January 30, 2025 • 22 mins
Welcome back to Today In Space! It’s the end of January, and we couldn’t start off the year without a recap of one of my favorite space theories—the Space Conundrum. As space progress accelerates, so does the chaos in society. But why does this happen? Why are they correlated? And more importantly, where is this all heading?”
We’re going to explain what the space conundrum is, how it led to a world changing event the first time and why these times, as crazy & wild as they are, are actually a cycle we’ve seen before. So in favor of mental health & focus, let’s search for answers in the chaos of space progress and humanity!
Sources:
Chasing the Moon: The People, the Politics, and the Promise That Launched America into the Space Age https://amzn.to/3PVy13M
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/chasing-moon/
Star Bound: A Beginner's Guide to the American Space Program, from Goddard's Rockets to Goldilocks Planets and Everything in Between (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight) https://amzn.to/3PUfRzH
Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days that Launched SpaceX https://amzn.to/4hmK2eP
Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age by Eric Berger https://amzn.to/4jFLc6E
Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age https://amzn.to/42G1Flv
SpaceX: Elon Musk and the Final Frontier https://amzn.to/40GDwZ8
https://www.britannica.com/topic/1960s-counterculture
https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War/The-U-S-role-grows
Keywords:
space conundrum, space progress, societal chaos, mental health, space race, moon landing, technological disruption, space investment, global instability, AI impact, space exploration, space dominance, mental wealth, creative energy, space history
Timestamps:
00:00 The Space Conundrum: Introduction and Personal Journey
05:54 Exploring the Space Conundrum Theory: What is it?
07:26 Hypothesis 1 & 2 for WHY the Space Conundrum Happens?
08:20 The Impact of Space Progress on Society
10:05 The Role of Space in Society's Future
18:44 Personal Reflections and Advice in the Chaos
--------------------------
Here's to building a fantastic future - and continued progress in Space (and humanity)! Spread Love, Spread Science
Alex G. Orphanos
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to Today In Space,the end of January, and we
(00:05):
couldn't start off the yearwithout a recap of one of our
favorite space theories, thespace conundrum. We've observed
a strange pattern here on thepodcast, after learning my space
history and being deeplyingrained in the current space
progress of today, as spaceprogress accelerates, so does
the chaos in society. Why doesthis happen? Why are they
(00:27):
correlated? And moreimportantly, where is this all
heading? With the first month ofJanuary filled with chaos
already, we think there's moreto come this year, backed up by
a lot of progress in space. Thusthe space conundrum. We're going
to try and explain what thespace conundrum is, how it led
to a world changing event thefirst time, and why these times,
(00:50):
as crazy as they are, areactually a cycle that we've seen
before. And I believe learningabout human history relevant to
your current era is superimportant to keep a level head
with perspective in thesechaotic times. It could possibly
even prepare you and us for whatmight come next. We might not be
(01:13):
able to see the future, but ushumans have a tendency to repeat
the past, if anything, it givesus more context on what's
happening around us if we lookback and learn from our
predecessors. So in favor ofmental health and focus in 2025
let's search for answers in thechaos of space, progress and
(01:34):
humanity, welcome to Today InSpace. I'm your space science
podcast host from the EastCoast. Alex Dior fanos, thanks
for joining us. Let's dive in.In
(01:58):
order to be honest, I stumbledupon this idea of the space
conundrum years ago whileresearching for the podcast, I
was finding documentaries andbooks chronicling the early
space race. I was going to booksignings and doing as much as I
could to learn about the partsof space that I didn't get to
learn as if I was someone thatwas super passionate about space
(02:22):
from an early age. Back then, Ijust didn't think I would ever
be able to work on anything inspace, until I started looking
for careers in college. Youknow, this podcast give me,
gives me the opportunity to gothe next step in my
understanding, taking all thedata and history, and then
understand it from a deeperplace to develop episodes for
(02:43):
the podcast and topics to sharewith others. And I've been doing
this for a decade now, 10 years,and I feel more streamlined and
tapped into the big picture ofspace than ever before. And it
takes a lot of energy to do it,and in those early days of the
podcast, I was fueled on almostno sleep, lots of coffee, and
(03:08):
the energy of an ex pack a daysmoker, newly cold turkey, and
all of that addictive energy,needing somewhere to go that way
I was powering my day to dayback then, it turns out, is not
healthy long term as an option,and I've learned that lesson a
few times in my trial by fire in10 years of podcasting about
(03:30):
space and science nowadays, I'mstill drinking plenty of
caffeine, but I'm more focusedon the consistency and
reliability of creative energy,just like any good rocket needs
to consistently and reliablywork, you need to tune it for
performance to get the mostthrust out of it, and that
(03:50):
includes life and creativeenergy. It's the difference
between mental health awarenessand mental wealth, right when
you're taking care of all ofthose things, you know, in
plenty of magical H, 2o sleep,physical activity, productive
habits and great food nutrientsare key for that mental wealth.
