February 20, 2023 • 18 mins
This week on Strive Seek Find we dip into science news and NASA's development of a Nuclear Rocket Engine and how it could impact our future.
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:06):
Hello there friends, both old and new. Welcome to the
strive seek fame podcast. I'myour host, Chad Whitmore, home
to bite size, lifestyle advicefrom a fellow traveler on the
road to a better life. Broughtto you by someone who is a
longtime educator, writer,parent, and an outdoor
(00:30):
enthusiast, who may just maylike a good draft, because our
future is set not just throughour choices, but by our
willingness to explore and finda better way. Welcome back. So
(00:54):
my first episode of thispodcast, strive seek find if you
didn't know it, you're listeningto closing on three years ago,
is one of two to three episodesthat have been completed that
have never, ever been released.
Yeah. And there's good reasonfor that. And I'm going to as an
(01:18):
aside on this, that doesn'tinclude all of the episodes that
I have sit on the computer, halfwritten that I didn't think I
should finish that I didn'tthink worked for hundreds
(01:38):
different reasons. So I couldprobably have 300 episodes if I
could ever finish any of those.
But this episode was right outof the gate right after I'd done
the trailer, which looking back.
Obviously, your first few arerough. I would say my first.
(01:59):
Well, I'm saying I'm prettyrough for us Still right now.
But this episode, which Ithought was I was so excited to
do so pumped up about wanted toshare was on my 10 favorite
favorites, the wrong word inthis case, because that would
(02:21):
have been a different list. But10 most important or most
influential novels I've everread, not the nonfiction books
that I love. But the 10 mostinfluential novels I ever read.
And if you've known me for anylength of time, and since I
didn't script this out, you'regonna get probably 100 ads per
(02:44):
sentence. And many of the novelseither fit in the heading of
science fiction or fantasybecause I was dealing with
novels. I love good nonfiction.
(03:05):
But the fact is, I cut my teethas a teenager on science fiction
that I grabbed off my dad'sshelf. And it grew. Side note on
the list. I don't know if I Iwas really thinking as clearly
as I'd like in my excitement,because I was telling stories
(03:29):
about books that taught me toread that should be an episode
of its own looking back. In thiscase, it brings me to the news
because that science fictionpiece I'm still a science
fiction fan, possibly fanatic tothis day for found an article,
(03:57):
and it had me excited and I wantto share simply this, that 2027
Which ladies and gentlemen,isn't that far away at this
point. Even though it stillsounds like it's distantly in
the future. NASA will be testinga new killer thruster. Now, why
(04:23):
is this important? It opensdoors for space exploration. And
for me, that's, I can't tell youhow exciting that makes me
because every time you turnedaround for the last, I don't
know, forever. My it seems likethe news that came out, made it
(04:46):
more and more difficult anddangerous to traverse space. And
this doesn't take away thedangerous aspect. But it gives a
little bit of hope. Because Ihonestly will Leave. And I'm
going to tag on to StephenHawking someone much brighter
(05:07):
than myself that the only waythat our species survives in the
long long term is if we're notcompletely and totally dependent
upon the planet on which we nowreside. Because, well, let's
(05:27):
face it on one level, we don'talways treat it that well. And
anytime you have a population100% of a population in a given
place, it's much easier to wipeit out. Hawking would talk about
gamma ray bursts being one way,I have read stuff that talked
(05:49):
about micro black holes,screwing things up. And of
course, there's the old dinosaurkilling favorite, the asteroid.
All in all, having more of usliving someplace else, on some
level, as difficult anddangerous as that may sound. And
(06:13):
it sounds pretty difficult anddangerous. is a probably a
pretty good idea if we want toexist as a species and another
millennia. So in this case, thisnuclear thruster is supposed to
(06:35):
reduce the time to Mars to 45days. To put that in
perspective, the best we can doand get back with humans at this
point. In large part because ofthe fuel for the chemical
thrusters, and boosters andwhatever else is seven months.
(07:02):
So you're talking years on atrip to Mars, and no hope.
Unless you had another one ondeck and already traveling, so
to speak another mission on itsway, a rescue missions. 45 days
changes things. It makes itattainable. It makes it
(07:26):
plausible. It doesn't make itless expensive, especially at
first, but it opens that door.
