water balloon on one side, then water is going

681
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: to squirt out through the hole that you made, and

682
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: the rest of the balloon is going to go the

683
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: other direction. And so that's basically what a plasma is.

684
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: It's hot and high speed, and so it's always shooting

685
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 1: particles off. It's basically trying to expand. But if you

686
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: contain it in every direction but one, but only where

687
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: the hole is, can particles leave and they will carry momentum.

688
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 1: And that's basically an engine.

689
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 4: And so that's kind of the basic mechanism of a

690
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 4: plasma thrust. It's like you're heating something up and then

691
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 4: you're letting it escape out one end of your spaceship.

692
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 1: That's the basic mechanism. And you remember once we talked

693
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 1: on the podcast about using the sun as an engine,

694
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: or building an engine that could move the whole sun.

695
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: It was the same basic idea. It's to build something

696
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: around the sun that reflects its energy back into the sun,

697
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 1: except in one direction. And so you can use this

698
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 1: idea to move the whole sun, or you can build

699
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 1: your own little mini plasma, your mini sun, and reflect

700
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: most of its energy back into itself, except in one direction.

701
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 1: So that's the basic premise.

702
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:42,920
Speaker 3: Right.

703
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 4: It's kind of like a flashlight or even your headlights, right,

704
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 4: like you're heating up an element, it's creating photons, but

705
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 4: then you're focusing those photons to one side.

706
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, because flashlights usually have like a mirror on one side,

707
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 1: So the photons that are generated that come back towards

708
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 1: a handle get reflected to go the other direction, so

709
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 1: it produces a more collimated beam. So that's the basic principle.

710
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: If you can shoot off momentum in one direction, then

711
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: the rest of the engine goes the other way. And

712
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 1: so what you need to do is get some cold stuff,

713
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 1: really almost anything, and heat it up until it becomes

714
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:16,240
Speaker 1: a plasma and confine it in all but one direction.

715
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:18,959
Speaker 4: I guess the tricky thing here that I'm not seeing

716
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 4: is how is this better than a chemical reaction? Because

717
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 4: it seems like you're just you have to spend a

718
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 4: lot of energy to heat up this plasma as opposed

719
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 4: to like rocket fuel, which explodes because it has that

720
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 4: energy stored inside of it.

721
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. It sometimes can be an advantage to

722
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 1: decouple those things. Like here, you're right that the source

723
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 1: of energy is something else, and that means that you're

724
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 1: sort of free to get that energy from another source,

725
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: like solar power. If you have huge solar cells, you

726
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: can collect that energy, turn it into electricity, and then

727
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 1: hook that up to a plasma rocket and use it

728
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 1: for propulsion. So that's one advantage, sort of like the

729
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 1: way you have an electric car. It's nice that you

730
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: have an electric car because it means that you can

731
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 1: accept energy from lots of different kinds of sources, not

732
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: just dirty coal burning power plant, but also clean solar panels.

733
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 1: For example.

734
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 4: Oh, I see, do you want to somehow collect solar

735
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 4: energy while you're out there in space and somehow convert

736
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 4: that to thrust and instead of bringing the fuel with you.

737
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's lower mass, right, So if you can

738
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 1: gather the energy along the way, then you can have

739
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 1: this plasma thruster and you don't need to bring all

740
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: that fuel with you. But it can also be a disadvantage,

741
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:25,840
Speaker 1: right because you need to gather that solar energy and

742
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 1: that's complicated, or you need to have some other source

743
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: of electricity. The nice thing about rocket fuel is that

744
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: it's sort of like all in one, as you say,

745
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:34,480
Speaker 1: So there are pros and cons there.

746
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 4: What are some of the other cons.

747
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 1: Well, one of the cons is that plasma is really

748
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: really hard to contain. You know, like you have a plasma,

749
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: it's going to be eating away at the walls that

750
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: you're trying to use to contain it all the time.

751
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 1: One of the big challenges we have with fusion research

752
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 1: here on Earth is that we're trying to make a

753
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 1: plasma and contain it. We can't just like have our

754
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: own little sun and it'll destroy the Earth. So we

755
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 1: need to build these magnetic bottles. But they are hard.