Two areas I have been reallygood at are productive habits
(04:12):
and great food and nutrients,because I cook all my meals with
a lot of help for scheduling andgetting things together. But
it's something we've been doingreally well, and one area I have
not been good on is sleep. Ithink a lot of us can relate to
that, and rest and recovery forme is on my list of habits to
change for good for 2025 andit's my own personal conundrum.
(04:35):
But the good thing, unlike thespace conundrum, is there's a
lot more control of ours thatthat we can influence for mental
wealth than we can in the spaceconundrum we've been working
with magic mind, and they'vesent us their mental performance
shot that we use daily to tuneour own rocket engine for
creativity. And we love it. Butyou also need to get into a
(04:58):
coast phase and recover everyonce in a while. While, right?
The engines can't fire all thetime if you're looking for
mental wealth, like for us,magic minds sent us their sleep
performance shot. And you knowwhat? It's working great. Am I
immediately in a highperformance sleep schedule? Hell
no, but I got a lot of work totune a better behavior, and the
(05:19):
sleep performance shot is makingthat happen. If you want to tune
your own rocket engine in life,check out magic minds mental and
sleep performance shots and tuneyour rocket engine of life.
User, quote, space Jan at Magicmind.com and get 45% off the
magic mind bundle. That's magicmind.com/space Jan, that's s, p,
(05:41):
A, C, E, J, a, n, for 45% offthe magic mind bundle. Not
everything needs to be aconundrum, especially your
mental health. But let's diveinto the actual space conundrum
and what it means for all of us.So what is the space conundrum?
It's a theory we created here onthe podcast, after learning the
(06:01):
history of the original spacerace, while watching Space Race
2.0 happen right in front of oureyes. The last decade, when
there's increased space progressin space travel, it correlates
with increased chaos in society.And if there's one thing we can
agree on, the last decade hasbeen
nuts, and it doesn't seem to beslowing down, and neither is
(06:25):
progress in space. I recommendthe following books to learn
more about the history of spaceprogress to make the connections
between the two worlds duringthe 1950s to the 1970s and the
world starting in 2010 untilnow. Starbound, by Bruce
McCandless, the third and EmilyCarney. We just had them on the
(06:47):
podcast recently to talk aboutthe book in all things space,
great conversation. Go checkthat out, but also go check out
the book. It does a great job ofexplaining all the history
leading up to today in a reallyeasy to understand way chasing
the moon by Robert Stone andAlan Andres was extremely good.
And it's not only a book, but italso is a documentary that puts
(07:11):
together so much of thehistorical footage and adds a
lot of context into whathappened leading up to us going
to the moon, and there's a lotthere's also escaping gravity,
by Lori Garver, which is atremendous book, from the
perspective of someone who wasin the administration dealing
during the Obama years, dealingwith completely changing the
(07:34):
focus and investment in spacetowards the private sector to
help get the US space programback on its feet after the Space
Shuttle Program was retired,which Lori Garver was a big part
of helping make that happen.That's a tremendous book to
understand the politics behindwhat's going on, and a little
bit more about justunderstanding why this last
(07:57):
decade happened and where thisacceleration of progress
probably started. It's peoplelike Lori and others in that
book that are described that'sbeen many, many years and hard,
long hours trying to get that tohappen. And then, of course,
there's lift off and re entry byEric Berger, both of those
books, lift off and re entry,two separate books are great at
(08:18):
understanding what SpaceX hasdone, and those early years of
desperation, I think that'sliterally the title of liftoff
of the early days of SpaceX. Andthen re entry is understanding
where they've come to at thispoint, and some really great
stories about how rocket enginesdeveloped and all that stuff.
