June 3, 2022 • 54 mins
Past and current philosophers often argue the future of humanity is found not on Earth, but in the stars. In recent decades, private entities have pushed the boundaries of technology, achieving milestones once relegated to the scope of state-level powers. As organizations like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin reach historic breakthroughs, more and more people wonder: Should humanity's exploration of the cosmos be beholden to profit-driven entities? To paraphrase Alfred E. Neuman -- "What, me worry?"
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nolan. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission Control decades. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. Today's episode is about one
of our mutually favorite things, space, the Final Frontier. It's
(00:49):
weird because when previous generations talked about space travel or
speculated about the possibilities, they were almost always thinking of
this in turn of governments, state powers, countries, nations. You
think of the U. S. S R. When the Soviet
Union puts spot Nick into space, then put the first
UH official human into space. UH story for another day.
(01:15):
We think of the US putting the first people on
the moon. But increasingly nowadays, in recent years, people are
thinking less about state powers in space and more about
private entities. A world of very powerful corporations, world of
very ambitious startups and not a few eccentric billionaires. Maybe
(01:36):
one day. Uh, a lot of tourists. That's what we're
talking about the future of private space travel. Here are
the facts. This is so strange. A lot of people
may not be aware of this, but private space travel
is not a brand new idea. Well sure, I mean
think about like, you know, commercial airlines. I mean, those
companies were making stuff for the government long before they
(01:59):
expand ended into the idea of tourism, of like air
travel tourism because it wasn't something that was available or
even viable in terms of what people could afford. It's
always how it goes right. I mean, the companies that
make you know, super super high tech um stuff for
the government in terms of like data um, that stuff
reaches the public much much later. But they've been doing
(02:20):
stuff for the government all along, no exception with the
space program. The private sector has always played some kind
of role in developing new technologies for a government. We'll
get into all of it, but think about the amount
of government grants that go to private companies to create
something new that then can be you know, brought into
(02:40):
the government's program to do a thing. Uh. Especially this
is especially true with flight. As you said in Old
and Rocketry, rocketry big time. There's a dude. Yeah, there's
a dude name Goddard. You may know that name from
a certain NASA space station, Robert Goddard, who is at
the father of rocketry. And that dude it's not like
(03:03):
he was given a ton of money to throw into
his inventing and his testing. He a lot of that
money came out of his own pocket. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And rocketry and flight are kind of the peanut butter
and jelly the great sandwich we call space exploration. And
I love like I can understand where Goddard is coming from.
(03:23):
And even investors who might have initially been skeptical about
his his concept, because if you had never heard of
a rocket and some guy described it to you while
asking you for money, could you be blamed for saying
that's kind of crazy? Man? Horses are where it's at,
you know, uh Like, because you're saying, I'm gonna put
stuff in a tube, okay, and it's gonna explode and
(03:47):
it'll go somewhere. That's my idea, And they're like, okay, Robbie,
uh where, well, you know, up hopefully kind of up
to the side. I mean, you know, it's I'm sure,
a lot of people reacted to the idea of of
of flying in an airplane in the same way. I mean,
any new technology that's a big swing is going to
be so remarkable and outside of the norm that people
(04:09):
are gonna kind of bulk at it initially. I mean,
not everyone can be as forward thinking as like genius inventors. True. True,
even inventors who were killed by their own adventure. Shout
out to a fantastic Wikipedia article. But it turns out
the guy that invented the wood chipper took a tumble
right into his own wood chipper prototype and got Steve
(04:32):
bush immid all over the snow. Woody chimpleton long may
remain a blessing. Uh. Yeah, So I'm glad you mentioned
airplane technology because as World War one hits, we know
that war drives technological innovation. Uh. And as World War
one hit, it brought along this amazing boom in airplane technology.
(04:56):
It took airplane tech two unprecedented heights. Get it. The
US government was Dino sorry, was hand in hand with
private entities the whole time, and they wanted these entities
to uh pioneer new industries, maybe without some of the
political constraints that government's face, which is going to be
(05:16):
a big part of today's show. The big notable thing
here was something called the air Mail Act of nine
and this allowed private companies to start flying mail across
the country, and then they were flying human passengers not
too much later, first across the country, then across the world.
(05:38):
This is important because it establishes a strong precedent, and
if we look at the evolution of commercial airlines, we
see a pretty robust possibility that this pattern could repeat
in the world of space flight. I mean, NASA sure
is on board. They have been super down to clown
(05:58):
with private entities and their early days, because they'll say, hey,
you already make widgets, can you help us make a
kind of space widget? You know, it's it's an oversimplification,
but it's very true. It's also sort of the differentiation
between using space for war via satellites that obviously are
(06:19):
really important and powerful when it comes to tracking, you know, um,
enemy forces or mapping or whatever it might be, or
guiding missiles and things like that, to the idea of
space exploration, which is maybe a little less sexy, uh
in the in the war machine kind of kind of model, right,
or space looking out a window. Well that's the that's
(06:40):
its own kind of what the what you know, but
eleven minutes and it's not even really space whatever. Okay,
So yes, Uh. The one of the big innovations we
see is there are a lot of private companies who
are trying to do stuff with mixed results. The first
object in space that has built entire early by a company,
(07:01):
not a government, is the Tellstar one. It's a communications
satellite and it is launched in nineteen sixty two, but it,
like all the satellites in the US, are still being
launched by NASA, not private companies. The first private company
to launch its own thing into space happens in nineteen
(07:23):
eighty two. A company called, in a burst of creativity,
Space Services Incorporated, launches the Conastoga one from an island
off the coast of Texas. They get to about a
hundred ninety two miles in altitude. But even before that
you had things like the German company h Trog, which
(07:43):
sounds so epic. Uh oh. Trog was trying to develop
its own space propulsion systems back in the seventies. Ultimately
they mothballed it. In the eighties, and then for decades
and decades, uh, leading up to the eighties, the US
government said, only nasty can launch satellites in this space,
no matter who builds them. You gotta work with our
(08:06):
team to get them up into the ink. And this changed.
Congress passed the law as part of a bigger package
of deregulation to let private companies do their own launches
whenever they wish, as long as they meet you know,
a cavalcade of constraints and paperwork. But this was so
(08:26):
important because this set the stage for what we're encountering
decades later, a brand new space race. And it's paid
to play. Maybe pay so much play for eleven minutes max. Yeah,
it's it's really interesting because you know, when we were
growing up, when we were younger guys, little kids in
(08:47):
elementary school and high school. Uh, there was a space
race occurring men in the nineteen nineties and even in
the early two thousand's. It's just I don't know, some reason,
nothing really impacted me personally. I don't I don't remember
any of that stuff. I can, you can look it
up now, things that were occurring in the ninety nines,
(09:09):
but nothing was successful. There is you know, there's a
reason why there's no space tourism company. That's kind of
the grandfather that we're thinking about when these new companies
are popping up in the two thousand tents. Yeah, there's
a reason Disney isn't offering space flights right now, you
know what I mean? Because if it were more feasible
(09:29):
from a technological and financial perspective, then of course people
would get into that. Who doesn't want to be the
first to be able to do that? Right? Uh? As
we record, there are people who qualify as space tourists,
but very very few, and spoiler, the majority of those
folks are very well off, even even after paying for
that ticket. So you're absolutely right, there's mixed success. But
(09:52):
we still see the pattern of these companies interacting very
closely with their home countries, governments and business boom us
in the early two thousand's. But this would be nothing
in comparison to what we can call the space rush
of the tents, which is just a phrase we made up.
It's not official, it's a street name. Uh. There was
(10:13):
a great article by Zvetla bin Itsack over at the
Washington Post. Who you know, I thought i'd be interesting
to look at the numbers here, and Ben Itsak sums
it up beautifully. If you want to get a sense
of the amount of money involved that we're talking about,
it's it's still even reading it, it's kind of tough
(10:34):
to wrap your head around. Over the last fifteen years,
commercial activity in space more than tripled, growing from a
hundred ten billion dollars and five to nearly three hundred
and fifties seven billion dollars in Commercial activity in accounted
for about eight of the estimated four forty seven billion
global space economy that year. Morgan Stanley projects that the
(10:55):
sector will rock ata to more than one trillion by
with growth concentrated in the commercial space sector really quickly.
I mean that that doesn't mean space tourism. It's much
more than that. It means more commercial satellites, smaller commercial satellites,
all kinds of uh ways. That data is going to
(11:17):
play a huge part in this, much more than like
you know, your billionaires doing their fifteen minute joy ride. Yeah,
that's that's a lot of you know, two tickets. If
you think that's that number seven billion is actually coming
from private space tourism, that's yeah, that's a lot of tickets.
(11:37):
That that number, by the way, comes from Virgin Galactic
two and uh, that is that is one of the
more affordable tickets for this one. So I mean comparatively,
of course. But there's another thing here. Manufacturing is going
to be a growing piece of the sector. Uh take
for example, fiber optic cables. If you're making fiber optic
(12:00):
cables in zero gravity, they're going to be cleaner and
just like markedly better than cables made on Earth. So
making those is huge space factory. Yeah, but we know
how much it costs to ship payloads back to Earth.
How do you account for that? You just drop it, okay,
all right, like unraveled on the way down or burn
(12:20):
up in the atmosphere. It seems like whenever you hear
about space missions, you know, exploratory space missions, the payload
amount is always a huge part of the cost in
terms of like how much stuff do they have on
the on the vessel you know, we will get into
a blue Origin is specifically working on something for that purpose,
(12:40):
like some kind of mixed used international space station like
structure that will just that they will continually send flights
up and down to and uh. These these launch costs, though,
are falling as we record. I think as of April
at there were some private companies who's great worked out
(13:01):
to about twelve hundred dollars per pound of payload to
reach low Earth orbit, which again is totally different from
going to the moon. Still, you're still a long way
away from the Moon, even though you can see it
from here. So okay, so the calculations I was talking
about were more for deep space exploration. Still, if it's
(13:21):
still a lot per pounds is a lot, but you know,
going further would obviously probably four or five x that number.