756
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: Plasmas are always trying to escape and keeping them stable

757
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 1: and keeping them contained is really tricky, and you don't

758
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: want your spaceship engine breaking down or the plasma leak

759
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 1: out and basically destroy your ship. So it's got to

760
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 1: be really really robust, especially if you're talking about like

761
00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 1: a year's or decades long journey and there are no

762
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 1: repair stations along the way.

763
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, you need like a cool container to keep that

764
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:22,919
Speaker 4: plasma in check.

765
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the plasma gets hot and it generates a

766
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 1: lot of waste heat, and so you need some like

767
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: large way to radiate off all of that heat from

768
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 1: the plasma that you're not using, And so that's a

769
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: huge waste of energy. It's inefficient, and sometimes it requires

770
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 1: like large fins just to cool this thing, which means

771
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 1: more mass, which means that you're not going to be

772
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: moving as quickly. So there really are some disadvantages there.

773
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 1: I think the main disadvantage though, is that plasmas don't

774
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 1: get particles up to very very high speeds like a

775
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 1: rocket engine or ion thrusters or other things that have

776
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 1: like active acceleration of these ions can get much higher

777
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 1: exhaust velocities. A plasma is basically just saying, hey, you

778
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:04,400
Speaker 1: got something that's kind of already hot. The particles are

779
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 1: already kind of moving around, so why don't you just

780
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,840
Speaker 1: use that. You're not really getting very high exhaust velocity.

781
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, it doesn't seem that efficient because you're you're basically

782
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 4: just throwing stuff out the back, right, you're not sort

783
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 4: of like releasing any sort of inherent energy on it.

784
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 4: You're literally like just pushing stuff out the back, like

785
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:23,880
Speaker 4: you're throwing your couches at the back of your spaceshit.

786
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well there is some extra flexibility there, for example,

787
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 1: because you can almost use anything. Like you said, you

788
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,640
Speaker 1: could turn anything into a plasma. And so you can

789
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:34,880
Speaker 1: use like astronaut urine or astronaut waste and throw it

790
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: in the engine and it will turn into fuel. Oh no, yes,

791
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:40,279
Speaker 1: you really can, or your couch if you want to

792
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:43,319
Speaker 1: think more cleanly. You know, other things sometimes require very

793
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: special chemicals, like you got to use rocket fuel and

794
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 1: a chemical engine, or if you have an ion thruster

795
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 1: for example, and need some very sort of like inert

796
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 1: gas like xenon. You know, things that like those Starlink

797
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: satellites have these are little ion engines that create a

798
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 1: little plasma, but they have to start from zene on.

799
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,280
Speaker 1: But if you have a real plasma engine on your spaceship,

800
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,719
Speaker 1: you can basically toss anything in their banana peels, coffee grounds,

801
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:08,280
Speaker 1: astronaut urine, whatever.

802
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:10,320
Speaker 4: Right, you can have a poop plasma.

803
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 1: That's a crappy idea.

804
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:16,839
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, let's flush that down the toilet. All right, Well, then,

805
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 4: so what are some of the pros of using a

806
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 4: plasma thruster, Like, why convince me that it's a good thing.

807
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not sure I can give into is a

808
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 1: great thing. This is sort of the basic design for

809
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 1: a plasma thruster. There are improvements we'll talk about in

810
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 1: a minute that make it more appealing, but they do

811
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: have some advantages over other approaches, like, for example, the

812
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 1: exhaust is naturally uncharged, doesn't have electric charge because what

813
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 1: you have are both positive and negative particles shooting out

814
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 1: the back, and so as they come out the back,

815
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 1: they naturally sort of recombine into neutral particles. You don't

816
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:51,399
Speaker 1: need to do something extra to make sure they're neutral.

817
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 1: Like for ion thrusters. You're only shooting positively charged particles

818
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 1: out the back, and you need to add electrons to

819
00:36:57,360 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 1: them as they come out the back to recombine them

820
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:01,800
Speaker 1: so they don't get like sucked back into your ship.

821
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 1: So there's one positive. Another positive is that they're sort

822
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 1: of simple. You know, they're basically just magnetic bottles that

823
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:11,279
Speaker 1: you're heating up using some sort of electrical energy. So

824
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of stuff to break, except

825
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 1: of course, for the plasma eating the bottle.

826
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 4: All right, well, it sounds like simplicity and flexibility in

827
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 4: the kind of fuel is a good thing. So let's

828
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:25,840
Speaker 4: get into how to actually make one of these and

829
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 4: whether or not it would be practical to do. First,

830
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:30,760
Speaker 4: let's take another quick break.

