The Underlying Impact of Space Exploration on Earth w/ Chris Carberry #22

Hello, everybody. This is David Goldsmith, and welcome to the Age of Infinite, Project Moon Hut podcast series where we're looking at establishing, a box with a roof and a door, a moon hut on the moon, to the accelerated development of an Earth and space based ecosystem, then taking that paradigm shifting and the innovations that are developed and turning them back on Earth to improve how we live on Earth for all species.

Today, we have a very interesting topic, the underlying impact of space exploration on Earth. And we're talking with Chris Carberry. How are you, Chris? I'm great. Thanks for having me on, David. Well, I'm very much excited to hear what you've got to talk about, though. So the, Chris is the CEO and cofounder of Explore Mars. He also just wrote a book recently called Alcohol, and Space.

And the reason that Chris was asked on, like many other guests, is there's a, an originating concept or thought, and Chris had written to me saying, might I be looking for somebody? And our dialogue transitioned into something very interesting is not only alcohol in space, but that's a small piece. But what are the underlying impacts of all space exploration and the things, the activities we've been engaged in for however long he'd like to discuss?

And so Chris and I came to a conclusion that this would be a fantastic topic, and I think he'd be the person who can deliver what we're looking for. So, Chris, I'm assuming you have an outline or some bullet points. Am I correct? I do. I have 6 of them. Okay. Can you hand them over, please? Alright. Number 1, this is a 2 part one with a question and an answer. Space settlements, question mark. Markets on Earth are more important than markets in space.

Number 2, space settlement will depend on nonspace companies. Oh, okay. Nonspace companies. Okay. 3rd. 3rd. 3rd is is is the connected one. Critical critical innovation will come from unexpected places. Got some long ones here. Go ahead. Sorry. No no worries. No worries. This one here is the longest one. Oh, thanks. We will only have space outposts, comma, not space civilization, comma, until certain taboos are broken. Are broken?

I think you've won the award for the largest longest, series of them. And the 5th one? Future missions to the moon and Mars are are already benefiting humanity. And next, last one. And the last the last one is a short one. Global coordination is essential. I've got to be honest with you. I think these are the longest I've ever had as a total. So let's start with the first one. Let's get right into this. Space settlements, markets on Earth are more important than markets in space.

I'm ready, willing to listen and learn. Well, we always get so obsessed. We're talking about future markets in space, you know, building up the you know, an economy and space. We're all looking forward to that, and that eventually will come. But I think people forget, or at least the public, we don't do a very good argument or a very good we don't express ourselves very well that really the core here are the markets here on Earth. How can markets here on Earth benefit from space exploration?

How can we create this synergy to show that these markets, these products, we we're going to be able to benefit humanity with the products, the benefits that are being generated in space, but here on Earth. It's like the old saying that we're not actually people talk about us spending a lot of money in space. We don't spend any money in space. We spend it here on Earth. Same thing as we're talking about commercial space. Eventually, we will.

People will make exchanges of money in space, and it'll stay there, but that still will wise off.

And so we have to start looking at this, you know, as we're talking about the benefits for Earth, how space exploration benefits, basically, the entire planet, we really have to emphasize that finding ways to utilize markets on Earth to help generate generate more sustainability, create that ecosystem you were talking about, because the more the more industries, the more groups that understand that they can play a role in this and they can find a market utilizing space and to advance some future settlements, I think we're going to have a much better chance of achieving those settlements in space.

So so are are are you suggesting, and this is just a suggestion, that our perspective should be that the reality of space will not be all of these great markets popping up immediately could take a very, very, very long time. And that if in fact, we look at this as a not the word bipolar, but it's not bipolar.

It's by object or by definition that just like Project Moon Hut, that if in fact we go to space and we tie it to Earth, we'll have a better chance or a reality check that will happen over time. So I'm did I say that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You did. Because I think when we focus too much on well, at least defining it as space markets, it is actually could be unintentionally, hurting us. If we just wait until we're really making and spending money in space, we're never going to get there.

We need to build this and build that momentum here on Earth, and I think most people in the space industry understand that. Actually, I actually, I would disagree that most people in the space industry agree with that because I just received an an announcement. Some company just said, we we're no longer dark. And so they've they've come out into the light, and they have this entire civilization underground on the moon with pillars and diagrams. And I said to myself, okay.

They've got server farms. They've got complete biological or health or research facilities. They I mean, it was just so extensive. I said, what what are they thinking? This is this this is 30, 40, 50 years in the future, if that. So I'm not I I wouldn't completely agree. I think that some people see what you just said and other people, you know, they they're selling the promise go ahead. Oh, no. Don't trust me. I I agree with you there.

I think the people who are doing the real, you know, the real making the real momentum, really moving us forward, understand where the markets are.

But I think we all hear, and sometimes with some very prominent people within the space community talking about exactly what you're saying, these far flung massive facilities talking about, you know, where you assume there is an already a market there on on the planet, on the moon, on Mars, on, you know, on some space station, and they're jumping over quite a few steps. You know? We It's it's amazing how it's amazing how far they jump.

It's it's In that sense It's like it's like doing the pole vault jump. These peep it's almost as if there's one person I know who's going to build the 1st ever city in space. Right? Okay. Wait. Wait. Wait. We still haven't fig we can't even get to the moon yet on a regular basis. And we're we're still struggling with the International Space Station. And you've shown me diagrams where there are 5,000 or 20,000 people living in this community. And what have you done so far? You drew pictures.

Yeah. So that that's it. We've seen Go ahead. No. We've seen no. It's that's pretty common. We see these wonderful pictures, wonderful videos from various groups. My one of my favorites within the Mars society that's Mars community was Mars 1. Oh, lots of wonderful imagery, some cool videos, you know, saying we want to send, you know, thousands of people who live on, you know, one way trip to Mars. How are they going to do this? We don't even know if you can live on Mars.

We think you can, but, yeah, you're missing an awful lot of steps here. And so I think we have a lot of not a lot of these roofs out there that just don't really understand how things work. It's great to have these ambitious goals. I mean, we've had ambitious goals through science fiction and futurists, and those are essential, but we have to be able to clarify within our community how we're articulating this to the general public and people who most likely will invest that there's a difference.

These are the things that are absolutely necessary now if we want first off, your company will actually benefit from this, humanity will, and there will be a profit from it. You know, but say, maybe, if we're successful, maybe another 50 years, 60 years, a 100 years, we might be able to achieve that goal. Well, nowhere, there might be a self sustaining economy on the moon or on Mars or somewhere else, but we have to be careful there. So what do you see?

I mean, the first thing is space settlements question mark, markets on earth. So can you define what you see as space settlements and what you are seeing as markets? You mean the ones that are based on Earth markets. Correct? Yeah. You can get both. I mean, what do you see happening if you were to paint a small picture? What's earth and space based? Or as a a guy, Andreas and I were talking yesterday, he says, we've always thought about ourselves as living in earth.

And I shared with you the video we have this concept called Mearth. He said what Project Moon has done is more or less given us a different diameter on which we live and we have opportunities. So how would you define future space settlements, and how would you define the markets on Earth that will come out of this? And this is largely related to some of the next points coming up. But Go ahead. And you can you can do it any way you'd like.

Well, well, let me kinda quickly go over this and then we can get to the other points, which will cover a lot of the same territory as well. Okay. But I think, you know, I think it's gonna start off similar in a similar manner to, for instance, but not for the same purpose, as what we this level of settlement we have in Antarctica.

Now that's entirely focused on science, so it's not a perfect analogy, but it's actually an interesting sized settlement where you actually have groups of people, you know, fairly large number, but not, you know, not a huge number. It's not a town. You have bars. You have other thing else. So I think that's that's the level of initial ones once you get past those initial sortie type missions and How big are how big are they in Antarctica? You know, it did it varies.

They don't remember sole numbers. They have multiple bases and they have I don't remember what the numbers are, but I think they have, you know, quite a few people because they have 3 bars down there. So, I'm not sure what the numbers are, but and it's relatively small. It's like a very small town, you know, when you look at it, but I I'd have to look up what the actual numbers are, but, of course, it changes throughout the year. Well, just I just looked it up just to help because I didn't know.

There are around 60 6 scientific bases on Antarctica, of which about 37 are occupied year round. The remainder are open during the summer and closed down for the winter. There are about 4,000 people throughout the summer months and about a1000 overwinter each year. That's interesting because I wouldn't have guessed it was as high as 4,000. I was thinking I was thinking over a1000, but so that's interesting, but still within that level that I was talking about, small town. You know?

And so in some but it's not really self sustainable. There are self sustainable elements at the end of the day there, but it's still not they're still a fairly, reliant I mean, on Earth, obviously, but from supplies from elsewhere on Earth. And initial initial settlements, outposts on the moon or Mars, well, we're going to always be working towards that self sustainability through agriculture, Jenner, using ISRU, utilizing, you know What's ISRU? Oh, sorry.

In situ resource utilization, essentially living off the land. Okay. Whether it be using the soil, utilizing on Mars, the CO2 atmosphere or the water, the water on the moon, or other resources on the moon. You know, that's the real the holy grail in space exploration, you know, to enable permanent presence is ISRU. If you can't live off the land, you can't you can't have space settlements, you can't have sustainable ones, you can't have civilization.

Just like if when the first European settlers came to the new world, they had to wait for shipments of all their food from Europe, that would not have been sustainable. Yep. Okay. I I actually, I love the analogy of Antarctica. Oh, thank you. It's always you know, I always look at this and but we sometimes look at the Antarctic model in a negative light as well. People, you know, look at it. We can't only be doing this.

No. It shouldn't be because there's there's an argument within the space community, you know, folks who want to have long term settlement and colonies versus the people with exclusively science focus where they say, this is all we should have. Antarctica should be the model and the only model we should follow. We should not assume that we're gonna create civilization anywhere else, you know, for various reasons, whether it be planetary protection, not screwing up another planet, etcetera.

There are a lot of different reasons, but and the Antarctic model can't be discount because it is a great model for that early phase. And as we're learning to live off the land, we're learning how to live on another planet because we always assume, oh, yeah. Of course, we're gonna be able to go to the moon or Mars, and it'll be just great, but we don't know that. We need we need to learn. The challenge to me is often timelines.

Even to get 4 67 basis or to get whatever numbers in Antarctica, it didn't happen overnight. So when someone suggests that we will have this within 10 years, well, how many air how many flights would have to occur from the Earth to just the moon to get 5,000 or 4000 people on the moon? They're not gonna be born there.

And if you even if you had a 100 at a time, which is an enormous number because you'd have to have resources at the destination, how do you end up with 40 of these flights happening? And all along, while you're building, you have to build building materials. You'll have to have all, the amount of resources or structures or tools in place would be astronomical. Do you see much happening within space? Within space in what regard?

Meaning, not on the moon, but more international space stations of larger scale happening in the past in the next decade or whatever timeline you're using? I do, but I actually don't see the space station option, at least initially, being the most practical one. Now the most famous company focused on that, Bigelow, is largely shut down. Oh, really? Big Bigelow shut down? I believe so. I think the COVID virus COVID virus kind of put them you know, completely stopped them.

But they had been you know, they had started off with some wonderful success with those 2 versus those 2 test inflatable modules, and, of course, they attached the beam to, the space station. Yeah. But, you know, they were the primary ones being looked at, and and there are others out there, but it's unclear whether any of the others have the wherewithal, have the funding to be able to do this.

Right now, I mean, it looks like the space station current space station, the international space station is it. Now but the big question there is, is there a viable commercial model? We keep talking about handing off to the to the commercial sector, but thus far, I haven't seen any viable plans where NASA still isn't largely and its partners are largely responsible for making sure it doesn't, come falling back down to Earth.

So the the Project Moon had 4 phases, and I'm not trying to sell Project Moon, I'm just using it as a reference place because you've there's a for those who are listening, I'll break here. For those who are listening, there is a, YouTube channel, Project Moon Hut, and there's a video of 20 minutes and 40 minutes. And I in there, there are the 4 phases of Project Moon Hut development. So let's come back.

The, the belief and the timeline of this taking decades to get us to a point of having any type of sustainable life on the moon, not self sustaining, but sustainable, meaning we could supply it. And your estimation is with what you're saying. It's a little further out based upon a company like Bigelow. And Bigelow makes modular homes out of a, I don't know how to say it. How would you say it?

Like, a balloon that would go inflatable home that would be able to go on the moon or as someone recommended, taking a piece of the International Space Station and pushing it to the moon. But we don't have anything really in the loop as of this moment that creates a rapid deployment. Yeah. I think it's much more likely. I it's interestingly it's interesting the fact that it's more likely and more practical now that we're going to have actual, out pay post on the moon and perhaps possibly Mars.

And I think that could happen before we actually have sustainable commercial space stations at the rate we're going. The emphasis the emphasis right now is getting to the surface of the moon, getting on to Mars, getting to the surface of Mars. Now, being a guy who runs a Mars group, I like this direction. But that still remains to be seen if it will happen, but a large amount of the momentum is heading in that direction.

And I just don't I have not seen any viable, you know, currently viable space station private space station models right now that have the right funding and momentum. And as I said, I haven't also seen any particularly compelling arguments or ways to move forward with a privatized international space station. You know, it'll be interesting to see if they can figure it out.

Still have a few years, but This this company that just said something to me said 2026, and I'm thinking you're building an aircraft carrier on the moon, and you think you're gonna be able to do it within 6 years. And Yeah. It's it's Yeah. It's we we need to get we need to get 4 to 8 people to go around the moon and return, and live on there live on the moon for 27 days just to experience that whole challenge more than we are gonna get to, putting an aircraft carrier on the moon tomorrow.

Well yeah. And this this is the critical thing. And this is where even with people like and I'm a great fan of Elon Musk and and and, Jeff Bezos. Sometimes everybody gets ahead of themselves.

I think they're all doing great work and they're gonna be a critical player, but, you know, when they say, oh, I'm gonna get there in 4 years or send a 100 people at a time, Now, in some ways, I think the NASA no. I don't agree with everything that NASA does either, but, you know, we do need to have some of those initial missions to make sure we can live there, you know, with the right people to figure these things out and then grow it from there.

But kind of and I'll use this as a segue to move on to the next point, which relates and maybe I'll say both of them at once. You know, as I said, number items number 23 were space settlement will depend on non space companies and critical innovation will come from unexpected places. This is where I think and this really goes right back to that initial, hypothesis about or statement about how markets on Earth are more important, at least in the short term.

Mhmm. And it's we always focus on the big rocket companies. SpaceX will get us to Mars. Blue Origin will get us to the moon. Or NASA, international partners will do this, and we focus on the big rockets. And that's kind of it. It's like and the big rockets are important, but there's a lot more to creating a sustainable, you know, presence on the moon and Mars, creating outpost, civilization, all these places.

And these are companies we don't necessarily or capabilities we don't usually think about with regard to space exploration. Companies working on, for instance, the easiest one which people have thought about more within space, companies working on artificial intelligence.

