Moon is the First Step To Human Salvation w/ Dennis Poulus #10

Hello, everyone. This is David Goldsmith, and welcome to the project Moon Hut podcast series, the age of infinite, where we're looking to learn from individuals from around the world about sustainable life on the moon through the accelerated development of an earth and space based ecosystem. For us, the desired outcome is to change how we live on earth for all species. We have a phenomenal guest on the line, Dennis Poulos. He looking through his history, it is incredible what he's done.

Probably, he's had this singled out many, many times. It is he is a he was a pilot in the US Navy and Marine Corps with over 35 100 hours. But the big thing it tops it off is he was a top gun. So if you've seen the movie with now I can't even remember his name. Who's the movie guy? Tom, Tom Cruise. He was a top gun. So he he was also director of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems and their advanced concept groups and a certifiable space geek as he calls himself. Hello, Dennis. How are you?

Hey, David. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. I'm doing fantastic. Beautiful day today. We we had decided that our topic today was going to be moon is the first step to human salvation. Very interesting direction. Hopefully, we could take this. So you have a full few bullet points that you can share with us to get us started? Yeah. In thinking about, about this, and and I've spent a lot of time thinking about this over the last 65 years. So you can't be you can't be 49 at 65 years.

No. I'm not 49 anymore. I haven't been for a while. There in in what bothers me, what concerns me, I'm I've always been more concerned with the, human me? What concerns me? I've always been more concerned with the human species than anything in particular. I'm a great believer in country and all that kind of stuff. But in the long run, my concern is with the salvation of human species.

And there are numerous existential threats to the human species, even more than those that are, you know, commonly thought of nowadays. And I'm thinking about stuff that's a little more esoteric than that. And it's my firm belief that space offers one thing, which life here on Earth can't necessarily offer, and that is that physical separation at times is required for a species to continue to exist and to evolve.

And so space faring species, I think, is really important for the human both here on Earth and for the evolution of the species altogether and the continued evolution. And then, you know, there are numerous side effects to go into space. As with anything, there's good sides and bad sides. But there is so much potential and hope offered in becoming a space faring species that it just like you talk about, it's it offers the age of infinite.

And, you know, the moon is kind of the first step, and I really push the moon myself, whenever I talk to anybody. And and I've been, you know, a a moon gig for a long time because it really is the first step to being able to achieve all the rest of this stuff. So that's those are the kind of, you know, basic points that I've always push when I talk to people.

So I'm gonna I'm gonna break it down into threats, physical separation, and to evolve side effects, and then moon the first steps with the age of infinite and what comes from that. Does that sound a good way to Sure. To cut it? Absolutely. Okay. Yep. So let's start with, the first one, which are threats. What are these threats? Well, it I, you know, I I watch a lot of, TV in 60 minutes and, read a lot of stuff.

And one of the things that really kinda got to me many, many years ago, 10, 15, 20, I don't know, is, this this, thing about, Yellowstone being a supervolcano, and they didn't really understand what that meant many years ago. And then, so when they talked about, a, a a a detonation of the supervolcano there, it it it turns out that some people were listening in a scientific conference, and they go, hey.

You know, we noticed that there was a mass extinction event about that same time, and then there was another group of people doing mitochondrial So just I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna stop you for a minute. If you can, assume I don't know anything, assume I'm living right now for example, I'm in Hong Kong. What is the supervolcano? What is Yellowstone? What's give me some a little bit more details. Well, you know, a a a volcano a volcano normally, you know, is, you know, a big mountain.

You know, you get a caldera, and and the caldera explodes. I mean, you know, Vesuvius and all that kind of stuff. Yellowstone itself is about a I think the numbers I was seeing is, like, 60 mile wide by a 120 mile long supervolcano that at one point, some 6000 years ago, blew up, and it put enough stuff in the atmosphere that it turns out through various different studies, the human species was almost extinct at that point. So 60000 years ago, we almost went away.

And so it it started me thinking about this concept that there were existential threats, meaning to me that things we can't necessarily do anything about from a technical perspective, from a societal perspective. You know? Global warming, we can do something about it. Whether we will or not, I don't know. Plastics in the environment, we can do something about it.

It certainly represents a threat to the human species, but these are kinds of events that, that really are almost uncontrollable, and and they present, like I said, an existential threat to the entire species. We could go away. I mean, you know, everybody worries about a comet or a asteroid coming in and, taking out the Earth, and, you know, that certainly has happened. So I I'm I'm constantly So so give me a give me a few of these threats. I mean, we've got the supervolcano.

Sure. Are you are you talking about what are the threats that you have on your list? Well, let me let me finish up with the supervolcano for a second. As it turns out, somebody was doing mitochondrial DNA analysis, and as at one point, apparently, the human species was down to something like a 1000 to 6000 individuals in the entire world. Wow. And that was about 6000 years ago.

So that, you know, they went through all the mitochondrial DNA, and they traced it down to something in the area of about 1 to 6000 individuals alive at that point. You know, we always think of the human species as, you know, being ever present, always, everywhere, and and, apparently, we almost went away. And, that that just I don't it it blew my mind. I I did not understand that. I did not know that there was that kind of threat to the human species.

Coming to today, I mean, there's there's other ones out there. I don't know how many I don't know if you know about a Carrington level event. No. I I solar flare. What what is it called? The Carrington? Carrington. And what Carrington he was an astronomer during the 1800, and he noticed a a solar flare. And he was writing about it, and he started noticing around the world different news articles.

And we were just getting into the age of, trains and telegraphs and stuff, and and there was a period where, telegraph wires all flamed down at the same time, and it burned up. Train trestles and that kind of stuff hold on for just a second. Let me quiet this one down. All the the train tracks and train trestles started to burn up spontaneously. And so what had happened was there was an electromagnetic event before the industrial revolution that was a very substantial event.

And it turns out about every 300 years or so, there's generally a Carrington level event, a solar flare that impacts the Earth. We just missed one about 4 years ago. We were 7 days ahead of it in the rotation around the sun. So we were just just missed it by about a week. And, the last studies that I had seen says that about 60% of the human population will die off within 1 year of the Carrington level event because we're not prepared to live without technology. Yeah. Computers go away.

The electrical system goes away. The Internet goes away unless it's been specifically hardened, and no industrial nation at this point is hardening in preparation for a Carrington level event. So well and people ask me, you know, why would the electrical system go away? Well, as it turns out, one of the big parts of the electrical system are transformers.

There are literally millions of transformers around, but they're so substantial and they last for so long that we only have an industrial capacity to build something like 6000 or 60,000. I don't know what that means. Some some ridiculously If you take out the entire world's number of transformers, you can't rebuild the electrical system in a year or 2. You don't have the industrial capacity. You can't build up the industrial capacity. We don't have the computer controlled systems to do it.

So we're talking at that point, rampant disease, money goes away. I mean, literally, the world goes back, 800 years in in a single, no, I don't know, 5 minute period. And so, you know, those are the kinds of existential threats. Let me sort of talk about another one that, really, always kind of concerns me. In talking to Pete Wharton, this this is what came to, what what he made me understand at one point, and that's that we do a lot of experimentation with DNA.

And, frankly, we're a very smart species, but we're we're not that smart. So we put in a lot of safeguards to, prevent DNA, the experiment on DNA that could be very villerent. We we safeguard it with all sorts of different things. But I think we all know that no matter how you safeguard something, sooner or later, it's gonna get out there. It's gonna get in the wild. And and, frankly, we don't know what the effect of that would be.

One of the things Pete talked about was, all medical research should be done on the moon because there's physical separation, which is a natural barrier. We can talk a lot more about that later. So, you know, there's just an infinite number of existential threats to life today that, really puts the human existence in question. We always assume that, you know, we as a species are going to survive. And I don't ever assume that because I don't know that that's necessarily a true statement.

Another one that I I'm a pilot. I love to fly. I I think flying is the greatest thing. It's it's it's been, a generator of more economic activity. It has brought the world closer together. It has done all sorts of things. But, you know, we all know that in the early 1900, 1914, I think it was, the Spanish flu, it wiped out, what, 30% of the world's population. And that is a time when the physical connectedness between species and between towns and areas was very limited.

I mean, it took months to get across the ocean and that kind of stuff, or at least weeks. So, you know, if if something were to come in the way of a biological threat, the fact that we're so interconnected with flying, I you always see it on science fiction, and and I think there's a lot more truth to it than fiction. There could be an existential threat to the human species because of something either we did or, something that just comes out naturally.

As we go through global warming, different viruses are now coming out that haven't been seen in 30 or 4000 years that we're not Well, that was the wasn't that the the movie Outbreak? Yeah. That was one of them. That was a a classic. And I believe, just in the side, I believe that movie was created as a propaganda tool to get people to start understanding that these are potential risks. I did not realize that but I think Someone had told me stop doing it.

Some someone told me that one of the reasons that it was produced is they'd gotten together and they figured the human population has to know about this so why don't we create a movie that depicts what's going on? And the the the inch an interesting aside to the aside is that, they they show 2 pictures of Hong Kong because that's where it started. And one of them is not Hong Kong, I believe. I think someone said to me, no. No. That that's actually Macau, but that's not Macau.

So it was yet they they kind of mixing their own and making their own narrative to show that once you have something of virulent strain, it could be passed along around the world. So it was a when you notice it from that perspective, they were trying to educate the populace. Yeah. We we've used, media, movies and that kind of stuff in many ways, many times to educate the populace, and I think, you know, to to a good effect. And then sometimes we put garbage out there that just is pathetic.

We we, you know, and people pick up on it and they do strange things, and, you know, I it it yes. Media could be used very effectively for that kind of thing. So absolutely. So so biologicals threat, the Spanish fly. What what others yeah. It's funny because as you're talking to me, my mind is racing. What are those threats? And I I've always gone we we always go to the asteroid. We always go to certain categories, and I don't have a lot in my head. What else would there be out there? The, jeez.