831
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:36,879
Speaker 1: When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth,

832
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: or enjoy a rich spoonful of Greek yogurt, you're probably

833
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:44,240
Speaker 1: not thinking about the environmental impact of each and every bite,

834
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 1: But the people in the dairy industry are. US dairy

835
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: has set themselves some ambitious sustainability goals, including being greenhouse

836
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:53,839
Speaker 1: gas neutral by twenty to fifty. That's why they're working

837
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 1: hard every day to find new ways to reduce waste,

838
00:37:56,280 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: conserve natural resources, and drive down greenhouse gas emissions. Egg water,

839
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 1: for example, most dairy farms reuse water up to four times.

840
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: The same water cools the milk, cleans equipment, washes the barn,

841
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:11,360
Speaker 1: and irrigates the crops. How is US dairy tackling greenhouse gases?

842
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:14,400
Speaker 1: Many farms use anaerobic digestors that turn the methane from

843
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,799
Speaker 1: maneuver into renewable energy that can power farms, towns, and

844
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: electric cars. So the next time you grab a slice

845
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: of pizza or lick an ice cream cone, know that

846
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: dairy farmers and processors around the country are using the

847
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:28,560
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848
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:31,239
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849
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:33,880
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875
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 4: VGW group vodware prohibited by Law eighteen plus.

876
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:47,440
Speaker 3: Terms and conditions apply.

877
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 4: All right, we're talking about plasma. Thus theists that may

878
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 4: or may not be made out of panu.

879
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 1: In space definitely on the main notfe yes.

880
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 4: Or hopefully not. You don't want to be like the

881
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 4: car behind that spaceship that's getting all that you know,

882
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:12,320
Speaker 4: high energy waste.

883
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:14,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, then again, do you really want to carry all

884
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:16,399
Speaker 1: that waste with you to Alpha Centauri, so that when

885
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: you show up and you meet the aliens, the first

886
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 1: thing you ask them is like, hey, do you have

887
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:21,719
Speaker 1: a place I could put all this stuff? Because I

888
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 1: have a huge storage tank filled with it.

889
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:28,359
Speaker 4: Right, do you want to recycle it? All? Right? Well,

890
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 4: talk to us about whether or not people are actually

891
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 4: making this, and maybe what kind of specific technology people

892
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 4: are focusing on.

893
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:38,280
Speaker 1: So people are definitely working on this. They are developing

894
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:40,840
Speaker 1: these things in the laboratory. And the one that we

895
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 1: just talked about, the most basic sort of plasma thruster,

896
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:48,359
Speaker 1: there's a version of it called the Vasimir vasimr that

897
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 1: people are working on, and it has like a magnetic

898
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 1: nozzle at the end of it, so you can sort

899
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:55,359
Speaker 1: of tune how much of the plasma comes out and

900
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: at what velocity. That's cool because it lets you adjust

901
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 1: this exhaust velocity so you can like ramp it up

902
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:03,240
Speaker 1: when you get into outer space and get more thrust.

903
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 1: So that's pretty cool. People are working on that. But

904
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:07,759
Speaker 1: then there are some other exciting ideas. There are sort

905
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 1: of more cutting edge that people are working on to

906
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: improve plasma thrusters and sort of next generation devices.

907
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, and these involve another pretty cool science fiction word,

908
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 4: which is fusion. Are we actually considering like making fusion

909
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 4: possible for space travel.

910
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are, because what we talked about so far

911
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,240
Speaker 1: is just plasma right now. Plasma is an important component

912
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:29,720
Speaker 1: of fusion in the sun, but you can have plasma

913
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 1: without fusion, or plasma in your fluorescent light is not

914
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: doing nuclear fusion. It's not like a bomb. But the

915
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 1: way that we do fusion is through a plasma. You

916
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 1: gotta get a gas, you gotta heat it up, then

917
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 1: you've got to squeeze it down so that those very

918
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 1: high energy particles smash into each other and make heavier elements.

919
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: And so people are working on taking plasma thrusters to

920
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:52,279
Speaker 1: the place where they actually can fuse some fuel to

921
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 1: release additional energy as a way to avoid having a

922
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 1: pump in external energy like from solar panels or from

923
00:41:58,960 --> 00:41:59,920
Speaker 1: some sort of electrical sot.