And this is even more important when we're going on to Mars because we will, you know, until well, until now, we still, you know, astronauts on the International Space Station always are a quick phone call away or whatever they call it, quick communication with Earth. And they even in these days, they can send stuff up pretty quickly. There's always replacement parts and then, of course, they can escape pretty quickly if there's something going wrong on the International Space Station.

When you're on Mars or going to Mars I need to jump in for one moment because you asked you just said something. I never thought about that answer. Is there a rapid deployment exit for the people on the International Space Station? Yeah. They have Soyuz. They're Docked and ready to go, just in case. Okay. I I you never thought about it, never asked. Yeah. They're able to get in them. If something goes wrong, they're able to, get in and then release.

I don't know all the mechanics if there's every if they can just instantaneously, but, or if they have to wait for a certain window. But since they're emergency escape ones, presumably, they can, let loose pretty quick quickly. But only by the skin of their teeth, by being really innovative and doing a free return, were they able to get back, you know, without, you know, loss of life or complete complete mission failure.

But, you know, when you get beyond or beyond and you also have communications delays, this is where some of these critical technologies that aren't necessarily gonna come from the space companies or from NASA are critical, AI, kind of like that HAL technology in 2001, but hopefully not homicidal, you know, making sure that you have systems that are smart enough to anticipate or have, you know, can you know, you have medical libraries, doctors with inputted inputted input, you know, medical information, diagnosis, if you put, like, ask it, you know, I have these systems, symptoms, you know, and have systems AI systems that have been programmed by medical professionals to anticipate these things.

So or, you know, these things are all important. And, you know, you can't control it from Earth as well, like, when you have systems coming in, like, landing on Mars, like we do now, you know, when we have robotic probes landing. They're all on their own. Yeah. You know, the Earth will send commands, but those commands are not going to be any help when, like, for instance, the upcoming Perseverance, rover is landing. You know, once it's beginning its entry to say the landing, it's on its own.

So when you say Space Elmo will be, non space companies, can you give me a few examples of what your what do you put do you have a list of them? Or do you some of them I with you. Well, one, Yeah. One of them is actually, you know, this one relates this one is in the unexpected places. One of my favorite ones right now is very unexpected. Would you know did you know that Budweiser is playing an interesting critical role right now? I did not know that.

Well, it's not necessarily a potentially critical role. See, you know, Budweiser announced, and not to plug my book here, but it's this is kind of how I learned about this. You know, Budweiser announced several years ago they wanted to be the 1st beer mug manufacturer on Mars. And, of course, we thought it was just a PR stunt. But since then, they have sent 4 barley experiments to the International Space Station. And you think about, oh, that's great.

You know, maybe we can make beer in space or in my case, I'd like to make whiskey. But when you look beyond that, this is what they are actually doing, whether you want a beer in space or not, is actually, this is much more important because this is a company with no space connection to space investing in agriculture. And agriculture. The agriculture companies that have an interest in agriculture are one of these non space type companies.

I mean, whether it be Budweiser or others that are more specifically ag, but they are investing in a one of the most essential capabilities if we want to have civilization beyond our planet. We're not going to do that without investment in agriculture. I'm gonna say, I thought you were gonna say we do we weren't gonna do it without investment in beer. So, I'm glad you Well That's my next point about breaking, taboos. But, yes, but, no, the agriculture is essential.

We cannot maintain human presence if we can't grow food. If we're living on the moon or Mars or anywhere else, if we're always dependent on a shipment from Earth, that is not a sustainable that's not a sustainable presence. That's not, you know, a living, breathing ecosystem. That is something that is dependent, you know, on Earth.

And so if something happened on Earth to prevent even not a global disaster or pandemic like we're going through right now, But if for some reason, you know, launch capacity broke down for a while, does that mean you're just not going to eat? So, you know, it's that agriculture is one of those critical areas that, you know, probably will be greatly impacted by non space companies. Another one is and this is kind of an interesting one. It also relates to food.

And some of them some of them are thinking about this. Some of them haven't really thought through the space implications. But one of my favorite or one of my favorite things I like hearing, you know, when people are hypothesizing what people are going to Earth eat when they're in space, and one of these things that I don't agree with, a lot of people will say, of course, they're gonna be vegan. And, you know, you can understand why we're not gonna be bringing cows up to the moon or not.

I have been saying to people for the 6 years I've been involved in this, you have not seen any cows, chickens, pigs or fish on Star Trek Enterprise because they're not carrying them. They have 3 d printing technology. That's the the space replicator. So it's interesting. You're the first person I've heard say, we're not gonna have cows, chickens, pigs on Mars or moon. We are, but not not in the way you might think. And you were on closer to the mark with the 3 d printing, and that's one of them.

But we can actually have chicken, beef, fish, and you don't even have 3 d printed, you have similar technology. Growing growing capability right now and with a lot of companies in California and elsewhere is cellular grown meat. Yes. And one like Thin Thinless Foods, which does, as you can imagine, fish.

There are companies I remember watching, and a company that did chicken, and they the company employees are sitting down at a picnic table eating chicken sandwiches, and the chicken they're eating actually walked by. And so So when when you think about this consumption based or, using molecular biology to be able to grow this product in vats or in in factories, That's the that's the step that you're watching on Earth. I am because this is, you know, it's not likely.

I never believed that people were gonna go all of a sudden turn into vegans, everybody. Some people will. That's their choice, but I didn't think this was realistic, but I think there are ways around it. And so I think if you can just bring a few cells from chickens, from various, you know, fish and from beef and others, you know.

Yeah. And if you can consciously use science, produce it, then you can do it in a way that actually tastes very realistic now, and you can adjust it for health as well. So you can actually adjust the taste, you can also do it so it's generally even more healthy than the original, you know, the the real meat. I don't know if a real taste is good, but certainly will be better than just eating lettuce. So I I'm my take is I believe it will happen.

I'm gonna ask you a question, and I want you to continue with the list. I've asked this question. If in fact the meat is produced in a vat, no animals were killed in the process of developing that product. I think it well, it's not a question, but it's a statement. I think it's going to be very challenging for individuals who have a moral or an ethical or however you want to position this concept of eating a live animal if it's no longer living, if it has just come out of a vat.

And I wonder how in the future when these technologies merge or accelerate to the point of possibilities, there becomes a question, do I not eat that now because no animals were harmed in the making of this food? Well, technically speaking, yeah, I suppose the when we're talking about vegans Mhmm. Yeah, that they have much more rigorous standards, you know, nothing that's an animal byproduct. Yeah. Understand. So you are stealing some cells from an animal, they didn't allow you.

They didn't tell you that they wanted to do animal with cells. And so technically speaking, probably would still be a no no to vegans. But from, you know, a vegetarian perspective, you know, why not? I think it it, you know, it depends on where you're coming at this. If it's a dietary thing, that you just don't wanna have meat, that's fine. But it does could bring up some interesting discussions on this whole this whole argument.

If you are actually not killing any any animals and you can still eat meat, It's just just just the dialogue. I think it's an interesting question about decision making. So what else do you have on this list? We have chicken beef. We have Budweiser. What else do you have? Well, they're also company and this is I'm not gonna name specific companies for every one of these, but general areas that, you know, are critical.

Well, you already mentioned 3 d printing, and that's that's another one that's just you know, they're also working on they they've been doing 3 d printed food for some time, but all these different, 3 d print printing company like Maiden Space or others, so I did mention a company. But they are That's okay. Don't worry about it. That's, it's good to hear the names. Yeah. And I think they're putting one on the International Space Station now, aren't they?

It's not one of the Oh, they already have one up there, but I believe there's another one going up. Yeah. I think there's another one going. Yeah. I I I confess I haven't paid attention too closely to exactly where you know, what their current status is, but but there are a lot of them out there and this is one again. These technologies that as we advance them for space exploration, we are benefiting Earth at the same time as well.

I'll throw one out because, Evan, I would like to hear more on the list because I know that IKEA has been investing in space, which was an interesting thought. IKEA, they're looking at future living environments or places to or I I actually don't even know their their design thought behind this, but they are investing in space, which is a surprise to me. Oh, yes. They are.

I mean, because that whole living space is so important, and it's actually a connection I'll get to shortly because it reminded me of, you know, the current current circumstance the whole world's in right now and the connection there is to Mars exploration. But designing that living space within a confined space to accommodate a group of people, smaller group of people, basically living in isolation for 3 years, at least if we're going to Mars, is a challenging one.

So IKEA, basically, that's their whole thing, trying to figure this out, figure out living spaces. So they have invested. And interestingly, I I I was talking to or late late last year, talking to a number of architectural firms that have been shifting towards space design, you know, mainstream architectural firms. And these were in New York.

You don't usually expect to talk to, like, the space interested architects in in Manhattan, but I I was amazed how much interest in the architectural world there is in space exploration because of, first off, solving these problems for living in a confined space and maximizing the space you're living in.

And I remind you also, people think about it in the terms that we are on within one g, you have to think when you're talking about using space in space, it's you you have to assume that you're using all of the space. You're not locked to the floor, so you have to think of the walls and the ceiling that it's not just the floor space that you're using because every surface is the floor space there. Right. Or or every every surface is the ceiling. Every surface yeah. Every yeah.

Depending how you use it. Yeah. But even still, these companies are looking at it also for how can we utilize it here on Earth. Because, you know, particularly in kind of cities like New York, where, like, a square a square inch of apartment space is like a house in some other parts of the country, you know, trying to figure out the right way of designing a space that's even very small but still can be practical and livable.

Have you seen have have you seen an actual have you seen, for example, of an IKEA or an architect that has taken a concept that they've used in the design of space and applied it in a reasonably known environment on Earth. I believe I haven't seen this one. I've seen images, but, I believe IKEA there was some IKEA partnership with the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, which the Mars Society runs.

And that's one of the you know, that's been around for a while, and it's modeled on basically, it's designed to be at the same size as the initial one of the initial habitats on Mars. So they've been running that for a while, but they you know, a lot of thought was given to that whole design and making sure people had you could not only work, but live together, work together, but also had privacy.

And I haven't really looked at what they've done, but I do recall that IKEA actually may have worked with them a little bit to work in that space, to figure out, you know, what might work best to accommodate the crew in both the, their work environment, but making sure they didn't drive each other insane, which is gonna be a big issue.

My my mind graces towards, first one, when you're going to the, moon or Mars, or let's go to the moon, do you walk through the same store and get to a certain, like, area in the store? Like, is part of your path or do you, will they deliver? So I've got these humorous type things in my head. Is it gonna be made of particle board? Not everything's made of particle board, but are they going to keep it cheap?

So there it's an interesting I I wonder when we'll see something that has a or be notified that this design concept came from a space based thinking, paradigm shift. Well, I don't know. That that's an interesting one. What what I see are those companies like that. You know, I'd you know, it'd be interesting to see how quickly you know, hopefully, it's not made of particle board. And presumably, we won't be using particle board in space anytime soon. A a graphene or whatever.

So, what other ideas do you have? What other places have you seen? Well, you know, of course, I'm gonna go I'm just gonna go through the categories right here, areas that, you know, are critical, like communications. Right now, deep space deep space communications network is completely inadequate for sending humans to Mars. Obviously, the moon, it's easier, it's much closer. But with Mars, just a limited bandwidth.

You can't we're not gonna be able to change the speed of light, so we're always gonna have the latency, you know, so a gap time period between communication and an answer. But we can fix the bandwidth. So there are companies in Silicon Valley and others looking at this, creating, you know, interplanetary Internet. One of the people who has given this most thought is Ben Cerf. Anyway, he's pretty much the father of the Internet. He's now a vice president at Google. Yep. I know Ben. Yeah.

And Ben has been working on the concepts for, dramatically increasing the bandwidth for Internet and not international, interplanetary communication for some time. And he's consulted with NASA and others. So I think this is an area another area where companies technology companies, you know, if they're given a problem, might be able to have that solution if you're not just depending on, say, you know, you know, one organization, be it NASA or one company like SpaceX.

It's when you challenge these innovators, you know, when you have a lot of different people looking at it in a lot of different directions, this is where you're gonna get, you know, the really critical forward motion in these capabilities. But other areas like mining and power companies, you know, power companies on Earth are looking at this. Oil companies are have been looking at space because they're interested in, you know, ISRU, utilizing resources.

I can't remember some of the examples, so I I'm only gonna keep that as a top level example here. But telemedicine's another critical one. And this is once again it leads into some of the things we're going through right now. Right?

Tell them, you know, when we're going to the Moon or Mars or anywhere else, until we have actually created civilization and we have medical facilities equal to here on Earth on these places, we're gonna need to be in communication in most in at least in more serious circumstances with Earth.

And so it's forced us to look at different ways of telemedicine, being able to diagnose remotely, being able to, do certain procedures while there's a limit to what you can do from Earth to Mars because of the latency. But you can still you know, they are still building systems to figure out how to work with this. And this relates to the AI as well.

This also relates to our environment right now because telemedicine's become even more important as we're trying trying to keep people safe, trying to social isolate, but also trying to be able to find an innovative new ways to make sure that they can see a doctor or a psychologist. Psychology is a little easier because you can communicate via the phone and do it in a way that's safe without taking unnecessary risks.

And so these are all critical ones which also will have definite benefits back here on Earth. This is where this is one of the things that got me into inspired by Mars exploration. I mean, I'm certainly excited about the prospect of human settlements on another planet, but it was the the concept of or the, what shall I say, it was that prospect of that massive innovation that could come from it.

You know, what do you need to be able to survive, create that ecosystem on Mars, and what are the products that are needed? And things that we problems will look at in a way that we would never look at them in this way on Earth, but we can also bring back to Earth, help humanity, but also be a major, positive, element for the economy. Because I really see this, if we do it right, that all these things can have a dramatic impact on our economy in the long term.

That's a this is you're you're basically outlining project Moon, not one component of it. Very quickly, can you name some names, mining, power, telemedicine, AI, psycho psychology any companies that are doing something really interesting in your mind? Well, with AI, there are a number, obviously, companies like, IBM Watson.

They're doing they have they very much have space on their minds, you know, and they they they want to use Watson and other AI technology, you know, for going for space exploration, and we've been talking to IBM quite a bit. I know Google's been working on this, HP. So there are a lot of companies looking at AI. Let's see what other telemedicine. Let me see if there's a company that I can think of. I should have written down some more of the names here. Take your take your time, man.

I'm just trying trying to get my mind around some of the the the companies or individuals. No. But when mobile for instance, I assure you materials and things like that, Caterpillar. Yeah. Caterpillar has been, you know, been getting more involved in coming to space conferences. A number of I know a lot of people in the space community have communicated with them particularly on, you know, lunar resources and things like that.

So there has been interest from companies like Caterpillar in becoming a player in this, you know, if we're going to have we're gonna excavate on the moon, are we gonna rely on NASA to build all the excavating equipment?