There's SpaceX Elon Musk, andthe new space race was from Brad
(08:43):
Bergen. We had Brad on thepodcast as well. He was a great
chat, a great conversation aboutall things space and culture and
and all that stuff. Go checkthat out. We're gonna have all
the links for these indescription of the episode, so
go check those out. And thenthere's, of course, the movie,
the right stuff, which, for thefirst time, I watched in full,
thanks to a friend this pastWhat's the last six months. And
(09:06):
it's truly, truly amazing, andhelps you understand how wild
the times were, early days ofspace, and what it actually took
to get people into space backthen. And it just shows you how
chaotic everything was, which isa great thing to look at when we
(09:27):
look at today's world. Thereason I'm saying all of this is
because I am not a historian,and I'm not going to pretend to
be one, but I am a greatresearcher and compiler of big
picture ideas. You know, I tendto take a more human and
anthropological approach,because, again, I'm no
historian, so I wouldn't evenknow how to do that, and
wouldn't dare try to, becauseit's just not my forte. So let's
(09:50):
talk about the first spaceconundrum cycle. Think back to
the original space race in the1960s the time of intense civil
unrest against the. Racialinequality, Cold War tensions
and global uncertainty, and yetit led to one of the most
unifying moments in humanhistory, the moon landing of
(10:11):
Apollo 11, like we often sayhere on the podcast, for those
who were not born yet for theApollo landing, just ask anyone
that was alive back then andremembers it and was able to
watch it or listen to it. Mostpeople will be able to tell you
exactly where they were, and youcan tell their eyes light up
when they talk about it. It wassuch a major moment might have
(10:34):
been one of the first viralmoments globally, way before the
internet was even a thing. Andthen fast forward to today.
Starship is preparing for Mars.Artemis will be reviving lunar
exploration with multiplelanders, including starship and
Blue Origin's blue moon landerand commercial space flight is
booming. But at the same time,the world is dealing with global
(10:57):
instability, major economicshifts, a global pandemic, AI
and automation threaten the jobsand purpose of large groups of
humans. Politics has becomeunempathetic. The wage gap
between rich and non richwidens, while inflation and
student loans make living andpurchasing a home near
impossible for most my age andyounger, not to mention it's
(11:21):
difficult to know what sort ofprinciples we stand for as a
country, as a people and ashumanity anymore. And while the
first space race cycle did endin a beautiful moment of common
humanity between the US andRussia, which spread around the
world and sparked a new age. Itbegs the question, what will be
(11:45):
our symbolic moment of commonhumanity? That is, if we are
correct, and the cycle repeatsitself, and we actually get that
moment, and if you look back atthe history of the Apollo 11
landing, it almost didn'thappen, and it's thanks to those
three human beings who flew thatspacecraft and the hundreds of
(12:06):
1000s of people that wereinvolved in making sure that the
75 rocket and the Apollo lunarlander and Command Module
worked. So why does spaceprogress bring chaos? The big
question is, why increased spaceprogress is linked with
increased societal chaos, andlike most big questions, it's
hard to truly answer why, but wecan give some hypotheses.
(12:31):
Hypothesis one, spaceexploration is disruptive. It
changes old ways of thinking,pushes technological boundaries
and shifts power dynamics, andthat change, especially at the
scale, can be unsettling. Couldthe disruption of the impossible
cause the rest of us toquestion, what else is possible?
Common phrase you hear from thefirst space race era is we can
(12:56):
send someone to the moon, but wecan't get this thing to work do
crazy technological feats ofphysics change what we think is
possible. And I can say for me,it definitely has. There are
many moments that stick out tome over the last decade, the
first grasshopper landing forSpaceX is Falcon, the first
successful recovery of theFalcon nine, after many
(13:20):
failures, not a handful. TheFalcon Heavy, delivering the
Tesla Roadster to space on themaiden flight, and then landing
both boosters successfully backon land, the James Webb Space
Telescope, finally deploying andunraveling in space and showing
us the universe one image at atime mind blowing, and the
(13:44):
amount of data we get back isinsane. And then, of course,
starship, super heavy boosterbeing caught for the first time
for flight test five and flighttest seven. But that first one
really, really sticks out. Andof that group, a lot of those
are really culturally importantand stick out in my mind. But
(14:05):
also at the same time, we haveaI developing, just like we had
computers develop after theApollo program, where they went
from massive rooms for an entirecomputer to desktop PCs, and
then eventually where we havethings now do all these advances
also break down the old ways andcreate a power dynamic that one
(14:27):
seems the most interesting tome. You know, does access to new
technology shift how we thinkabout life as well? Can that
explain why the leading beliefsof the 50s were challenged in
the 60s and 70s in society, oris the correlation just
coincidental? And it's actuallyway more complex than that. Let
us know what you think abouthypothesis one in the comments.