924
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:03,360
Speaker 4: So now we're talking about making fusion in space.

925
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 1: Fusion in space like a.

926
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 4: Fusion engine that you put on a space ship.

927
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's called a direct fusion drive. And you

928
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 1: might be wondering why you would want to do that,

929
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:14,600
Speaker 1: because the whole idea of a plasma thruster was that

930
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: you could take energy from all sorts of different directions.

931
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: But the idea here is that again like a chemical rocket,

932
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 1: you're now bringing the fuel that has the energy inside it. Right,

933
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: it's more like a chemical rocket, but this fuel is

934
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: very very dense. You know, fusion is much more efficient

935
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:35,360
Speaker 1: than chemical burning because you're turning mass into energy much

936
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 1: more effectively. That's why, like, for example, hydrogen bombs are

937
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 1: much more powerful than T and T because fusion is

938
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 1: much more powerful than just chemical burning, and so you

939
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: have a much denser source of fuel, and so it's

940
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 1: more efficient transformation of that fuel into energy. So you

941
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:52,960
Speaker 1: just don't have to bring neatly as much fuel if

942
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: you can use fusion as the source of energy.

943
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 4: Right, it's like you're bringing all the energy that's trapped

944
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 4: inside of the bonds or that's and trapped in the

945
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:03,399
Speaker 4: potential bonds of the fuel that you're bringing. So it's

946
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:05,200
Speaker 4: almost like you're being extra clever about it.

947
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all about getting as much energy as possible

948
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:10,600
Speaker 1: out of the same mass of fuel, because then you

949
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: need less fuel mass for that energy. You know, the

950
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: best case scenario is to bring like antimatter fuel and

951
00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:19,799
Speaker 1: to smash matter and antimatter together because it's total annihilation

952
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: of mass into energy. But you know, antimatter is basically

953
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 1: impossible to fabricate in large quantities and very difficult to transport.

954
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 1: Fusion is sort of like at the edge of plausibility,

955
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 1: Like it might be possible to build a fusion reactor

956
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 1: in space that transforms the energy stored in the nucleus

957
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: into energy you can throw out the back of your rocket.

958
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:41,839
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the thing, because I feel like, you know,

959
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 4: we've been working on trying to get fusion working here

960
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 4: on Earth for like fifty years, and we still don't

961
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:50,760
Speaker 4: have a pretty good or a working or an efficient

962
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,680
Speaker 4: fusion generator. What makes us thing that we can suddenly

963
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 4: do it in space.

964
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: Well, I talked to some plasma physicists and they don't

965
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 1: They don't think this is possible. They're like, no, I

966
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:04,240
Speaker 1: don't think so. I mean, some people make the argument

967
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:06,400
Speaker 1: that it's simpler. They think it doesn't have to be

968
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 1: such a huge, massive thing, like you could build basically

969
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 1: a minivan sized fusion container, rather than like the fusion

970
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:15,879
Speaker 1: reactors we're building here on Earth, like eater. This new

971
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 1: reactor they're building in France is like sixty meters high,

972
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: and so they think it could be simpler, it can

973
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 1: be smaller, but frankly, there's a lot of skepticism in

974
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: the plasma physics community about whether this is plausible at all.

975
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 1: It's basically relying on an uninvented technology, small scale fusion

976
00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 1: that would have to work and be reliable for years.

977
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 4: And so what's the basic idea that would we somehow

978
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:42,560
Speaker 4: trap plasma and then somehow ignited so that it fuses

979
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:44,919
Speaker 4: together and then that energy goes out the back.

980
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the basic idea. You start the plasma with

981
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: some other external heat source, maybe RF energy or whatever

982
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 1: you've captured from before, and then once you've gotten it hot,

983
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:56,720
Speaker 1: you put in your fuel, and then that fuel releases

984
00:44:56,760 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 1: more energy, and then it's sort of like a fire

985
00:44:59,239 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: because it really is the energy needed to ignite the

986
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:04,799
Speaker 1: next piece of fuel, and so it's self sustaining. So

987
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: you're putting in energy, but only in terms of this

988
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: like very very dense fuel that releases a huge amount

989
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 1: of energy. So then the particles are now very high

990
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:16,480
Speaker 1: speed and they flow around the field lines of your

991
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 1: magnetic bottle and they shoot out the back. And so

992
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. It generates very high speed particles, which

993
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 1: are very good for a rocket engine, and at the

994
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 1: same time you can capture some of that energy and

995
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:29,759
Speaker 1: turn it into energy for your spaceship. Right, you also

996
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: want to like heat coffee and power your life support systems. Well,

997
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:35,759
Speaker 1: you have a fusion reactor on board now that not

998
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 1: just is generating thrust, but also can generate direct electricity.