No. Let's get companies that know how to do this on Earth, you know, or if you're drilling, You know, I I as I said, I believe the, you know, number of the oil companies, and I I don't wanna I'm trying to remember which ones, because they've all gotten a STEM education, so it's getting all jumbles in my mind. I've gotten interest there as well. So it's let's see if I can think of some of the others. Yeah. I think I've I think I've run out of the examples off the top of my head.

I should have done more of No worries. The the the first time I sat down with Bruce Pittman and I went over how Project Moon Hut ended up being created the whole story, I said Caterpillar. I said, cat cat would like Caterpillar would like little cats on the moon. And he said to me, oh, yeah. They're really interested in this because I said it's remote mining. It's capabilities that could be used on Earth and in space. Doesn't matter if you're a mile underground or you are, at a distant planet.

It's still mining being done. So that's I'm glad you mentioned Caterpillar. I wonder what some of the others are. Yeah. There there are a lot. As I said, I should have dug even more and more into the details, but, and some just aren't coming to mind, but there are a lot that are getting more and more interested. And I think critical thing is, once it's looking even more realistic, you know, you'll see.

There's there's already a lot of companies looking at this, but they're at the beginning stages. Once they we can see that this is beyond just theory, and we're getting closer. That's why companies are getting more interested. But once it really looks real and we are actually returning to the moon and we're going to Mars, then we actually start mining or doing, you know, searching for minerals or trying to extract water, that's when, you know, there's gonna be more and more interest.

So this will start this will start a cascading effect, you know, once it becomes real and they can see the prospect, not only to be to participate in a big project that'll actually get their name out there, but the potential of a long term, profit, and most of these will be. It's not gonna be a short term one unless they get a big government contract, and that's the source of their profit.

But it still will be a little while before they actually make a direct profit from the actual mining on the moon or Mars. It's a it's a combination of things. It's a it's a promotional component. There's a branding component. There's a, first ever to have done something component. And that's where the Roger Bannister space, which, you and I have spoken about. The the once it's achieved, venture will open up, banking will open up if you wanna put the category.

And we'll start to see more and more insurance companies who will say we're willing to take the risk on the project. So there'll be a whole transformation of the industry once we have the Roger Bannister space, a box with a roof and a door on the moon. So yes. Absolutely. So that so, we've done I think you said 34 23 were together. So 4 4 was, space outpost, not space civilizations, certain until certain taboos are broken. What did you mean by that?

Right now, and, but right now, everything and right now in space, of course, it's very controlled. We only have a few people up there. They're on duty 24 hours a day, and so there's no even when they have off time, they don't really have off time, and they're very restricted in their active activities. And there are certain taboos that people don't like talking about officially. One of which I wrote a book about, alcohol in space. Another one is sex in space.

The other the next one is just generally incorporating everything, freedom in space. Yeah. Because right now, you can understand why we can't it's very difficult to talk or at least acknowledge drinking in space because, you know, you don't want the perception that you have inebriated astronauts, although I found no evidence of any astronaut or cosmonauts becoming inebriated in space. But, you know, the other one is even more challenging, of course, being SACS in space.

And it's a challenging one because we know it's eventually gonna happen, if it hasn't already, but what are the implications if you can conceive in if you conceive in space and how will the, you know, how will the child develop? Will they be able to live on Earth if they're developed if they were conceived in microgravity or in 1 third gravity or in 1 sixth gravity? And so but as long as these things are restricted, you're not really living in a civilization. Civilizations have that freedom.

You're not on duty 24 hours a day. You're you have you know, you live like you are here, hopefully, minus being isolated by a pandemic. But, you know, so until you actually have you know, are just assume there's going to be consumption of alcohol, hopefully hopefully irresponsible drinking, but that's not always the case in a free society.

And once you assume people are going to have sex and and, and don't have children, you know, to really really have a civilization because you have to get past that period of caution, that period of, basically, experimentation Right. I was gonna say that I don't know if it's a taboo. I would maybe this is a different way to look at it. It is a point in which a group of individuals get past the point of doing exploration. They get past the point of experimentation.

They get past the point of this is how we're trying to survive to a point in which they could start right. So I wouldn't say it's a taboo because the last conversation I had with Peter Garrix in the the the previous interview, we talked about the potential of what freedom in space means. You took it differently. His was more about the sickle on the moon versus the American flag.

So he took it from a governance side, but I think you're just taking it from the ability to live your life in a manner that humans live. And yesterday with Andreas from Berlin, we talked about SACS and we did talk about, first of all, no fluids in in the spacecraft is not very good. We did talk about the fact that you have to have harnesses to hold people down. And then he brought up some other pieces some other evidence that the body, the blood doesn't go to the extremities the same way.

It tends to go more to the head, and that's why people look younger in space. It's like they've gotten injections. But that men can't function. So they're developing these devices that a man would put in their other end and it would give electrical shock treatment so that a man could have a baby, so he could be with a woman because that those pieces don't work. And we had a whole conversation about that. So I yes.

They are happening and maybe this, if you know of anybody, it would be great to have a an interview on this. I would be interested to bring them on board, any of them, freedom in space or sex in space or alcohol in space.

You know, I I let me think about that because there are a number of people That would be an interesting dialogue because I had never heard of these these new devices that are being developed, which are sound well, if you're gonna go to Mars and you can't have children, you could bring an egg, but that changes the entire dynamics of a civilization. Yeah. It does. And so, yeah, I hadn't heard about those device. That's something that's something I'm interested in looking up now.

It's Hey. Well, it was just that we we hit on the topic of he and I speak at least once a week. And the topic first time coming up after years of talking. And he said, oh, no, no. There's definitely a device. You it's like a woman's device if you wanna use it that way without going too crazy. A vibrator, I'll say it. There was a vibrator and it's a shape of 1, but it's put up the man from the backside and it's giving a pulsating stimulant, electrical pulsating stimulant.

And what it's doing is it's getting the rest of the body to react so that a man can be with a woman in space and reproduce. And I had never, this was yesterday, I had never heard of this technology, yet it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, no, it does. I'm curious whether it'll be pleasurable or Yeah, I didn't, I'm glad this is a conversation with a man instead of a woman. So it doesn't come back at me.

At this point, we could have a program with a woman online, but it was it was a interesting dialogue because we're talking about civilization and the challenges that we'll have to address on 1 6th or 1 third or just in 0 gs. And the other thing he brought up, and you're probably aware of this, I'm assuming, that the Russians neither deny or agree that they've had, sex in space. And it is I've heard that. I've also heard, and I don't know if this is true.

I heard a rumor of something happening on the American side, but I don't know if that's just, you know, one of these urban legends or not. There's one couple that did not go up together in Russia that ended up getting married after they had both been up or something of that nature. So I don't know. Interesting conversation.

But I do love the idea that until we can get to a normalcy, what we consider to be a human on earth normalcy, where you can go through your day to day, then that will then turn into civilization versus an outpost. Yeah. Otherwise, you're right. You just you can't you can't live life. You're not you're not civilization if you're always assuming you're on the mission. So Yeah. I that's an interesting jump that I have thought about, but not in these in this, topical area.

Cool. Anything else to add to that? No. I don't. I think we pretty much covered it. I could go on since, as I said, since I wrote a whole book on the alcohol thing. I could go on a whole another hour on that, but this is probably a good place. Give give me give me one because we really didn't hit alcohol. Give me 1 or 2 really strong points on the alcohol side. So I'd really like to know. Well, okay. Let me before I give those, tell me what you're looking for.

I mean, there are there are dozens of companies right now or companies and organizations investing on whether we can consume or manufacture and consume alcohol in space. There's also an interesting history of drinking in space. And then, of course, in my book, I also look at enabling technologies, primarily agriculture and synthetic biology. Where were you kinda, what are you looking for? I had no one What I'm I have this preconceived notion of being able to drink in space.

You have your bottle, you can drink, you can do. I don't really I just something radical, something that we would not have thought about. Let me ask you a different question. Something that made you say, oh my god, hadn't thought about that when you were writing it to the degree that stand out ish in the writing. Well, when I I'm gonna do a top level one, and I'll get down to very specifics because you kind of leading up to it, I kind of it came to focus.

Now the main thing for me with in writing the book, which really stuck out, was the fact that the requirements for manufacturing alcohol in space are almost identical with what's needed to maintain human civilization. You need everything. You need the you know, you need, you know, you need the agriculture, you need, obviously, an environment air, everything else.

And so there was so much parallel, I realized, you know, by investing in this, you are making those direct investments in space exploration. So that was, like, like, the Budweiser example. But some of the things that stood out that are actually being worked on right now were things like, many people know that, of course, there's I don't know if you know, you probably have heard that carbonation is problematic in microgravity. Didn't know that, but now I do.

Okay. So you well, you know when you put a glass of carbonated beverage, beer, Coca Cola, champagne, on the table in 1 g, the gas rises up and disperses into the atmosphere. Right. And so in space, it doesn't do that. It stays it stays within the fluid, so it's always gonna be carbonated to a degree that's Yeah. Really carbonated. Yeah. It merges into the center and slowly starts expanding, does that in your stomach also.

And so astronauts who've consumed, carbonated drinks report stomach cramps and wet burps, which doesn't promote a good drinking experience. Yeah. And so there are companies right now looking at this, trying to figure that out, and largely alcohol companies, see if they can create not only beverages that you could that are carbonated that you can consume without the negative impacts, but also ways of consuming them more authentically. As you mentioned, squirting beverages into the air.

Well, you can do that, but, you know, some of the, alcohol producers are really concerned about that. They want their products to be consumed authentically in space. So companies like Maison Moune, champagne producer in France, is, you know, produced a champagne with the right balance of carbonation.

It was actually one of their products anyway, created a bottle for dispersing it in space, but also created a glass, a special glass that you could actually drink their product in space to maintain the, quote, conviviality of drinking their product in microgravity for future people at, you know, in space hotels. But, you know, other companies are looking at designing, other glassware.

There's a company that looked at how to create a cocktail glass in space and scotch glasses, and they're trying to figure out these problems of fluid dynamics. How how liquids adhere to surfaces in space so that you can actually drink out of a glass, but you're also solving other problems at the same time, you know, with these fluid dynamic problems. They might be useful in other parts of the other systems of the spacecraft.

So this this is where, you know, real what's really struck me was how much of the research being done with it to enable consumption and manufacture of alcohol in space as a direct tie to other necessary capabilities in space. And so this is why I am was got even got more excited about this topic because of the number of companies that are investing in these capabilities that can be used well beyond the need for a drink in space, but also can be brought back to Earth.

And we don't even know how the absorption will happen in these environments after our body has been out of Earth orbit. So that that that even I think I've said it on another program. Lynn Harper, who's out of NASA, said to me one day, we don't even know if cells will divide properly. And then we had Yocia Mean on one of these programs, and they do CubeSat SpacePharma. They do pharmaceutical research in space.

And he said they put a nerve into their testing, and it grew 10 times longer than they expected. So imagine birth or or living and your nerve grows 10 times longer than it's supposed to. So drinking could be an issue when it's met with alcohol in space. Yeah. And the thing is yeah. That that's a very good point. I addressed this in the book. We don't have any studies on how humans metabolize alcohol in space. We know there has been drinking. We know there's been quite a bit of drinking.

But because it's so it's unofficial. Every space agency officially prohibits drinking in space. There have been no formal studies. We have anecdotal tales. We know that it's not having small amounts of alcohol, and usually it's cognac. Cognac is a drink of choice in space, and more on that in a second. We know that they can drink it in small quantities, basically a shot without any really negative impact. But we don't know if you can consume much more than that.

We don't know really what the impact on the human body was is because there have been no formal studies. Once again, it's an all anecdotal tales of drinking in space. So Maybe they're trying to avoid the previous conversation that could happen if there's too much alcohol. Oh, yeah. I mean, I understand the reasons, but No. That that was a joke. That that was a joke. It was a bad joke, but you got it. No. But it's it's real this real there's real concern there.

There are so many different reasons why people, you know, are concerned about the topic, and some of it's legitimate, but it's also since so many people are investing in this, it's an it's an inevitable thing. You know, anybody who thinks we're gonna have settlements in space, assume there'll be alcohol there. So it's maybe not be the most important thing. And I don't actually disagree with an official prohibition, you know, you know, with at the scale of space exploration we're doing right now.

But since we know what's happening and we know it's going to happen, it's a legitimate area for study. You know? And that's where it gets and that's it's much easier than the whole sex and space thing. There aren't as many ethical considerations. Well, I and I I I would wonder who has been who was the first person in low, low earth low earth orbit, who is the first person who has had alcohol above the atmospheric line?

The first person the first person that I know of, the alcohol has gone up for this, you know, with gags like Apollo Apollo ate 3 bottles of brandy went up with, you know, that crew as a gag for their holiday meal, but they didn't drink it. Jim Lovell sold his bottle years later, I think, for, like, like, $20,000 maybe $30,000, but, for a bottle of small bottles of brandy that had gone around the moon.

But had 6 months later, the first person I'm aware of that actually had alcohol in space had wine on the surface of the moon. That would have been Buzz Aldrin, part of a communion ceremony, and that's well publicized. He wrote about that. And basically, he had arranged with his church, the Webster Presbyterian Church in Houston, to do a communion ceremony.

So they brought up this little goblet, some communion wine he poured it in, the 16th grave, he describes that and does, you know, says a few prayers and consumes it. And to my knowledge, that is the first time and and think the last time anybody's consumed an alcoholic beverage on a planetary another planetary body.

Cool. I suspect I suspect others had drug consumed alcohol in space before then, but because I know plenty had been smuggled up more as gags, but I would be shocked if nobody tasted it. Yeah. But that's the first one that I'm aware of. Okay. Anything more with the topic of outpost and space and the No. I think we've I think we've pretty much covered that. Okay. So let's get to future missions to moon, and we'll add in the Mars, are already benefiting humanity.

And I'm not gonna spend, yeah, I'm not gonna spend too much time on this one, but a level think about what's going on now within the space industry. Think about all these companies that I've mentioned. They're trying to get to make it happen. SpaceX. SpaceX, the whole point SpaceX was created was go to Mars. Mhmm. Elon wanted always wanted to Back in the early 2000, he wanted to send the 1st greenhouse to Mars called OASIS. He didn't like the launch options.

You had bribed too many people in Russia. He didn't like the US options, so he he decided I'm gonna build my own rocket. People thought he was nuts at the time. They don't anymore, or at least for that. But even with Tesla, Tesla was part of this overall vision that he had, you know, on on electrical energy and utilizing that in space as well.

But others, you know, even these companies I had mentioned, you know, like Budweiser or others who want to become players in this are actually innovating with Mars in mind or the moon in mind. And so we always talk about the side effects, these spin offs. Well, we're having a lot of spin offs well in advance of the actual missions, whereas when you went to the moon well, some of those were as well as they were ramping up or going to the moon.