Oh yeah, absolutely, And that's you know, that's not counting
all this stuff you have to do to keep humans
alive outside of the environment. They have literally evolved to
exist in space. Truckers, huh, I'd watch it Space road,
(13:44):
Space road. I mean, there's also the idea of roads,
were going we won't need roads. There's also the idea
of a space elevator, which kinda is it's a really
good idea, but it probably won't work because for the
same reason that you don't a lot of dirigibles, it's
easy to attack and someone will just yeah, which is
(14:07):
a shame, and miss airships. But but yes, so now
as we're recording, if you're familiar with the private space industry,
you know there are a lot of players, and a
lot of them are specializing in certain parts of a
launch process or certain components. But then there are really
big dogs. Three of the big dogs now SpaceX, Blue
(14:27):
Origin and Virgin Galactic. You can also think of these
as musk Bezos and Branson because they're definitely their babies. Uh.
They all made some pretty profound breakthroughs in just last
year and this year. It's the kind of stuff that
previously only governments could do. We're talking about taking astronauts
(14:51):
to the I s S. We're talking about flying tourists
into space. I gotta get over that, uh, and even
delivering cargo to low Earth orbit. And then of course
one of the biggest ones reusable booster rockets, reusable launch technology,
which is huge. And then you get into the idea
of like space warehouses, you know, all of that kind
(15:14):
of stuff, uh, different like shipping and receiving hubs in space.
It's fascinating to think about. But is it like essentially
junking up outer space the same way we've jumped up
our planet? And who's in charge of who gets to
put what wear? Yeah, and you know it just would
like to remind everybody the United States government attempted a
(15:34):
reusable rocket type situation with the shuttles one time, and
that went really well, really well, you mean exploded, right, Well,
one did, but mostly it was too difficult to maintain
a working shuttle after a flight flight flight, flight flight
and then using you know, parts of the rocket again,
right right, sustainability, I mean, it's it's an incredibly punishing
(15:57):
process on any craft, right, get it from Earth and
then back to Earth under tremendously difficult circumstances. But but yes,
we we're gonna explore some of that. I think I
had said this off air earlier. But if you were
not from Earth and you were approaching the planet from outside,
it would look kind of like the stereotypical, uh, redneck home, right,
(16:23):
like like the yard littered with rusting vehicles and trash
and and refrigerators and varying states of disrepair. That alone
is tricky because you have to account for that. Physicists, astronauts,
all the people involved in this are so incredibly intelligent.
They're doing math that I will say the average person
(16:46):
probably couldn't comprehend myself included, you know what I mean.
I'm very glad there's no one like me making those calculations,
because people would die. It's the kind of math in
those beautiful mind kind of brain melt down, you know,
gifts right just so. And if you have supporters of
these endeavors, they'll say, hey, buddy, this is just the beginning.
(17:07):
Get in on the ground floor of this space elevator.
You don't have to look too far at all. Defying
wildly ambitious but not implausible claims and goals. We're talking
a reusable system for passage to and from Mars. We're talking,
of course, mining initiatives, even a proposed space hotel. There's
(17:27):
a lovely little video on YouTube about it. We'll see
how it works out, but may surprise you to learn,
fellow conspiracy realist, not everyone is so optimistic. On the
other side of our figurative launchpad, critics are arguing that
the privatization of space should be a cause for deep
and growing concern. What are we talking about. We'll tell
(17:51):
you after a word from our sponsor years where it
gets crazy. Yeah, so not not everybody, as it turns out,
is on board with private entities being in charge of
space exploration and there there are several factors behind us, Yeah,
(18:13):
there are, And like, at first, I just want to
bring up a thought, like I think I mentioned it earlier.
I think, you know, obviously NASA doesn't do the space
shuttle program anymore, so it left a lot of kind
of room, you know, in the in the in the
space for private entities to come in and kind of
pick up the slack where that wasn't happening. And I
think largely that's because there wasn't really any advantage to
(18:34):
be gained from it, at least from the like Warhawks
kind of perspective. So it takes private companies and billionaires
who were super keen on space first of all, sort
of like uh reminds me of the dude from Jurassic Park.
You know what the heck was his name, the white
haired guy David Attenburgh's brother. Anyway, you know someone who's
like he's fascinated with this stuff. I'm sure all three
(18:55):
of these guys, Brandson, Musk and Bezos. They're like billionaires
are often like little boys at heart, like they're interested
in this stuff, but obviously they have a long game
that they're playing as well. But if it wasn't for
NASA kind of backing off, I don't think the space
would have been freed up enough for them to really
swoop in the way they have that. I think that's
a good observation that and they have very different sets
(19:15):
of constraints. But we're looking at the factors that lead
to people, as I said, not being a percent on
board with private space travel. One of the first ones
is inequality. It's continuing to skyrocket ideology. Aside whether you
think it's a good thing or a bad thing, the
simple reality is that more and more wealth is in
(19:35):
the hands of fewer and fewer people, and that trend
is probably going to continue for some time. That means
there's a possibility distant for now, but not implausible, that
a privileged few will be able to leave Earth behind,
maybe orbiting in an elysium like Paradise, while billions of
other people below struggle with Earth's ongoing and worsening climate disasters.
(20:00):
So it's gonna be a great view as long as
you don't look down too closely. Ye don't look out
those windows that were specifically designed to look down at
the Earth. It reminds me of the Voyager space station
hotel that you mentioned right before the break and the
one of these private space stations that's going to be
created theoretically, or Blue Origin has a new thing that
(20:24):
they're trying to build called the orbital reef. That's gonna
be a lot like that. That's the one that looks
like the dr Evil Penis shuttle, right, the Blue Origin, Yes,
shift that goes up. Yeah, Well the orbital reef looks
a little different maybe, uh like a modular version of
that that's just a little bigger, kind of similar to
the Origin was the name of the of the ship.
It's also the name of the company, I believe, so
(20:47):
way to where the Origin is the name of the company.
So we've already got two proposed examples of things like this, right,
all you gotta do is expand that scale, but ten
x or whatever, and you may very well have something
like that, Ben, because these things are supposedly going to
have sustainable growing plants on them, you know, food sources
and pretty much anything that a human being would need
(21:10):
to survive without Earth. Yeah, and it is scary, and
there are there are a lot of a lot of
things that get glossed over let's just spend a second
on this. There are so many things that get glossed
over about living in space. It is terrible for the
human body. You would ideally, for a sustainable solution, you
(21:31):
would try to have some sort of gravity and and
that's like, that's one of many problems. There's also radiation shielding.
There's also the fact that we don't know there were
experiments with sex in space, but we as a civilization
have no idea how a person being born in space, like,
(21:54):
we don't know what their life would be like. We
don't know exactly how it would affect everything from the
formation of their brain and zero gravity to you know,
puberty and stuff like that, and their muscles too. I imagine,
you know, gravity is constantly exerting force on our muscles.
So even if we're living a relatively sedentary life, uh,
you're still having some calories being burned just by the
(22:16):
force of gravity. Yeah, and then okay, so that's a
different that's a problem that governments will encounter as well.
For the next factor of the problems with private space travel,
we have to look at monopolies. Remember, these are not charities,
these are not volunteer organizations. Yet they are for profit entities.
(22:38):
So let's enter the realm of thought experiments. Imagine you're
Matt Frederick. You have invented something amazing. Now you're a
billionaire and you own a successful space exploration conglomerate. By
the nature of your position, you have integrated everything both
horizontally and vertically. What we mean by that is you
(22:59):
own minds that supplied the metals to the factories on
Earth that you also own, and those in turn build
the rockets that you own. From stem to stern, soup
to nuts. This is a map for Frederick original that's
what's That is the motto of the company. And and
like there's an arrow because that's what what's up is space? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(23:22):
we call it space Jams. That's what's up. Yeah. So
you can also in this scenario, as a space tycoon,
which is what you would be, you may have exclusive
rights to certain things like passage to a lunar base. Right,
Matt Frederick's company, Space Jams has made the lunar base
(23:45):
and they're the only way, Like riding on one of
those ships is the only way to get to that base.
Might have exclusive mining rights that would be a big,
big deal. That's actually one of the hugest deals, right.
And you know, in the case of real company like SpaceX,
you one day might be the only way people can
visit Mars. Here's a silly question. Maybe maybe not. And
(24:06):
I definitely you know, I know as much as the
next space enthusiast about the makeup of planets. And you
know what's inclind it's a lot of toxic gases for example,
that like gas giants like Jupiter. But are there any
um uh, resource rich planets that we know of that
would be viable for mining the hell out of We
don't even need the planets, man, we got asteroids. That's
(24:28):
where uh the asteroids or what what you're looking for
for a lot of these mining interests, And Japan has
done some pretty amazing work, uh just figuring out the
mechanics and nuts and bolts of how to how to
touch one of those asteroids, how to get some stuff. Uh.
And then comets could also be uh an agglomeration of resources.
(24:50):
The sky is no longer the limit um And you
might not need planets, but it's not it's nice to
have them, you know what I mean, humanity case you
can have you know, so we don't look broke when
we meet aliens. Yeah, so we have some good moon
swag to flex, you know, chains, I just that freaking movie.
(25:16):
Just keep thinking about that Netflix movie. Uh, I don't
know why I'm blanking on the name Don't Look Up.
I think, oh, yes, keep thinking about that this entire conversation.
Very divisive movie. A lot of people I have talked
to really loved it. I haven't seen it yet. It
kind of got slammed, but I believe it got some
Oscar nominations. Not that means a damn thing, but I
want to watch it. But it's weird. It got like
(25:37):
kind of middling reviews, but some people that I know
that I really respect their opinions liked it a lot.