(14:49):
Hypothesis two, we invest inspace when times get tough. The
Apollo 11 Moon Landing wasn'tjust about exploration as much
as I would love it to be in. Itwas about proving dominance in
the Cold War. And while spacedominance isn't necessarily top
of mind these days, there aremultiple wars going on here on
Earth, and there's now a branchof the military completely
(15:12):
dedicated to defending space.There's plenty of anti satellite
demonstrations and wild stuff,like how China just dumps their
rockets over the land of theirown people, exposing them to
very harmful propellants, andnever mind a giant structure
falling from the sky on thesevillages. And that's all in the
sake of progressing and gettingthings for their space program
(15:36):
further by not worrying aboutwhere the rocket lands. There's
also a clear change in how muchis invested in space, from the
2000s to 2010 and now the 2020sgoing to Mars is the new
buzzword over the men on themoon. And we may not have a JFK
to mandate and fund going to themoon with defense level budgets,
(15:58):
but we have had now fouradministrations being pro space
and investing strategically overtime. Now I've asked guests on
the podcast about the spaceconundrum, and if they thought
space could have a moment thatbrings us all together, like the
Apollo 11 moon landing, and theresults are interesting. The
optimists, writers andenthusiasts tend to believe it
(16:19):
could, while most of theindustry CEOs and CTOs thought
leaders, people that areactually working in the industry
think that it won't. But who'sright? Are we guaranteed peace
at the end of this chaoticcycle, or is it just that rapid
progress itself is chaotic? Andagain, we don't think that we
have the answers. This is ourtheory from observing and we're
(16:43):
we're still searching for theanswer to why and why this
correlation happens. So we wantto hear your your comments below
and hit us up with social mediaand what you think about
hypothesis too. So what doesthis mean for us in 2025 Well,
if I had to put us on acomparable timeline to the first
space cycle. We are past theMercury program, right? The
(17:05):
early days of can humans evensurvive in space 1958 to 1964
and we're at the start of theGemini Program. The Gemini
Program helped us develop whatwe needed for the Apollo program
to go the next step, tounderstand that we needed a
capsule and a lander and how todock those in orbit and all
(17:26):
those things, and that's wherewe find ourselves today. The SLS
rocket and Orion are built forArtemis two. They're still
developing that right? The heatshield didn't react like they
wanted to, so that still needsto be adjusted, even if it's
just a mission profile issue.We're coming into the atmosphere
too hard at that angle and toofast. Is actually terrible for
(17:48):
the heat shield. Starship isdeveloping its ability to refuel
in orbit. And, you know, theyjust lost the starship in test
flight seven. So there's a lotmore development that needs to
happen there. So to me, we'resitting at that early stage in
that Gemini period, before wereach even the moment that we
(18:09):
could be in for our moon landingmoment. So in my mind, there's
still more to come, not tomention Blue Origin building
their lander for the Artemisprogram to use after starship.
So the good news, we're about tosee some serious acceleration of
space progress. The bad news,just like the late 60s, I think
things are going to be moredifficult, and there's going to
(18:31):
be more trials ahead of us forfor all, some more than others,
unfortunately, but this is thetime to start figuring out what
we each believe in and want outof our lives in a post pandemic,
I think we can all agree we'renot the same people we were in
2019 and there's no going back.What it means is buckling down
(18:54):
on finances, mental wealth,looking out for others, but also
not letting the chaos overwhelmus, and just focusing on what
you can do. So if you believethe space conundrum, and it's
actually a reflection of thefirst space race and that we're
building towards somethinggreat, we need to dig deep and
search for what kind of worldand humanity we want to have,
(19:17):
because we need it, and we needyou. So please take care of
yourself. Stay off social mediaa little bit more and get into
the world. Make connections, oreven if it's online, focus on
the connections that you'remaking and less about the rush
of dopamine that you get from aclip. You never know what it's
(19:38):
going to lead to. And if I haveany advice for these times, it's
this, and I'm quoting here fromsomething Gary V said on one of
his posts. But you can doanything, but you can't do
everything, so figure out yourmission and stay focused on what
it is and what you need to do,and just shut out all the other.
(20:00):
Chaos. Because if there's onething the space conundrum
clearly got right is that thereis definitely more chaos that
came along with more spaceprogress. So whatever the why
is, we know that chaos is here,so embrace it and only deal with
as much chaos as you need towhile you figure out what you
need in life. I see a lot ofpeople doing this, reevaluating,
(20:22):
making sure that there arebackup plans that I wish all of
you good luck. We're doing ithere ourselves. So hang in
there, and we hope the spaceconundrum leads us to another
great moment in humanity, justlike the last one. So what do
you think? Let us know in thecomments. What do you think
about the space conundrum? Whatyou think about this link
between space progress andsocietal chaos. Do you think
(20:45):
there's a hard parallel betweenthe first space race and today?