For instance, miniaturization of circuitry for computers, which eventually really led to the boom in Silicon Valley.

Same thing now, but I think on a bigger scale, it is having the dream of going to the moon and Mars, of manufacturing products in space, mining space, etcetera, is already playing a large role innovating for innovation here on Earth and benefiting people going back to SpaceX model, You know, a new company lowering launch costs, enabling, you know, greater access to space, but the same thing with so many other companies, Blue Origin.

But even the legacy companies have gotten, you know, I think have been stimulated to become more innovative as well. So I think So I'm gonna push you here a little bit only because of our conversation earlier that project and how we got to this topic is that in the presentation that I've used or talked about Project Moon Hunt, I show the traditional items that you can look up and find.

For example, that have come to Earth from space, the boots on an airplane, those black shields on the end of the, on the tail the front end of a wing was created through space exploration, and we use it so airplanes can fly. We have used, all different and I'm not gonna go over them because maybe you have some others. But we've already seen direct implications, including Invisalign braces, that have come from space.

And what we had talked about or I had said to you is, I wonder how many people have worked for a JPL, a NASA, Japanese version, the European Space Agency, but worked for a company for for the organization or agency for 10 years. And they left and those thoughts converted in mug manufacturing or book manufacturing or tool manufacturing. I've got to believe there's a lot of crossover. So do you have any examples of where we really found things that were those spinoffs that you could name?

Spinoffs from previous or just space and exploration? Anything that you can think of that we wouldn't typically put towards being space related. So for example, when I say the airplane wing, people often look at me and say, I didn't realize that came from space. And when we talk about GPS, GPS is a space technology.

It was developed to to put in for a variety of reasons, and that has helped us to operate our our cars to go look for a new place or go on holiday or do something that we didn't realize. Yeah. And I'm gonna talk about some legacy ones, not necessarily ones that are directly being inspired by Mars right now.

The biggest one was the one I mentioned earlier, just that whole he, in fact, the Apollo program all had on computer age, didn't invent computers, but it stimulated a concept, a way of looking at it, miniaturizing circuitry, and really stimulated, you know, what is now Silicon Valley, you know, the way we think of it. And it in just that momentum completely transformed our economy, the way we look at the world, the devices we use.

We you can't I can't say that, you know, going to the moon didn't invent my iPad, but it enabled it enabled the iPad. It enabled cell new cell phones and all the computers and every communications that we're using right now. But going down to microgadgetry, I wouldn't call them microgadgetry, actual very, you know, essential, tools. Well, I don't believe it was invented in space.

I believe smoke detectors largely got advanced using I believe it was on Skylab, you know, so that technology advanced. You know, you don't want fires in space. And so that was something that we just assume is part of everybody's life. You know, you're required to have them by fire code, but we're in fact you know, we're advanced by space, same thing with power tools. You know, the need, you know, to, you know, power battery powered tools, you know, or greatly advanced by space exploration.

And you can go through this, it goes down. I mean, people say, well, that wasn't exclusively invented. There are a lot of products. They were not you know, you can show earlier versions, but the utilization of space and using them in those harsh environments where you don't have a, you know, you can't put a yeah. Like, if you go out on a spacewalk, you're not gonna have a long extension cord. You know, trying to figure out these problems instantly have a benefit here on Earth. I just lost.

I had another example here that just went flying by. But I'll give an obvious one, but I don't think people appreciate it, because you had mentioned GPS. And people always complain about, you know, how accurate the weather forecasting is. Well, for everybody complaining about how accurate weather forecasting is, Take a look, but try to go back to before we had weather satellites, see how accurate weather forecasting was then.

Did a did a you know, while they don't always predict the track of a hurricane perfectly, I don't think we've ever we've had any occasion in the last 50 years where we didn't actually know the hurricane was there. So The the one that I came to mind while I was thinking about it is SRI, out of I don't know if it started in Silicon Valley, but there's an organization, and I don't know the abbreviation of what it stands for, SRI. You might know. And they're a huge I'm gonna have to look it up then.

SRI. Do you know what a SRI is? SRI I'm looking it up also. SRI in Palo Alto. We had an office there with our our artificial intelligence company, and we were in SRI, international headquarters, which is on yeah. We we were Ravenwood, Mount Menlo Park.

And they do some really, really sophisticated space satellites and space technology that has enabled a lot of the flights or the satellite development, but I also not that I know, there's a Hewlett Packard and Apple and some of these other companies. I don't know the exact story, so I'm kinda talking out one side of my mouth.

I do know that there were contracts that were given to a company such as, as an example, Hewlett Packard, for parts and components that allowed those companies to thrive, which eventually became tech companies in the Valley because of SRI and or vice versa. The fact that SRI was there, they did the research, and because SRI was there, they pursued or were funded in a way. So a lot of the valley had some of its orientation that was, advanced tech. Make sense the way I said it? I think I did.

Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's very consistent with what I was mentioning earlier, all these companies that, you know, whether it be, you know, the impacts from these space related activities or now their interest, their current interest in space exploration activities coming coming back full circle.

Yeah. There's there's a ton of those type of technologies, and I don't until I started on this journey with Project Moon Hat, I didn't really pay as much attention to how many of the paradigm shifting thinking developments created a new way of looking at product innovation, service innovation that ended up becoming products we use every day.

Even more so, I think the interesting part is when you work for a company like a JPL or European Space Agency or a Russian, agency, it doesn't make a difference. You are indoctrinated to a new way of looking at the world. And those concepts, you can't lose.

So when you stop working in that business and you go to the next business, you can't but remember that there was this technology created to do x. And you will come at a a challenge or an opportunity in a way that you wouldn't have otherwise just because you were exposed to that way of thinking. Yeah. I agree. It's just fascinating. When you look back through the basically, the lineage of technologies and where they came from or connection to a space and how that went through.

So interesting to always follow that path, you know, that enables technologies, enabled industries. And but as I said earlier, so much of it, while not exclusive, you can't you know, we don't want to put too much because the technologies that came before Apollo, you know, largely got motivated by, you know, World War 2, post World War 2, Cold War, leading up to the space race, then that big burst of technology trying to get to the moon, which led to other things. So you never say it's all this.

No. But never ever it never is all that. You always stand on the, you know, the shoulders of giants and the and the additional shoulders of giants, and, you know, moves forward. But you sometimes have these moments in time that are far and away more impactful than others. So let's take the next jump, and this is a tough one. The global coordination is essential. I'd love to hear your take on this.

And this is this is where I you know, it's kind of a double edged sword here, where we are right now. You know, we we want the whole world to be doing this. And, you know, when it goes my organization, we're always trying to push the international angle, you know, to make sure the whole world is involved from a policy. And now I'm talking I know from, you know, your group, you try to stay away from space, in particular space organizations, meaning NASA and JAXA and the European Space Agency.

But from the international perspective, you know, assuming that governments are going to play a role in these initial phases, one of the things we look at, and this is more of a political thing, international cooperation is very important in creating a long term sustainable program. Because, example, International Space Station would not exist if it didn't become the International Space Station. If it remained space station freedom, it never would have been built.

And so we kinda look at this in this way when we're thinking about Mars missions and making the assumption, you know, we're certainly for if companies like L'Orange and SpaceX or others find a way to do it on their own without government funding, that's terrific. But assuming is we're gonna have government, led programs to begin with, we need to make sure find ways to assure this will have momentum over time.

And ISS was able to maintain its sustainability because it wasn't just dependent on congress or one president. You had international partnerships, treaties between different company countries. And so it wasn't just a matter of, somebody saying, well, let's cut funding for this. By doing that, you really irk, to edit my language, you know, all your international partners. So it's a it's a harder decision to say we're going to stop the ISS.

So we're kinda looking at this for moving forward with SpaceX, or, I mean, going back to the moon and Mars, but this also presents other issues that aren't are more challenging because by doing this, it also creates complications. You're obviously making it more complex, potentially more expensive, and you have to rely on other players. So it's trying to find that balance so you can say, yes.

This should be US led, whether it be US in the grand sense of government or a company that's leading the effort, you know, but finding the right ways to integrate the international community because I think this can be it's one of the most, particularly in these days, one of the most effective tools to build a worldwide support effort, one of our best diplomatic tools. Everybody loves space, you know, even in this country.

It's the only probably one one of maybe 1 or 2 topics right now that have strong public support, strong Republican, strong Democratic, overall public support, and international support. And so I think you need to harness that. And I think since you have that broad based support, you know, from all political spiel all backgrounds, nationalities, how can you harness that to make sure it happens even if it makes it a little more complicated? It's a it's a, 2 things.

First one is, it's a broad assumption, I believe, from the space industry that people love space. And that's one that I've had to demonstrate over and over and over again to individuals in the space industry. I love Star Trek, Battlestar, good octopus, Star Wars. I always say it the same way. I love the movies, but I am not a lover of space. I do not walk down the street and look up. I do not say I wish to live on another planet.

Would I like to be on Star Trek Enterprise and be able to soon cross but then come back? Yeah. That would be kind of fun. But if you said you're gonna live on Mars, that's not my ticket. Well, I I don't I don't I'm on Mars either. And so I'm probably similar to you in that respect, but, you know, I don't necessarily I would like to go into space and it'd be fine.

Yeah. I yeah. So I I have this dialogue often with people in the space industry, and I say, first of all, let's make let's get this close. A lot of people who are very earth oriented when you think of the 7,500,000,000 who are not space oriented. Another point that I always say to them when they say, oh, I'd love to go to space. I say, okay, well, stop for a minute. Just break for just one second. We're gonna put on this helmet and this outfit. We're not sure if you're gonna come back.

Maybe you're 45 years old, maybe you're 53 and your daughter is gonna go through graduation next year from university or your son is going to have a child or you're gonna have great grandchildren. Are you gonna put on that outfit knowing you may never come back or you may die? Now realize, this is a real question. I mean, you may not come back. Will you hop on that aircraft if your kids say, I want you to be around to raise the grandchildren?

Well, I think it's more of a gut jerk a knee jerk reaction to this fantasy of space because we're far from being sure that everybody will make it and everybody will come back. And the third, going back to the point of global coordination, is that is part of the reason that Project Moon Hut has its orientation that it does, is that space is hope to me. It's not redactive. We're not taking away things when you go to space.

We're add we're additive to the future of humanity, where a lot of the challenges we're facing on earth will be solved to large degree the way we're doing it, redactive, taking away the thing, the activities we're engaged in.

So I think that there's gotta be a balance and it's not a plug for Proxima, it's what I've been talking about is that I think that we need that balance that says, like the topic we came up with, is that the impact of space exploration impacts how we live on Earth and there could be huge, huge, huge benefits that come out of it. And I think that dialogue is not really shared when we talk about space, when it comes to the individuals are engaged in space.

Even though it's unknown, it's more let's go instead of no. No. No. No. No. A good example of this of a very practical example of the benefits of international cooperation in space, but I think is a good microcosm of what it could be, is on ISS. Whether you like ISS or not is irrelevant. But if you thought the whole international process was smooth or not, it had some areas that weren't smooth, but, yeah, look at the relationship with Russia.

You know, our you know, US and Russia have had pretty rocky relations over the last, you know, probably decade now. You know, they've gone up and down, but it's always been constant in space. And we've worked it hasn't affected that relationship. It's kind of tied us together. And I think it's I think it's actually done more than people are aware of. They really hold us together. So it didn't go too far that our countries, even during these harsh times, were working.

It didn't impact, you know, working relationship. And I spoke to a lot of people who were in the ISS community at NASA and elsewhere, even when they were at the most rocky periods of US Russian relations, and they said, hasn't really been impacted at all. It's generally an assumption. We all agree, keep the politics out.

Let's keep moving forward, and I think it's played an interesting role that goes well beyond the initial goals of the International Space Station and has true truly worked as a very important diplomatic tool and holding holding well, not hostile, but inflicted countries together. I would look at at maybe if I'm if let me try to change that a little bit differently. So, on the International Space Station, there are 11 countries that are shared in this endeavor.

So we've got Canada, Japan, the Russian Federation, we've got US, we've got Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands. I don't remember all the names. So we've got all of these groups working together to create this International Space Station. And what surprised me, which what you're just saying is, is while the politics are going back and forth, this group of individuals is still talking to all the other groups around the world every day as if it's not actually happening.

There are shared resources. There's shared dialogue. Now it's not to say everybody's involved. For example, I don't know the degree in which China shares. Yet there is a huge community of programmers, designers, space enthusiasts, whatever you may call them, in this one world where days go by as if the world is just getting along. Is that a safe way to say it? It is. They have to have to work with each other. They have to maintain this facility. They have to move forward.

They have strong relationships. You know, I'm not saying it doesn't ever affect them, you know, but it's generally from what I've heard from people I've talked to, it's been a very normal relationship during all of this. And kind of the bring back, kind of an interesting bring it back, it's kind of funny, but, the whole alcohol thing, it's because it has a relationship here.

Because one of the best one of the another story that I found while writing the book that directly relates to international cooperation also directly relates to consumption of alcohol, and it goes right to this whole issue. One of the primary benefits that alcohols played on ISS and Mir before then was bonding, camaraderie.

They wouldn't it wouldn't be something they do every day, but for special occasions when there was a new crew on the ISS and I don't know if this happens every time, but it certainly has happened a number of times. Everybody would come together in the Russian section. Excuse me.

They'd pull out the cognac, they'd have, you know, get together, have a shot of cognac, and it would serve as a bonding experience to crews that come from different, backgrounds, cultures, and from places that weren't necessarily getting along with each other. So I think it served that that diplomatic role of, building relationships in space. And I have you ever been to Russia? Yes, I have. Just once. The amazing thing is just as we all hear, when you're in Russia, you do drink.

I'm assuming we you I the my first I landed in in Moscow of Saint Petersburg. We didn't even go to the hotel. We went out, and we went to a club, and there were 33 of us, and they ordered a magnum full of vodka. And fast forward, there there ended up being 6 of us, but we fast forward to when I landed I had to go to Moscow next, and I was there about 5 days. And I kept track of how many shots I had. Every dinner, there was a person whose sole job was the poor.

There were cheers every single time we did something. And I had 70 shots, and I am not a drinker. I had 70 shots in 5 days. It was beyond imagination. Yeah. I mean, I drink, but I don't drink. I yeah. Yeah. I I don't drink either. I I I don't get drunk. It was just an amazing experience, but that's the bonding. Oh, every day, but not I can't I have the class of 1. And I I wouldn't be able to function with 70 shots.

Can I Well, that was over that was over 5 days, but let let's say you you have alcohol every day? Has it changed because of the coronavirus? Well, actually well yeah. No. It's it's actually increased slightly. I'm trying to maintain I'm trying to control that, you know, to make sure I don't partake too much. But and so it I have gone up a little bit, but I've been trying to keep that under wraps. That's okay. I'm pick I'm picking on you. Yeah. Bear in mind also, I have another 10 minutes.