999
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:41,680
Speaker 4: I guess maybe one advantage too is that unlike a

1000
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 4: fusion generator here on Earth, you're not trying to like

1001
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:46,880
Speaker 4: power a whole city, right, Like, it doesn't have to

1002
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 4: be maybe energy positive for a space engine, like you

1003
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 4: actually want to spend some energy to push yourself, so

1004
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:57,080
Speaker 4: it doesn't maybe have the same requirements as a fusion

1005
00:45:57,480 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 4: generator here on Earth.

1006
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Some of these designs, though, are even

1007
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: more complicated than the ones that are working on here

1008
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:05,760
Speaker 1: on Earth. Here on Earth we try to use simpler

1009
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:09,440
Speaker 1: fuels like deuterium and tritium. These are isotopes of hydrogen

1010
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 1: with extra neutrons on them. But the ones that people

1011
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:15,840
Speaker 1: are talking about for space travel use like advanced fuels

1012
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 1: like helium three. And these are cool because you can

1013
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 1: find like deposits of it on the Moon, but nobody's

1014
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:23,839
Speaker 1: made fusion for helium three work. It's even much more

1015
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:26,279
Speaker 1: complicated than the kind of fusion we're talking about on

1016
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:29,520
Speaker 1: Earth that we also haven't made work. And so this

1017
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 1: is definitely in the category of like the could work,

1018
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:34,319
Speaker 1: would be awesome, might never work.

1019
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 4: It's currently at the science fiction novel stage. Yeah, it's

1020
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 4: currently at the Marvel movie name drop stage.

1021
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 1: No, they're like, there are prototypes. They are working on

1022
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:45,680
Speaker 1: it at Princeton. Princeton has an incredible plasma physics laboratory.

1023
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 1: They're great at fusion, and so there are people working

1024
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: on it, but you know, it's far away from being

1025
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: approven technology.

1026
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 4: Well, there are some pretty new and interesting ideas. I

1027
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:56,799
Speaker 4: think you spoke to some of the scientists there at

1028
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 4: the Princeton lab and they have some new concepts for

1029
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:00,040
Speaker 4: making this.

1030
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a new idea just this year from

1031
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 1: an Iranian scientist at plasma, doctor Fatima Abrahimi, and she

1032
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: was actually thinking about the way the Sun works because

1033
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: the Sun is a huge ball of plasma and the

1034
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 1: Sun has these crazy releases of energy, right, like these

1035
00:47:16,719 --> 00:47:20,280
Speaker 1: huge coronal mass ejections, and these happen when the magnetic

1036
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:23,719
Speaker 1: fields on the sun like reconfigure themselves and snap into

1037
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:25,759
Speaker 1: a new direction, and what you get are these like

1038
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 1: bubbles of plasma that are trapped in these little magnetic

1039
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:32,440
Speaker 1: field ripples and they move really really fast through the plasma.

1040
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 1: So she thought, well, I wonder if you could use

1041
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:36,720
Speaker 1: that to build an engine, Like what if you could

1042
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:40,319
Speaker 1: have a plasma that generated these little magnetic bubbles and

1043
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:42,880
Speaker 1: then shot them out the back. That would be an

1044
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 1: effective way to take your plasma. You wouldn't necessarily need

1045
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:49,760
Speaker 1: it to be fusing and to shoot really high energy

1046
00:47:49,880 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 1: plasmoids out the back. So that's what these little magnetic

1047
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:54,800
Speaker 1: bubbles are called plasmoids.

1048
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 4: This is just some like phenomena that happens with all plasmas.

1049
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:01,440
Speaker 4: And she's saying, let's to those bubbles and use them.