What is it? The the not the FDA, but the, the guys in Atlanta. The the CDC? Guys in Atlanta. Yeah. See. Has, has what they call disease control. Yeah. Right. Has what they call, virus x. And this is what they do various, apparently, war gaming efforts and, preparation for us and that kind of stuff.

And and their hypothesis is that there is a virus out there somewhere in a in a jungle or up in Alaska when the the global warming gets things free or some other virus, which it just cannot be stopped effectively and quick enough. They cannot respond with any kind of vaccines or anything else, fast enough, and it spreads fast enough. And, basically, infection this period is, like, within a day, but you don't see symptoms within 10 days, that kind of stuff.

You know, there's there's any of a number of biological threats that we could be facing. We don't know what's out there in space, and we don't know we we know that stuff rains down on us constantly, and so we don't know what kind of viruses could have survived in space and just magically show up in an asteroid, in a comet, in anything.

So there's we could sit down all day long and and go through the the list of various threats to the human species, but we we gotta sit down as a as a species and and start looking at how do we get our species protected, and and how do we survive when one of those things impacts a geographic area. And geographic area, in my terms, is Earth. Do we have people off Earth? Do we have the genome off Earth? Is that a better place? Is that a worse place?

Is can we do things off Earth that will impact, the survivability on Earth? All of those things are so important that we need to sit down and take a look at it. And as a species, we've never had that thought pattern nor we ever sat down and and, you know, we've only been flying in space for 60 years. So I I thought, Dennis, I really thought you were going to say that I'm on f, so I'm doing out letters. I thought you were going to say and the apes are gonna rise up. Oh, no. I come on.

This guy this is the planet of the apes. I mean, that's that's is it isn't that a true story? Yeah. It it I mean, it it could happen. I don't have enough of a creative imagination to think of all the things that could happen, but, clearly, the the the list is much longer than those things that we are currently thinking about. You know, I I I I've got to be very careful here not to sound too crazy, but I certainly believe that there's life outside earth.

And and just like when the conquistadors came over and visited our good friends in South America, that didn't work out very well for them. So we don't know if we could get a message and something bad happens because, the message tells us to do something, or or somebody something visits us. You you could go absolutely crazy thinking about all of the various ways that bad stuff could happen. And And, and Maybe maybe there's something to be said for not believing.

Yeah. Yeah. If you don't believe, you don't have to worry about it. You don't you don't wake up thinking about these things as you've said for 65 years. So But anyway. Let me just step off for for one second on this one. Yeah. And Yeah. Historically, I I like to look at the history. The age of the Viking in in, in Britain, the British had to survive the incursions of the Vikings. And what they learned to do as a species was to turn out the, lights, the lighthouses.

They would turn off they would put out the burning fires, fires that would be used for navigation by their own people. So as a matter of form, to sort of protect themselves from, the Viking invaders being able to land, today, I'm massively concerned that we're putting out huge amounts of electromagnetic energy, and it really is a lighthouse if anybody's looking for us, and and we're inviting the universe to come over here and knock on our door.

I would much rather find them and knock on their door than have them find us and knock on our door. So I'm I'm I do make the point at times that all the radios, all the radar, all the electromagnetic radiation, the TV, everything that we transmit out to the universe, that is a that is a beacon for somebody to come find us. And people go, why haven't we seen anybody else in the, in in the local galactic region? Why don't we find smart, intelligent species and their signals?

And maybe they learned the lesson that you don't advertise where you are because somebody else may come knocking at your door. So, you know, you can go crazy thinking about all of the ways that there could be threats to the human species.

I I I honest that was you you got me on that one because I had never thought about that our lights, just the the the, illumination of the planet, the radio frequencies, all of those human behaviors, human activities, human engagement will end up sending out a signal in that way. Yeah. It we're very clearly advertising our our, existence. The good news is 60 late years away, we're pretty sure that there's nobody that's we've found. So, you know, 60 years away, that's the first television signal.

So, you know, that's that's how far away we're advertising. Yeah. 300 years ago, it could be very Yeah. Well, I I I don't follow the same train of thought in terms of worrying that you do. It's one of the contentions or one of the beliefs that I think we have to use on Earth or in in space when thinking about space is that we use our own perceptions of how things should be done, could be done, may be done in order to understand the world.

We believe that you cannot go faster than the speed of light. We believe that there are certain guidelines for everything that we've learned so far. Yet another species that lives in another dimension or another that we've never heard or thought of, and I'm I'm going crazy here, please, if, if you have to take me and put me down, that's okay. That I think that we might be making many of those assumptions too about capabilities.

That something, somebody else, some way, some potential can jump, leapfrog, do something differently in the weekend. So being here at 60,000 light years away or whatever distance might not be the same jump that we're used to. So Yes. Just the thought. No. No. Absolutely. I mean, clearly, if there is extraterrestrial life that visits other areas, there's only 2 ways they can do it. 1 is faster than light transportation, you know, subspace. I don't know. You know, I'm a physics major.

You know, there is wormholes and all sorts of different things. Whether you can use them for navigation, I don't know. But the other way is that they could send out sub light speed, satellite or spaceships with, you know, people on them. And over multiple generations, they go find different places and they colonize it. And it may be a species that, their their imperative is to go colonize as many places as possible. You know, yeah, you're we think and you have had this conversation.

We think the way we were, the way we learned in the in the environments that we have been raised, society. I had being a navy brat and being in the navy myself, I spent time in Asia, and I I don't believe that the Asians see things anywhere near the same way that we do here in America nor the South Americans. There is a lot of commonality between the way we approach things, but there's a a lot of history there that makes us look at different things differently.

One of the great stories is, you you know, European exploration of the, the, the new new world. And we always think of only the Europeans as having done that exploration, but I learned, much to my surprise, like in the 14 or 1500, the Chinese had every bit as dynamic a exploration program, as, the Europeans did. And the Chinese, because they eat well, I've heard two reasons.

One is they, you know, they were xenophobic and were worried about other cultures, And the other one is that they never really did anything with their colonization programs. They didn't do anything economic. They just met different, societies, passed some beads off, says, you know, our emperor says, hi, and moved on. And so they never gained any economic benefit from it. Either way, the Chinese, within a period of about 30 years, just completely wiped out their exploration program.

They sank ships, they got rid of people, and they just stopped it like it, you know, hit a wall. So the Chinese saw exploration differently than the Europeans did. So I've been fortunate enough, having lived in many places around the world, to have seen many different societies, not all of them. And I certainly won't say that I understand them, but I do understand that, boy, there is a big difference between the way people look at things depending upon where you were raised.

And and I to to to piggyback on them, I had the the a similar type of, conditioning or learning experience about what happened. The Chinese went out to share their information while the Europeans went to conquer. Yes. And that differentiation was one was grabbing land mass territory and the other one was not.

The second that someone had, one book that I had read, and I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head, is that while we think of time as being linear, that things are happening in a linear linear format, you really have to think that there are linear conditions happening all over the world. So while the Vikings are doing x, there's another whole culture doing another whole whole life experience.

They they looked at the world differently, and we tend to think that, well, the the there was the there was this series and there was this series and there was World War 2 and there's World War 1 or what happened in line. But there are hundreds of different parallel universes or not universes, parallel lives happening.

So the aborigines or or a group that's in the Amazon does Amazon did not experience the same thing that we did as, as for example, in American culture going through the Vietnam War. They they didn't even know it existed. So there are so many different variations of the let's call it the I'm using a word, maybe it sounded right, the truth that we have to be conscious of. Yeah. So let's get on let's get on to the, the physical separation. What do you Go ahead. Go ahead. No. You tell me.

I'd be space faring. We must be space faring physical separation. What are your what are your thoughts? I I I firmly believe that, if if the human species is to live, pick a number, another 1000 years, 200 years, I don't know what the number is, at least in the form that it is now, some sort of an industrialized species, We have to be able to mitigate the effects of this tight interconnectedness that we have as a species.

I mean, in many ways, this this interconnectedness is is a wonderful thing. It has brought sharing of information. It has brought, the opportunity to do economic trade and and learn things. And, you know, the the world is becoming a smaller place, because we fly, because of all the other things that we do. But the other risk to that is being homogeneous is not necessarily a good thing.

I believe that we probably had much more political evolution in the period when we didn't, as a species, have the interconnectedness that we have now. Different places had different approaches to things. The laws in Germany were not necessarily affected by the laws in Guyana, you know, and and so, there I'm a big believer in chaos for a species. The only way that evolution happens is by chaos. And as we get more and more interconnected, there's a tighter and tighter cap put on chaos.

We we tend to fight chaos as a species. And, you know, at the conference that you and I were both at where I met you, there was that one session, I think it was probably the last session, when we were talking about how do we make laws, pass regulations, how do we do all of this kind of stuff to make sure that, space exploration is for the common human good of all human species or the all all humankind.

And and I guess at one point, I I said, jeez, you know, I was really hoping by this point in my life that I would be at least 1 astronautical unit away from this very discussion. And and I meant that in in all seriousness. When I was growing up, I man, I thought we were we were going there as a species, and then space turned into a political football. We were seeing a golden age in space now. Separation allows both the chaos and the ability to evolve into different different political concepts.

It allows the species itself to evolve different. Here on earth, we're we're becoming very homogeneous. We are starting to become very interracial. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it is limiting all of the variations that we see in human species that have developed over the last 12000 years, and we're trying to sort of make that go away.

I'm gonna get really I'm going to You're you're just so you know, your your mic I don't know if your mic is you got your hand down the mic or I'm not hearing you as clearly. Okay. Well, let me yeah. Let me yeah. I I I'm I'm going to irritate a lot of people here, and and I I do relate a lot of things to, mass entertainment, but I'm I'm terrified of Facebook and Twitter and that kind of stuff, simply because I don't call them social networks. They're, Borg version 1 from the, Star Trek.