So Yep. So, no, this is good. This is a good place to end, that the bonding happens. And, yeah, there's there's a lot here and there's a lot more that we haven't shared. And it's interesting, You brought up some things that I didn't know and didn't connect to. I like the I like the Antarctica, connection and this talking about that we'll have these depots, these stations, but not really having that community and that civilization long after.

I like the Budweiser example of how that's their work and engaged in the process of developing. And even the fact that our society wouldn't get there until we got rid of some of these taboos was another meaningful way of looking at how do we know when the metric has been met that we have we've reached that civilization outside of earth, which I'm not sure what that actual timeline will be. And I thought that's an interesting take. Any last thing that you wanna say to me? Any last thing?

No. I think we've pretty much covered it. I think it just I think the key thing here is that as a community, we just need to do a better job at articulating the connections. And, you know, when we're talking about these ambitious goals, we don't do a good job at showing why they're realistic, but it's the the absolute benefits that are already happening, and it's not just the big rocket companies.

You know, it's not just SpaceX, Boeing, Lockheed, you know, Arrogant Rocketdyne, and all the others. It's, you know, peep small companies around the country, around the world, companies every you know, you'd be amazed how many small companies are working on space exploration. It's not their primary contract, but, you know, in every pretty much every congressional history. There are very few of them in the around the United States that do not have something that's related to space.

There are a few small ones that, yeah, just don't get any, but virtually all of them do. And I think that's that's the key thing, showing how much this impacts society, how much it already has, and making the real argument of what it's gonna take to get there, but also tempering some of these overly ambition ambitious viewpoints. Yes. We all wanna get to that city on the moon that you mentioned at the beginning, but there are a number of steps we need to go through before we get there.

And so it is kind of finding that balance, maintaining that inspiring future, but also keeping people realistic. Well, I wanna thank you for being on the program. I truly appreciate it, and I want to thank, everybody who's out there listening in. I do hope that you learned something today in a way that you hadn't heard it and hopefully you're shifting, the need or what's happening in space has been expanded a little bit more to to what could happen.

And Project Moon has many of the activities that we've talked about. So we are looking to establish a box with a roof and a door to become that trigger, to become that final that that, Roger Bannister space where everything opens up and people do say, this is where we can thrive in the future. And Chris, what's the single best way to connect with you if someone wanted to connect with you?

Well, if they wanna email me, just [email protected], or they can just go to our web explore Mars website, exploromars.org. Okay. Well, I'd love to connect with anybody who's interested. You can reach me at [email protected]. We do have a YouTube channel, which is, Project Moon Hut. You can see our logo there. You can connect Twitter, project at project moon hut. For me personally, you can also do at goldsmith, or you can do LinkedIn and Facebook. You can look for me there.

So for everyone out there, I'm David Goldsmith, and thank you for listening.

Hello, everybody. This is David Goldsmith, and welcome to the Age of Infinite, Project Moon Hut podcast series where we're looking at establishing, a box with a roof and a door, a moon hut on the moon, to the accelerated development of an Earth and space based ecosystem, then taking that paradigm shifting and the innovations that are developed and turning them back on Earth to improve how we live on Earth for all species.

Today, we have a very interesting topic, the underlying impact of space exploration on Earth. And we're talking with Chris Carberry. How are you, Chris? I'm great. Thanks for having me on, David. Well, I'm very much excited to hear what you've got to talk about, though. So the, Chris is the CEO and cofounder of Explore Mars. He also just wrote a book recently called Alcohol, and Space.

And the reason that Chris was asked on, like many other guests, is there's a, an originating concept or thought, and Chris had written to me saying, might I be looking for somebody? And our dialogue transitioned into something very interesting is not only alcohol in space, but that's a small piece. But what are the underlying impacts of all space exploration and the things, the activities we've been engaged in for however long he'd like to discuss?

And so Chris and I came to a conclusion that this would be a fantastic topic, and I think he'd be the person who can deliver what we're looking for. So, Chris, I'm assuming you have an outline or some bullet points. Am I correct? I do. I have 6 of them. Okay. Can you hand them over, please? Alright. Number 1, this is a 2 part one with a question and an answer. Space settlements, question mark. Markets on Earth are more important than markets in space.

Number 2, space settlement will depend on nonspace companies. Oh, okay. Nonspace companies. Okay. 3rd. 3rd. 3rd is is is the connected one. Critical critical innovation will come from unexpected places. Got some long ones here. Go ahead. Sorry. No no worries. No worries. This one here is the longest one. Oh, thanks. We will only have space outposts, comma, not space civilization, comma, until certain taboos are broken. Are broken?

I think you've won the award for the largest longest, series of them. And the 5th one? Future missions to the moon and Mars are are already benefiting humanity. And next, last one. And the last the last one is a short one. Global coordination is essential. I've got to be honest with you. I think these are the longest I've ever had as a total. So let's start with the first one. Let's get right into this. Space settlements, markets on Earth are more important than markets in space.

I'm ready, willing to listen and learn. Well, we always get so obsessed. We're talking about future markets in space, you know, building up the you know, an economy and space. We're all looking forward to that, and that eventually will come. But I think people forget, or at least the public, we don't do a very good argument or a very good we don't express ourselves very well that really the core here are the markets here on Earth. How can markets here on Earth benefit from space exploration?

How can we create this synergy to show that these markets, these products, we we're going to be able to benefit humanity with the products, the benefits that are being generated in space, but here on Earth. It's like the old saying that we're not actually people talk about us spending a lot of money in space. We don't spend any money in space. We spend it here on Earth. Same thing as we're talking about commercial space. Eventually, we will.

People will make exchanges of money in space, and it'll stay there, but that still will wise off.

And so we have to start looking at this, you know, as we're talking about the benefits for Earth, how space exploration benefits, basically, the entire planet, we really have to emphasize that finding ways to utilize markets on Earth to help generate generate more sustainability, create that ecosystem you were talking about, because the more the more industries, the more groups that understand that they can play a role in this and they can find a market utilizing space and to advance some future settlements, I think we're going to have a much better chance of achieving those settlements in space.

So so are are are you suggesting, and this is just a suggestion, that our perspective should be that the reality of space will not be all of these great markets popping up immediately could take a very, very, very long time. And that if in fact, we look at this as a not the word bipolar, but it's not bipolar.

It's by object or by definition that just like Project Moon Hut, that if in fact we go to space and we tie it to Earth, we'll have a better chance or a reality check that will happen over time. So I'm did I say that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You did. Because I think when we focus too much on well, at least defining it as space markets, it is actually could be unintentionally, hurting us. If we just wait until we're really making and spending money in space, we're never going to get there.

We need to build this and build that momentum here on Earth, and I think most people in the space industry understand that. Actually, I actually, I would disagree that most people in the space industry agree with that because I just received an an announcement. Some company just said, we we're no longer dark. And so they've they've come out into the light, and they have this entire civilization underground on the moon with pillars and diagrams. And I said to myself, okay.

They've got server farms. They've got complete biological or health or research facilities. They I mean, it was just so extensive. I said, what what are they thinking? This is this this is 30, 40, 50 years in the future, if that. So I'm not I I wouldn't completely agree. I think that some people see what you just said and other people, you know, they they're selling the promise go ahead. Oh, no. Don't trust me. I I agree with you there.

I think the people who are doing the real, you know, the real making the real momentum, really moving us forward, understand where the markets are.

But I think we all hear, and sometimes with some very prominent people within the space community talking about exactly what you're saying, these far flung massive facilities talking about, you know, where you assume there is an already a market there on on the planet, on the moon, on Mars, on, you know, on some space station, and they're jumping over quite a few steps. You know? We It's it's amazing how it's amazing how far they jump.

It's it's In that sense It's like it's like doing the pole vault jump. These peep it's almost as if there's one person I know who's going to build the 1st ever city in space. Right? Okay. Wait. Wait. Wait. We still haven't fig we can't even get to the moon yet on a regular basis. And we're we're still struggling with the International Space Station. And you've shown me diagrams where there are 5,000 or 20,000 people living in this community. And what have you done so far? You drew pictures.

Yeah. So that that's it. We've seen Go ahead. No. We've seen no. It's that's pretty common. We see these wonderful pictures, wonderful videos from various groups. My one of my favorites within the Mars society that's Mars community was Mars 1. Oh, lots of wonderful imagery, some cool videos, you know, saying we want to send, you know, thousands of people who live on, you know, one way trip to Mars. How are they going to do this? We don't even know if you can live on Mars.

We think you can, but, yeah, you're missing an awful lot of steps here. And so I think we have a lot of not a lot of these roofs out there that just don't really understand how things work. It's great to have these ambitious goals. I mean, we've had ambitious goals through science fiction and futurists, and those are essential, but we have to be able to clarify within our community how we're articulating this to the general public and people who most likely will invest that there's a difference.

These are the things that are absolutely necessary now if we want first off, your company will actually benefit from this, humanity will, and there will be a profit from it. You know, but say, maybe, if we're successful, maybe another 50 years, 60 years, a 100 years, we might be able to achieve that goal. Well, nowhere, there might be a self sustaining economy on the moon or on Mars or somewhere else, but we have to be careful there. So what do you see?

I mean, the first thing is space settlements question mark, markets on earth. So can you define what you see as space settlements and what you are seeing as markets? You mean the ones that are based on Earth markets. Correct? Yeah. You can get both. I mean, what do you see happening if you were to paint a small picture? What's earth and space based? Or as a a guy, Andreas and I were talking yesterday, he says, we've always thought about ourselves as living in earth.

And I shared with you the video we have this concept called Mearth. He said what Project Moon has done is more or less given us a different diameter on which we live and we have opportunities. So how would you define future space settlements, and how would you define the markets on Earth that will come out of this? And this is largely related to some of the next points coming up. But Go ahead. And you can you can do it any way you'd like.

Well, well, let me kinda quickly go over this and then we can get to the other points, which will cover a lot of the same territory as well. Okay. But I think, you know, I think it's gonna start off similar in a similar manner to, for instance, but not for the same purpose, as what we this level of settlement we have in Antarctica.

Now that's entirely focused on science, so it's not a perfect analogy, but it's actually an interesting sized settlement where you actually have groups of people, you know, fairly large number, but not, you know, not a huge number. It's not a town. You have bars. You have other thing else. So I think that's that's the level of initial ones once you get past those initial sortie type missions and How big are how big are they in Antarctica? You know, it did it varies.

They don't remember sole numbers. They have multiple bases and they have I don't remember what the numbers are, but I think they have, you know, quite a few people because they have 3 bars down there. So, I'm not sure what the numbers are, but and it's relatively small. It's like a very small town, you know, when you look at it, but I I'd have to look up what the actual numbers are, but, of course, it changes throughout the year. Well, just I just looked it up just to help because I didn't know.

There are around 60 6 scientific bases on Antarctica, of which about 37 are occupied year round. The remainder are open during the summer and closed down for the winter. There are about 4,000 people throughout the summer months and about a1000 overwinter each year. That's interesting because I wouldn't have guessed it was as high as 4,000. I was thinking I was thinking over a1000, but so that's interesting, but still within that level that I was talking about, small town. You know?

And so in some but it's not really self sustainable. There are self sustainable elements at the end of the day there, but it's still not they're still a fairly, reliant I mean, on Earth, obviously, but from supplies from elsewhere on Earth. And initial initial settlements, outposts on the moon or Mars, well, we're going to always be working towards that self sustainability through agriculture, Jenner, using ISRU, utilizing, you know What's ISRU? Oh, sorry.

In situ resource utilization, essentially living off the land. Okay. Whether it be using the soil, utilizing on Mars, the CO2 atmosphere or the water, the water on the moon, or other resources on the moon. You know, that's the real the holy grail in space exploration, you know, to enable permanent presence is ISRU. If you can't live off the land, you can't you can't have space settlements, you can't have sustainable ones, you can't have civilization.

Just like if when the first European settlers came to the new world, they had to wait for shipments of all their food from Europe, that would not have been sustainable. Yep. Okay. I I actually, I love the analogy of Antarctica. Oh, thank you. It's always you know, I always look at this and but we sometimes look at the Antarctic model in a negative light as well. People, you know, look at it. We can't only be doing this.

No. It shouldn't be because there's there's an argument within the space community, you know, folks who want to have long term settlement and colonies versus the people with exclusively science focus where they say, this is all we should have. Antarctica should be the model and the only model we should follow. We should not assume that we're gonna create civilization anywhere else, you know, for various reasons, whether it be planetary protection, not screwing up another planet, etcetera.

There are a lot of different reasons, but and the Antarctic model can't be discount because it is a great model for that early phase. And as we're learning to live off the land, we're learning how to live on another planet because we always assume, oh, yeah. Of course, we're gonna be able to go to the moon or Mars, and it'll be just great, but we don't know that. We need we need to learn. The challenge to me is often timelines.

Even to get 4 67 basis or to get whatever numbers in Antarctica, it didn't happen overnight. So when someone suggests that we will have this within 10 years, well, how many air how many flights would have to occur from the Earth to just the moon to get 5,000 or 4000 people on the moon? They're not gonna be born there.

And if you even if you had a 100 at a time, which is an enormous number because you'd have to have resources at the destination, how do you end up with 40 of these flights happening? And all along, while you're building, you have to build building materials. You'll have to have all, the amount of resources or structures or tools in place would be astronomical. Do you see much happening within space? Within space in what regard?

Meaning, not on the moon, but more international space stations of larger scale happening in the past in the next decade or whatever timeline you're using? I do, but I actually don't see the space station option, at least initially, being the most practical one. Now the most famous company focused on that, Bigelow, is largely shut down. Oh, really? Big Bigelow shut down? I believe so. I think the COVID virus COVID virus kind of put them you know, completely stopped them.

But they had been you know, they had started off with some wonderful success with those 2 versus those 2 test inflatable modules, and, of course, they attached the beam to, the space station. Yeah. But, you know, they were the primary ones being looked at, and and there are others out there, but it's unclear whether any of the others have the wherewithal, have the funding to be able to do this.

Right now, I mean, it looks like the space station current space station, the international space station is it. Now but the big question there is, is there a viable commercial model? We keep talking about handing off to the to the commercial sector, but thus far, I haven't seen any viable plans where NASA still isn't largely and its partners are largely responsible for making sure it doesn't, come falling back down to Earth.

So the the Project Moon had 4 phases, and I'm not trying to sell Project Moon, I'm just using it as a reference place because you've there's a for those who are listening, I'll break here. For those who are listening, there is a, YouTube channel, Project Moon Hut, and there's a video of 20 minutes and 40 minutes. And I in there, there are the 4 phases of Project Moon Hut development. So let's come back.

The, the belief and the timeline of this taking decades to get us to a point of having any type of sustainable life on the moon, not self sustaining, but sustainable, meaning we could supply it. And your estimation is with what you're saying. It's a little further out based upon a company like Bigelow. And Bigelow makes modular homes out of a, I don't know how to say it. How would you say it?