Now, why does this matter? Otherthan the pure time because we've
had probes there we've hadprobes there for you know,
as to recently we've had alander that had a helicopter
(07:53):
taking on, on and off of it,little drone on Mars, flying
around the Martian landscape,not far behind you. But it was a
new tool that scientists coulduse to take a look at things. In
this case, I'll just point tothe things that come to my mind.
(08:17):
And forgive me, this is metalking about something I care
about. And not scripting, orresearching, just talking for a
few minutes. And now a word fromour sponsor.
We asked dad how we how I couldhelp his podcast so he said I
(08:38):
could make a commercial. Let'shelp get the word out. share
this podcast with your friends.
This is so important. We all getbusy. Just as simple share helps
keep people in the loop. One wayyou can do this is tagging the
show or using the keep seekinghashtag when you are talking
(08:59):
about the show. Or leave areview on Apple podcasts or pod
chaser reviews help people findthe pod and finally, if you want
to help keep the lights on he'sgot a buy me a coffee setup,
keep him and research materialsso he can keep putting out more
(09:22):
strive seek fine. The link is inthe show notes. Thanks for
listening to strive seek site.
And thanks to Katrina for doingthe hat for this week. Really
appreciate it sweetheart. Inaddition, let me add that my
current since I did someChristmas money upgrades on on
(09:45):
my setup. My next goal is to getthree more of these mics I'm
using so I can do moreroundtable stuff, and I'm
looking forward to it. But fornow, let's get back to Oh ters
pay In the things that can comeout of a Martian trip. First
(10:09):
off, there's the obvious. Whenwe use technology, we tend to
improve it. So we get thesethrusters going, these nucular
thrusters going, we're going tolearn a lot about it. And we're
going to learn a lot about howto set up a. And they're going
to improve. Let's be honest,these have been a big part of
(10:33):
science fiction for decades.
Recent recently, you probablysaw a variation on fusion drives
on the expanse on television.
You've seen them in hundreds ofother shows and books dating
back to the 60s, this they, theyknew that this was the way to
(10:57):
move between planets, based onthe technology they had. Let's
face it, the moon is a wonderfulgoal. But looking back
historically, Wernher von Braun,you know, the German who was a
(11:17):
member of the Nazi Party, whoplayed a huge role in us getting
our rocket program off theground with his fellows that we
got out of Germany. Grateful forthat part. He's a problematic
historical individual,obviously. He had an idea, he
(11:41):
did not want to go to the moon,he was thought that the moon was
someplace to take pictures anddrop flags. Even in the in the
50s, he was thinking, the goalshould be Mars, he had this idea
of big arc, like spaceshipstaking the long journey. The
(12:03):
Dream we're closer to the dreamthan we ever have been before.
And those nuclear boosters couldbe a big part of it, and could
open up the entire solar systemas we get better at them. And
who knows, in another millennia,may be open up the farther star
systems we also have to considerwhat we can learn from trying to
(12:25):
get very inhospitable soil intoworking order to grow crops. If
you've seen the Martian, orReddit, you know that that was a
big part of the challenges forthe survivor there on his
Martian mission. Let's face it,if you live like in an urban
(12:47):
area, or a place that is movingrapidly from farmland, a lot
more urban, you know how fastlywe're burning turning arable
farmland, into houses, apartmentcomplexes, strip malls,
eventually, we're going to needto figure out how to grow more
food than we have land.
(13:09):
For. On top of that, you have tolook at things like
environmental sciences. If wecan learn something from this
trip by studying the atmosphereof Mars, and trying to figure
out how to terraform it, let'ssay, maybe we can figure out how
(13:30):
to undo the some of the damagewe've done here. We don't know
all the benefits, but we knowthat they will be there.
And that's exciting. Outside ofthe survival impacts, I think
I've already I know I've talkedabout that at nauseam already.
(13:53):
There's another piece of thisbeyond just purely survival,
because ultimately, survival isnot enough for a species. And
this may be me being a dreamer.