If you take a look at the different things that Gene Roddenberry wrote about with the Borg, being connected, almost being interconnected with people having implants in their brains, a common decision, working for the good of the, just the the Borg itself, assimilating. And and as somebody from the Borg were physically separated from the collective, you know, it was massive, depression, and they were alone and all of that kind of stuff.

And if you listen to some kids today is when they turn off Facebook, they they experienced many of the same kinds of of things. And and to a degree, we turn over our decision making to, the the collective. So, that kind of interconnectedness has its advantages, the the economics, the mechanics, the societal things that we're doing now. We're in a golden age, from economics, industrialization, technology, all of the things, and it's all enabled by interconnectedness.

But to a degree, there's also increased threats, and there's a lack of chaos and a lack of evolution in our thinking, that, the human species is having to deal with.

And that's why I do talk, or or or really think that physical separation, the moon for 1, is something that we absolutely need as a species, ultimately going, maybe to Mars, certainly out to the asteroid belt, will will allow us to continue to evolve as a species that almost force us to do that and and also provide some degree of separation from some of those threats, the biological threats.

You know, the Carrington level event where Earth gets wiped out technologically, but, you know, part of our genome could be out in the space, not anywhere near the solar flare, and continue to survive. So that's that's why You know, the the the Borg the Borg, version 1 is an interesting thought.

I don't wanna go too far into that, but that's a I I'm I'm thinking about what you have said, and I'm thinking about a conversation, a little texting, a email back and forth I have with one of the presidents of one of our companies where, I replied to this guy and said, you know, look. I didn't this isn't happening. This isn't happening. And he replied back in a very negative way. Well, you don't know what's happening.

And I I was speaking to Laurie last night, and I said, all I see is his posts on Facebook. So to me, his life looked exciting and everything was good and everything was happy and he was part of the collective sharing all of those experiences.

He had a whole another side of his life that he wasn't sharing and yet, with the artificial intelligence that's being used in China to be able to facial recognition and some of these other tools that are being developed, we could create where we understand the 3 60 perspective of someone's life at one time. So very interesting thought. I I you took me in a place I hadn't thought about, and now now I'm, now I'm scared. Just kidding.

Well, you know, I I I have been reading that the Chinese are now implementing social credit, by your Yes. Social profile, and that they're talking about limiting travel and sort of other things by how you appear in social media. That terrifies me. I mean, that does. It's just There's a there's a huge experiment and I don't know the province in China. It's the most western province.

There's a discussion about how they're afraid they're trying to control some of the dissidents and people are being facially recognized all day long but they're also going through security scans up to 7 times a day, 8 times a day. And everything they're doing is being monitored on their, cell phone, mobile phone. They're everything they're doing is being monitored one way, shape, or form.

And they are being given, like you're saying, a pat on the back for doing something that is prosocial based upon the social norms of China. And so, yes, we are we are experimenting with that around the world, and I don't think that will stop. So that's if you think of a cryptocurrency and a token, you're you're game of gamifying a certain behavior. So okay. So let's let's get on to the side effects with our time that we've got left. We've got about, 25 minutes.

We got side effects and then moon is the first step. So let's hit these side effects. What do you see? What what do you feel happening? Yeah. I mean, there's there's always, with any new technology, with any new, thing that comes along, there's always negative and and positive things. And and, you know, the the idea of going and mining the asteroid belt, belt. I mean, there is a phenomenal amount of wealth in the asteroid belt.

Just, thousands of times over what it exists here, you have to mine it. But the the amount of platinum that exists out there, the amount of gold, the of everything is is literally thousands of times over what can be actually reached here on earth. So that creates the ability for absolutely phenomenal wealth. But what it also does is it says that well, let me let me take another step back again. Diamonds. You know, everybody knows that diamonds are sort of the gold standard.

It's, it maintains its its price and its wealth and its value, But I also know that they mine a lot more diamonds than they release into the economy, and that is to maintain the price of the diamonds. You know, they there is a phenomenal amount of diamonds just sitting there and bolts and stuff.

So if we were to go out and mine the asteroid belt, we could create a phenomenal amount of wealth, or we could absolutely destroy the economy of the Earth by bringing all of that wealth back and just completely flooding markets so that nothing has any value. So that's that's the kind of thing that really concerns me.

I mean, again, I do a lot of science fiction, and, you know, there was some stuff on sci fi, about a moon colony and and competing economically and politically with the asteroid belt, which was competing and fighting with the, the Earth. And I think that that could be a good thing, and I think it could be a bad thing. It's certainly a threat. War is always a bad thing.

But what that has allowed in that science fiction series was a development of different political thought, political systems, political approaches. In some cases, the individual had, you know, a phenomenal amount of respect from the society, and in some cases, the individual, was nothing but a tool of society. So that to me is one of the benefits is the ability, again, to do, evolution of political thought by having physical separation.

People on in an asteroid belt that actually colonized an asteroid belt, somebody on Earth could tell them, you know, you have to do this, and you have to have a bank, and you have to have a credit card, and you have to have to have to. They're physically separated. They basically can go, hey, I want to do what I want to do and we're going to do this instead.

And so I think one of the benefits of going becoming a space faring species is the ability to experience, political thought, the evolution of political thought. So those are 2 of the benefits. The other one, certainly talk about, Pete and the fact that, you know, you could do, medical experimentation on the moon or out in space anywhere, and you have physical separation.

Even if a virus escaped, you're in a high radiation environment, and it really couldn't survive in, you know, being released accidentally into the environment on on the moon. So it's a self cleaning environment.

There's just so many things that could happen, not necessarily will happen, that could happen because we become a space faring species as too as adverse to a Earth centric, or an Earth only species, not necessarily an Earth centric, because I think we're gonna have people on earth and earth is going to control things for a long, long time. I I had never thought about the the phrase that you keep on using, the political, thought differences that are going to be generated.

And, yes, soon as you even though the science fiction brings it up, by being separated, you have the ability to say that's not how we do it here. That won't work here, we need to do it differently, and we have an evolution of a new way of thinking.

The on the asteroid side, as Project Moon Hut is looking at, or on the resource side, let's probably put it under a larger category, their the ability to have unlimited or the age of infinite, platinum and gold and selenium and, hydrogen 3 and any other element in the world that we are looking for, even energy being able to be brought onto the earth, will change how we live on earth.

I haven't really explored how that would translate, meaning I do know that there could be collapses of industries. The platinum industry would collapse if we could bring back a unlimited amount of platinum, and many others would. And at the same time, you try to play out the game that we're going to, off planet mining. We're gonna off planet some of the manufacturing areas that we, might be harmful here but maybe would not be harmful in space. And so the I don't know.

Do you know of anybody who's done any research to say there's the good and bad of these type of activities? I didn't No. I I well, I you know, I I don't know of anybody. I there may be somebody at Harvard that has done it, but, actually, the place where most of this research is being done is in popular entertainment and science fiction. And and let's go back, you know, a 100 years. Jules Verne experimented with the idea of nuclear submarines long before anybody had ever thought about doing them.

And that's that's just creative people in entertainment, going out and doing thought experiments. And and I think that if you go take a look at popular science fiction, there are an infinite number of stories of cultures that evolve off earth and evolve differently politically.

I'm I'm I really would like to I've I've often thought about doing it, but I really would like to see a science fiction series that sits sits down and looks at, human condition 300 years from now and and explores this concept of, you know, colonies in space and how they would manage their political political systems, versus colonies on asteroids and competing colonies. It it did come as part of the discussion, many, many years ago when they were talking first talking about the O'Neill spheres.

You know, there were 10 spheres out there. 1 of them may be a mining sphere. 1 of them may be an education sphere. And, you know, if there if there were 10 colonies in space, would they all necessarily behave the same way? Would they have different monetary systems? How would they interconnect? So there has been some thought experiments, but most of it is just in in social media not social media, but in popular media, science fiction, and that kind of stuff.

I'm I used to be a prolific reader of science fiction. I I will admit that I have stopped reading to a large degree, because in business, you read thousands of emails every day, and I'm just tired of reading. I'm looking forward to the day I can retire and actually go back and read science fiction again and exercise my mind. So, yeah, I don't know if anybody's done the studies. It might be worth it, but getting Yeah. Well, I think it would be to yeah.

I think it would, to some degree, to be able to aggregate or to give some framework so we can start evaluating. And you talk about the the political side. Well, this is governance. This is decisions that we would make. And if you had the the advantage of thought, the advantage of someone who has already thought it through, whether it be it doesn't have to be a person who follows governance or follows certain areas of expertise.

It could be I'm looking up the movie and I brought it up on one of the other audio casts is the set the the book Seven Eaves. Yes. And that's in the Reno Stevensons. I've got it on my book. I've got it on my nightstand to read because I really wanna read it. I've I was told by so many people to read the book that I had to read the book. So I read the book, and it does make you question a lot of exactly what you're saying.

So I thought that was a an interesting take, and you've kind of brought it back to me as a means of understanding understanding Mearth, which, moon and earth, understanding some of the initiatives that Project Moon Hut has in place, And I think I have to explore that a little bit more. Just, we we have yeah.

Cool. No. No. I was gonna say the the one thing that that I will caution you on, although it's not really a caution, it's just a comment, is we had a conversation earlier about the fact that depending upon where you grow up, it colors your approach, your way you think about things. And so having only lived in an Earth based culture, it would be hard, I think, for people I mean, you could do it. You get the right people together.

But it would be hard for people to sit down and really place themselves in a culture that exists only on the asteroid that is so far separated that people have never visited Earth, and and the only home they've ever known is an asteroid. And and it would be interesting to see how people would try to put themselves in that mentality so that they could understand what might evolve socially. And you're absolutely right.