Like, a balloon that would go inflatable home that would be able to go on the moon or as someone recommended, taking a piece of the International Space Station and pushing it to the moon. But we don't have anything really in the loop as of this moment that creates a rapid deployment. Yeah. I think it's much more likely. I it's interestingly it's interesting the fact that it's more likely and more practical now that we're going to have actual, out pay post on the moon and perhaps possibly Mars.

And I think that could happen before we actually have sustainable commercial space stations at the rate we're going. The emphasis the emphasis right now is getting to the surface of the moon, getting on to Mars, getting to the surface of Mars. Now, being a guy who runs a Mars group, I like this direction. But that still remains to be seen if it will happen, but a large amount of the momentum is heading in that direction.

And I just don't I have not seen any viable, you know, currently viable space station private space station models right now that have the right funding and momentum. And as I said, I haven't also seen any particularly compelling arguments or ways to move forward with a privatized international space station. You know, it'll be interesting to see if they can figure it out.

Still have a few years, but This this company that just said something to me said 2026, and I'm thinking you're building an aircraft carrier on the moon, and you think you're gonna be able to do it within 6 years. And Yeah. It's it's Yeah. It's we we need to get we need to get 4 to 8 people to go around the moon and return, and live on there live on the moon for 27 days just to experience that whole challenge more than we are gonna get to, putting an aircraft carrier on the moon tomorrow.

Well yeah. And this this is the critical thing. And this is where even with people like and I'm a great fan of Elon Musk and and and, Jeff Bezos. Sometimes everybody gets ahead of themselves.

I think they're all doing great work and they're gonna be a critical player, but, you know, when they say, oh, I'm gonna get there in 4 years or send a 100 people at a time, Now, in some ways, I think the NASA no. I don't agree with everything that NASA does either, but, you know, we do need to have some of those initial missions to make sure we can live there, you know, with the right people to figure these things out and then grow it from there.

But kind of and I'll use this as a segue to move on to the next point, which relates and maybe I'll say both of them at once. You know, as I said, number items number 23 were space settlement will depend on non space companies and critical innovation will come from unexpected places. This is where I think and this really goes right back to that initial, hypothesis about or statement about how markets on Earth are more important, at least in the short term.

Mhmm. And it's we always focus on the big rocket companies. SpaceX will get us to Mars. Blue Origin will get us to the moon. Or NASA, international partners will do this, and we focus on the big rockets. And that's kind of it. It's like and the big rockets are important, but there's a lot more to creating a sustainable, you know, presence on the moon and Mars, creating outpost, civilization, all these places.

And these are companies we don't necessarily or capabilities we don't usually think about with regard to space exploration. Companies working on, for instance, the easiest one which people have thought about more within space, companies working on artificial intelligence.

And this is even more important when we're going on to Mars because we will, you know, until well, until now, we still, you know, astronauts on the International Space Station always are a quick phone call away or whatever they call it, quick communication with Earth. And they even in these days, they can send stuff up pretty quickly. There's always replacement parts and then, of course, they can escape pretty quickly if there's something going wrong on the International Space Station.

When you're on Mars or going to Mars I need to jump in for one moment because you asked you just said something. I never thought about that answer. Is there a rapid deployment exit for the people on the International Space Station? Yeah. They have Soyuz. They're Docked and ready to go, just in case. Okay. I I you never thought about it, never asked. Yeah. They're able to get in them. If something goes wrong, they're able to, get in and then release.

I don't know all the mechanics if there's every if they can just instantaneously, but, or if they have to wait for a certain window. But since they're emergency escape ones, presumably, they can, let loose pretty quick quickly. But only by the skin of their teeth, by being really innovative and doing a free return, were they able to get back, you know, without, you know, loss of life or complete complete mission failure.

But, you know, when you get beyond or beyond and you also have communications delays, this is where some of these critical technologies that aren't necessarily gonna come from the space companies or from NASA are critical, AI, kind of like that HAL technology in 2001, but hopefully not homicidal, you know, making sure that you have systems that are smart enough to anticipate or have, you know, can you know, you have medical libraries, doctors with inputted inputted input, you know, medical information, diagnosis, if you put, like, ask it, you know, I have these systems, symptoms, you know, and have systems AI systems that have been programmed by medical professionals to anticipate these things.

So or, you know, these things are all important. And, you know, you can't control it from Earth as well, like, when you have systems coming in, like, landing on Mars, like we do now, you know, when we have robotic probes landing. They're all on their own. Yeah. You know, the Earth will send commands, but those commands are not going to be any help when, like, for instance, the upcoming Perseverance, rover is landing. You know, once it's beginning its entry to say the landing, it's on its own.

So when you say Space Elmo will be, non space companies, can you give me a few examples of what your what do you put do you have a list of them? Or do you some of them I with you. Well, one, Yeah. One of them is actually, you know, this one relates this one is in the unexpected places. One of my favorite ones right now is very unexpected. Would you know did you know that Budweiser is playing an interesting critical role right now? I did not know that.

Well, it's not necessarily a potentially critical role. See, you know, Budweiser announced, and not to plug my book here, but it's this is kind of how I learned about this. You know, Budweiser announced several years ago they wanted to be the 1st beer mug manufacturer on Mars. And, of course, we thought it was just a PR stunt. But since then, they have sent 4 barley experiments to the International Space Station. And you think about, oh, that's great.

You know, maybe we can make beer in space or in my case, I'd like to make whiskey. But when you look beyond that, this is what they are actually doing, whether you want a beer in space or not, is actually, this is much more important because this is a company with no space connection to space investing in agriculture. And agriculture. The agriculture companies that have an interest in agriculture are one of these non space type companies.

I mean, whether it be Budweiser or others that are more specifically ag, but they are investing in a one of the most essential capabilities if we want to have civilization beyond our planet. We're not going to do that without investment in agriculture. I'm gonna say, I thought you were gonna say we do we weren't gonna do it without investment in beer. So, I'm glad you Well That's my next point about breaking, taboos. But, yes, but, no, the agriculture is essential.

We cannot maintain human presence if we can't grow food. If we're living on the moon or Mars or anywhere else, if we're always dependent on a shipment from Earth, that is not a sustainable that's not a sustainable presence. That's not, you know, a living, breathing ecosystem. That is something that is dependent, you know, on Earth.

And so if something happened on Earth to prevent even not a global disaster or pandemic like we're going through right now, But if for some reason, you know, launch capacity broke down for a while, does that mean you're just not going to eat? So, you know, it's that agriculture is one of those critical areas that, you know, probably will be greatly impacted by non space companies. Another one is and this is kind of an interesting one. It also relates to food.

And some of them some of them are thinking about this. Some of them haven't really thought through the space implications. But one of my favorite or one of my favorite things I like hearing, you know, when people are hypothesizing what people are going to Earth eat when they're in space, and one of these things that I don't agree with, a lot of people will say, of course, they're gonna be vegan. And, you know, you can understand why we're not gonna be bringing cows up to the moon or not.

I have been saying to people for the 6 years I've been involved in this, you have not seen any cows, chickens, pigs or fish on Star Trek Enterprise because they're not carrying them. They have 3 d printing technology. That's the the space replicator. So it's interesting. You're the first person I've heard say, we're not gonna have cows, chickens, pigs on Mars or moon. We are, but not not in the way you might think. And you were on closer to the mark with the 3 d printing, and that's one of them.

But we can actually have chicken, beef, fish, and you don't even have 3 d printed, you have similar technology. Growing growing capability right now and with a lot of companies in California and elsewhere is cellular grown meat. Yes. And one like Thin Thinless Foods, which does, as you can imagine, fish.

There are companies I remember watching, and a company that did chicken, and they the company employees are sitting down at a picnic table eating chicken sandwiches, and the chicken they're eating actually walked by. And so So when when you think about this consumption based or, using molecular biology to be able to grow this product in vats or in in factories, That's the that's the step that you're watching on Earth. I am because this is, you know, it's not likely.

I never believed that people were gonna go all of a sudden turn into vegans, everybody. Some people will. That's their choice, but I didn't think this was realistic, but I think there are ways around it. And so I think if you can just bring a few cells from chickens, from various, you know, fish and from beef and others, you know.

Yeah. And if you can consciously use science, produce it, then you can do it in a way that actually tastes very realistic now, and you can adjust it for health as well. So you can actually adjust the taste, you can also do it so it's generally even more healthy than the original, you know, the the real meat. I don't know if a real taste is good, but certainly will be better than just eating lettuce. So I I'm my take is I believe it will happen.

I'm gonna ask you a question, and I want you to continue with the list. I've asked this question. If in fact the meat is produced in a vat, no animals were killed in the process of developing that product. I think it well, it's not a question, but it's a statement. I think it's going to be very challenging for individuals who have a moral or an ethical or however you want to position this concept of eating a live animal if it's no longer living, if it has just come out of a vat.

And I wonder how in the future when these technologies merge or accelerate to the point of possibilities, there becomes a question, do I not eat that now because no animals were harmed in the making of this food? Well, technically speaking, yeah, I suppose the when we're talking about vegans Mhmm. Yeah, that they have much more rigorous standards, you know, nothing that's an animal byproduct. Yeah. Understand. So you are stealing some cells from an animal, they didn't allow you.

They didn't tell you that they wanted to do animal with cells. And so technically speaking, probably would still be a no no to vegans. But from, you know, a vegetarian perspective, you know, why not? I think it it, you know, it depends on where you're coming at this. If it's a dietary thing, that you just don't wanna have meat, that's fine. But it does could bring up some interesting discussions on this whole this whole argument.

If you are actually not killing any any animals and you can still eat meat, It's just just just the dialogue. I think it's an interesting question about decision making. So what else do you have on this list? We have chicken beef. We have Budweiser. What else do you have? Well, they're also company and this is I'm not gonna name specific companies for every one of these, but general areas that, you know, are critical.

Well, you already mentioned 3 d printing, and that's that's another one that's just you know, they're also working on they they've been doing 3 d printed food for some time, but all these different, 3 d print printing company like Maiden Space or others, so I did mention a company. But they are That's okay. Don't worry about it. That's, it's good to hear the names. Yeah. And I think they're putting one on the International Space Station now, aren't they?

It's not one of the Oh, they already have one up there, but I believe there's another one going up. Yeah. I think there's another one going. Yeah. I I I confess I haven't paid attention too closely to exactly where you know, what their current status is, but but there are a lot of them out there and this is one again. These technologies that as we advance them for space exploration, we are benefiting Earth at the same time as well.

I'll throw one out because, Evan, I would like to hear more on the list because I know that IKEA has been investing in space, which was an interesting thought. IKEA, they're looking at future living environments or places to or I I actually don't even know their their design thought behind this, but they are investing in space, which is a surprise to me. Oh, yes. They are.

I mean, because that whole living space is so important, and it's actually a connection I'll get to shortly because it reminded me of, you know, the current current circumstance the whole world's in right now and the connection there is to Mars exploration. But designing that living space within a confined space to accommodate a group of people, smaller group of people, basically living in isolation for 3 years, at least if we're going to Mars, is a challenging one.

So IKEA, basically, that's their whole thing, trying to figure this out, figure out living spaces. So they have invested. And interestingly, I I I was talking to or late late last year, talking to a number of architectural firms that have been shifting towards space design, you know, mainstream architectural firms. And these were in New York.

You don't usually expect to talk to, like, the space interested architects in in Manhattan, but I I was amazed how much interest in the architectural world there is in space exploration because of, first off, solving these problems for living in a confined space and maximizing the space you're living in.

And I remind you also, people think about it in the terms that we are on within one g, you have to think when you're talking about using space in space, it's you you have to assume that you're using all of the space. You're not locked to the floor, so you have to think of the walls and the ceiling that it's not just the floor space that you're using because every surface is the floor space there. Right. Or or every every surface is the ceiling. Every surface yeah. Every yeah.

Depending how you use it. Yeah. But even still, these companies are looking at it also for how can we utilize it here on Earth. Because, you know, particularly in kind of cities like New York, where, like, a square a square inch of apartment space is like a house in some other parts of the country, you know, trying to figure out the right way of designing a space that's even very small but still can be practical and livable.

Have you seen have have you seen an actual have you seen, for example, of an IKEA or an architect that has taken a concept that they've used in the design of space and applied it in a reasonably known environment on Earth. I believe I haven't seen this one. I've seen images, but, I believe IKEA there was some IKEA partnership with the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, which the Mars Society runs.

And that's one of the you know, that's been around for a while, and it's modeled on basically, it's designed to be at the same size as the initial one of the initial habitats on Mars. So they've been running that for a while, but they you know, a lot of thought was given to that whole design and making sure people had you could not only work, but live together, work together, but also had privacy.

And I haven't really looked at what they've done, but I do recall that IKEA actually may have worked with them a little bit to work in that space, to figure out, you know, what might work best to accommodate the crew in both the, their work environment, but making sure they didn't drive each other insane, which is gonna be a big issue.

My my mind graces towards, first one, when you're going to the, moon or Mars, or let's go to the moon, do you walk through the same store and get to a certain, like, area in the store? Like, is part of your path or do you, will they deliver? So I've got these humorous type things in my head. Is it gonna be made of particle board? Not everything's made of particle board, but are they going to keep it cheap?

So there it's an interesting I I wonder when we'll see something that has a or be notified that this design concept came from a space based thinking, paradigm shift. Well, I don't know. That that's an interesting one. What what I see are those companies like that. You know, I'd you know, it'd be interesting to see how quickly you know, hopefully, it's not made of particle board. And presumably, we won't be using particle board in space anytime soon. A a graphene or whatever.

So, what other ideas do you have? What other places have you seen? Well, you know, of course, I'm gonna go I'm just gonna go through the categories right here, areas that, you know, are critical, like communications. Right now, deep space deep space communications network is completely inadequate for sending humans to Mars. Obviously, the moon, it's easier, it's much closer. But with Mars, just a limited bandwidth.

You can't we're not gonna be able to change the speed of light, so we're always gonna have the latency, you know, so a gap time period between communication and an answer. But we can fix the bandwidth. So there are companies in Silicon Valley and others looking at this, creating, you know, interplanetary Internet. One of the people who has given this most thought is Ben Cerf. Anyway, he's pretty much the father of the Internet. He's now a vice president at Google. Yep. I know Ben. Yeah.

And Ben has been working on the concepts for, dramatically increasing the bandwidth for Internet and not international, interplanetary communication for some time. And he's consulted with NASA and others. So I think this is an area another area where companies technology companies, you know, if they're given a problem, might be able to have that solution if you're not just depending on, say, you know, you know, one organization, be it NASA or one company like SpaceX.

It's when you challenge these innovators, you know, when you have a lot of different people looking at it in a lot of different directions, this is where you're gonna get, you know, the really critical forward motion in these capabilities. But other areas like mining and power companies, you know, power companies on Earth are looking at this. Oil companies are have been looking at space because they're interested in, you know, ISRU, utilizing resources.