And I'm okay with that. I'd liketo believe that we all have a
little bit of explorer in oursoul, whether it's the small
scale of trying new foods orhiking in new places, to what
(14:16):
our ancestors did, crossing theworld on foot on horseback, on
sail driven ships, to see what'sover the next horizon and
discover what's out there. Andthat's powerful. The problem is,
if that drive isn't taken up byexploration, it rapidly becomes
(14:44):
something else. And whetherthat's conquest or whether
that's apathy, I'm not surewhich is worse. They both end up
in a bad place and My mind rightnow I'm feeling like it struck
me as I started talking aboutthis. And if you've ever seen
(15:07):
the Disney film, Big Hero Six,they have the character that's
the science enthusiast. Kind ofa science fanboy rather than a
scientist. I am absolutely thatcharacter right now. Other than
wanting to dress up like inmonster movie attire. But this
(15:31):
stuff does excite me because itgives me hope for the future.
Because that's really going tobe what drives us forward. We
need new goals. We need newfocus. And it's probably going
(15:52):
to end up being a rant someplaceelse along the way. idealizing
someone who is traveling thestars, beyond science fiction, I
mean, it's not going to be StarTrek. It's not going to be the
(16:12):
expanse, it's probably going tobe closer to the expanse than
the Star Trek, mind you. Butsomeone who's out there doing
it. It's so much more powerfulthan idolizing an individual who
can do a tick tock dance who'smaking bank off of YouTube it's
(16:37):
important to drive us forward.
And you don't do that by beingan influencer. And preachy
moment. In other words, tosummarize here, spaces cool
(17:02):
spaces dangerous. We have a lotto learn. But there's a
discovery that has the potentialto drive us forward in ways that
what wasn't even truly possible,even five years ago. And folks,
that's incredible. Agree with medisagree with me. Please reach
(17:24):
out. Let me know. I'd love tohave a conversation. Until next
time, friends. Well, friends,that's it for this week's
edition of strife seek find.
Thank you again for listening.
If you'd like to join thediscussion, or have ideas for
future episodes, hop on over tothe strife seek find podcast
(17:45):
group on Facebook.
Alternatively, if Facebook's notyour thing, you can find me on
Instagram at strife seek findpodcast on Twitter, as at chance
Whitmore five, or even on email.
Links for all those are in theshow notes below. Until next
(18:06):
time, my friends, keep seekingyour own brilliant future
Hello there friends, both old and new. Welcome to the
strive seek fame podcast. I'myour host, Chad Whitmore, home
to bite size, lifestyle advicefrom a fellow traveler on the
road to a better life. Broughtto you by someone who is a
longtime educator, writer,parent, and an outdoor
(00:30):
enthusiast, who may just maylike a good draft, because our
future is set not just throughour choices, but by our
willingness to explore and finda better way. Welcome back. So
(00:54):
my first episode of thispodcast, strive seek find if you
didn't know it, you're listeningto closing on three years ago,
is one of two to three episodesthat have been completed that
have never, ever been released.
Yeah. And there's good reasonfor that. And I'm going to as an
(01:18):
aside on this, that doesn'tinclude all of the episodes that
I have sit on the computer, halfwritten that I didn't think I
should finish that I didn'tthink worked for hundreds
(01:38):
different reasons. So I couldprobably have 300 episodes if I
could ever finish any of those.
But this episode was right outof the gate right after I'd done
the trailer, which looking back.
Obviously, your first few arerough. I would say my first.
(01:59):
Well, I'm saying I'm prettyrough for us Still right now.
But this episode, which Ithought was I was so excited to
do so pumped up about wanted toshare was on my 10 favorite
favorites, the wrong word inthis case, because that would
(02:21):
have been a different list. But10 most important or most
influential novels I've everread, not the nonfiction books
that I love. But the 10 mostinfluential novels I ever read.
And if you've known me for anylength of time, and since I
didn't script this out, you'regonna get probably 100 ads per
(02:44):
sentence. And many of the novelseither fit in the heading of
science fiction or fantasybecause I was dealing with
novels. I love good nonfiction.