It would be an impossibility if you the book that was, the Kelly brother who came back from space, I think the name of the book is Endurance. Yeah. He I did not read the book. I've read portions of the book. He the horrible time he had with certain bodily functions. You hear about the eye starting to become more round and not being able to see. There are a lot of challenges that we'll face in space.

And unless you've had that experience and we've just had our first person live in space, 340 days, before that it was 6 months. So we're just starting to understand what that means. And And what what's that gonna do genetically to a human being? Yeah. The first human beings that are born in space, that's gonna be massively interesting to see what that's going to do to them. So we we've got the the next 500 years of human history are going to be absolutely phenomenal.

And my only sadness is that I won't be alive to watch it because it would be phenomenal to sit down and watch. So so let's take on this last one. The the moon is the first step, the age of infinite. Let's let's end strong with what what are you thinking when you say this is the, the first step in human salvation? What's your frame of mind?

Yeah. What I'm what I'm talking about is is not salvation is becoming a better species or anything else, but salvation is in preventing the extension of the human species. So my thoughts and like I said, I've been a space geek for a very long time. I've I've always been one that said, we have to become a space faring species in order to survive. And and, you know, Stephen Hawking said the same thing, so, you know, I I I'm sorry.

I'll have to quell him because I was really thrilled to hear him say that. But yeah, we act we we've got to get physical separation, and the moon is the first logical step to to doing that. Right now, we live in low Earth environment. That really is it's not even Martha. It's just low Earth environment.

There are some physical things that we go do, but being 3 and a half days away and having to survive and create a a hut where people can live and do things, and then sooner or later, ultimately, there will be people there, children, so they have to have medical facilities. They have to have educational facilities.

You know, my my I have said at a couple of conferences just in a comment that the day that NASA moves its headquarters to the moon, and the day that Coca Cola puts a soda jerk, and I don't know people probably won't know what that means, but, put some kids sorting soda, to take care of the people working on the moon, those are the days when we will become a truly space faring species. And we will now start to evolve well beyond our our our cradle here on Earth. Earth will still be here.

It's never gonna go away. It's too many people are too controlled to leave it, and and many people, they can't stand the thought of of actually leaving the Earth. And then there's a few of us that would go, yeah. I'd leave in a heartbeat. So going to the moon is the is is the first step in learning how to survive in space and evolving into a space bearing species. That's that's my basic point. And then we have to do that as a species in order to survive.

We just can't continue to live here forever. The the challenge of space is there's the large part is developing the technology that will enable us to do that. Right. Do you Hold on. Just a minute. Pick up the phone. I got a business partner that's trying to get a hold of me. I'm sure he's pissed off at me now but that's okay. Well, it actually says pick up the phone. So he's he's pee he's yelling at you. Would yeah. I know it's a it's yours your, Ringtone. Your wringer.

The would when you think about space and the challenges that we've had and the fact the past 50 years has been more of a political mess than it has been an actually technological mess or technological advancement, do you what's your timeline for actually being able to live on the moon? Live. Not so we're going to have people gonna go going to go back and forth. They're going to stay for 3 weeks, 3 months, and then they come back.

When do you think the first living on the moon these people go and they say, we're not coming back. I'm I'm gonna stay here. This is my new home. That's that's it's an interesting question. You know, everybody that predicts what's going to happen in the future never gets it right.

You know, for those people not here in America's football or baseball or, excuse me, basketball, the, the 64 best teams, and they all play each other and, you know, number 1 should all play each other, and none of that ever happens. And and so you can't predict anything. But I I think that if we can keep space from being a political football so that when a new president gets elected, it his space program is anything but what the last guy was doing.

If we can keep space, economics of it and outside of political reasons, we could have people living permanently on the moon, We could have people living permanently on the moon easily within the next 50 years, and I would like to think that within the next 25 years, we could do that.

If it turns out that it's nothing but a political football, and and, on the darker side, let me say that I believe that there could be forces here on Earth that would be afraid of a truly space faring species because of the fact that the separation does not allow for as much control as many of the political institutions on Earth want. If they can, in fact, prevent us from going to space and becoming a space faring species, it could take much longer, 200 years.

Or, like the Chinese, we could just turn it all off tomorrow and and never become a space faring species. But I'd like to believe as an optimist that certainly within 25 years or, well, within 50 years and and hopefully within 25 years, I think we can become a permanent habitant of the moon itself. The the first meeting I had at NASA 4 years ago this month, 4 years ago this month, somewhere in that time, but we've been doing this for 4 years.

It was somewhat to the the conversation was somewhat around the political challenges and that we could have been there, should have been there.

There are a variety of reasons we haven't, and I just thinking about it to some degree, Project Moon Hut and the way we're addressing, bringing a collective group of individuals together to look at alliance development, to increase innovation, to get there faster, to change how we think, the concept of Mearth, as well as the the, billion hearts and mind project component, as well as the governance side is doing some of what you're asking for, which is taking the political football away from the captains of countries and transferring that to, I'm gonna say a collective, but now we're in the bork, a group.

So I don't know if I'm actually solving anything. What we're we're trying to do is to make it so that it doesn't matter which one country is doing something, that we are doing something to move us forward someplace around the world so that when we're done, everybody wakes up and we find that we're there. And and it I I am so excited to see that happening. You know, I go to some of these conferences and it's all just the same.

People telling each other the same crap and, you know, nothing ever happens. And then, went to that one conference where I met you, and and, it renewed my faith in in what we could do as a as a people. I I often refer to myself as the the member of the cheated generation, and that we had space with Apollo. We knew we could be there. We knew we could go back. We knew we were going to evolve into a space for our species. And then all of a sudden, it come to a screeching halt.

And so, yeah, I I often believe that that my generation was the cheated generation. The Gen x guys and the millennials have got the Internet and virtual this, that, and the other, and but but, you know, my generation wanted to be the space generation, and we it was we get it ripped out from underneath our feet. So yeah. It doesn't mean that it it doesn't mean that it can't happen again, and that's where what we're trying to the Project Moon Hut says is, yes.

There will be places that will pull us down. Yes. There will be challenges along the way. There are many people who believe we should not be in space. Project moon hut is about how we chain live on earth for all species. So we become a collective, again, of the word wrong wrong word. We we are engaged in how do we solve challenges on earth and space at the same time.

So we're looking at climate change and and sea water levels rising and the extinction of species, and we're looking at the social displacement from, different activities that we're engaged in. We'll go into all the details.

And we're saying if we can change realities by using the resources that at our disposal, someone who might not be engaged or interested in space might say, well, if you're going to do that, if you're going to help us with global warming or you're going to help us with species going extinct or social displacement, well, then I'll participate in it even though I'm not a space person. And I think you know where I'm not a space person.

So this way, it allows us to think in in as you're phrasing, I love this, the political side could be changed because of that. Yeah. No. I I'm I am phenomenally energized and excited by Project Space, and it's the only reason I I don't ever do interviews with anybody, and I'm not the kind of people that people ask for interviews. So I was phenomenally excited when you asked me to sit down and talk to you. And I think that's this is an important project that you have going.

I think it really is critical to be able to continue the evolution, into a space faring species. I keep using that term, but that really is, that's that is what I think about every day is how do we become a space faring species. Do do you know why I I wanted you on the program? No. For anybody who's listening, I'll open it up so that you can understand. There were there were about 40, 50 people in the National Space Society Conference. This is on space settlement.

I don't even like the word settlement because settlement is a negative connotation. It was space settlement. And, Dennis, you, I'm gonna say were a little angry during the event. You were a little bit pushy as to what you liked and what you didn't like. And and at the end, when we did the summaries, everybody went around the room and did the summary of what they thought this was about. I believe you mentioned Mearth.

And I believe you opened up a door, a channel that said what we were delivering was different, which I I heard. I definitely heard. Yet I was a little intimidated by you. I was a little intimidated because you were so angry at the thoughts that were coming out of people's mouths that you could see it in your body language. And when when when that olive branch came out, I said when we handed cards, I said I'd like to call you and talk to you. You said, yeah. I'd love that.

I was, again, taken aback. And so that was that was kind of that you you were an antagonistic component to that meeting. And to me or an irritant to the meeting or you were just irritated. And I saw that and I figured you might you you just have to have a different perspective. So that's that's why you were asked. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people told me I have a different perspective. And it's not usually said in the kindest of terms.

And well, in this case it was and I I I did have to get permission from your wife for you to do the interview, but that's a whole different story. Well, I find you to be fascinating and and I really enjoy people that think outside the norm. I won't say outside the box.

Outside the norm because we outside the norm, I won't say outside the box, outside the norm because we have become so ensconced in the NASA way of doing things or somebody else's way of doing things that people thinking outside the norm, truly excites me. It it just I get so energized by it. Well, we're we're working hard, and I'm hoping that you will be along for that journey. So thank you so much for doing this interview.

It was an unexpected privilege that you would be willing to take the time, based upon now how you know how I felt about you. Well, I I appreciate it. And and this has been very fun. Thank you. Well, and I did you've you've got me thinking in a variety of areas, which I that's one of the things that I appreciate is that you've made me think differently and that helps us to come up with news new opportunities that we had never explored before. So, again, thank you, Dennis, for the time.

For those of you who are listening, appreciate you taking the time to listen to the age of infinite project moon hut and listen to learn more about project moon hut. There is a website that you can go to if you're interested in just looking. It's called project moon hut.org. We are a 501c3 organization, and we are for the betterment or the change how we live on earth for all species. We have a combination of deliverables.

When you're there, you'll be able to sign up for our future space related database project. So please sign up for it. There's there's no harm. There's no foul. It's not going to we're not going to take advantage of you. What we're trying to do is create a movement in this whole space sector. You could also go to there's a lot of news today about Facebook, but you can go to facebook.comforward/projectmoonhot. And you can go connect on Twitter at project moonhot.