Are we in for more chaos beforewe get some peace? And do you
think the space conundrum isreal? Let us know. Make sure to
like and subscribe. Hit the bellhere, if you're on YouTube, if
you love space content, and giveus a review on Spotify and Apple
(21:05):
podcast, we really appreciateit. Helps a lot. Give us a five
star review gets more people tosee the podcast. Make sure to
follow us at Today In Space podon Instagram and Twitter. Today
In Space on tick tock. Today InSpace podcast on Facebook, and
you can always email us at TodayIn Space podcast@gmail.com
especially if you have an ideafor the podcast, a question
(21:27):
about space, all things space,or if you have someone or
yourself who would like to be onour people of science to have an
interview with us and we canchat about all things space.
Make sure to spread love andspread science. Keep Looking Up,
stay curious and be good toyourself. Thanks for joining us
for another episode of the AllThings Space Science podcast
(21:47):
Today In Space we'll see you onthe next episode. You
Welcome back to Today In Space,the end of January, and we
(00:05):
couldn't start off the yearwithout a recap of one of our
favorite space theories, thespace conundrum. We've observed
a strange pattern here on thepodcast, after learning my space
history and being deeplyingrained in the current space
progress of today, as spaceprogress accelerates, so does
the chaos in society. Why doesthis happen? Why are they
(00:27):
correlated? And moreimportantly, where is this all
heading? With the first month ofJanuary filled with chaos
already, we think there's moreto come this year, backed up by
a lot of progress in space. Thusthe space conundrum. We're going
to try and explain what thespace conundrum is, how it led
to a world changing event thefirst time, and why these times,
(00:50):
as crazy as they are, areactually a cycle that we've seen
before. And I believe learningabout human history relevant to
your current era is superimportant to keep a level head
with perspective in thesechaotic times. It could possibly
even prepare you and us for whatmight come next. We might not be
(01:13):
able to see the future, but ushumans have a tendency to repeat
the past, if anything, it givesus more context on what's
happening around us if we lookback and learn from our
predecessors. So in favor ofmental health and focus in 2025
let's search for answers in thechaos of space, progress and
(01:34):
humanity, welcome to Today InSpace. I'm your space science
podcast host from the EastCoast. Alex Dior fanos, thanks
for joining us. Let's dive in.In
(01:58):
order to be honest, I stumbledupon this idea of the space
conundrum years ago whileresearching for the podcast, I
was finding documentaries andbooks chronicling the early
space race. I was going to booksignings and doing as much as I
could to learn about the partsof space that I didn't get to
learn as if I was someone thatwas super passionate about space
(02:22):
from an early age. Back then, Ijust didn't think I would ever
be able to work on anything inspace, until I started looking
for careers in college. Youknow, this podcast give me,
gives me the opportunity to gothe next step in my
understanding, taking all thedata and history, and then
understand it from a deeperplace to develop episodes for
(02:43):
the podcast and topics to sharewith others. And I've been doing
this for a decade now, 10 years,and I feel more streamlined and
tapped into the big picture ofspace than ever before. And it
takes a lot of energy to do it,and in those early days of the
podcast, I was fueled on almostno sleep, lots of coffee, and
(03:08):
the energy of an ex pack a daysmoker, newly cold turkey, and
all of that addictive energy,needing somewhere to go that way
I was powering my day to dayback then, it turns out, is not
healthy long term as an option,and I've learned that lesson a
few times in my trial by fire in10 years of podcasting about
(03:30):
space and science nowadays, I'mstill drinking plenty of
caffeine, but I'm more focusedon the consistency and
reliability of creative energy,just like any good rocket needs
to consistently and reliablywork, you need to tune it for
performance to get the mostthrust out of it, and that
(03:50):
includes life and creativeenergy. It's the difference
between mental health awarenessand mental wealth, right when
you're taking care of all ofthose things, you know, in
plenty of magical H, 2o sleep,physical activity, productive
habits and great food nutrientsare key for that mental wealth.
Two areas I have been reallygood at are productive habits
(04:12):
and great food and nutrients,because I cook all my meals with
a lot of help for scheduling andgetting things together. But
it's something we've been doingreally well, and one area I have
not been good on is sleep. Ithink a lot of us can relate to
that, and rest and recovery forme is on my list of habits to
change for good for 2025 andit's my own personal conundrum.
(04:35):
But the good thing, unlike thespace conundrum, is there's a
lot more control of ours thatthat we can influence for mental
wealth than we can in the spaceconundrum we've been working
with magic mind, and they'vesent us their mental performance
shot that we use daily to tuneour own rocket engine for
creativity. And we love it. Butyou also need to get into a
(04:58):
coast phase and recover everyonce in a while. While, right?