1050
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's capture those bubbles and direct them. And if

1051
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:06,439
Speaker 1: we can make our magnetic fields in such a way

1052
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: that they always shoot in one direction, then we can

1053
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:11,720
Speaker 1: basically shoot these magnetic bubbles out the back. And because

1054
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:15,320
Speaker 1: they move at very high speeds, like twenty kilometers per second,

1055
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:17,799
Speaker 1: then you can get a very high exhaust velocity from

1056
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:21,080
Speaker 1: your plasma, much higher than the generic plasma thruster we

1057
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,080
Speaker 1: were talking about before, which is just like a hot

1058
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:26,320
Speaker 1: gas with stuff leaking out. This is like magnetically directed

1059
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 1: and accelerated inside the plasma.

1060
00:48:28,160 --> 00:48:30,920
Speaker 4: Yeah. The generic version is always you know, a little

1061
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 4: suspect cheaper, but yeah, cheaper, Yeah, but you never know, right,

1062
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:38,359
Speaker 4: So this is sort of like using plasma burps, right,

1063
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 4: Like this could be called the plasma burp engine.

1064
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, the plasma burp engine. I'm sure she'd love to

1065
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:43,800
Speaker 1: have it called.

1066
00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 4: That better than the other name you could give it for,

1067
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 4: you know, shooting gas.

1068
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:51,239
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, these are high velocity burps, right, This is

1069
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:55,400
Speaker 1: like ten times faster exhaust speed than a generic plasma engine.

1070
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 1: And that's exciting because the exhaust speed is key, right,

1071
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 1: That's the thing that gives you that push of momentum.

1072
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: That's what lets you really get your spaceship going up

1073
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:04,720
Speaker 1: to high speeds very quickly.

1074
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:07,879
Speaker 4: Yeah, these are name brand burps, not the generic kind.

1075
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:10,839
Speaker 4: All right, Well, let's be hopeful, and so let's say

1076
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 4: they make this work and we have this exciting technology.

1077
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:15,719
Speaker 4: Can it takes us around the Solar system faster? Like,

1078
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:18,319
Speaker 4: could we get to Mars in less than a month?

1079
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 1: Yeah? If you had this kind of technology and it

1080
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:23,319
Speaker 1: was reliable and you trusted it, then you could get

1081
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 1: to Mars in like thirty nine days. They've done these

1082
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:29,880
Speaker 1: calculations and this kind of engine again, if it works,

1083
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:32,360
Speaker 1: can get you to Mars in a pretty short amount

1084
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:34,399
Speaker 1: of time. That's great because it means you could also

1085
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:36,719
Speaker 1: get to like Saturn in just a couple of years.

1086
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:39,760
Speaker 1: You can get the Pluto in like less than five years,

1087
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:42,359
Speaker 1: whereas currently it takes more than a decade to get

1088
00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:45,200
Speaker 1: out to those outer parts of the Solar System, Mars.

1089
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,040
Speaker 4: In thirty nine days. That is like a Marvel movie

1090
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:51,400
Speaker 4: a day, So your dream might come true.

1091
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they keep making them so they can just

1092
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 1: beam them to you.

1093
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:56,359
Speaker 4: Can download them there you go.

1094
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:58,920
Speaker 1: I hope they have free Wi Fi you can.

1095
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 4: You can burp your way through the Marble catalog.

1096
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 1: What if you shoot Avengers movies out the back of

1097
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:07,920
Speaker 1: your ship. That's the potential engine right there. They're pretty massive.

1098
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:10,839
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely takes them all the money that Marble has

1099
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 4: made to make these engines work.

1100
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:14,839
Speaker 1: So and it's not just humans that need to get

1101
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:17,359
Speaker 1: around the Solar System. There are very real reasons why

1102
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: we want faster ways to move around the Solar System,

1103
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:23,399
Speaker 1: and one is to intercept asteroids. You know that we're

1104
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:26,360
Speaker 1: always on the lookout for objects that might hit the Earth,

1105
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:28,759
Speaker 1: that might come and impact the Earth and cause an

1106
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 1: extinction event, and we're pretty good at watching these things,

1107
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 1: but sometimes they appear with very little warning. And the

1108
00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:37,239
Speaker 1: critical thing when you're trying to avoid getting hit by

1109
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:39,759
Speaker 1: a rock is to spot it as early as possible,

1110
00:50:39,920 --> 00:50:41,480
Speaker 1: because that's when you can give it, like just a

1111
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:43,760
Speaker 1: little bit of a nudge and push it off course

1112
00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:45,959
Speaker 1: to spare the Earth. But if you see this rock,

1113
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:47,680
Speaker 1: you got to get to it. You got to get

1114
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 1: out there to give it a nudge. And so a

1115
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:53,840
Speaker 1: faster a rocket, like a plasma based interceptor might literally

1116
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 1: save the Earth someday if it means that we can

1117
00:50:56,640 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 1: get it out there and give that asteroid a nudge

1118
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: before it comes and hits the Earth.