So, again, it was a pleasure that you tuned in today. For everybody, I'm David Goldsmith, and thank you for listening. Hello, everyone. This is David Goldsmith, and welcome to the project Moon Hut podcast series, the age of infinite, where we're looking to learn from individuals from around the world about sustainable life on the moon through the accelerated development of an earth and space based ecosystem. For us, the desired outcome is to change how we live on earth for all species.

We have a phenomenal guest on the line, Dennis Poulos. He looking through his history, it is incredible what he's done. Probably, he's had this singled out many, many times. It is he is a he was a pilot in the US Navy and Marine Corps with over 35 100 hours. But the big thing it tops it off is he was a top gun. So if you've seen the movie with now I can't even remember his name. Who's the movie guy? Tom, Tom Cruise. He was a top gun.

So he he was also director of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems and their advanced concept groups and a certifiable space geek as he calls himself. Hello, Dennis. How are you? Hey, David. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. I'm doing fantastic. Beautiful day today. We we had decided that our topic today was going to be moon is the first step to human salvation. Very interesting direction. Hopefully, we could take this.

So you have a full few bullet points that you can share with us to get us started? Yeah. In thinking about, about this, and and I've spent a lot of time thinking about this over the last 65 years. So you can't be you can't be 49 at 65 years. No. I'm not 49 anymore. I haven't been for a while. There in in what bothers me, what concerns me, I'm I've always been more concerned with the, human me? What concerns me? I've always been more concerned with the human species than anything in particular.

I'm a great believer in country and all that kind of stuff. But in the long run, my concern is with the salvation of human species. And there are numerous existential threats to the human species, even more than those that are, you know, commonly thought of nowadays. And I'm thinking about stuff that's a little more esoteric than that.

And it's my firm belief that space offers one thing, which life here on Earth can't necessarily offer, and that is that physical separation at times is required for a species to continue to exist and to evolve. And so space faring species, I think, is really important for the human both here on Earth and for the evolution of the species altogether and the continued evolution. And then, you know, there are numerous side effects to go into space. As with anything, there's good sides and bad sides.

But there is so much potential and hope offered in becoming a space faring species that it just like you talk about, it's it offers the age of infinite. And, you know, the moon is kind of the first step, and I really push the moon myself, whenever I talk to anybody. And and I've been, you know, a a moon gig for a long time because it really is the first step to being able to achieve all the rest of this stuff.

So that's those are the kind of, you know, basic points that I've always push when I talk to people. So I'm gonna I'm gonna break it down into threats, physical separation, and to evolve side effects, and then moon the first steps with the age of infinite and what comes from that. Does that sound a good way to Sure. To cut it? Absolutely. Okay. Yep. So let's start with, the first one, which are threats. What are these threats?

Well, it I, you know, I I watch a lot of, TV in 60 minutes and, read a lot of stuff. And one of the things that really kinda got to me many, many years ago, 10, 15, 20, I don't know, is, this this, thing about, Yellowstone being a supervolcano, and they didn't really understand what that meant many years ago. And then, so when they talked about, a, a a a detonation of the supervolcano there, it it it turns out that some people were listening in a scientific conference, and they go, hey.

You know, we noticed that there was a mass extinction event about that same time, and then there was another group of people doing mitochondrial So just I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna stop you for a minute. If you can, assume I don't know anything, assume I'm living right now for example, I'm in Hong Kong. What is the supervolcano? What is Yellowstone? What's give me some a little bit more details. Well, you know, a a a volcano a volcano normally, you know, is, you know, a big mountain.

You know, you get a caldera, and and the caldera explodes. I mean, you know, Vesuvius and all that kind of stuff. Yellowstone itself is about a I think the numbers I was seeing is, like, 60 mile wide by a 120 mile long supervolcano that at one point, some 6000 years ago, blew up, and it put enough stuff in the atmosphere that it turns out through various different studies, the human species was almost extinct at that point. So 60000 years ago, we almost went away.

And so it it started me thinking about this concept that there were existential threats, meaning to me that things we can't necessarily do anything about from a technical perspective, from a societal perspective. You know? Global warming, we can do something about it. Whether we will or not, I don't know. Plastics in the environment, we can do something about it.

It certainly represents a threat to the human species, but these are kinds of events that, that really are almost uncontrollable, and and they present, like I said, an existential threat to the entire species. We could go away. I mean, you know, everybody worries about a comet or a asteroid coming in and, taking out the Earth, and, you know, that certainly has happened. So I I'm I'm constantly So so give me a give me a few of these threats. I mean, we've got the supervolcano.

Sure. Are you are you talking about what are the threats that you have on your list? Well, let me let me finish up with the supervolcano for a second. As it turns out, somebody was doing mitochondrial DNA analysis, and as at one point, apparently, the human species was down to something like a 1000 to 6000 individuals in the entire world. Wow. And that was about 6000 years ago.

So that, you know, they went through all the mitochondrial DNA, and they traced it down to something in the area of about 1 to 6000 individuals alive at that point. You know, we always think of the human species as, you know, being ever present, always, everywhere, and and, apparently, we almost went away. And, that that just I don't it it blew my mind. I I did not understand that. I did not know that there was that kind of threat to the human species.

Coming to today, I mean, there's there's other ones out there. I don't know how many I don't know if you know about a Carrington level event. No. I I solar flare. What what is it called? The Carrington? Carrington. And what Carrington he was an astronomer during the 1800, and he noticed a a solar flare. And he was writing about it, and he started noticing around the world different news articles.

And we were just getting into the age of, trains and telegraphs and stuff, and and there was a period where, telegraph wires all flamed down at the same time, and it burned up. Train trestles and that kind of stuff hold on for just a second. Let me quiet this one down. All the the train tracks and train trestles started to burn up spontaneously. And so what had happened was there was an electromagnetic event before the industrial revolution that was a very substantial event.

And it turns out about every 300 years or so, there's generally a Carrington level event, a solar flare that impacts the Earth. We just missed one about 4 years ago. We were 7 days ahead of it in the rotation around the sun. So we were just just missed it by about a week. And, the last studies that I had seen says that about 60% of the human population will die off within 1 year of the Carrington level event because we're not prepared to live without technology. Yeah. Computers go away.

The electrical system goes away. The Internet goes away unless it's been specifically hardened, and no industrial nation at this point is hardening in preparation for a Carrington level event. So well and people ask me, you know, why would the electrical system go away? Well, as it turns out, one of the big parts of the electrical system are transformers.

There are literally millions of transformers around, but they're so substantial and they last for so long that we only have an industrial capacity to build something like 6000 or 60,000. I don't know what that means. Some some ridiculously If you take out the entire world's number of transformers, you can't rebuild the electrical system in a year or 2. You don't have the industrial capacity. You can't build up the industrial capacity. We don't have the computer controlled systems to do it.

So we're talking at that point, rampant disease, money goes away. I mean, literally, the world goes back, 800 years in in a single, no, I don't know, 5 minute period. And so, you know, those are the kinds of existential threats. Let me sort of talk about another one that, really, always kind of concerns me. In talking to Pete Wharton, this this is what came to, what what he made me understand at one point, and that's that we do a lot of experimentation with DNA.

And, frankly, we're a very smart species, but we're we're not that smart. So we put in a lot of safeguards to, prevent DNA, the experiment on DNA that could be very villerent. We we safeguard it with all sorts of different things. But I think we all know that no matter how you safeguard something, sooner or later, it's gonna get out there. It's gonna get in the wild. And and, frankly, we don't know what the effect of that would be.

One of the things Pete talked about was, all medical research should be done on the moon because there's physical separation, which is a natural barrier. We can talk a lot more about that later. So, you know, there's just an infinite number of existential threats to life today that, really puts the human existence in question. We always assume that, you know, we as a species are going to survive. And I don't ever assume that because I don't know that that's necessarily a true statement.

Another one that I I'm a pilot. I love to fly. I I think flying is the greatest thing. It's it's it's been, a generator of more economic activity. It has brought the world closer together. It has done all sorts of things. But, you know, we all know that in the early 1900, 1914, I think it was, the Spanish flu, it wiped out, what, 30% of the world's population. And that is a time when the physical connectedness between species and between towns and areas was very limited.

I mean, it took months to get across the ocean and that kind of stuff, or at least weeks. So, you know, if if something were to come in the way of a biological threat, the fact that we're so interconnected with flying, I you always see it on science fiction, and and I think there's a lot more truth to it than fiction. There could be an existential threat to the human species because of something either we did or, something that just comes out naturally.

As we go through global warming, different viruses are now coming out that haven't been seen in 30 or 4000 years that we're not Well, that was the wasn't that the the movie Outbreak? Yeah. That was one of them. That was a a classic. And I believe, just in the side, I believe that movie was created as a propaganda tool to get people to start understanding that these are potential risks. I did not realize that but I think Someone had told me stop doing it.

Some someone told me that one of the reasons that it was produced is they'd gotten together and they figured the human population has to know about this so why don't we create a movie that depicts what's going on? And the the the inch an interesting aside to the aside is that, they they show 2 pictures of Hong Kong because that's where it started. And one of them is not Hong Kong, I believe. I think someone said to me, no. No. That that's actually Macau, but that's not Macau.

So it was yet they they kind of mixing their own and making their own narrative to show that once you have something of virulent strain, it could be passed along around the world. So it was a when you notice it from that perspective, they were trying to educate the populace. Yeah. We we've used, media, movies and that kind of stuff in many ways, many times to educate the populace, and I think, you know, to to a good effect. And then sometimes we put garbage out there that just is pathetic.

We we, you know, and people pick up on it and they do strange things, and, you know, I it it yes. Media could be used very effectively for that kind of thing. So absolutely. So so biologicals threat, the Spanish fly. What what others yeah. It's funny because as you're talking to me, my mind is racing. What are those threats? And I I've always gone we we always go to the asteroid. We always go to certain categories, and I don't have a lot in my head. What else would there be out there? The, jeez.