I liked. I enjoyed it. I can see why people
might not dig it, but it definitely has an agenda,
no point to make. Uh. It would be very interested
to hear what you think of the ending when you
get a chance to watch it. That goes for you too,
follow conspiracy realists, We'd love to hear your thoughts on
(25:58):
Don't Look Up. And I'd love to hear your thoughts
on space jams, the space monopoly that we're currently creating.
Because every step along the way, if you are the
space tycoon, you can press your advantage. You can engage
in rin seeking, you can get a little viig right,
(26:19):
and people will work with you because you are the
only game in town. You can decide what people in
space or on the Moon or on an asteroid or
on Mars or wherever, what they can and can't do.
You can control the information they can and can't access
because you're also in charge of the communications, and you
can control what they can or can't buy. So it's like,
(26:43):
welcome to Mars, subsidiary of Illumination Global Unlimited. Like you
are the company at that point. By its very nature,
any initial private space colony is going to be very
much like a company down from the days of old.
You know, you can't like you're a government on Earth.
(27:05):
You say, hey, you guys are breaking the law right,
you are violating what we consider basic human rights. They'll say, okay, Earthlyn,
come up here and tell me what are you gonna do?
You know what I mean, short of shooting a nuke,
are you going to spend more billions of dollars to
come give me a dressing down in public? Or do
(27:25):
you want me to keep shipping these medals to you.
I'll go with the medals please. Yeah, I'm hanging up.
We're gonna play Spacepeak, see you, Mr President. And I
gotta say when you said space Monopoly, though, Ben, I
immediately just pictured of like another branded Monopoly where it's
the same horrible game, just with like planets instead of
part places. What would be okay? So I guess part
(27:46):
place would be like Earth Baby. Yeah, space Monopoly is
a great idea, and I'd be surprised if they haven't
done that, because there's every other themed version of Monopoly
out there except for stuff they don't want you to know,
which I don't think we should have a Monopoly game.
I don't approve of it. That's that's solidly saying no.
But speaking of those branded Monopoly games, apparently a big
(28:10):
plot point of the new season of Stranger Things got
spoiled by the latest Stranger Things branded Monopoly game like this.
I guess somebody got the batch early and then someone
gotta advance copy and they took a picture. I don't
know what it is, and no spoilers here, but careful
Slippery Slope is branded Monopoly games yes, yeah, they'll lead
you to the devil as surely as a Weegia board
(28:31):
kidding fact to space. Let's talk about some of the
things that could happen in a monopolized world or in
a monopolized community like this. Laws can get replaced, the
company replaces the government, and this is common in a
lot of science fiction. So laws are no longer around. Really, instead,
(28:53):
they're best practices, their company policies, and you would better
hope that you are happy with that or make your
peace with it, because it's tough to leave. This is
not like you know, quitting a job or a side
gig and walking out the door and then posting and
angry manifesto on Twitter. You will have to pay to
(29:14):
leave if you are allowed to do so. So just
let's go full dystopian. We are on a lunar colony.
We'll call it Moonville in a burst of creativity. So
we're Moonvillians and we're part of our own kind of
society and hierarchy. The bulk of the people who live
in Moonville are staffing resorts for a privileged few v
(29:39):
i p. S. Space tourists, celebrities. They're the waiters, they're
the custodians. They're the um, you know, the people doing
the laundry, the people working on the h v a C.
And they feel like they are getting exploited and they
feel like they're getting stiffed. So it's a utopia that
very quickly backslides into a stop tailor as old as time. Yeah,
(30:02):
and they in this bottle episode, maybe they attempt some
sort of collective action. They might try to protest, they
might try to do something like unionization. They get shut
down immediately. There's no recourse. This is moon law, you know. Uh,
but let's say they get fired. They get fired and
they're sent home to Earth. But they're sent home with
(30:23):
a bill for their return flight, a crippling expense that
could keep them as debt slaves for the rest of
their natural lives. Oh, that's like the way that immigrant
workers are exploited oftentimes, where they're have their passports um
confiscated and they're forced to work on a horrible condition.
Then they get stuck with the bill to get their
(30:44):
papers and stuff to Yeah, sure you can leave, but
it'll cost you this much, and uh, you can't afford that.
You might as well to stay here forever. Precedent patterns.
The human species can be accused of a lot of things,
but not unbridled originality in the good and the bad.
So yeah, or empathy yea, Or or empathy as well,
(31:06):
or if they decide to say, maybe these people who
are part of the working class of Moonville are already
in debt because of the process you just described nol
and because the checks that they are paid are not
enough to cover the astronomically expensive cost of housing, air, water,
and food. We're killing it with puns today, but you know,
(31:29):
that's how company towns work. You get paid in script
right and basically get your bend bucks, and that's not
ever quite enough to get you out of debt. By design,
it's not a bug. But then we can take it
one step further. What if a real revolution occurs, a
physical altercation? What extent would the corporate authorities go to
(31:52):
to protect this massively expensive, massively fragile colony. Why send
in troops? You can just shut off the air, you know,
And it's scary to think about, but it is a possibility.
And that means to me, do want a wax too
poetic here, But that means to me, the first thing
is built in a colony like Moonville, are going to
(32:13):
be habitats for people to live in, means to produce consumables, food, water, air.
The second stuff built will be things like labs and
of course business ventures. But the third thing built may
well end up being a prison, and that should scare you.
So we're gonna pause for a word from our responses.
(32:33):
I disagree. I think prisons is four. I think three
is um robotic drone sentinels of some sort, the police officers,
the security and then yes, okay, they just bring those
with the first shipment, and they just come in with
the first shipment. Yeah, don't ask what's in that box. Anyway,
(32:54):
we're gonna gonna pause for word from our sponsor, and
then we're gonna explore a sinister and effective way to
get around these human rights concerns. And we've returned. So
we talked about the very real dangers of companies replacing
(33:16):
governments for captive population in space, which is not a
sentence I imagine saying this week. But we have to
propose another possibility. And unfortunately, like these other ideas we've
brought up, this is a possibility with strong precedent. What
if Instead of employees, you use prisoners, people who already
(33:37):
have their human rights curtailed, people who already have very
limited ability to redress grievances. Think back to the early
days of modern Australia. The United Kingdom was had had
tons of draconian laws during the industrial era. There was
a desperately poor population in overcrowded sitting and as a
(34:01):
solution to this, after making so many things death penalty offenses,
like ridiculously trivial crimes would carry the death penalty, the
UK first started putting people in boat prisons, like these
floating things in the harbor that weren't seaworthy vessels, but
(34:22):
they just they held prisoners off the coast. And then
when that didn't work, when that stop gap wasn't enough,
they started shipping prisoners to a part of Australia called
New South Wales. This was punishment known as transportation in
lieu of the death penalty, and the first penal colony
was founded on January. I remember that really awesome sequence
(34:47):
and I think it's the first Guardians of the Galaxy
movie where they're on like a prison ship, like basically
a prison space station where everyone's got like magnet boots
or they if they can't they can only walk in
certain areas or whatever. I didn't se might that be
too far off? Could be a good use of space? Yeah? Well,
Also the prisoners in Australia, we're not just sitting around
(35:09):
in lock up. They were essentially conscripted colonists. They were
building the colony. That's how it is in prison in America.
And they're not building colonies, but they're building stuff for
all these companies. You know that license plate all about bathers,
that movie that I believe it's called Firefighters construction, timber
industry precedent again, more patterns, and uh boy, if you
(35:34):
are one of these Australian conscript colonists, life kind of sucks.
Food is scarce. A lot of people don't have the
agrarian knowledge they need to grow food in this unfamiliar environment.
And it wasn't until like the early nineteenth century that
a governor said, hey, maybe Sydney and New South Wales
(35:54):
can be something other than a gigantic prison. And as
it was old of that, you know right now, I
think the statistic is something like roughly of modern day
Australians can trace can trace their ancestry back to someone
who was transported by the United Kingdom. So history stays
(36:16):
with us. You know. Faulkner's right when he says the
past isn't past. And then I mean fast forward to
the modern day. There are roughly two million people in
the US incarceration system, prison, jail, so on, and they
have no hope of getting out for decades or in
some cases ever getting out. What if you were one
(36:37):
of these people and you were offered a choice, get
this announcement and it says, come work for our company
on the moon, come help build Moonville. You'll get a
reduced sentence, but you'll also one day when your freedom
and you'll be participating in the most ambitious human experiments
since the day that first primate stood on its hind legs. Yeah,
(36:59):
I mean kind of like the Great Depression. It's like
come out CALIFORNI way, you know. But I mean not
with prisoners necessarily, but with poor people are essentially their
own kind of prisoners. That's that's very student observation. I mean,
we were we're talking about this a little bit off
air with Mission Control. If you got that offer, what
you're over under on saying yes, would it depend Matt,
(37:21):
I think you brought up maybe it depends on how
long someone was going to be in regular prison anyway. Yeah,
I mean I think if you got hit with a
life sentence, I could imagine that making sense, right, Uh
or maybe you know, again, we're all we're speculating a
ton here about maybe you do something illegal to get
ten years on purpose made hopefully that isn't too violent,
(37:46):
just so that you can get your own trip to
the moon, because he wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise,
like those unforeseen unforeseen, like those guys. That's that's a
real precedent too. There are people who have committed um
petty rhymes so that they can go to prison and
have housing and food like people who and healthcare, health
(38:06):
and healthcare. It's true. It's true, folks. And that might
tell weird to people outside of the United States, but
it's not an infrequent occurrence. I mean now, and I'm
sure that living in prison is no picnic, But they
spend more more money on a prisoner in terms of
government investment than they do on homeless people. Uh, no
question about it. You get three square meals a day,
(38:29):
access to exercise, books, no, I just got to avoid
the occasional shanking. Well, most most people, as I understand it,
in prison, who are like doing doing serious time. Most
people there are just trying to keep their head down.
You know. It's there's an old there's an old saying
(38:51):
where they say you only do two days. It's the
day you go in and the day you go out.