(03:05):
But the fact is, I cut my teethas a teenager on science fiction
that I grabbed off my dad'sshelf. And it grew. Side note on
the list. I don't know if I Iwas really thinking as clearly
as I'd like in my excitement,because I was telling stories
(03:29):
about books that taught me toread that should be an episode
of its own looking back. In thiscase, it brings me to the news
because that science fictionpiece I'm still a science
fiction fan, possibly fanatic tothis day for found an article,
(03:57):
and it had me excited and I wantto share simply this, that 2027
Which ladies and gentlemen,isn't that far away at this
point. Even though it stillsounds like it's distantly in
the future. NASA will be testinga new killer thruster. Now, why
(04:23):
is this important? It opensdoors for space exploration. And
for me, that's, I can't tell youhow exciting that makes me
because every time you turnedaround for the last, I don't
know, forever. My it seems likethe news that came out, made it
(04:46):
more and more difficult anddangerous to traverse space. And
this doesn't take away thedangerous aspect. But it gives a
little bit of hope. Because Ihonestly will Leave. And I'm
going to tag on to StephenHawking someone much brighter
(05:07):
than myself that the only waythat our species survives in the
long long term is if we're notcompletely and totally dependent
upon the planet on which we nowreside. Because, well, let's
(05:27):
face it on one level, we don'talways treat it that well. And
anytime you have a population100% of a population in a given
place, it's much easier to wipeit out. Hawking would talk about
gamma ray bursts being one way,I have read stuff that talked
(05:49):
about micro black holes,screwing things up. And of
course, there's the old dinosaurkilling favorite, the asteroid.
All in all, having more of usliving someplace else, on some
level, as difficult anddangerous as that may sound. And
(06:13):
it sounds pretty difficult anddangerous. is a probably a
pretty good idea if we want toexist as a species and another
millennia. So in this case, thisnuclear thruster is supposed to
(06:35):
reduce the time to Mars to 45days. To put that in
perspective, the best we can doand get back with humans at this
point. In large part because ofthe fuel for the chemical
thrusters, and boosters andwhatever else is seven months.
(07:02):
So you're talking years on atrip to Mars, and no hope.
Unless you had another one ondeck and already traveling, so
to speak another mission on itsway, a rescue missions. 45 days
changes things. It makes itattainable. It makes it
(07:26):
plausible. It doesn't make itless expensive, especially at
first, but it opens that door.
Now, why does this matter? Otherthan the pure time because we've
had probes there we've hadprobes there for you know,
as to recently we've had alander that had a helicopter
(07:53):
taking on, on and off of it,little drone on Mars, flying
around the Martian landscape,not far behind you. But it was a
new tool that scientists coulduse to take a look at things. In
this case, I'll just point tothe things that come to my mind.
(08:17):
And forgive me, this is metalking about something I care
about. And not scripting, orresearching, just talking for a
few minutes. And now a word fromour sponsor.
We asked dad how we how I couldhelp his podcast so he said I
(08:38):
could make a commercial. Let'shelp get the word out. share
this podcast with your friends.
This is so important. We all getbusy. Just as simple share helps
keep people in the loop. One wayyou can do this is tagging the
show or using the keep seekinghashtag when you are talking
(08:59):
about the show. Or leave areview on Apple podcasts or pod
chaser reviews help people findthe pod and finally, if you want
to help keep the lights on he'sgot a buy me a coffee setup,
keep him and research materialsso he can keep putting out more
(09:22):
strive seek fine. The link is inthe show notes. Thanks for
listening to strive seek site.
And thanks to Katrina for doingthe hat for this week. Really
appreciate it sweetheart. Inaddition, let me add that my
current since I did someChristmas money upgrades on on
(09:45):
my setup. My next goal is to getthree more of these mics I'm
using so I can do moreroundtable stuff, and I'm
looking forward to it. But fornow, let's get back to Oh ters
pay In the things that can comeout of a Martian trip. First
(10:09):
off, there's the obvious. Whenwe use technology, we tend to
improve it. So we get thesethrusters going, these nucular
thrusters going, we're going tolearn a lot about it. And we're
going to learn a lot about howto set up a. And they're going
to improve. Let's be honest,these have been a big part of
(10:33):
science fiction for decades.
Recent recently, you probablysaw a variation on fusion drives
on the expanse on television.