What is it? The the not the FDA, but the, the guys in Atlanta. The the CDC? Guys in Atlanta. Yeah. See. Has, has what they call disease control. Yeah. Right. Has what they call, virus x. And this is what they do various, apparently, war gaming efforts and, preparation for us and that kind of stuff.

And and their hypothesis is that there is a virus out there somewhere in a in a jungle or up in Alaska when the the global warming gets things free or some other virus, which it just cannot be stopped effectively and quick enough. They cannot respond with any kind of vaccines or anything else, fast enough, and it spreads fast enough. And, basically, infection this period is, like, within a day, but you don't see symptoms within 10 days, that kind of stuff.

You know, there's there's any of a number of biological threats that we could be facing. We don't know what's out there in space, and we don't know we we know that stuff rains down on us constantly, and so we don't know what kind of viruses could have survived in space and just magically show up in an asteroid, in a comet, in anything.

So there's we could sit down all day long and and go through the the list of various threats to the human species, but we we gotta sit down as a as a species and and start looking at how do we get our species protected, and and how do we survive when one of those things impacts a geographic area. And geographic area, in my terms, is Earth. Do we have people off Earth? Do we have the genome off Earth? Is that a better place? Is that a worse place?

Is can we do things off Earth that will impact, the survivability on Earth? All of those things are so important that we need to sit down and take a look at it. And as a species, we've never had that thought pattern nor we ever sat down and and, you know, we've only been flying in space for 60 years. So I I thought, Dennis, I really thought you were going to say that I'm on f, so I'm doing out letters. I thought you were going to say and the apes are gonna rise up. Oh, no. I come on.

This guy this is the planet of the apes. I mean, that's that's is it isn't that a true story? Yeah. It it I mean, it it could happen. I don't have enough of a creative imagination to think of all the things that could happen, but, clearly, the the the list is much longer than those things that we are currently thinking about. You know, I I I I've got to be very careful here not to sound too crazy, but I certainly believe that there's life outside earth.

And and just like when the conquistadors came over and visited our good friends in South America, that didn't work out very well for them. So we don't know if we could get a message and something bad happens because, the message tells us to do something, or or somebody something visits us. You you could go absolutely crazy thinking about all of the various ways that bad stuff could happen. And And, and Maybe maybe there's something to be said for not believing.

Yeah. Yeah. If you don't believe, you don't have to worry about it. You don't you don't wake up thinking about these things as you've said for 65 years. So But anyway. Let me just step off for for one second on this one. Yeah. And Yeah. Historically, I I like to look at the history. The age of the Viking in in, in Britain, the British had to survive the incursions of the Vikings. And what they learned to do as a species was to turn out the, lights, the lighthouses.

They would turn off they would put out the burning fires, fires that would be used for navigation by their own people. So as a matter of form, to sort of protect themselves from, the Viking invaders being able to land, today, I'm massively concerned that we're putting out huge amounts of electromagnetic energy, and it really is a lighthouse if anybody's looking for us, and and we're inviting the universe to come over here and knock on our door.

I would much rather find them and knock on their door than have them find us and knock on our door. So I'm I'm I do make the point at times that all the radios, all the radar, all the electromagnetic radiation, the TV, everything that we transmit out to the universe, that is a that is a beacon for somebody to come find us. And people go, why haven't we seen anybody else in the, in in the local galactic region? Why don't we find smart, intelligent species and their signals?

And maybe they learned the lesson that you don't advertise where you are because somebody else may come knocking at your door. So, you know, you can go crazy thinking about all of the ways that there could be threats to the human species.

I I I honest that was you you got me on that one because I had never thought about that our lights, just the the the, illumination of the planet, the radio frequencies, all of those human behaviors, human activities, human engagement will end up sending out a signal in that way. Yeah. It we're very clearly advertising our our, existence. The good news is 60 late years away, we're pretty sure that there's nobody that's we've found. So, you know, 60 years away, that's the first television signal.

So, you know, that's that's how far away we're advertising. Yeah. 300 years ago, it could be very Yeah. Well, I I I don't follow the same train of thought in terms of worrying that you do. It's one of the contentions or one of the beliefs that I think we have to use on Earth or in in space when thinking about space is that we use our own perceptions of how things should be done, could be done, may be done in order to understand the world.

We believe that you cannot go faster than the speed of light. We believe that there are certain guidelines for everything that we've learned so far. Yet another species that lives in another dimension or another that we've never heard or thought of, and I'm I'm going crazy here, please, if, if you have to take me and put me down, that's okay. That I think that we might be making many of those assumptions too about capabilities.

That something, somebody else, some way, some potential can jump, leapfrog, do something differently in the weekend. So being here at 60,000 light years away or whatever distance might not be the same jump that we're used to. So Yes. Just the thought. No. No. Absolutely. I mean, clearly, if there is extraterrestrial life that visits other areas, there's only 2 ways they can do it. 1 is faster than light transportation, you know, subspace. I don't know. You know, I'm a physics major.

You know, there is wormholes and all sorts of different things. Whether you can use them for navigation, I don't know. But the other way is that they could send out sub light speed, satellite or spaceships with, you know, people on them. And over multiple generations, they go find different places and they colonize it. And it may be a species that, their their imperative is to go colonize as many places as possible. You know, yeah, you're we think and you have had this conversation.

We think the way we were, the way we learned in the in the environments that we have been raised, society. I had being a navy brat and being in the navy myself, I spent time in Asia, and I I don't believe that the Asians see things anywhere near the same way that we do here in America nor the South Americans. There is a lot of commonality between the way we approach things, but there's a a lot of history there that makes us look at different things differently.

One of the great stories is, you you know, European exploration of the, the, the new new world. And we always think of only the Europeans as having done that exploration, but I learned, much to my surprise, like in the 14 or 1500, the Chinese had every bit as dynamic a exploration program, as, the Europeans did. And the Chinese, because they eat well, I've heard two reasons.

One is they, you know, they were xenophobic and were worried about other cultures, And the other one is that they never really did anything with their colonization programs. They didn't do anything economic. They just met different, societies, passed some beads off, says, you know, our emperor says, hi, and moved on. And so they never gained any economic benefit from it. Either way, the Chinese, within a period of about 30 years, just completely wiped out their exploration program.

They sank ships, they got rid of people, and they just stopped it like it, you know, hit a wall. So the Chinese saw exploration differently than the Europeans did. So I've been fortunate enough, having lived in many places around the world, to have seen many different societies, not all of them. And I certainly won't say that I understand them, but I do understand that, boy, there is a big difference between the way people look at things depending upon where you were raised.

And and I to to to piggyback on them, I had the the a similar type of, conditioning or learning experience about what happened. The Chinese went out to share their information while the Europeans went to conquer. Yes. And that differentiation was one was grabbing land mass territory and the other one was not.

The second that someone had, one book that I had read, and I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head, is that while we think of time as being linear, that things are happening in a linear linear format, you really have to think that there are linear conditions happening all over the world. So while the Vikings are doing x, there's another whole culture doing another whole whole life experience.

They they looked at the world differently, and we tend to think that, well, the the there was the there was this series and there was this series and there was World War 2 and there's World War 1 or what happened in line. But there are hundreds of different parallel universes or not universes, parallel lives happening.

So the aborigines or or a group that's in the Amazon does Amazon did not experience the same thing that we did as, as for example, in American culture going through the Vietnam War. They they didn't even know it existed. So there are so many different variations of the let's call it the I'm using a word, maybe it sounded right, the truth that we have to be conscious of. Yeah. So let's get on let's get on to the, the physical separation. What do you Go ahead. Go ahead. No. You tell me.

I'd be space faring. We must be space faring physical separation. What are your what are your thoughts? I I I firmly believe that, if if the human species is to live, pick a number, another 1000 years, 200 years, I don't know what the number is, at least in the form that it is now, some sort of an industrialized species, We have to be able to mitigate the effects of this tight interconnectedness that we have as a species.

I mean, in many ways, this this interconnectedness is is a wonderful thing. It has brought sharing of information. It has brought, the opportunity to do economic trade and and learn things. And, you know, the the world is becoming a smaller place, because we fly, because of all the other things that we do. But the other risk to that is being homogeneous is not necessarily a good thing.

I believe that we probably had much more political evolution in the period when we didn't, as a species, have the interconnectedness that we have now. Different places had different approaches to things. The laws in Germany were not necessarily affected by the laws in Guyana, you know, and and so, there I'm a big believer in chaos for a species. The only way that evolution happens is by chaos. And as we get more and more interconnected, there's a tighter and tighter cap put on chaos.

We we tend to fight chaos as a species. And, you know, at the conference that you and I were both at where I met you, there was that one session, I think it was probably the last session, when we were talking about how do we make laws, pass regulations, how do we do all of this kind of stuff to make sure that, space exploration is for the common human good of all human species or the all all humankind.

And and I guess at one point, I I said, jeez, you know, I was really hoping by this point in my life that I would be at least 1 astronautical unit away from this very discussion. And and I meant that in in all seriousness. When I was growing up, I man, I thought we were we were going there as a species, and then space turned into a political football. We were seeing a golden age in space now. Separation allows both the chaos and the ability to evolve into different different political concepts.

It allows the species itself to evolve different. Here on earth, we're we're becoming very homogeneous. We are starting to become very interracial. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it is limiting all of the variations that we see in human species that have developed over the last 12000 years, and we're trying to sort of make that go away.

I'm gonna get really I'm going to You're you're just so you know, your your mic I don't know if your mic is you got your hand down the mic or I'm not hearing you as clearly. Okay. Well, let me yeah. Let me yeah. I I I'm I'm going to irritate a lot of people here, and and I I do relate a lot of things to, mass entertainment, but I'm I'm terrified of Facebook and Twitter and that kind of stuff, simply because I don't call them social networks. They're, Borg version 1 from the, Star Trek.