That that kind of mentality, which I think is philosophical,
but a cold comfort. Nonetheless, so we can see how
people would say, Okay, yeah, I'll go to Moonville. It
beats prison. And you know, if we if we want
to further just speculate about what could be done here.
If a private prison system wanted to enact something like this,
(39:14):
you could theoretically have prerequisites for the prisoners who were
there for the types of crimes, for maybe the physical
fitness of a certain you know type that you're looking
for specifically if you're looking for those prisoners to do oh,
I don't know, mining on the moon or a moon
of Jupiter or something to that effect. Um, it's kind
(39:36):
of creepy. It's it's really creepy to think about, because
you could you could restrict eligibility to most people. But
have a specific type of prisoner that becomes the space prisoner. Sure,
and then you know, Ben, we were talking a little
bit off air about our friend friend of the show,
Peyton Fisher, who's a brilliant lawyer, and he did, I think,
sort of like a mock trial, and he's in law
(39:57):
school about the idea of space law. And it wouldn't
necessarily I mean, I guess it would be sort of
like those outposts in Alaska, I guess, or Antarctica rather
where like there would be regions that are controlled kind
of but you can't really plan a flag in space.
Is there a precedent for that? Just an out open space?
So what laws would apply? And they would baically write
(40:18):
new space laws I think kind of Yeah, you know,
what's happening now is kind of outdated. Right now, we've
got two dystopian scenarios shout out to Jonathan Strickland for
ruining that word for me. One a brutal company town,
secondly a future prison farm. Neither of them sounds super appealing,
(40:38):
but ethics society, they could work pretty well, especially when
you're thinking of them in the context of some vaunted
greater good. And there are other more cheerful scenarios like
a an independent lunar government maybe in time, or technocracy.
But they would also have their own problems because there
would be precedent. But this would be the first kind
(41:00):
of endeavor of its kind. And this is where we
get to your question, Noel. At this point, it's fair
to ask, so what has stopped a major corporation from
doing this? Already? A lot of the technology is there
right to at least make an attempt, even if the
long term success of that attempt is very much help
(41:21):
in the air, I kid you not. The main thing
stopping these endeavors is paperwork. Specifically, one very old piece
of paperwork from all the way back in seven, the
Outer Space Treaty. This bad Boy explicitly states that no
one can go to another planet or the moon and
(41:42):
pop a flag on it and say this is me. Now,
this is a David Busters, don't call it io anymore. Yeah,
unless they have bigger space guns, that seems pretty non
binding the end of the day. If things really took off,
Pun entirely intended that all of a sudden there'd be
a war for space. Well yeah, but the thing is
(42:04):
that war would take place on Earth. It would be
between nations, right, like all the all those who signed
the treaty would be angry at whichever nation decided the
treaty didn't matter. And there's a lot of work about
militarization and space. Uh, it's very difficult. Check out our
earlier episode. By the way, folks on militarization in space.
(42:26):
There are laws about it. But those laws also, as
we're gonna see, are kind of outdated, and they have
a lot of loopholes. Their their flawed, they're not perfect documents. Uh.
There's a great article in Science Focus with writer named
Peter Ward, and he breaks down some of the issues
with this. He notes that when this was signed in
(42:49):
the private space sector wasn't really around, right. It's so
it's not clear how some of these rules would apply
to private companies and then can lee and Ward is
maybe being a little bit cynical here, but I agree
there's no way, in Ward's opinion, this agreement will last
(43:09):
much longer because anyone with a plan to land on
the Moon or Mars and stay there is going to
run into the Outer Space Treaty. And the money is
on the wealthy and powerful winning out against an old
loophole ridden document. What do you guys think about that too?
Sorry that that that was much more my question. It
wouldn't be governments that would sneak into space or just
(43:31):
do it take it upon themselves. It would be the
private sector because they have developed the technology to do it,
because they can move so much faster than the government
can for the most part, unless they were like in
league with the government. If they were really doing it,
they could secretly do it and then just boom. Now
we own space or we own the sector of space,
and you come at us, will blast you with our
space rockets. I'm being silly, but also not that far
(43:54):
off from where we are. Yeah, it's I mean, you know, look,
world government's intelligence agencies key a very close eye on
everything that launches. There's not really a way to hide
a satellite, nor is there a way to hide a launch.
But once you get up there and establish your toe hold,
it could be very difficult to remove that presence for
(44:16):
multiple reasons. But I love the point we're bringing up here. Uh.
You know, lobbying is one of the most powerful tools
of the powerful few. It's got a it's undergone a
renaissance and explosion in recent decades, private space companies are
part of the game. They understand the power. Not saying
they're sinister at all. They're doing a very rational thing,
which is trying to um nudge toward policy that makes
(44:41):
their job and their ambitions easier to achieve. And for
now there's all a hypothetical. But even though it's hypothetical,
it's important to note supporters of private space initiatives, some
of your faithful hosts included, have a valid point when
they say, well, you know what, getting to space cost money,
and the res rich involved does have real world benefits
(45:02):
for the US terrestrial schmucks stuck on Earth. And at
no point so far has any billionaire or private company
ever said, Hey, yeah, we're gonna make Mars a prison colony.
Three cheers for US and our Q for profits. No
one says that. And and there's an advantage to private companies, Matt,
(45:23):
you and I were talking about this a little bit
before recording. NASA exists at the whim of politicians and
the public right, so they can't their budget can swing
or can get cut depending upon what administrations in power
or who's who's running Congress, and what their beliefs or
(45:44):
I guess in theory the beliefs of their constituents are
private companies don't have to do that, And that's I'm
still trying to figure out if that's a pro or
a con. I think it could go either way. I
I think it's a little bit of both. The one
thing I wanted to bring up just because I think
it makes a lot of sense here, guys, before we
get out of here with regards to that, been is
(46:04):
a problem with NASA, going back to the Space Shuttle
program that we've kind of briefly mentioned here in the
show already, the Challenger disaster of nineteen six and it's
specifically because NASA is dealing with a ton of engineering
issues when developing this technology, the shuttle itself, but most
importantly those rockets that the thing needs to get up
(46:28):
into space, and you need time to fix problems, right
you to develop these things. That's one of the major
things we've talked about. You need tons of time to
develop this tech, and NASA didn't have the time that
they needed in the nineteen eighties, in those mid nineteen
eighties to really get these rockets to where they needed
to be because of external pressures from the government when
(46:51):
it comes to timeline, we need you to launch X
number of shuttles on a calendar year in order for
us to get enough satellites up there and to justify
the costs of this program, right. Uh, talking about the
budget there have been in this case, if you've got
a private company that has a budget that's agreed upon
(47:11):
by the board of governors or whoever is running the
corporation um or you know, just the CEO or whatever,
and then the external pressures on that budget and how
many flights they are able to get up in the air,
and how much money they're able to generate from those
flights is gonna be from shareholders the public. And if
(47:32):
they can't deliver enough on what they've you know, projected
that they're gonna do so enough flights, then the shareholders
are gonna leave, and the stock price is going to fall,
and the entire company is going to fall apart. And
that just means constant scaling, more and more and more
more trips out there. We talked off air. Uh. Compared
(47:53):
this to kind of what's happened with Mount Everest and
all of these kind of rich, you know, climber types
that want to go on some missed coal quest with
a sherpa. It's led to just trash being strown all
over the beautiful peaks of Mount Everest. Yeah, and that
external pressure to grow is what causes things like the
Challenger disaster because it's pushing the tech, the development of
(48:14):
the tech beyond it's a threshold of safety, right right,
And this also occurred in multiple instances in the Soviet
space programs, so unfortunately, there's no reason to imagine that
it wouldn't occur again in the future. But yeah, there
was a Virgin galactic vehicle that crashed in two thousand
(48:36):
fourteen as they were trying to develop and it killed
a pilot. Thankfully, you know, sadly for that pilot in
the pilot's family, but thankfully it was just a single
pilot running a test, rather than you know, a group
of people on a Virgin spaceflight trying to go up
into SubOrbit. Agree And this is a strange thing because
it can be difficult for a lot of folks to
(48:56):
take these ideas seriously. A lot of what we're discussing
today remains for now in the realm of the hypothetical.
But how long will that be the case? How long
will this be the stuff of science fiction? As we
established earlier, science fiction is a genre with an expiration date,
and often it becomes just science fact. But you know,
(49:20):
space travel, like all the other ages of exploration before,
it may well carry the sins of humanities past somewhere
in its figurative cargo hold, and a modern civilization cannot
learn from those past horrors. There is realistically very little
to stop humanity from repeating them. And that's maybe what
(49:41):
we leave you with today. I get so excited when
we talk about space. Uh if I now that you
put the idea in my head, Matt, if Moonville happens,
I don't know if I'm above faking a crime to
get in prison to go on the moon. Uh, I
don't know. He's just got to be something that shows
you have in acuity for moon mining, right. I just
(50:06):
hope there's moona nights there, Remember the moona Nights. I
hope you can see this because I'm doing it as
hard as I can. I don't know what, Like, I
want the space ice cream. I hope that's still a thing.
I want the Yeah, I grabbed some of that every
time I'm at a museum, gift shop, vaguely science museum.
(50:27):
I love it. I like the Neapology. Can I ask you,
gus a question to close out, what's your favorite or
what you feel is the most accurately representative film about
space future that's not like Pie in the Sky wild
sci fi. That's more like realistic, you know, kind of
this is what it might be like Interstellar, I think
(50:48):
is what comes to mind from me is a spaceballs
Got it? God? Gravity Gravity was pretty good good. I
really like at astra at As. Yeah, I mean just
some of the stuff that they shot on the lunar surface,
you know, some of those some of those things, and
(51:09):
the tech felt very real to me. And a little
known fact that's also where they shot the moon landing
or Kubrick shot the same sounds. Do check out Fantastic
Mitchell and web Look conspiracy sketch series where they talked
about the moon landing. Uh it is. Oh, it's wonderful.