The engines can't fire all thetime if you're looking for
mental wealth, like for us,magic minds sent us their sleep
performance shot. And you knowwhat? It's working great. Am I
immediately in a highperformance sleep schedule? Hell
no, but I got a lot of work totune a better behavior, and the
(05:19):
sleep performance shot is makingthat happen. If you want to tune
your own rocket engine in life,check out magic minds mental and
sleep performance shots and tuneyour rocket engine of life.
User, quote, space Jan at Magicmind.com and get 45% off the
magic mind bundle. That's magicmind.com/space Jan, that's s, p,
(05:41):
A, C, E, J, a, n, for 45% offthe magic mind bundle. Not
everything needs to be aconundrum, especially your
mental health. But let's diveinto the actual space conundrum
and what it means for all of us.So what is the space conundrum?
It's a theory we created here onthe podcast, after learning the
(06:01):
history of the original spacerace, while watching Space Race
2.0 happen right in front of oureyes. The last decade, when
there's increased space progressin space travel, it correlates
with increased chaos in society.And if there's one thing we can
agree on, the last decade hasbeen
nuts, and it doesn't seem to beslowing down, and neither is
(06:25):
progress in space. I recommendthe following books to learn
more about the history of spaceprogress to make the connections
between the two worlds duringthe 1950s to the 1970s and the
world starting in 2010 untilnow. Starbound, by Bruce
McCandless, the third and EmilyCarney. We just had them on the
(06:47):
podcast recently to talk aboutthe book in all things space,
great conversation. Go checkthat out, but also go check out
the book. It does a great job ofexplaining all the history
leading up to today in a reallyeasy to understand way chasing
the moon by Robert Stone andAlan Andres was extremely good.
And it's not only a book, but italso is a documentary that puts
(07:11):
together so much of thehistorical footage and adds a
lot of context into whathappened leading up to us going
to the moon, and there's a lotthere's also escaping gravity,
by Lori Garver, which is atremendous book, from the
perspective of someone who wasin the administration dealing
during the Obama years, dealingwith completely changing the
(07:34):
focus and investment in spacetowards the private sector to
help get the US space programback on its feet after the Space
Shuttle Program was retired,which Lori Garver was a big part
of helping make that happen.That's a tremendous book to
understand the politics behindwhat's going on, and a little
bit more about justunderstanding why this last
(07:57):
decade happened and where thisacceleration of progress
probably started. It's peoplelike Lori and others in that
book that are described that'sbeen many, many years and hard,
long hours trying to get that tohappen. And then, of course,
there's lift off and re entry byEric Berger, both of those
books, lift off and re entry,two separate books are great at
(08:18):
understanding what SpaceX hasdone, and those early years of
desperation, I think that'sliterally the title of liftoff
of the early days of SpaceX. Andthen re entry is understanding
where they've come to at thispoint, and some really great
stories about how rocket enginesdeveloped and all that stuff.
There's SpaceX Elon Musk, andthe new space race was from Brad
(08:43):
Bergen. We had Brad on thepodcast as well. He was a great
chat, a great conversation aboutall things space and culture and
and all that stuff. Go checkthat out. We're gonna have all
the links for these indescription of the episode, so
go check those out. And thenthere's, of course, the movie,
the right stuff, which, for thefirst time, I watched in full,
thanks to a friend this pastWhat's the last six months. And
(09:06):
it's truly, truly amazing, andhelps you understand how wild
the times were, early days ofspace, and what it actually took
to get people into space backthen. And it just shows you how
chaotic everything was, which isa great thing to look at when we
(09:27):
look at today's world. Thereason I'm saying all of this is
because I am not a historian,and I'm not going to pretend to
be one, but I am a greatresearcher and compiler of big
picture ideas. You know, I tendto take a more human and
anthropological approach,because, again, I'm no
historian, so I wouldn't evenknow how to do that, and
wouldn't dare try to, becauseit's just not my forte. So let's
(09:50):
talk about the first spaceconundrum cycle. Think back to
the original space race in the1960s the time of intense civil
unrest against the. Racialinequality, Cold War tensions
and global uncertainty, and yetit led to one of the most
unifying moments in humanhistory, the moon landing of
(10:11):
Apollo 11, like we often sayhere on the podcast, for those
who were not born yet for theApollo landing, just ask anyone
that was alive back then andremembers it and was able to
watch it or listen to it. Mostpeople will be able to tell you
exactly where they were, and youcan tell their eyes light up
when they talk about it. It wassuch a major moment might have
(10:34):
been one of the first viralmoments globally, way before the
internet was even a thing. Andthen fast forward to today.