If you take a look at the different things that Gene Roddenberry wrote about with the Borg, being connected, almost being interconnected with people having implants in their brains, a common decision, working for the good of the, just the the Borg itself, assimilating. And and as somebody from the Borg were physically separated from the collective, you know, it was massive, depression, and they were alone and all of that kind of stuff.

And if you listen to some kids today is when they turn off Facebook, they they experienced many of the same kinds of of things. And and to a degree, we turn over our decision making to, the the collective. So, that kind of interconnectedness has its advantages, the the economics, the mechanics, the societal things that we're doing now. We're in a golden age, from economics, industrialization, technology, all of the things, and it's all enabled by interconnectedness.

But to a degree, there's also increased threats, and there's a lack of chaos and a lack of evolution in our thinking, that, the human species is having to deal with.

And that's why I do talk, or or or really think that physical separation, the moon for 1, is something that we absolutely need as a species, ultimately going, maybe to Mars, certainly out to the asteroid belt, will will allow us to continue to evolve as a species that almost force us to do that and and also provide some degree of separation from some of those threats, the biological threats.

You know, the Carrington level event where Earth gets wiped out technologically, but, you know, part of our genome could be out in the space, not anywhere near the solar flare, and continue to survive. So that's that's why You know, the the the Borg the Borg, version 1 is an interesting thought.

I don't wanna go too far into that, but that's a I I'm I'm thinking about what you have said, and I'm thinking about a conversation, a little texting, a email back and forth I have with one of the presidents of one of our companies where, I replied to this guy and said, you know, look. I didn't this isn't happening. This isn't happening. And he replied back in a very negative way. Well, you don't know what's happening.

And I I was speaking to Laurie last night, and I said, all I see is his posts on Facebook. So to me, his life looked exciting and everything was good and everything was happy and he was part of the collective sharing all of those experiences.

He had a whole another side of his life that he wasn't sharing and yet, with the artificial intelligence that's being used in China to be able to facial recognition and some of these other tools that are being developed, we could create where we understand the 3 60 perspective of someone's life at one time. So very interesting thought. I I you took me in a place I hadn't thought about, and now now I'm, now I'm scared. Just kidding.

Well, you know, I I I have been reading that the Chinese are now implementing social credit, by your Yes. Social profile, and that they're talking about limiting travel and sort of other things by how you appear in social media. That terrifies me. I mean, that does. It's just There's a there's a huge experiment and I don't know the province in China. It's the most western province.

There's a discussion about how they're afraid they're trying to control some of the dissidents and people are being facially recognized all day long but they're also going through security scans up to 7 times a day, 8 times a day. And everything they're doing is being monitored on their, cell phone, mobile phone. They're everything they're doing is being monitored one way, shape, or form.

And they are being given, like you're saying, a pat on the back for doing something that is prosocial based upon the social norms of China. And so, yes, we are we are experimenting with that around the world, and I don't think that will stop. So that's if you think of a cryptocurrency and a token, you're you're game of gamifying a certain behavior. So okay. So let's let's get on to the side effects with our time that we've got left. We've got about, 25 minutes.

We got side effects and then moon is the first step. So let's hit these side effects. What do you see? What what do you feel happening? Yeah. I mean, there's there's always, with any new technology, with any new, thing that comes along, there's always negative and and positive things. And and, you know, the the idea of going and mining the asteroid belt, belt. I mean, there is a phenomenal amount of wealth in the asteroid belt.

Just, thousands of times over what it exists here, you have to mine it. But the the amount of platinum that exists out there, the amount of gold, the of everything is is literally thousands of times over what can be actually reached here on earth. So that creates the ability for absolutely phenomenal wealth. But what it also does is it says that well, let me let me take another step back again. Diamonds. You know, everybody knows that diamonds are sort of the gold standard.

It's, it maintains its its price and its wealth and its value, But I also know that they mine a lot more diamonds than they release into the economy, and that is to maintain the price of the diamonds. You know, they there is a phenomenal amount of diamonds just sitting there and bolts and stuff.

So if we were to go out and mine the asteroid belt, we could create a phenomenal amount of wealth, or we could absolutely destroy the economy of the Earth by bringing all of that wealth back and just completely flooding markets so that nothing has any value. So that's that's the kind of thing that really concerns me.

I mean, again, I do a lot of science fiction, and, you know, there was some stuff on sci fi, about a moon colony and and competing economically and politically with the asteroid belt, which was competing and fighting with the, the Earth. And I think that that could be a good thing, and I think it could be a bad thing. It's certainly a threat. War is always a bad thing.

But what that has allowed in that science fiction series was a development of different political thought, political systems, political approaches. In some cases, the individual had, you know, a phenomenal amount of respect from the society, and in some cases, the individual, was nothing but a tool of society. So that to me is one of the benefits is the ability, again, to do, evolution of political thought by having physical separation.

People on in an asteroid belt that actually colonized an asteroid belt, somebody on Earth could tell them, you know, you have to do this, and you have to have a bank, and you have to have a credit card, and you have to have to have to. They're physically separated. They basically can go, hey, I want to do what I want to do and we're going to do this instead.

And so I think one of the benefits of going becoming a space faring species is the ability to experience, political thought, the evolution of political thought. So those are 2 of the benefits. The other one, certainly talk about, Pete and the fact that, you know, you could do, medical experimentation on the moon or out in space anywhere, and you have physical separation.

Even if a virus escaped, you're in a high radiation environment, and it really couldn't survive in, you know, being released accidentally into the environment on on the moon. So it's a self cleaning environment.

There's just so many things that could happen, not necessarily will happen, that could happen because we become a space faring species as too as adverse to a Earth centric, or an Earth only species, not necessarily an Earth centric, because I think we're gonna have people on earth and earth is going to control things for a long, long time. I I had never thought about the the phrase that you keep on using, the political, thought differences that are going to be generated.

And, yes, soon as you even though the science fiction brings it up, by being separated, you have the ability to say that's not how we do it here. That won't work here, we need to do it differently, and we have an evolution of a new way of thinking.

The on the asteroid side, as Project Moon Hut is looking at, or on the resource side, let's probably put it under a larger category, their the ability to have unlimited or the age of infinite, platinum and gold and selenium and, hydrogen 3 and any other element in the world that we are looking for, even energy being able to be brought onto the earth, will change how we live on earth.

I haven't really explored how that would translate, meaning I do know that there could be collapses of industries. The platinum industry would collapse if we could bring back a unlimited amount of platinum, and many others would. And at the same time, you try to play out the game that we're going to, off planet mining. We're gonna off planet some of the manufacturing areas that we, might be harmful here but maybe would not be harmful in space. And so the I don't know.

Do you know of anybody who's done any research to say there's the good and bad of these type of activities? I didn't No. I I well, I you know, I I don't know of anybody. I there may be somebody at Harvard that has done it, but, actually, the place where most of this research is being done is in popular entertainment and science fiction. And and let's go back, you know, a 100 years. Jules Verne experimented with the idea of nuclear submarines long before anybody had ever thought about doing them.

And that's that's just creative people in entertainment, going out and doing thought experiments. And and I think that if you go take a look at popular science fiction, there are an infinite number of stories of cultures that evolve off earth and evolve differently politically.

I'm I'm I really would like to I've I've often thought about doing it, but I really would like to see a science fiction series that sits sits down and looks at, human condition 300 years from now and and explores this concept of, you know, colonies in space and how they would manage their political political systems, versus colonies on asteroids and competing colonies. It it did come as part of the discussion, many, many years ago when they were talking first talking about the O'Neill spheres.

You know, there were 10 spheres out there. 1 of them may be a mining sphere. 1 of them may be an education sphere. And, you know, if there if there were 10 colonies in space, would they all necessarily behave the same way? Would they have different monetary systems? How would they interconnect? So there has been some thought experiments, but most of it is just in in social media not social media, but in popular media, science fiction, and that kind of stuff.

I'm I used to be a prolific reader of science fiction. I I will admit that I have stopped reading to a large degree, because in business, you read thousands of emails every day, and I'm just tired of reading. I'm looking forward to the day I can retire and actually go back and read science fiction again and exercise my mind. So, yeah, I don't know if anybody's done the studies. It might be worth it, but getting Yeah. Well, I think it would be to yeah.

I think it would, to some degree, to be able to aggregate or to give some framework so we can start evaluating. And you talk about the the political side. Well, this is governance. This is decisions that we would make. And if you had the the advantage of thought, the advantage of someone who has already thought it through, whether it be it doesn't have to be a person who follows governance or follows certain areas of expertise.

It could be I'm looking up the movie and I brought it up on one of the other audio casts is the set the the book Seven Eaves. Yes. And that's in the Reno Stevensons. I've got it on my book. I've got it on my nightstand to read because I really wanna read it. I've I was told by so many people to read the book that I had to read the book. So I read the book, and it does make you question a lot of exactly what you're saying.

So I thought that was a an interesting take, and you've kind of brought it back to me as a means of understanding understanding Mearth, which, moon and earth, understanding some of the initiatives that Project Moon Hut has in place, And I think I have to explore that a little bit more. Just, we we have yeah.

Cool. No. No. I was gonna say the the one thing that that I will caution you on, although it's not really a caution, it's just a comment, is we had a conversation earlier about the fact that depending upon where you grow up, it colors your approach, your way you think about things. And so having only lived in an Earth based culture, it would be hard, I think, for people I mean, you could do it. You get the right people together.

But it would be hard for people to sit down and really place themselves in a culture that exists only on the asteroid that is so far separated that people have never visited Earth, and and the only home they've ever known is an asteroid. And and it would be interesting to see how people would try to put themselves in that mentality so that they could understand what might evolve socially. And you're absolutely right.