I can't remember some of the examples, so I I'm only gonna keep that as a top level example here. But telemedicine's another critical one. And this is once again it leads into some of the things we're going through right now. Right?

Tell them, you know, when we're going to the Moon or Mars or anywhere else, until we have actually created civilization and we have medical facilities equal to here on Earth on these places, we're gonna need to be in communication in most in at least in more serious circumstances with Earth.

And so it's forced us to look at different ways of telemedicine, being able to diagnose remotely, being able to, do certain procedures while there's a limit to what you can do from Earth to Mars because of the latency. But you can still you know, they are still building systems to figure out how to work with this. And this relates to the AI as well.

This also relates to our environment right now because telemedicine's become even more important as we're trying trying to keep people safe, trying to social isolate, but also trying to be able to find an innovative new ways to make sure that they can see a doctor or a psychologist. Psychology is a little easier because you can communicate via the phone and do it in a way that's safe without taking unnecessary risks.

And so these are all critical ones which also will have definite benefits back here on Earth. This is where this is one of the things that got me into inspired by Mars exploration. I mean, I'm certainly excited about the prospect of human settlements on another planet, but it was the the concept of or the, what shall I say, it was that prospect of that massive innovation that could come from it.

You know, what do you need to be able to survive, create that ecosystem on Mars, and what are the products that are needed? And things that we problems will look at in a way that we would never look at them in this way on Earth, but we can also bring back to Earth, help humanity, but also be a major, positive, element for the economy. Because I really see this, if we do it right, that all these things can have a dramatic impact on our economy in the long term.

That's a this is you're you're basically outlining project Moon, not one component of it. Very quickly, can you name some names, mining, power, telemedicine, AI, psycho psychology any companies that are doing something really interesting in your mind? Well, with AI, there are a number, obviously, companies like, IBM Watson.

They're doing they have they very much have space on their minds, you know, and they they they want to use Watson and other AI technology, you know, for going for space exploration, and we've been talking to IBM quite a bit. I know Google's been working on this, HP. So there are a lot of companies looking at AI. Let's see what other telemedicine. Let me see if there's a company that I can think of. I should have written down some more of the names here. Take your take your time, man.

I'm just trying trying to get my mind around some of the the the companies or individuals. No. But when mobile for instance, I assure you materials and things like that, Caterpillar. Yeah. Caterpillar has been, you know, been getting more involved in coming to space conferences. A number of I know a lot of people in the space community have communicated with them particularly on, you know, lunar resources and things like that.

So there has been interest from companies like Caterpillar in becoming a player in this, you know, if we're going to have we're gonna excavate on the moon, are we gonna rely on NASA to build all the excavating equipment?

No. Let's get companies that know how to do this on Earth, you know, or if you're drilling, You know, I I as I said, I believe the, you know, number of the oil companies, and I I don't wanna I'm trying to remember which ones, because they've all gotten a STEM education, so it's getting all jumbles in my mind. I've gotten interest there as well. So it's let's see if I can think of some of the others. Yeah. I think I've I think I've run out of the examples off the top of my head.

I should have done more of No worries. The the the first time I sat down with Bruce Pittman and I went over how Project Moon Hut ended up being created the whole story, I said Caterpillar. I said, cat cat would like Caterpillar would like little cats on the moon. And he said to me, oh, yeah. They're really interested in this because I said it's remote mining. It's capabilities that could be used on Earth and in space. Doesn't matter if you're a mile underground or you are, at a distant planet.

It's still mining being done. So that's I'm glad you mentioned Caterpillar. I wonder what some of the others are. Yeah. There there are a lot. As I said, I should have dug even more and more into the details, but, and some just aren't coming to mind, but there are a lot that are getting more and more interested. And I think critical thing is, once it's looking even more realistic, you know, you'll see.

There's there's already a lot of companies looking at this, but they're at the beginning stages. Once they we can see that this is beyond just theory, and we're getting closer. That's why companies are getting more interested. But once it really looks real and we are actually returning to the moon and we're going to Mars, then we actually start mining or doing, you know, searching for minerals or trying to extract water, that's when, you know, there's gonna be more and more interest.

So this will start this will start a cascading effect, you know, once it becomes real and they can see the prospect, not only to be to participate in a big project that'll actually get their name out there, but the potential of a long term, profit, and most of these will be. It's not gonna be a short term one unless they get a big government contract, and that's the source of their profit.

But it still will be a little while before they actually make a direct profit from the actual mining on the moon or Mars. It's a it's a combination of things. It's a it's a promotional component. There's a branding component. There's a, first ever to have done something component. And that's where the Roger Bannister space, which, you and I have spoken about. The the once it's achieved, venture will open up, banking will open up if you wanna put the category.

And we'll start to see more and more insurance companies who will say we're willing to take the risk on the project. So there'll be a whole transformation of the industry once we have the Roger Bannister space, a box with a roof and a door on the moon. So yes. Absolutely. So that so, we've done I think you said 34 23 were together. So 4 4 was, space outpost, not space civilizations, certain until certain taboos are broken. What did you mean by that?

Right now, and, but right now, everything and right now in space, of course, it's very controlled. We only have a few people up there. They're on duty 24 hours a day, and so there's no even when they have off time, they don't really have off time, and they're very restricted in their active activities. And there are certain taboos that people don't like talking about officially. One of which I wrote a book about, alcohol in space. Another one is sex in space.

The other the next one is just generally incorporating everything, freedom in space. Yeah. Because right now, you can understand why we can't it's very difficult to talk or at least acknowledge drinking in space because, you know, you don't want the perception that you have inebriated astronauts, although I found no evidence of any astronaut or cosmonauts becoming inebriated in space. But, you know, the other one is even more challenging, of course, being SACS in space.

And it's a challenging one because we know it's eventually gonna happen, if it hasn't already, but what are the implications if you can conceive in if you conceive in space and how will the, you know, how will the child develop? Will they be able to live on Earth if they're developed if they were conceived in microgravity or in 1 third gravity or in 1 sixth gravity? And so but as long as these things are restricted, you're not really living in a civilization. Civilizations have that freedom.

You're not on duty 24 hours a day. You're you have you know, you live like you are here, hopefully, minus being isolated by a pandemic. But, you know, so until you actually have you know, are just assume there's going to be consumption of alcohol, hopefully hopefully irresponsible drinking, but that's not always the case in a free society.

And once you assume people are going to have sex and and, and don't have children, you know, to really really have a civilization because you have to get past that period of caution, that period of, basically, experimentation Right. I was gonna say that I don't know if it's a taboo. I would maybe this is a different way to look at it. It is a point in which a group of individuals get past the point of doing exploration. They get past the point of experimentation.

They get past the point of this is how we're trying to survive to a point in which they could start right. So I wouldn't say it's a taboo because the last conversation I had with Peter Garrix in the the the previous interview, we talked about the potential of what freedom in space means. You took it differently. His was more about the sickle on the moon versus the American flag.

So he took it from a governance side, but I think you're just taking it from the ability to live your life in a manner that humans live. And yesterday with Andreas from Berlin, we talked about SACS and we did talk about, first of all, no fluids in in the spacecraft is not very good. We did talk about the fact that you have to have harnesses to hold people down. And then he brought up some other pieces some other evidence that the body, the blood doesn't go to the extremities the same way.

It tends to go more to the head, and that's why people look younger in space. It's like they've gotten injections. But that men can't function. So they're developing these devices that a man would put in their other end and it would give electrical shock treatment so that a man could have a baby, so he could be with a woman because that those pieces don't work. And we had a whole conversation about that. So I yes.

They are happening and maybe this, if you know of anybody, it would be great to have a an interview on this. I would be interested to bring them on board, any of them, freedom in space or sex in space or alcohol in space.

You know, I I let me think about that because there are a number of people That would be an interesting dialogue because I had never heard of these these new devices that are being developed, which are sound well, if you're gonna go to Mars and you can't have children, you could bring an egg, but that changes the entire dynamics of a civilization. Yeah. It does. And so, yeah, I hadn't heard about those device. That's something that's something I'm interested in looking up now.

It's Hey. Well, it was just that we we hit on the topic of he and I speak at least once a week. And the topic first time coming up after years of talking. And he said, oh, no, no. There's definitely a device. You it's like a woman's device if you wanna use it that way without going too crazy. A vibrator, I'll say it. There was a vibrator and it's a shape of 1, but it's put up the man from the backside and it's giving a pulsating stimulant, electrical pulsating stimulant.

And what it's doing is it's getting the rest of the body to react so that a man can be with a woman in space and reproduce. And I had never, this was yesterday, I had never heard of this technology, yet it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, no, it does. I'm curious whether it'll be pleasurable or Yeah, I didn't, I'm glad this is a conversation with a man instead of a woman. So it doesn't come back at me.

At this point, we could have a program with a woman online, but it was it was a interesting dialogue because we're talking about civilization and the challenges that we'll have to address on 1 6th or 1 third or just in 0 gs. And the other thing he brought up, and you're probably aware of this, I'm assuming, that the Russians neither deny or agree that they've had, sex in space. And it is I've heard that. I've also heard, and I don't know if this is true.

I heard a rumor of something happening on the American side, but I don't know if that's just, you know, one of these urban legends or not. There's one couple that did not go up together in Russia that ended up getting married after they had both been up or something of that nature. So I don't know. Interesting conversation.

But I do love the idea that until we can get to a normalcy, what we consider to be a human on earth normalcy, where you can go through your day to day, then that will then turn into civilization versus an outpost. Yeah. Otherwise, you're right. You just you can't you can't live life. You're not you're not civilization if you're always assuming you're on the mission. So Yeah. I that's an interesting jump that I have thought about, but not in these in this, topical area.

Cool. Anything else to add to that? No. I don't. I think we pretty much covered it. I could go on since, as I said, since I wrote a whole book on the alcohol thing. I could go on a whole another hour on that, but this is probably a good place. Give give me give me one because we really didn't hit alcohol. Give me 1 or 2 really strong points on the alcohol side. So I'd really like to know. Well, okay. Let me before I give those, tell me what you're looking for.

I mean, there are there are dozens of companies right now or companies and organizations investing on whether we can consume or manufacture and consume alcohol in space. There's also an interesting history of drinking in space. And then, of course, in my book, I also look at enabling technologies, primarily agriculture and synthetic biology. Where were you kinda, what are you looking for? I had no one What I'm I have this preconceived notion of being able to drink in space.

You have your bottle, you can drink, you can do. I don't really I just something radical, something that we would not have thought about. Let me ask you a different question. Something that made you say, oh my god, hadn't thought about that when you were writing it to the degree that stand out ish in the writing. Well, when I I'm gonna do a top level one, and I'll get down to very specifics because you kind of leading up to it, I kind of it came to focus.

Now the main thing for me with in writing the book, which really stuck out, was the fact that the requirements for manufacturing alcohol in space are almost identical with what's needed to maintain human civilization. You need everything. You need the you know, you need, you know, you need the agriculture, you need, obviously, an environment air, everything else.

And so there was so much parallel, I realized, you know, by investing in this, you are making those direct investments in space exploration. So that was, like, like, the Budweiser example. But some of the things that stood out that are actually being worked on right now were things like, many people know that, of course, there's I don't know if you know, you probably have heard that carbonation is problematic in microgravity. Didn't know that, but now I do.

Okay. So you well, you know when you put a glass of carbonated beverage, beer, Coca Cola, champagne, on the table in 1 g, the gas rises up and disperses into the atmosphere. Right. And so in space, it doesn't do that. It stays it stays within the fluid, so it's always gonna be carbonated to a degree that's Yeah. Really carbonated. Yeah. It merges into the center and slowly starts expanding, does that in your stomach also.

And so astronauts who've consumed, carbonated drinks report stomach cramps and wet burps, which doesn't promote a good drinking experience. Yeah. And so there are companies right now looking at this, trying to figure that out, and largely alcohol companies, see if they can create not only beverages that you could that are carbonated that you can consume without the negative impacts, but also ways of consuming them more authentically. As you mentioned, squirting beverages into the air.

Well, you can do that, but, you know, some of the, alcohol producers are really concerned about that. They want their products to be consumed authentically in space. So companies like Maison Moune, champagne producer in France, is, you know, produced a champagne with the right balance of carbonation.

It was actually one of their products anyway, created a bottle for dispersing it in space, but also created a glass, a special glass that you could actually drink their product in space to maintain the, quote, conviviality of drinking their product in microgravity for future people at, you know, in space hotels. But, you know, other companies are looking at designing, other glassware.

There's a company that looked at how to create a cocktail glass in space and scotch glasses, and they're trying to figure out these problems of fluid dynamics. How how liquids adhere to surfaces in space so that you can actually drink out of a glass, but you're also solving other problems at the same time, you know, with these fluid dynamic problems. They might be useful in other parts of the other systems of the spacecraft.

So this this is where, you know, real what's really struck me was how much of the research being done with it to enable consumption and manufacture of alcohol in space as a direct tie to other necessary capabilities in space. And so this is why I am was got even got more excited about this topic because of the number of companies that are investing in these capabilities that can be used well beyond the need for a drink in space, but also can be brought back to Earth.

And we don't even know how the absorption will happen in these environments after our body has been out of Earth orbit. So that that that even I think I've said it on another program. Lynn Harper, who's out of NASA, said to me one day, we don't even know if cells will divide properly. And then we had Yocia Mean on one of these programs, and they do CubeSat SpacePharma. They do pharmaceutical research in space.

And he said they put a nerve into their testing, and it grew 10 times longer than they expected. So imagine birth or or living and your nerve grows 10 times longer than it's supposed to. So drinking could be an issue when it's met with alcohol in space. Yeah. And the thing is yeah. That that's a very good point. I addressed this in the book. We don't have any studies on how humans metabolize alcohol in space. We know there has been drinking. We know there's been quite a bit of drinking.

But because it's so it's unofficial. Every space agency officially prohibits drinking in space. There have been no formal studies. We have anecdotal tales. We know that it's not having small amounts of alcohol, and usually it's cognac. Cognac is a drink of choice in space, and more on that in a second. We know that they can drink it in small quantities, basically a shot without any really negative impact. But we don't know if you can consume much more than that.

We don't know really what the impact on the human body was is because there have been no formal studies. Once again, it's an all anecdotal tales of drinking in space. So Maybe they're trying to avoid the previous conversation that could happen if there's too much alcohol. Oh, yeah. I mean, I understand the reasons, but No. That that was a joke. That that was a joke. It was a bad joke, but you got it. No. But it's it's real this real there's real concern there.

There are so many different reasons why people, you know, are concerned about the topic, and some of it's legitimate, but it's also since so many people are investing in this, it's an it's an inevitable thing. You know, anybody who thinks we're gonna have settlements in space, assume there'll be alcohol there. So it's maybe not be the most important thing. And I don't actually disagree with an official prohibition, you know, you know, with at the scale of space exploration we're doing right now.