Starship is preparing for Mars.Artemis will be reviving lunar
exploration with multiplelanders, including starship and
Blue Origin's blue moon landerand commercial space flight is
booming. But at the same time,the world is dealing with global
(10:57):
instability, major economicshifts, a global pandemic, AI
and automation threaten the jobsand purpose of large groups of
humans. Politics has becomeunempathetic. The wage gap
between rich and non richwidens, while inflation and
student loans make living andpurchasing a home near
impossible for most my age andyounger, not to mention it's
(11:21):
difficult to know what sort ofprinciples we stand for as a
country, as a people and ashumanity anymore. And while the
first space race cycle did endin a beautiful moment of common
humanity between the US andRussia, which spread around the
world and sparked a new age. Itbegs the question, what will be
(11:45):
our symbolic moment of commonhumanity? That is, if we are
correct, and the cycle repeatsitself, and we actually get that
moment, and if you look back atthe history of the Apollo 11
landing, it almost didn'thappen, and it's thanks to those
three human beings who flew thatspacecraft and the hundreds of
(12:06):
1000s of people that wereinvolved in making sure that the
75 rocket and the Apollo lunarlander and Command Module
worked. So why does spaceprogress bring chaos? The big
question is, why increased spaceprogress is linked with
increased societal chaos, andlike most big questions, it's
hard to truly answer why, but wecan give some hypotheses.
(12:31):
Hypothesis one, spaceexploration is disruptive. It
changes old ways of thinking,pushes technological boundaries
and shifts power dynamics, andthat change, especially at the
scale, can be unsettling. Couldthe disruption of the impossible
cause the rest of us toquestion, what else is possible?
Common phrase you hear from thefirst space race era is we can
(12:56):
send someone to the moon, but wecan't get this thing to work do
crazy technological feats ofphysics change what we think is
possible. And I can say for me,it definitely has. There are
many moments that stick out tome over the last decade, the
first grasshopper landing forSpaceX is Falcon, the first
successful recovery of theFalcon nine, after many
(13:20):
failures, not a handful. TheFalcon Heavy, delivering the
Tesla Roadster to space on themaiden flight, and then landing
both boosters successfully backon land, the James Webb Space
Telescope, finally deploying andunraveling in space and showing
us the universe one image at atime mind blowing, and the
(13:44):
amount of data we get back isinsane. And then, of course,
starship, super heavy boosterbeing caught for the first time
for flight test five and flighttest seven. But that first one
really, really sticks out. Andof that group, a lot of those
are really culturally importantand stick out in my mind. But
(14:05):
also at the same time, we haveaI developing, just like we had
computers develop after theApollo program, where they went
from massive rooms for an entirecomputer to desktop PCs, and
then eventually where we havethings now do all these advances
also break down the old ways andcreate a power dynamic that one
(14:27):
seems the most interesting tome. You know, does access to new
technology shift how we thinkabout life as well? Can that
explain why the leading beliefsof the 50s were challenged in
the 60s and 70s in society, oris the correlation just
coincidental? And it's actuallyway more complex than that. Let
us know what you think abouthypothesis one in the comments.