It would be an impossibility if you the book that was, the Kelly brother who came back from space, I think the name of the book is Endurance. Yeah. He I did not read the book. I've read portions of the book. He the horrible time he had with certain bodily functions. You hear about the eye starting to become more round and not being able to see. There are a lot of challenges that we'll face in space.

And unless you've had that experience and we've just had our first person live in space, 340 days, before that it was 6 months. So we're just starting to understand what that means. And And what what's that gonna do genetically to a human being? Yeah. The first human beings that are born in space, that's gonna be massively interesting to see what that's going to do to them. So we we've got the the next 500 years of human history are going to be absolutely phenomenal.

And my only sadness is that I won't be alive to watch it because it would be phenomenal to sit down and watch. So so let's take on this last one. The the moon is the first step, the age of infinite. Let's let's end strong with what what are you thinking when you say this is the, the first step in human salvation? What's your frame of mind?

Yeah. What I'm what I'm talking about is is not salvation is becoming a better species or anything else, but salvation is in preventing the extension of the human species. So my thoughts and like I said, I've been a space geek for a very long time. I've I've always been one that said, we have to become a space faring species in order to survive. And and, you know, Stephen Hawking said the same thing, so, you know, I I I'm sorry.

I'll have to quell him because I was really thrilled to hear him say that. But yeah, we act we we've got to get physical separation, and the moon is the first logical step to to doing that. Right now, we live in low Earth environment. That really is it's not even Martha. It's just low Earth environment.

There are some physical things that we go do, but being 3 and a half days away and having to survive and create a a hut where people can live and do things, and then sooner or later, ultimately, there will be people there, children, so they have to have medical facilities. They have to have educational facilities.

You know, my my I have said at a couple of conferences just in a comment that the day that NASA moves its headquarters to the moon, and the day that Coca Cola puts a soda jerk, and I don't know people probably won't know what that means, but, put some kids sorting soda, to take care of the people working on the moon, those are the days when we will become a truly space faring species. And we will now start to evolve well beyond our our our cradle here on Earth. Earth will still be here.

It's never gonna go away. It's too many people are too controlled to leave it, and and many people, they can't stand the thought of of actually leaving the Earth. And then there's a few of us that would go, yeah. I'd leave in a heartbeat. So going to the moon is the is is the first step in learning how to survive in space and evolving into a space bearing species. That's that's my basic point. And then we have to do that as a species in order to survive.

We just can't continue to live here forever. The the challenge of space is there's the large part is developing the technology that will enable us to do that. Right. Do you Hold on. Just a minute. Pick up the phone. I got a business partner that's trying to get a hold of me. I'm sure he's pissed off at me now but that's okay. Well, it actually says pick up the phone. So he's he's pee he's yelling at you. Would yeah. I know it's a it's yours your, Ringtone. Your wringer.

The would when you think about space and the challenges that we've had and the fact the past 50 years has been more of a political mess than it has been an actually technological mess or technological advancement, do you what's your timeline for actually being able to live on the moon? Live. Not so we're going to have people gonna go going to go back and forth. They're going to stay for 3 weeks, 3 months, and then they come back.

When do you think the first living on the moon these people go and they say, we're not coming back. I'm I'm gonna stay here. This is my new home. That's that's it's an interesting question. You know, everybody that predicts what's going to happen in the future never gets it right.

You know, for those people not here in America's football or baseball or, excuse me, basketball, the, the 64 best teams, and they all play each other and, you know, number 1 should all play each other, and none of that ever happens. And and so you can't predict anything. But I I think that if we can keep space from being a political football so that when a new president gets elected, it his space program is anything but what the last guy was doing.

If we can keep space, economics of it and outside of political reasons, we could have people living permanently on the moon, We could have people living permanently on the moon easily within the next 50 years, and I would like to think that within the next 25 years, we could do that.

If it turns out that it's nothing but a political football, and and, on the darker side, let me say that I believe that there could be forces here on Earth that would be afraid of a truly space faring species because of the fact that the separation does not allow for as much control as many of the political institutions on Earth want. If they can, in fact, prevent us from going to space and becoming a space faring species, it could take much longer, 200 years.

Or, like the Chinese, we could just turn it all off tomorrow and and never become a space faring species. But I'd like to believe as an optimist that certainly within 25 years or, well, within 50 years and and hopefully within 25 years, I think we can become a permanent habitant of the moon itself. The the first meeting I had at NASA 4 years ago this month, 4 years ago this month, somewhere in that time, but we've been doing this for 4 years.

It was somewhat to the the conversation was somewhat around the political challenges and that we could have been there, should have been there.

There are a variety of reasons we haven't, and I just thinking about it to some degree, Project Moon Hut and the way we're addressing, bringing a collective group of individuals together to look at alliance development, to increase innovation, to get there faster, to change how we think, the concept of Mearth, as well as the the, billion hearts and mind project component, as well as the governance side is doing some of what you're asking for, which is taking the political football away from the captains of countries and transferring that to, I'm gonna say a collective, but now we're in the bork, a group.

So I don't know if I'm actually solving anything. What we're we're trying to do is to make it so that it doesn't matter which one country is doing something, that we are doing something to move us forward someplace around the world so that when we're done, everybody wakes up and we find that we're there. And and it I I am so excited to see that happening. You know, I go to some of these conferences and it's all just the same.

People telling each other the same crap and, you know, nothing ever happens. And then, went to that one conference where I met you, and and, it renewed my faith in in what we could do as a as a people. I I often refer to myself as the the member of the cheated generation, and that we had space with Apollo. We knew we could be there. We knew we could go back. We knew we were going to evolve into a space for our species. And then all of a sudden, it come to a screeching halt.

And so, yeah, I I often believe that that my generation was the cheated generation. The Gen x guys and the millennials have got the Internet and virtual this, that, and the other, and but but, you know, my generation wanted to be the space generation, and we it was we get it ripped out from underneath our feet. So yeah. It doesn't mean that it it doesn't mean that it can't happen again, and that's where what we're trying to the Project Moon Hut says is, yes.

There will be places that will pull us down. Yes. There will be challenges along the way. There are many people who believe we should not be in space. Project moon hut is about how we chain live on earth for all species. So we become a collective, again, of the word wrong wrong word. We we are engaged in how do we solve challenges on earth and space at the same time.

So we're looking at climate change and and sea water levels rising and the extinction of species, and we're looking at the social displacement from, different activities that we're engaged in. We'll go into all the details.

And we're saying if we can change realities by using the resources that at our disposal, someone who might not be engaged or interested in space might say, well, if you're going to do that, if you're going to help us with global warming or you're going to help us with species going extinct or social displacement, well, then I'll participate in it even though I'm not a space person. And I think you know where I'm not a space person.

So this way, it allows us to think in in as you're phrasing, I love this, the political side could be changed because of that. Yeah. No. I I'm I am phenomenally energized and excited by Project Space, and it's the only reason I I don't ever do interviews with anybody, and I'm not the kind of people that people ask for interviews. So I was phenomenally excited when you asked me to sit down and talk to you. And I think that's this is an important project that you have going.

I think it really is critical to be able to continue the evolution, into a space faring species. I keep using that term, but that really is, that's that is what I think about every day is how do we become a space faring species. Do do you know why I I wanted you on the program? No. For anybody who's listening, I'll open it up so that you can understand. There were there were about 40, 50 people in the National Space Society Conference. This is on space settlement.

I don't even like the word settlement because settlement is a negative connotation. It was space settlement. And, Dennis, you, I'm gonna say were a little angry during the event. You were a little bit pushy as to what you liked and what you didn't like. And and at the end, when we did the summaries, everybody went around the room and did the summary of what they thought this was about. I believe you mentioned Mearth.

And I believe you opened up a door, a channel that said what we were delivering was different, which I I heard. I definitely heard. Yet I was a little intimidated by you. I was a little intimidated because you were so angry at the thoughts that were coming out of people's mouths that you could see it in your body language. And when when when that olive branch came out, I said when we handed cards, I said I'd like to call you and talk to you. You said, yeah. I'd love that.

I was, again, taken aback. And so that was that was kind of that you you were an antagonistic component to that meeting. And to me or an irritant to the meeting or you were just irritated. And I saw that and I figured you might you you just have to have a different perspective. So that's that's why you were asked. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people told me I have a different perspective. And it's not usually said in the kindest of terms.

And well, in this case it was and I I I did have to get permission from your wife for you to do the interview, but that's a whole different story. Well, I find you to be fascinating and and I really enjoy people that think outside the norm. I won't say outside the box.

Outside the norm because we outside the norm, I won't say outside the box, outside the norm because we have become so ensconced in the NASA way of doing things or somebody else's way of doing things that people thinking outside the norm, truly excites me. It it just I get so energized by it. Well, we're we're working hard, and I'm hoping that you will be along for that journey. So thank you so much for doing this interview.

It was an unexpected privilege that you would be willing to take the time, based upon now how you know how I felt about you. Well, I I appreciate it. And and this has been very fun. Thank you. Well, and I did you've you've got me thinking in a variety of areas, which I that's one of the things that I appreciate is that you've made me think differently and that helps us to come up with news new opportunities that we had never explored before. So, again, thank you, Dennis, for the time.

For those of you who are listening, appreciate you taking the time to listen to the age of infinite project moon hut and listen to learn more about project moon hut. There is a website that you can go to if you're interested in just looking. It's called project moon hut.org. We are a 501c3 organization, and we are for the betterment or the change how we live on earth for all species. We have a combination of deliverables.

When you're there, you'll be able to sign up for our future space related database project. So please sign up for it. There's there's no harm. There's no foul. It's not going to we're not going to take advantage of you. What we're trying to do is create a movement in this whole space sector. You could also go to there's a lot of news today about Facebook, but you can go to facebook.comforward/projectmoonhot. And you can go connect on Twitter at project moonhot.

So, again, it was a pleasure that you tuned in today. For everybody, I'm David Goldsmith, and thank you for listening.