You've seen them in hundreds ofother shows and books dating
back to the 60s, this they, theyknew that this was the way to
(10:57):
move between planets, based onthe technology they had. Let's
face it, the moon is a wonderfulgoal. But looking back
historically, Wernher von Braun,you know, the German who was a
(11:17):
member of the Nazi Party, whoplayed a huge role in us getting
our rocket program off theground with his fellows that we
got out of Germany. Grateful forthat part. He's a problematic
historical individual,obviously. He had an idea, he
(11:41):
did not want to go to the moon,he was thought that the moon was
someplace to take pictures anddrop flags. Even in the in the
50s, he was thinking, the goalshould be Mars, he had this idea
of big arc, like spaceshipstaking the long journey. The
(12:03):
Dream we're closer to the dreamthan we ever have been before.
And those nuclear boosters couldbe a big part of it, and could
open up the entire solar systemas we get better at them. And
who knows, in another millennia,may be open up the farther star
systems we also have to considerwhat we can learn from trying to
(12:25):
get very inhospitable soil intoworking order to grow crops. If
you've seen the Martian, orReddit, you know that that was a
big part of the challenges forthe survivor there on his
Martian mission. Let's face it,if you live like in an urban
(12:47):
area, or a place that is movingrapidly from farmland, a lot
more urban, you know how fastlywe're burning turning arable
farmland, into houses, apartmentcomplexes, strip malls,
eventually, we're going to needto figure out how to grow more
food than we have land.
(13:09):
For. On top of that, you have tolook at things like
environmental sciences. If wecan learn something from this
trip by studying the atmosphereof Mars, and trying to figure
out how to terraform it, let'ssay, maybe we can figure out how
(13:30):
to undo the some of the damagewe've done here. We don't know
all the benefits, but we knowthat they will be there.
And that's exciting. Outside ofthe survival impacts, I think
I've already I know I've talkedabout that at nauseam already.
(13:53):
There's another piece of thisbeyond just purely survival,
because ultimately, survival isnot enough for a species. And
this may be me being a dreamer.
And I'm okay with that. I'd liketo believe that we all have a
little bit of explorer in oursoul, whether it's the small
scale of trying new foods orhiking in new places, to what
(14:16):
our ancestors did, crossing theworld on foot on horseback, on
sail driven ships, to see what'sover the next horizon and
discover what's out there. Andthat's powerful. The problem is,
if that drive isn't taken up byexploration, it rapidly becomes
(14:44):
something else. And whetherthat's conquest or whether
that's apathy, I'm not surewhich is worse. They both end up
in a bad place and My mind rightnow I'm feeling like it struck
me as I started talking aboutthis. And if you've ever seen
(15:07):
the Disney film, Big Hero Six,they have the character that's
the science enthusiast. Kind ofa science fanboy rather than a
scientist. I am absolutely thatcharacter right now. Other than
wanting to dress up like inmonster movie attire. But this
(15:31):
stuff does excite me because itgives me hope for the future.
Because that's really going tobe what drives us forward. We
need new goals. We need newfocus. And it's probably going
(15:52):
to end up being a rant someplaceelse along the way. idealizing
someone who is traveling thestars, beyond science fiction, I
mean, it's not going to be StarTrek. It's not going to be the
(16:12):
expanse, it's probably going tobe closer to the expanse than
the Star Trek, mind you. Butsomeone who's out there doing
it. It's so much more powerfulthan idolizing an individual who
can do a tick tock dance who'smaking bank off of YouTube it's
(16:37):
important to drive us forward.
And you don't do that by beingan influencer. And preachy
moment. In other words, tosummarize here, spaces cool
(17:02):
spaces dangerous. We have a lotto learn. But there's a
discovery that has the potentialto drive us forward in ways that
what wasn't even truly possible,even five years ago. And folks,
that's incredible. Agree with medisagree with me. Please reach
(17:24):
out. Let me know. I'd love tohave a conversation. Until next
time, friends. Well, friends,that's it for this week's
edition of strife seek find.
Thank you again for listening.
If you'd like to join thediscussion, or have ideas for
future episodes, hop on over tothe strife seek find podcast
(17:45):
group on Facebook.
Alternatively, if Facebook's notyour thing, you can find me on
Instagram at strife seek findpodcast on Twitter, as at chance
Whitmore five, or even on email.
Links for all those are in theshow notes below. Until next
(18:06):
time, my friends, keep seekingyour own brilliant future
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