I don't want to spoil it. Just go to YouTube
now look it up. And while you're on the internet,
(51:31):
why not reach out to us let us know what
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it overall a really good thing? Is it a necessary evil?
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(51:53):
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(52:16):
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(54:16):
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nolan. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission Control decades. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. Today's episode is about one
of our mutually favorite things, space, the Final Frontier. It's
(00:49):
weird because when previous generations talked about space travel or
speculated about the possibilities, they were almost always thinking of
this in turn of governments, state powers, countries, nations. You
think of the U. S. S R. When the Soviet
Union puts spot Nick into space, then put the first
UH official human into space. UH story for another day.
(01:15):
We think of the US putting the first people on
the moon. But increasingly nowadays, in recent years, people are
thinking less about state powers in space and more about
private entities. A world of very powerful corporations, world of
very ambitious startups and not a few eccentric billionaires. Maybe
(01:36):
one day. Uh, a lot of tourists. That's what we're
talking about the future of private space travel. Here are
the facts. This is so strange. A lot of people
may not be aware of this, but private space travel
is not a brand new idea. Well sure, I mean
think about like, you know, commercial airlines. I mean, those
companies were making stuff for the government long before they
(01:59):
expand ended into the idea of tourism, of like air
travel tourism because it wasn't something that was available or
even viable in terms of what people could afford. It's
always how it goes right. I mean, the companies that
make you know, super super high tech um stuff for
the government in terms of like data um, that stuff
reaches the public much much later. But they've been doing
(02:20):
stuff for the government all along, no exception with the
space program. The private sector has always played some kind
of role in developing new technologies for a government. We'll
get into all of it, but think about the amount
of government grants that go to private companies to create
something new that then can be you know, brought into
(02:40):
the government's program to do a thing. Uh. Especially this
is especially true with flight. As you said in Old
and Rocketry, rocketry big time. There's a dude. Yeah, there's
a dude name Goddard. You may know that name from
a certain NASA space station, Robert Goddard, who is at
the father of rocketry. And that dude it's not like
(03:03):
he was given a ton of money to throw into
his inventing and his testing. He a lot of that
money came out of his own pocket. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And rocketry and flight are kind of the peanut butter
and jelly the great sandwich we call space exploration. And
I love like I can understand where Goddard is coming from.
(03:23):
And even investors who might have initially been skeptical about
his his concept, because if you had never heard of
a rocket and some guy described it to you while
asking you for money, could you be blamed for saying
that's kind of crazy? Man? Horses are where it's at,
you know, uh Like, because you're saying, I'm gonna put
stuff in a tube, okay, and it's gonna explode and
(03:47):
it'll go somewhere. That's my idea, And they're like, okay, Robbie,
uh where, well, you know, up hopefully kind of up
to the side. I mean, you know, it's I'm sure,
a lot of people reacted to the idea of of
of flying in an airplane in the same way. I mean,
any new technology that's a big swing is going to
be so remarkable and outside of the norm that people
(04:09):
are gonna kind of bulk at it initially. I mean,
not everyone can be as forward thinking as like genius inventors. True. True,
even inventors who were killed by their own adventure. Shout
out to a fantastic Wikipedia article. But it turns out
the guy that invented the wood chipper took a tumble
right into his own wood chipper prototype and got Steve
(04:32):
bush immid all over the snow. Woody chimpleton long may
remain a blessing. Uh. Yeah, So I'm glad you mentioned
airplane technology because as World War one hits, we know
that war drives technological innovation. Uh. And as World War
one hit, it brought along this amazing boom in airplane technology.
(04:56):
It took airplane tech two unprecedented heights. Get it. The
US government was Dino sorry, was hand in hand with
private entities the whole time, and they wanted these entities
to uh pioneer new industries, maybe without some of the
political constraints that government's face, which is going to be
(05:16):
a big part of today's show. The big notable thing
here was something called the air Mail Act of nine
and this allowed private companies to start flying mail across
the country, and then they were flying human passengers not
too much later, first across the country, then across the world.
(05:38):
This is important because it establishes a strong precedent, and
if we look at the evolution of commercial airlines, we
see a pretty robust possibility that this pattern could repeat
in the world of space flight. I mean, NASA sure
is on board. They have been super down to clown
(05:58):
with private entities and their early days, because they'll say, hey,
you already make widgets, can you help us make a
kind of space widget? You know, it's it's an oversimplification,
but it's very true. It's also sort of the differentiation
between using space for war via satellites that obviously are
(06:19):
really important and powerful when it comes to tracking, you know, um,
enemy forces or mapping or whatever it might be, or
guiding missiles and things like that, to the idea of
space exploration, which is maybe a little less sexy, uh
in the in the war machine kind of kind of model, right,
or space looking out a window. Well that's the that's
(06:40):
its own kind of what the what you know, but
eleven minutes and it's not even really space whatever. Okay,
So yes, Uh. The one of the big innovations we
see is there are a lot of private companies who
are trying to do stuff with mixed results. The first
object in space that has built entire early by a company,
(07:01):
not a government, is the Tellstar one. It's a communications
satellite and it is launched in nineteen sixty two, but it,
like all the satellites in the US, are still being
launched by NASA, not private companies. The first private company
to launch its own thing into space happens in nineteen
(07:23):
eighty two. A company called, in a burst of creativity,
Space Services Incorporated, launches the Conastoga one from an island
off the coast of Texas. They get to about a
hundred ninety two miles in altitude. But even before that
you had things like the German company h Trog, which
(07:43):
sounds so epic. Uh oh. Trog was trying to develop
its own space propulsion systems back in the seventies. Ultimately
they mothballed it. In the eighties, and then for decades
and decades, uh, leading up to the eighties, the US
government said, only nasty can launch satellites in this space,
no matter who builds them. You gotta work with our
(08:06):
team to get them up into the ink. And this changed.
Congress passed the law as part of a bigger package
of deregulation to let private companies do their own launches
whenever they wish, as long as they meet you know,
a cavalcade of constraints and paperwork. But this was so
(08:26):
important because this set the stage for what we're encountering
decades later, a brand new space race. And it's paid
to play. Maybe pay so much play for eleven minutes max. Yeah,
it's it's really interesting because you know, when we were
growing up, when we were younger guys, little kids in
(08:47):
elementary school and high school. Uh, there was a space
race occurring men in the nineteen nineties and even in
the early two thousand's. It's just I don't know, some reason,
nothing really impacted me personally. I don't I don't remember
any of that stuff. I can, you can look it
up now, things that were occurring in the ninety nines,
(09:09):
but nothing was successful. There is you know, there's a
reason why there's no space tourism company. That's kind of
the grandfather that we're thinking about when these new companies
are popping up in the two thousand tents. Yeah, there's
a reason Disney isn't offering space flights right now, you
know what I mean? Because if it were more feasible
(09:29):
from a technological and financial perspective, then of course people
would get into that. Who doesn't want to be the
first to be able to do that? Right? Uh? As
we record, there are people who qualify as space tourists,
but very very few, and spoiler, the majority of those
folks are very well off, even even after paying for
that ticket. So you're absolutely right, there's mixed success. But
(09:52):
we still see the pattern of these companies interacting very
closely with their home countries, governments and business boom us
in the early two thousand's. But this would be nothing
in comparison to what we can call the space rush
of the tents, which is just a phrase we made up.
It's not official, it's a street name. Uh. There was
(10:13):
a great article by Zvetla bin Itsack over at the
Washington Post. Who you know, I thought i'd be interesting
to look at the numbers here, and Ben Itsak sums
it up beautifully. If you want to get a sense
of the amount of money involved that we're talking about,
it's it's still even reading it, it's kind of tough
(10:34):
to wrap your head around. Over the last fifteen years,
commercial activity in space more than tripled, growing from a
hundred ten billion dollars and five to nearly three hundred
and fifties seven billion dollars in Commercial activity in accounted
for about eight of the estimated four forty seven billion
global space economy that year. Morgan Stanley projects that the
(10:55):
sector will rock ata to more than one trillion by
with growth concentrated in the commercial space sector really quickly.
I mean that that doesn't mean space tourism. It's much
more than that. It means more commercial satellites, smaller commercial satellites,
all kinds of uh ways. That data is going to
(11:17):
play a huge part in this, much more than like
you know, your billionaires doing their fifteen minute joy ride. Yeah,
that's that's a lot of you know, two tickets. If
you think that's that number seven billion is actually coming
from private space tourism, that's yeah, that's a lot of tickets.
(11:37):
That that number, by the way, comes from Virgin Galactic
two and uh, that is that is one of the
more affordable tickets for this one. So I mean comparatively,
of course. But there's another thing here. Manufacturing is going
to be a growing piece of the sector. Uh take
for example, fiber optic cables. If you're making fiber optic
(12:00):
cables in zero gravity, they're going to be cleaner and
just like markedly better than cables made on Earth. So
making those is huge space factory. Yeah, but we know
how much it costs to ship payloads back to Earth.
How do you account for that? You just drop it, okay,
all right, like unraveled on the way down or burn
(12:20):
up in the atmosphere. It seems like whenever you hear
about space missions, you know, exploratory space missions, the payload
amount is always a huge part of the cost in
terms of like how much stuff do they have on
the on the vessel you know, we will get into
a blue Origin is specifically working on something for that purpose,
(12:40):
like some kind of mixed used international space station like
structure that will just that they will continually send flights
up and down to and uh. These these launch costs, though,
are falling as we record. I think as of April
at there were some private companies who's great worked out
(13:01):
to about twelve hundred dollars per pound of payload to
reach low Earth orbit, which again is totally different from
going to the moon. Still, you're still a long way
away from the Moon, even though you can see it
from here. So okay, so the calculations I was talking
about were more for deep space exploration. Still, if it's
(13:21):
still a lot per pounds is a lot, but you know,
going further would obviously probably four or five x that number.