1119
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 4: Interesting just gives you faster first responders in case of

1120
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:04,840
Speaker 4: an emergency.

1121
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can get to it sooner, which means

1122
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:09,440
Speaker 1: you need a smaller push, which means there are a

1123
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 1: lot more asteroids that you could deflect. Right, a really

1124
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:15,760
Speaker 1: really tiny push two years in advance is the equivalent

1125
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 1: of like a massive nuclear thrust five minutes before it

1126
00:51:19,120 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 1: hits the Earth. It's much easier to deflect these things

1127
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 1: if you catch them early.

1128
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 4: All right, well, then maybe you should stop watching so

1129
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 4: many Marvel movies and get to work on this Daniel,

1130
00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:30,440
Speaker 4: Come on, would you never know when that asteroid might come?

1131
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:32,279
Speaker 1: I would happily do it if anything I did ever

1132
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:36,239
Speaker 1: had any practical benefits. But you know that's not true.

1133
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe you're not the person to put on this project.

1134
00:51:41,239 --> 00:51:44,160
Speaker 4: All right, Well, last question, Daniel. If somebody did make

1135
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 4: a spaceship but that is powered by direct fusion and

1136
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 4: plasma plasma thrust earth, would you buy it if it

1137
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:51,240
Speaker 4: was used?

1138
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:54,719
Speaker 1: Well, I guess it depends on what happened to the

1139
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:57,600
Speaker 1: last people who used it, right, If they're still around

1140
00:51:57,680 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 1: and they had a good trip, then yeah, I would

1141
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:01,960
Speaker 1: trust did better than spending all that money on a

1142
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 1: new fusion drive.

1143
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:06,800
Speaker 4: Geez, who said new spaceship spill? All right? Well, I

1144
00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:09,239
Speaker 4: think that the answer is the question what is a

1145
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 4: plasma thruster and how that might work and how it

1146
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 4: could work in the future. And again, scientists are hard

1147
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 4: at work trying to get us out there into space

1148
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:19,520
Speaker 4: so that we can explore more and see things up

1149
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:21,520
Speaker 4: closed and learn more about the universe.

1150
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 1: That's right. Some of these things are real and working

1151
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 1: in the laboratory, and some of these things are still

1152
00:52:26,239 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 1: pipe dreams that scientists are working on. And there's lots

1153
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: of room for new ideas. So if you have an

1154
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:33,440
Speaker 1: awesome idea for a new spaceship engine that lets us

1155
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:35,680
Speaker 1: get around the solar system, hey, get to work.

1156
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 4: That's right, and you could create the next name brand spaceship.

1157
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:41,960
Speaker 4: All right, thanks for joining us, see you next time.

1158
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain

1159
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

1160
00:52:56,560 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, apple Pots, or wherever

1161
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:03,000
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1162
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1170
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Speaker 1: When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth,

1171
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:49,880
Speaker 1: you're probably not thinking about the environmental impact. But the

1172
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:52,760
Speaker 1: people in the dairy industry are. That's why they're working

1173
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Speaker 1: hard every day to find new ways to reduce waste,

1174
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Speaker 1: conserve natural resources, and drive down greenhouse gas emissions. How

1175
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 1: is you dairy tackling greenhouse gases? Many farms use anaerobic

1176
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:07,440
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1177
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:11,080
Speaker 1: that can power farms, towns, and electric cars. Visit you

1178
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1179
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Speaker 10: There are children, friends, and families walking, riding on paths

1180
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:21,560
Speaker 10: and roads every day. Remember they're real people with loved

1181
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:22,360
Speaker 10: ones who need them to.

1182
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 1: Get home safely.

1183
00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:25,919
Speaker 10: Protect our cyclists and pedestrians because they're people too.

1184
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:26,720
Speaker 1: Go safely.

1185
00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 10: California from the California Office of Traffic Safety and Caltrans