(14:49):
Hypothesis two, we invest inspace when times get tough. The
Apollo 11 Moon Landing wasn'tjust about exploration as much
as I would love it to be in. Itwas about proving dominance in
the Cold War. And while spacedominance isn't necessarily top
of mind these days, there aremultiple wars going on here on
Earth, and there's now a branchof the military completely
(15:12):
dedicated to defending space.There's plenty of anti satellite
demonstrations and wild stuff,like how China just dumps their
rockets over the land of theirown people, exposing them to
very harmful propellants, andnever mind a giant structure
falling from the sky on thesevillages. And that's all in the
sake of progressing and gettingthings for their space program
(15:36):
further by not worrying aboutwhere the rocket lands. There's
also a clear change in how muchis invested in space, from the
2000s to 2010 and now the 2020sgoing to Mars is the new
buzzword over the men on themoon. And we may not have a JFK
to mandate and fund going to themoon with defense level budgets,
(15:58):
but we have had now fouradministrations being pro space
and investing strategically overtime. Now I've asked guests on
the podcast about the spaceconundrum, and if they thought
space could have a moment thatbrings us all together, like the
Apollo 11 moon landing, and theresults are interesting. The
optimists, writers andenthusiasts tend to believe it
(16:19):
could, while most of theindustry CEOs and CTOs thought
leaders, people that areactually working in the industry
think that it won't. But who'sright? Are we guaranteed peace
at the end of this chaoticcycle, or is it just that rapid
progress itself is chaotic? Andagain, we don't think that we
have the answers. This is ourtheory from observing and we're
(16:43):
we're still searching for theanswer to why and why this
correlation happens. So we wantto hear your your comments below
and hit us up with social mediaand what you think about
hypothesis too. So what doesthis mean for us in 2025 Well,
if I had to put us on acomparable timeline to the first
space cycle. We are past theMercury program, right? The
(17:05):
early days of can humans evensurvive in space 1958 to 1964
and we're at the start of theGemini Program. The Gemini
Program helped us develop whatwe needed for the Apollo program
to go the next step, tounderstand that we needed a
capsule and a lander and how todock those in orbit and all
(17:26):
those things, and that's wherewe find ourselves today. The SLS
rocket and Orion are built forArtemis two. They're still
developing that right? The heatshield didn't react like they
wanted to, so that still needsto be adjusted, even if it's
just a mission profile issue.We're coming into the atmosphere
too hard at that angle and toofast. Is actually terrible for
(17:48):
the heat shield. Starship isdeveloping its ability to refuel
in orbit. And, you know, theyjust lost the starship in test
flight seven. So there's a lotmore development that needs to
happen there. So to me, we'resitting at that early stage in
that Gemini period, before wereach even the moment that we
(18:09):
could be in for our moon landingmoment. So in my mind, there's
still more to come, not tomention Blue Origin building
their lander for the Artemisprogram to use after starship.
So the good news, we're about tosee some serious acceleration of
space progress. The bad news,just like the late 60s, I think
things are going to be moredifficult, and there's going to
(18:31):
be more trials ahead of us forfor all, some more than others,
unfortunately, but this is thetime to start figuring out what
we each believe in and want outof our lives in a post pandemic,
I think we can all agree we'renot the same people we were in
2019 and there's no going back.What it means is buckling down
(18:54):
on finances, mental wealth,looking out for others, but also
not letting the chaos overwhelmus, and just focusing on what
you can do. So if you believethe space conundrum, and it's
actually a reflection of thefirst space race and that we're
building towards somethinggreat, we need to dig deep and
search for what kind of worldand humanity we want to have,
(19:17):
because we need it, and we needyou. So please take care of
yourself. Stay off social mediaa little bit more and get into
the world. Make connections, oreven if it's online, focus on
the connections that you'remaking and less about the rush
of dopamine that you get from aclip. You never know what it's
(19:38):
going to lead to. And if I haveany advice for these times, it's
this, and I'm quoting here fromsomething Gary V said on one of
his posts. But you can doanything, but you can't do
everything, so figure out yourmission and stay focused on what
it is and what you need to do,and just shut out all the other.
(20:00):
Chaos. Because if there's onething the space conundrum
clearly got right is that thereis definitely more chaos that
came along with more spaceprogress. So whatever the why
is, we know that chaos is here,so embrace it and only deal with
as much chaos as you need towhile you figure out what you
need in life. I see a lot ofpeople doing this, reevaluating,
(20:22):
making sure that there arebackup plans that I wish all of
you good luck. We're doing ithere ourselves. So hang in
there, and we hope the spaceconundrum leads us to another
great moment in humanity, justlike the last one. So what do
you think? Let us know in thecomments. What do you think
about the space conundrum? Whatyou think about this link
between space progress andsocietal chaos. Do you think
(20:45):
there's a hard parallel betweenthe first space race and today?
Are we in for more chaos beforewe get some peace? And do you
think the space conundrum isreal? Let us know. Make sure to
like and subscribe. Hit the bellhere, if you're on YouTube, if
you love space content, and giveus a review on Spotify and Apple
(21:05):
podcast, we really appreciateit. Helps a lot. Give us a five
star review gets more people tosee the podcast. Make sure to
follow us at Today In Space podon Instagram and Twitter. Today
In Space on tick tock. Today InSpace podcast on Facebook, and
you can always email us at TodayIn Space podcast@gmail.com
especially if you have an ideafor the podcast, a question
(21:27):
about space, all things space,or if you have someone or
yourself who would like to be onour people of science to have an
interview with us and we canchat about all things space.
Make sure to spread love andspread science. Keep Looking Up,
stay curious and be good toyourself. Thanks for joining us
for another episode of the AllThings Space Science podcast
(21:47):
Today In Space we'll see you onthe next episode. You
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