Oh yeah, absolutely, And that's you know, that's not counting
all this stuff you have to do to keep humans
alive outside of the environment. They have literally evolved to
exist in space. Truckers, huh, I'd watch it Space road,
(13:44):
Space road. I mean, there's also the idea of roads,
were going we won't need roads. There's also the idea
of a space elevator, which kinda is it's a really
good idea, but it probably won't work because for the
same reason that you don't a lot of dirigibles, it's
easy to attack and someone will just yeah, which is
(14:07):
a shame, and miss airships. But but yes, so now
as we're recording, if you're familiar with the private space industry,
you know there are a lot of players, and a
lot of them are specializing in certain parts of a
launch process or certain components. But then there are really
big dogs. Three of the big dogs now SpaceX, Blue
(14:27):
Origin and Virgin Galactic. You can also think of these
as musk Bezos and Branson because they're definitely their babies. Uh.
They all made some pretty profound breakthroughs in just last
year and this year. It's the kind of stuff that
previously only governments could do. We're talking about taking astronauts
(14:51):
to the I s S. We're talking about flying tourists
into space. I gotta get over that, uh, and even
delivering cargo to low Earth orbit. And then of course
one of the biggest ones reusable booster rockets, reusable launch technology,
which is huge. And then you get into the idea
of like space warehouses, you know, all of that kind
(15:14):
of stuff, uh, different like shipping and receiving hubs in space.
It's fascinating to think about. But is it like essentially
junking up outer space the same way we've jumped up
our planet? And who's in charge of who gets to
put what wear? Yeah, and you know it just would
like to remind everybody the United States government attempted a
(15:34):
reusable rocket type situation with the shuttles one time, and
that went really well, really well, you mean exploded, right, Well,
one did, but mostly it was too difficult to maintain
a working shuttle after a flight flight flight, flight flight
and then using you know, parts of the rocket again,
right right, sustainability, I mean, it's it's an incredibly punishing
(15:57):
process on any craft, right, get it from Earth and
then back to Earth under tremendously difficult circumstances. But but yes,
we we're gonna explore some of that. I think I
had said this off air earlier. But if you were
not from Earth and you were approaching the planet from outside,
it would look kind of like the stereotypical, uh, redneck home, right,
(16:23):
like like the yard littered with rusting vehicles and trash
and and refrigerators and varying states of disrepair. That alone
is tricky because you have to account for that. Physicists, astronauts,
all the people involved in this are so incredibly intelligent.
They're doing math that I will say the average person
(16:46):
probably couldn't comprehend myself included, you know what I mean.
I'm very glad there's no one like me making those calculations,
because people would die. It's the kind of math in
those beautiful mind kind of brain melt down, you know,
gifts right just so. And if you have supporters of
these endeavors, they'll say, hey, buddy, this is just the beginning.
(17:07):
Get in on the ground floor of this space elevator.
You don't have to look too far at all. Defying
wildly ambitious but not implausible claims and goals. We're talking
a reusable system for passage to and from Mars. We're talking,
of course, mining initiatives, even a proposed space hotel. There's
(17:27):
a lovely little video on YouTube about it. We'll see
how it works out, but may surprise you to learn,
fellow conspiracy realist, not everyone is so optimistic. On the
other side of our figurative launchpad, critics are arguing that
the privatization of space should be a cause for deep
and growing concern. What are we talking about. We'll tell
(17:51):
you after a word from our sponsor years where it
gets crazy. Yeah, so not not everybody, as it turns out,
is on board with private entities being in charge of
space exploration and there there are several factors behind us, Yeah,
(18:13):
there are, And like, at first, I just want to
bring up a thought, like I think I mentioned it earlier.
I think, you know, obviously NASA doesn't do the space
shuttle program anymore, so it left a lot of kind
of room, you know, in the in the in the
space for private entities to come in and kind of
pick up the slack where that wasn't happening. And I
think largely that's because there wasn't really any advantage to
(18:34):
be gained from it, at least from the like Warhawks
kind of perspective. So it takes private companies and billionaires
who were super keen on space first of all, sort
of like uh reminds me of the dude from Jurassic Park.
You know what the heck was his name, the white
haired guy David Attenburgh's brother. Anyway, you know someone who's
like he's fascinated with this stuff. I'm sure all three
(18:55):
of these guys, Brandson, Musk and Bezos. They're like billionaires
are often like little boys at heart, like they're interested
in this stuff, but obviously they have a long game
that they're playing as well. But if it wasn't for
NASA kind of backing off, I don't think the space
would have been freed up enough for them to really
swoop in the way they have that. I think that's
a good observation that and they have very different sets
(19:15):
of constraints. But we're looking at the factors that lead
to people, as I said, not being a percent on
board with private space travel. One of the first ones
is inequality. It's continuing to skyrocket ideology. Aside whether you
think it's a good thing or a bad thing, the
simple reality is that more and more wealth is in
(19:35):
the hands of fewer and fewer people, and that trend
is probably going to continue for some time. That means
there's a possibility distant for now, but not implausible, that
a privileged few will be able to leave Earth behind,
maybe orbiting in an elysium like Paradise, while billions of
other people below struggle with Earth's ongoing and worsening climate disasters.
(20:00):
So it's gonna be a great view as long as
you don't look down too closely. Ye don't look out
those windows that were specifically designed to look down at
the Earth. It reminds me of the Voyager space station
hotel that you mentioned right before the break and the
one of these private space stations that's going to be
created theoretically, or Blue Origin has a new thing that
(20:24):
they're trying to build called the orbital reef. That's gonna
be a lot like that. That's the one that looks
like the dr Evil Penis shuttle, right, the Blue Origin, Yes,
shift that goes up. Yeah, Well the orbital reef looks
a little different maybe, uh like a modular version of
that that's just a little bigger, kind of similar to
the Origin was the name of the of the ship.
It's also the name of the company, I believe, so
(20:47):
way to where the Origin is the name of the company.
So we've already got two proposed examples of things like this, right,
all you gotta do is expand that scale, but ten
x or whatever, and you may very well have something
like that, Ben, because these things are supposedly going to
have sustainable growing plants on them, you know, food sources
and pretty much anything that a human being would need
(21:10):
to survive without Earth. Yeah, and it is scary, and
there are there are a lot of a lot of
things that get glossed over let's just spend a second
on this. There are so many things that get glossed
over about living in space. It is terrible for the
human body. You would ideally, for a sustainable solution, you
(21:31):
would try to have some sort of gravity and and
that's like, that's one of many problems. There's also radiation shielding.
There's also the fact that we don't know there were
experiments with sex in space, but we as a civilization
have no idea how a person being born in space, like,
(21:54):
we don't know what their life would be like. We
don't know exactly how it would affect everything from the
formation of their brain and zero gravity to you know,
puberty and stuff like that, and their muscles too. I imagine,
you know, gravity is constantly exerting force on our muscles.
So even if we're living a relatively sedentary life, uh,
you're still having some calories being burned just by the
(22:16):
force of gravity. Yeah, and then okay, so that's a
different that's a problem that governments will encounter as well.
For the next factor of the problems with private space travel,
we have to look at monopolies. Remember, these are not charities,
these are not volunteer organizations. Yet they are for profit entities.
(22:38):
So let's enter the realm of thought experiments. Imagine you're
Matt Frederick. You have invented something amazing. Now you're a
billionaire and you own a successful space exploration conglomerate. By
the nature of your position, you have integrated everything both
horizontally and vertically. What we mean by that is you
(22:59):
own minds that supplied the metals to the factories on
Earth that you also own, and those in turn build
the rockets that you own. From stem to stern, soup
to nuts. This is a map for Frederick original that's
what's That is the motto of the company. And and
like there's an arrow because that's what what's up is space? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(23:22):
we call it space Jams. That's what's up. Yeah. So
you can also in this scenario, as a space tycoon,
which is what you would be, you may have exclusive
rights to certain things like passage to a lunar base. Right,
Matt Frederick's company, Space Jams has made the lunar base
(23:45):
and they're the only way, Like riding on one of
those ships is the only way to get to that base.
Might have exclusive mining rights that would be a big,
big deal. That's actually one of the hugest deals, right.
And you know, in the case of real company like SpaceX,
you one day might be the only way people can
visit Mars. Here's a silly question. Maybe maybe not. And
(24:06):
I definitely you know, I know as much as the
next space enthusiast about the makeup of planets. And you
know what's inclind it's a lot of toxic gases for example,
that like gas giants like Jupiter. But are there any
um uh, resource rich planets that we know of that
would be viable for mining the hell out of We
don't even need the planets, man, we got asteroids. That's
(24:28):
where uh the asteroids or what what you're looking for
for a lot of these mining interests, And Japan has
done some pretty amazing work, uh just figuring out the
mechanics and nuts and bolts of how to how to
touch one of those asteroids, how to get some stuff. Uh.
And then comets could also be uh an agglomeration of resources.
(24:50):
The sky is no longer the limit um And you
might not need planets, but it's not it's nice to
have them, you know what I mean, humanity case you
can have you know, so we don't look broke when
we meet aliens. Yeah, so we have some good moon
swag to flex, you know, chains, I just that freaking movie.
(25:16):
Just keep thinking about that Netflix movie. Uh, I don't
know why I'm blanking on the name Don't Look Up.
I think, oh, yes, keep thinking about that this entire conversation.
Very divisive movie. A lot of people I have talked
to really loved it. I haven't seen it yet. It
kind of got slammed, but I believe it got some
Oscar nominations. Not that means a damn thing, but I
want to watch it. But it's weird. It got like
(25:37):
kind of middling reviews, but some people that I know
that I really respect their opinions liked it a lot.
I liked. I enjoyed it. I can see why people
might not dig it, but it definitely has an agenda,
no point to make. Uh. It would be very interested
to hear what you think of the ending when you
get a chance to watch it. That goes for you too,
follow conspiracy realists, We'd love to hear your thoughts on
(25:58):
Don't Look Up. And I'd love to hear your thoughts
on space jams, the space monopoly that we're currently creating.
Because every step along the way, if you are the
space tycoon, you can press your advantage. You can engage
in rin seeking, you can get a little viig right,
(26:19):
and people will work with you because you are the
only game in town. You can decide what people in
space or on the Moon or on an asteroid or
on Mars or wherever, what they can and can't do.
You can control the information they can and can't access
because you're also in charge of the communications, and you
can control what they can or can't buy. So it's like,
(26:43):
welcome to Mars, subsidiary of Illumination Global Unlimited. Like you
are the company at that point. By its very nature,
any initial private space colony is going to be very
much like a company down from the days of old.
You know, you can't like you're a government on Earth.
(27:05):
You say, hey, you guys are breaking the law right,
you are violating what we consider basic human rights. They'll say, okay, Earthlyn,
come up here and tell me what are you gonna do?
You know what I mean, short of shooting a nuke,
are you going to spend more billions of dollars to
come give me a dressing down in public? Or do
(27:25):
you want me to keep shipping these medals to you.
I'll go with the medals please. Yeah, I'm hanging up.
We're gonna play Spacepeak, see you, Mr President. And I
gotta say when you said space Monopoly, though, Ben, I
immediately just pictured of like another branded Monopoly where it's
the same horrible game, just with like planets instead of
part places. What would be okay? So I guess part
(27:46):
place would be like Earth Baby. Yeah, space Monopoly is
a great idea, and I'd be surprised if they haven't
done that, because there's every other themed version of Monopoly
out there except for stuff they don't want you to know,
which I don't think we should have a Monopoly game.
I don't approve of it. That's that's solidly saying no.
But speaking of those branded Monopoly games, apparently a big
(28:10):
plot point of the new season of Stranger Things got
spoiled by the latest Stranger Things branded Monopoly game like this.
I guess somebody got the batch early and then someone
gotta advance copy and they took a picture. I don't
know what it is, and no spoilers here, but careful
Slippery Slope is branded Monopoly games yes, yeah, they'll lead
you to the devil as surely as a Weegia board
(28:31):
kidding fact to space. Let's talk about some of the
things that could happen in a monopolized world or in
a monopolized community like this. Laws can get replaced, the
company replaces the government, and this is common in a
lot of science fiction. So laws are no longer around. Really, instead,
(28:53):
they're best practices, their company policies, and you would better
hope that you are happy with that or make your
peace with it, because it's tough to leave. This is
not like you know, quitting a job or a side
gig and walking out the door and then posting and
angry manifesto on Twitter. You will have to pay to
(29:14):
leave if you are allowed to do so. So just
let's go full dystopian. We are on a lunar colony.
We'll call it Moonville in a burst of creativity. So
we're Moonvillians and we're part of our own kind of
society and hierarchy. The bulk of the people who live
in Moonville are staffing resorts for a privileged few v
(29:39):
i p. S. Space tourists, celebrities. They're the waiters, they're
the custodians. They're the um, you know, the people doing
the laundry, the people working on the h v a C.
And they feel like they are getting exploited and they
feel like they're getting stiffed. So it's a utopia that
very quickly backslides into a stop tailor as old as time. Yeah,
(30:02):
and they in this bottle episode, maybe they attempt some
sort of collective action. They might try to protest, they
might try to do something like unionization. They get shut
down immediately. There's no recourse. This is moon law, you know. Uh,
but let's say they get fired. They get fired and
they're sent home to Earth. But they're sent home with
(30:23):
a bill for their return flight, a crippling expense that
could keep them as debt slaves for the rest of
their natural lives. Oh, that's like the way that immigrant
workers are exploited oftentimes, where they're have their passports um
confiscated and they're forced to work on a horrible condition.
Then they get stuck with the bill to get their
(30:44):
papers and stuff to Yeah, sure you can leave, but
it'll cost you this much, and uh, you can't afford that.
You might as well to stay here forever. Precedent patterns.
The human species can be accused of a lot of things,
but not unbridled originality in the good and the bad.
So yeah, or empathy yea, Or or empathy as well,
(31:06):
or if they decide to say, maybe these people who
are part of the working class of Moonville are already
in debt because of the process you just described nol
and because the checks that they are paid are not
enough to cover the astronomically expensive cost of housing, air, water,
and food. We're killing it with puns today, but you know,
(31:29):
that's how company towns work. You get paid in script
right and basically get your bend bucks, and that's not
ever quite enough to get you out of debt. By design,
it's not a bug. But then we can take it
one step further. What if a real revolution occurs, a
physical altercation? What extent would the corporate authorities go to
(31:52):
to protect this massively expensive, massively fragile colony. Why send
in troops? You can just shut off the air, you know,
And it's scary to think about, but it is a possibility.
And that means to me, do want a wax too
poetic here, But that means to me, the first thing
is built in a colony like Moonville, are going to
(32:13):
be habitats for people to live in, means to produce consumables, food, water, air.
The second stuff built will be things like labs and
of course business ventures. But the third thing built may
well end up being a prison, and that should scare you.
So we're gonna pause for a word from our responses.
(32:33):
I disagree. I think prisons is four. I think three
is um robotic drone sentinels of some sort, the police officers,
the security and then yes, okay, they just bring those
with the first shipment, and they just come in with
the first shipment. Yeah, don't ask what's in that box. Anyway,
(32:54):
we're gonna gonna pause for word from our sponsor, and
then we're gonna explore a sinister and effective way to
get around these human rights concerns. And we've returned. So
we talked about the very real dangers of companies replacing
(33:16):
governments for captive population in space, which is not a
sentence I imagine saying this week. But we have to
propose another possibility. And unfortunately, like these other ideas we've
brought up, this is a possibility with strong precedent. What
if Instead of employees, you use prisoners, people who already
(33:37):
have their human rights curtailed, people who already have very
limited ability to redress grievances. Think back to the early
days of modern Australia. The United Kingdom was had had
tons of draconian laws during the industrial era. There was
a desperately poor population in overcrowded sitting and as a
(34:01):
solution to this, after making so many things death penalty offenses,
like ridiculously trivial crimes would carry the death penalty, the
UK first started putting people in boat prisons, like these
floating things in the harbor that weren't seaworthy vessels, but
(34:22):
they just they held prisoners off the coast. And then
when that didn't work, when that stop gap wasn't enough,
they started shipping prisoners to a part of Australia called
New South Wales. This was punishment known as transportation in
lieu of the death penalty, and the first penal colony
was founded on January. I remember that really awesome sequence
(34:47):
and I think it's the first Guardians of the Galaxy
movie where they're on like a prison ship, like basically
a prison space station where everyone's got like magnet boots
or they if they can't they can only walk in
certain areas or whatever. I didn't se might that be
too far off? Could be a good use of space? Yeah? Well,
Also the prisoners in Australia, we're not just sitting around
(35:09):
in lock up. They were essentially conscripted colonists. They were
building the colony. That's how it is in prison in America.
And they're not building colonies, but they're building stuff for
all these companies. You know that license plate all about bathers,
that movie that I believe it's called Firefighters construction, timber
industry precedent again, more patterns, and uh boy, if you
(35:34):
are one of these Australian conscript colonists, life kind of sucks.
Food is scarce. A lot of people don't have the
agrarian knowledge they need to grow food in this unfamiliar environment.
And it wasn't until like the early nineteenth century that
a governor said, hey, maybe Sydney and New South Wales
(35:54):
can be something other than a gigantic prison. And as
it was old of that, you know right now, I
think the statistic is something like roughly of modern day
Australians can trace can trace their ancestry back to someone
who was transported by the United Kingdom. So history stays
(36:16):
with us. You know. Faulkner's right when he says the
past isn't past. And then I mean fast forward to
the modern day. There are roughly two million people in
the US incarceration system, prison, jail, so on, and they
have no hope of getting out for decades or in
some cases ever getting out. What if you were one
(36:37):
of these people and you were offered a choice, get
this announcement and it says, come work for our company
on the moon, come help build Moonville. You'll get a
reduced sentence, but you'll also one day when your freedom
and you'll be participating in the most ambitious human experiments
since the day that first primate stood on its hind legs. Yeah,
(36:59):
I mean kind of like the Great Depression. It's like
come out CALIFORNI way, you know. But I mean not
with prisoners necessarily, but with poor people are essentially their
own kind of prisoners. That's that's very student observation. I mean,
we were we're talking about this a little bit off
air with Mission Control. If you got that offer, what
you're over under on saying yes, would it depend Matt,
(37:21):
I think you brought up maybe it depends on how
long someone was going to be in regular prison anyway. Yeah,
I mean I think if you got hit with a
life sentence, I could imagine that making sense, right, Uh
or maybe you know, again, we're all we're speculating a
ton here about maybe you do something illegal to get
ten years on purpose made hopefully that isn't too violent,
(37:46):
just so that you can get your own trip to
the moon, because he wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise,
like those unforeseen unforeseen, like those guys. That's that's a
real precedent too. There are people who have committed um
petty rhymes so that they can go to prison and
have housing and food like people who and healthcare, health
(38:06):
and healthcare. It's true. It's true, folks. And that might
tell weird to people outside of the United States, but
it's not an infrequent occurrence. I mean now, and I'm
sure that living in prison is no picnic, But they
spend more more money on a prisoner in terms of
government investment than they do on homeless people. Uh, no
question about it. You get three square meals a day,
(38:29):
access to exercise, books, no, I just got to avoid
the occasional shanking. Well, most most people, as I understand it,
in prison, who are like doing doing serious time. Most
people there are just trying to keep their head down.
You know. It's there's an old there's an old saying
(38:51):
where they say you only do two days. It's the
day you go in and the day you go out.
That that kind of mentality, which I think is philosophical,
but a cold comfort. Nonetheless, so we can see how
people would say, Okay, yeah, I'll go to Moonville. It
beats prison. And you know, if we if we want
to further just speculate about what could be done here.
If a private prison system wanted to enact something like this,
(39:14):
you could theoretically have prerequisites for the prisoners who were
there for the types of crimes, for maybe the physical
fitness of a certain you know type that you're looking
for specifically if you're looking for those prisoners to do oh,
I don't know, mining on the moon or a moon
of Jupiter or something to that effect. Um, it's kind
(39:36):
of creepy. It's it's really creepy to think about, because
you could you could restrict eligibility to most people. But
have a specific type of prisoner that becomes the space prisoner. Sure,
and then you know, Ben, we were talking a little
bit off air about our friend friend of the show,
Peyton Fisher, who's a brilliant lawyer, and he did, I think,
sort of like a mock trial, and he's in law
(39:57):
school about the idea of space law. And it wouldn't
necessarily I mean, I guess it would be sort of
like those outposts in Alaska, I guess, or Antarctica rather
where like there would be regions that are controlled kind
of but you can't really plan a flag in space.
Is there a precedent for that? Just an out open space?
So what laws would apply? And they would baically write
(40:18):
new space laws I think kind of Yeah, you know,
what's happening now is kind of outdated. Right now, we've
got two dystopian scenarios shout out to Jonathan Strickland for
ruining that word for me. One a brutal company town,
secondly a future prison farm. Neither of them sounds super appealing,
(40:38):
but ethics society, they could work pretty well, especially when
you're thinking of them in the context of some vaunted
greater good. And there are other more cheerful scenarios like
a an independent lunar government maybe in time, or technocracy.
But they would also have their own problems because there
would be precedent. But this would be the first kind
(41:00):
of endeavor of its kind. And this is where we
get to your question, Noel. At this point, it's fair
to ask, so what has stopped a major corporation from
doing this? Already? A lot of the technology is there
right to at least make an attempt, even if the
long term success of that attempt is very much help
(41:21):
in the air, I kid you not. The main thing
stopping these endeavors is paperwork. Specifically, one very old piece
of paperwork from all the way back in seven, the
Outer Space Treaty. This bad Boy explicitly states that no
one can go to another planet or the moon and
(41:42):
pop a flag on it and say this is me. Now,
this is a David Busters, don't call it io anymore. Yeah,
unless they have bigger space guns, that seems pretty non
binding the end of the day. If things really took off,
Pun entirely intended that all of a sudden there'd be
a war for space. Well yeah, but the thing is
(42:04):
that war would take place on Earth. It would be
between nations, right, like all the all those who signed
the treaty would be angry at whichever nation decided the
treaty didn't matter. And there's a lot of work about
militarization and space. Uh, it's very difficult. Check out our
earlier episode. By the way, folks on militarization in space.
(42:26):
There are laws about it. But those laws also, as
we're gonna see, are kind of outdated, and they have
a lot of loopholes. Their their flawed, they're not perfect documents. Uh.
There's a great article in Science Focus with writer named
Peter Ward, and he breaks down some of the issues
with this. He notes that when this was signed in
(42:49):
the private space sector wasn't really around, right. It's so
it's not clear how some of these rules would apply
to private companies and then can lee and Ward is
maybe being a little bit cynical here, but I agree
there's no way, in Ward's opinion, this agreement will last
(43:09):
much longer because anyone with a plan to land on
the Moon or Mars and stay there is going to
run into the Outer Space Treaty. And the money is
on the wealthy and powerful winning out against an old
loophole ridden document. What do you guys think about that too?
Sorry that that that was much more my question. It
wouldn't be governments that would sneak into space or just
(43:31):
do it take it upon themselves. It would be the
private sector because they have developed the technology to do it,
because they can move so much faster than the government
can for the most part, unless they were like in
league with the government. If they were really doing it,
they could secretly do it and then just boom. Now
we own space or we own the sector of space,
and you come at us, will blast you with our
space rockets. I'm being silly, but also not that far
(43:54):
off from where we are. Yeah, it's I mean, you know, look,
world government's intelligence agencies key a very close eye on
everything that launches. There's not really a way to hide
a satellite, nor is there a way to hide a launch.
But once you get up there and establish your toe hold,
it could be very difficult to remove that presence for
(44:16):
multiple reasons. But I love the point we're bringing up here. Uh.
You know, lobbying is one of the most powerful tools
of the powerful few. It's got a it's undergone a
renaissance and explosion in recent decades, private space companies are
part of the game. They understand the power. Not saying
they're sinister at all. They're doing a very rational thing,
which is trying to um nudge toward policy that makes
(44:41):
their job and their ambitions easier to achieve. And for
now there's all a hypothetical. But even though it's hypothetical,
it's important to note supporters of private space initiatives, some
of your faithful hosts included, have a valid point when
they say, well, you know what, getting to space cost money,
and the res rich involved does have real world benefits
(45:02):
for the US terrestrial schmucks stuck on Earth. And at
no point so far has any billionaire or private company
ever said, Hey, yeah, we're gonna make Mars a prison colony.
Three cheers for US and our Q for profits. No
one says that. And and there's an advantage to private companies, Matt,
(45:23):
you and I were talking about this a little bit
before recording. NASA exists at the whim of politicians and
the public right, so they can't their budget can swing
or can get cut depending upon what administrations in power
or who's who's running Congress, and what their beliefs or
(45:44):
I guess in theory the beliefs of their constituents are
private companies don't have to do that, And that's I'm
still trying to figure out if that's a pro or
a con. I think it could go either way. I
I think it's a little bit of both. The one
thing I wanted to bring up just because I think
it makes a lot of sense here, guys, before we
get out of here with regards to that, been is
(46:04):
a problem with NASA, going back to the Space Shuttle
program that we've kind of briefly mentioned here in the
show already, the Challenger disaster of nineteen six and it's
specifically because NASA is dealing with a ton of engineering
issues when developing this technology, the shuttle itself, but most
importantly those rockets that the thing needs to get up
(46:28):
into space, and you need time to fix problems, right
you to develop these things. That's one of the major
things we've talked about. You need tons of time to
develop this tech, and NASA didn't have the time that
they needed in the nineteen eighties, in those mid nineteen
eighties to really get these rockets to where they needed
to be because of external pressures from the government when
(46:51):
it comes to timeline, we need you to launch X
number of shuttles on a calendar year in order for
us to get enough satellites up there and to justify
the costs of this program, right. Uh, talking about the
budget there have been in this case, if you've got
a private company that has a budget that's agreed upon
(47:11):
by the board of governors or whoever is running the
corporation um or you know, just the CEO or whatever,
and then the external pressures on that budget and how
many flights they are able to get up in the air,
and how much money they're able to generate from those
flights is gonna be from shareholders the public. And if
(47:32):
they can't deliver enough on what they've you know, projected
that they're gonna do so enough flights, then the shareholders
are gonna leave, and the stock price is going to fall,
and the entire company is going to fall apart. And
that just means constant scaling, more and more and more
more trips out there. We talked off air. Uh. Compared
(47:53):
this to kind of what's happened with Mount Everest and
all of these kind of rich, you know, climber types
that want to go on some missed coal quest with
a sherpa. It's led to just trash being strown all
over the beautiful peaks of Mount Everest. Yeah, and that
external pressure to grow is what causes things like the
Challenger disaster because it's pushing the tech, the development of
(48:14):
the tech beyond it's a threshold of safety, right right,
And this also occurred in multiple instances in the Soviet
space programs, so unfortunately, there's no reason to imagine that
it wouldn't occur again in the future. But yeah, there
was a Virgin galactic vehicle that crashed in two thousand
(48:36):
fourteen as they were trying to develop and it killed
a pilot. Thankfully, you know, sadly for that pilot in
the pilot's family, but thankfully it was just a single
pilot running a test, rather than you know, a group
of people on a Virgin spaceflight trying to go up
into SubOrbit. Agree And this is a strange thing because
it can be difficult for a lot of folks to
(48:56):
take these ideas seriously. A lot of what we're discussing
today remains for now in the realm of the hypothetical.
But how long will that be the case? How long
will this be the stuff of science fiction? As we
established earlier, science fiction is a genre with an expiration date,
and often it becomes just science fact. But you know,
(49:20):
space travel, like all the other ages of exploration before,
it may well carry the sins of humanities past somewhere
in its figurative cargo hold, and a modern civilization cannot
learn from those past horrors. There is realistically very little
to stop humanity from repeating them. And that's maybe what
(49:41):
we leave you with today. I get so excited when
we talk about space. Uh if I now that you
put the idea in my head, Matt, if Moonville happens,
I don't know if I'm above faking a crime to
get in prison to go on the moon. Uh, I
don't know. He's just got to be something that shows
you have in acuity for moon mining, right. I just
(50:06):
hope there's moona nights there, Remember the moona Nights. I
hope you can see this because I'm doing it as
hard as I can. I don't know what, Like, I
want the space ice cream. I hope that's still a thing.
I want the Yeah, I grabbed some of that every
time I'm at a museum, gift shop, vaguely science museum.
(50:27):
I love it. I like the Neapology. Can I ask you,
gus a question to close out, what's your favorite or
what you feel is the most accurately representative film about
space future that's not like Pie in the Sky wild
sci fi. That's more like realistic, you know, kind of
this is what it might be like Interstellar, I think
(50:48):
is what comes to mind from me is a spaceballs
Got it? God? Gravity Gravity was pretty good good. I
really like at astra at As. Yeah, I mean just
some of the stuff that they shot on the lunar surface,
you know, some of those some of those things, and
(51:09):
the tech felt very real to me. And a little
known fact that's also where they shot the moon landing
or Kubrick shot the same sounds. Do check out Fantastic
Mitchell and web Look conspiracy sketch series where they talked
about the moon landing. Uh it is. Oh, it's wonderful.
I don't want to spoil it. Just go to YouTube
now look it up. And while you're on the internet,
(51:31):
why not reach out to us let us know what
you think about the future of private space travel. Is
it overall a really good thing? Is it a necessary evil?
Is it the wrong move? On a macro level? We
want to hear your thoughts. We can't wait for you
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(51:53):
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(52:16):
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(53:18):
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