But since we know what's happening and we know it's going to happen, it's a legitimate area for study. You know? And that's where it gets and that's it's much easier than the whole sex and space thing. There aren't as many ethical considerations. Well, I and I I I would wonder who has been who was the first person in low, low earth low earth orbit, who is the first person who has had alcohol above the atmospheric line?

The first person the first person that I know of, the alcohol has gone up for this, you know, with gags like Apollo Apollo ate 3 bottles of brandy went up with, you know, that crew as a gag for their holiday meal, but they didn't drink it. Jim Lovell sold his bottle years later, I think, for, like, like, $20,000 maybe $30,000, but, for a bottle of small bottles of brandy that had gone around the moon.

But had 6 months later, the first person I'm aware of that actually had alcohol in space had wine on the surface of the moon. That would have been Buzz Aldrin, part of a communion ceremony, and that's well publicized. He wrote about that. And basically, he had arranged with his church, the Webster Presbyterian Church in Houston, to do a communion ceremony.

So they brought up this little goblet, some communion wine he poured it in, the 16th grave, he describes that and does, you know, says a few prayers and consumes it. And to my knowledge, that is the first time and and think the last time anybody's consumed an alcoholic beverage on a planetary another planetary body.

Cool. I suspect I suspect others had drug consumed alcohol in space before then, but because I know plenty had been smuggled up more as gags, but I would be shocked if nobody tasted it. Yeah. But that's the first one that I'm aware of. Okay. Anything more with the topic of outpost and space and the No. I think we've I think we've pretty much covered that. Okay. So let's get to future missions to moon, and we'll add in the Mars, are already benefiting humanity.

And I'm not gonna spend, yeah, I'm not gonna spend too much time on this one, but a level think about what's going on now within the space industry. Think about all these companies that I've mentioned. They're trying to get to make it happen. SpaceX. SpaceX, the whole point SpaceX was created was go to Mars. Mhmm. Elon wanted always wanted to Back in the early 2000, he wanted to send the 1st greenhouse to Mars called OASIS. He didn't like the launch options.

You had bribed too many people in Russia. He didn't like the US options, so he he decided I'm gonna build my own rocket. People thought he was nuts at the time. They don't anymore, or at least for that. But even with Tesla, Tesla was part of this overall vision that he had, you know, on on electrical energy and utilizing that in space as well.

But others, you know, even these companies I had mentioned, you know, like Budweiser or others who want to become players in this are actually innovating with Mars in mind or the moon in mind. And so we always talk about the side effects, these spin offs. Well, we're having a lot of spin offs well in advance of the actual missions, whereas when you went to the moon well, some of those were as well as they were ramping up or going to the moon.

For instance, miniaturization of circuitry for computers, which eventually really led to the boom in Silicon Valley.

Same thing now, but I think on a bigger scale, it is having the dream of going to the moon and Mars, of manufacturing products in space, mining space, etcetera, is already playing a large role innovating for innovation here on Earth and benefiting people going back to SpaceX model, You know, a new company lowering launch costs, enabling, you know, greater access to space, but the same thing with so many other companies, Blue Origin.

But even the legacy companies have gotten, you know, I think have been stimulated to become more innovative as well. So I think So I'm gonna push you here a little bit only because of our conversation earlier that project and how we got to this topic is that in the presentation that I've used or talked about Project Moon Hunt, I show the traditional items that you can look up and find.

For example, that have come to Earth from space, the boots on an airplane, those black shields on the end of the, on the tail the front end of a wing was created through space exploration, and we use it so airplanes can fly. We have used, all different and I'm not gonna go over them because maybe you have some others. But we've already seen direct implications, including Invisalign braces, that have come from space.

And what we had talked about or I had said to you is, I wonder how many people have worked for a JPL, a NASA, Japanese version, the European Space Agency, but worked for a company for for the organization or agency for 10 years. And they left and those thoughts converted in mug manufacturing or book manufacturing or tool manufacturing. I've got to believe there's a lot of crossover. So do you have any examples of where we really found things that were those spinoffs that you could name?

Spinoffs from previous or just space and exploration? Anything that you can think of that we wouldn't typically put towards being space related. So for example, when I say the airplane wing, people often look at me and say, I didn't realize that came from space. And when we talk about GPS, GPS is a space technology.

It was developed to to put in for a variety of reasons, and that has helped us to operate our our cars to go look for a new place or go on holiday or do something that we didn't realize. Yeah. And I'm gonna talk about some legacy ones, not necessarily ones that are directly being inspired by Mars right now.

The biggest one was the one I mentioned earlier, just that whole he, in fact, the Apollo program all had on computer age, didn't invent computers, but it stimulated a concept, a way of looking at it, miniaturizing circuitry, and really stimulated, you know, what is now Silicon Valley, you know, the way we think of it. And it in just that momentum completely transformed our economy, the way we look at the world, the devices we use.

We you can't I can't say that, you know, going to the moon didn't invent my iPad, but it enabled it enabled the iPad. It enabled cell new cell phones and all the computers and every communications that we're using right now. But going down to microgadgetry, I wouldn't call them microgadgetry, actual very, you know, essential, tools. Well, I don't believe it was invented in space.

I believe smoke detectors largely got advanced using I believe it was on Skylab, you know, so that technology advanced. You know, you don't want fires in space. And so that was something that we just assume is part of everybody's life. You know, you're required to have them by fire code, but we're in fact you know, we're advanced by space, same thing with power tools. You know, the need, you know, to, you know, power battery powered tools, you know, or greatly advanced by space exploration.

And you can go through this, it goes down. I mean, people say, well, that wasn't exclusively invented. There are a lot of products. They were not you know, you can show earlier versions, but the utilization of space and using them in those harsh environments where you don't have a, you know, you can't put a yeah. Like, if you go out on a spacewalk, you're not gonna have a long extension cord. You know, trying to figure out these problems instantly have a benefit here on Earth. I just lost.

I had another example here that just went flying by. But I'll give an obvious one, but I don't think people appreciate it, because you had mentioned GPS. And people always complain about, you know, how accurate the weather forecasting is. Well, for everybody complaining about how accurate weather forecasting is, Take a look, but try to go back to before we had weather satellites, see how accurate weather forecasting was then.

Did a did a you know, while they don't always predict the track of a hurricane perfectly, I don't think we've ever we've had any occasion in the last 50 years where we didn't actually know the hurricane was there. So The the one that I came to mind while I was thinking about it is SRI, out of I don't know if it started in Silicon Valley, but there's an organization, and I don't know the abbreviation of what it stands for, SRI. You might know. And they're a huge I'm gonna have to look it up then.

SRI. Do you know what a SRI is? SRI I'm looking it up also. SRI in Palo Alto. We had an office there with our our artificial intelligence company, and we were in SRI, international headquarters, which is on yeah. We we were Ravenwood, Mount Menlo Park.

And they do some really, really sophisticated space satellites and space technology that has enabled a lot of the flights or the satellite development, but I also not that I know, there's a Hewlett Packard and Apple and some of these other companies. I don't know the exact story, so I'm kinda talking out one side of my mouth.

I do know that there were contracts that were given to a company such as, as an example, Hewlett Packard, for parts and components that allowed those companies to thrive, which eventually became tech companies in the Valley because of SRI and or vice versa. The fact that SRI was there, they did the research, and because SRI was there, they pursued or were funded in a way. So a lot of the valley had some of its orientation that was, advanced tech. Make sense the way I said it? I think I did.

Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's very consistent with what I was mentioning earlier, all these companies that, you know, whether it be, you know, the impacts from these space related activities or now their interest, their current interest in space exploration activities coming coming back full circle.

Yeah. There's there's a ton of those type of technologies, and I don't until I started on this journey with Project Moon Hat, I didn't really pay as much attention to how many of the paradigm shifting thinking developments created a new way of looking at product innovation, service innovation that ended up becoming products we use every day.

Even more so, I think the interesting part is when you work for a company like a JPL or European Space Agency or a Russian, agency, it doesn't make a difference. You are indoctrinated to a new way of looking at the world. And those concepts, you can't lose.

So when you stop working in that business and you go to the next business, you can't but remember that there was this technology created to do x. And you will come at a a challenge or an opportunity in a way that you wouldn't have otherwise just because you were exposed to that way of thinking. Yeah. I agree. It's just fascinating. When you look back through the basically, the lineage of technologies and where they came from or connection to a space and how that went through.

So interesting to always follow that path, you know, that enables technologies, enabled industries. And but as I said earlier, so much of it, while not exclusive, you can't you know, we don't want to put too much because the technologies that came before Apollo, you know, largely got motivated by, you know, World War 2, post World War 2, Cold War, leading up to the space race, then that big burst of technology trying to get to the moon, which led to other things. So you never say it's all this.

No. But never ever it never is all that. You always stand on the, you know, the shoulders of giants and the and the additional shoulders of giants, and, you know, moves forward. But you sometimes have these moments in time that are far and away more impactful than others. So let's take the next jump, and this is a tough one. The global coordination is essential. I'd love to hear your take on this.

And this is this is where I you know, it's kind of a double edged sword here, where we are right now. You know, we we want the whole world to be doing this. And, you know, when it goes my organization, we're always trying to push the international angle, you know, to make sure the whole world is involved from a policy. And now I'm talking I know from, you know, your group, you try to stay away from space, in particular space organizations, meaning NASA and JAXA and the European Space Agency.

But from the international perspective, you know, assuming that governments are going to play a role in these initial phases, one of the things we look at, and this is more of a political thing, international cooperation is very important in creating a long term sustainable program. Because, example, International Space Station would not exist if it didn't become the International Space Station. If it remained space station freedom, it never would have been built.

And so we kinda look at this in this way when we're thinking about Mars missions and making the assumption, you know, we're certainly for if companies like L'Orange and SpaceX or others find a way to do it on their own without government funding, that's terrific. But assuming is we're gonna have government, led programs to begin with, we need to make sure find ways to assure this will have momentum over time.

And ISS was able to maintain its sustainability because it wasn't just dependent on congress or one president. You had international partnerships, treaties between different company countries. And so it wasn't just a matter of, somebody saying, well, let's cut funding for this. By doing that, you really irk, to edit my language, you know, all your international partners. So it's a it's a harder decision to say we're going to stop the ISS.

So we're kinda looking at this for moving forward with SpaceX, or, I mean, going back to the moon and Mars, but this also presents other issues that aren't are more challenging because by doing this, it also creates complications. You're obviously making it more complex, potentially more expensive, and you have to rely on other players. So it's trying to find that balance so you can say, yes.

This should be US led, whether it be US in the grand sense of government or a company that's leading the effort, you know, but finding the right ways to integrate the international community because I think this can be it's one of the most, particularly in these days, one of the most effective tools to build a worldwide support effort, one of our best diplomatic tools. Everybody loves space, you know, even in this country.

It's the only probably one one of maybe 1 or 2 topics right now that have strong public support, strong Republican, strong Democratic, overall public support, and international support. And so I think you need to harness that. And I think since you have that broad based support, you know, from all political spiel all backgrounds, nationalities, how can you harness that to make sure it happens even if it makes it a little more complicated? It's a it's a, 2 things.

First one is, it's a broad assumption, I believe, from the space industry that people love space. And that's one that I've had to demonstrate over and over and over again to individuals in the space industry. I love Star Trek, Battlestar, good octopus, Star Wars. I always say it the same way. I love the movies, but I am not a lover of space. I do not walk down the street and look up. I do not say I wish to live on another planet.

Would I like to be on Star Trek Enterprise and be able to soon cross but then come back? Yeah. That would be kind of fun. But if you said you're gonna live on Mars, that's not my ticket. Well, I I don't I don't I'm on Mars either. And so I'm probably similar to you in that respect, but, you know, I don't necessarily I would like to go into space and it'd be fine.

Yeah. I yeah. So I I have this dialogue often with people in the space industry, and I say, first of all, let's make let's get this close. A lot of people who are very earth oriented when you think of the 7,500,000,000 who are not space oriented. Another point that I always say to them when they say, oh, I'd love to go to space. I say, okay, well, stop for a minute. Just break for just one second. We're gonna put on this helmet and this outfit. We're not sure if you're gonna come back.

Maybe you're 45 years old, maybe you're 53 and your daughter is gonna go through graduation next year from university or your son is going to have a child or you're gonna have great grandchildren. Are you gonna put on that outfit knowing you may never come back or you may die? Now realize, this is a real question. I mean, you may not come back. Will you hop on that aircraft if your kids say, I want you to be around to raise the grandchildren?

Well, I think it's more of a gut jerk a knee jerk reaction to this fantasy of space because we're far from being sure that everybody will make it and everybody will come back. And the third, going back to the point of global coordination, is that is part of the reason that Project Moon Hut has its orientation that it does, is that space is hope to me. It's not redactive. We're not taking away things when you go to space.

We're add we're additive to the future of humanity, where a lot of the challenges we're facing on earth will be solved to large degree the way we're doing it, redactive, taking away the thing, the activities we're engaged in.

So I think that there's gotta be a balance and it's not a plug for Proxima, it's what I've been talking about is that I think that we need that balance that says, like the topic we came up with, is that the impact of space exploration impacts how we live on Earth and there could be huge, huge, huge benefits that come out of it. And I think that dialogue is not really shared when we talk about space, when it comes to the individuals are engaged in space.

Even though it's unknown, it's more let's go instead of no. No. No. No. No. A good example of this of a very practical example of the benefits of international cooperation in space, but I think is a good microcosm of what it could be, is on ISS. Whether you like ISS or not is irrelevant. But if you thought the whole international process was smooth or not, it had some areas that weren't smooth, but, yeah, look at the relationship with Russia.

You know, our you know, US and Russia have had pretty rocky relations over the last, you know, probably decade now. You know, they've gone up and down, but it's always been constant in space. And we've worked it hasn't affected that relationship. It's kind of tied us together. And I think it's I think it's actually done more than people are aware of. They really hold us together. So it didn't go too far that our countries, even during these harsh times, were working.

It didn't impact, you know, working relationship. And I spoke to a lot of people who were in the ISS community at NASA and elsewhere, even when they were at the most rocky periods of US Russian relations, and they said, hasn't really been impacted at all. It's generally an assumption. We all agree, keep the politics out.

Let's keep moving forward, and I think it's played an interesting role that goes well beyond the initial goals of the International Space Station and has true truly worked as a very important diplomatic tool and holding holding well, not hostile, but inflicted countries together. I would look at at maybe if I'm if let me try to change that a little bit differently. So, on the International Space Station, there are 11 countries that are shared in this endeavor.

So we've got Canada, Japan, the Russian Federation, we've got US, we've got Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands. I don't remember all the names. So we've got all of these groups working together to create this International Space Station. And what surprised me, which what you're just saying is, is while the politics are going back and forth, this group of individuals is still talking to all the other groups around the world every day as if it's not actually happening.

There are shared resources. There's shared dialogue. Now it's not to say everybody's involved. For example, I don't know the degree in which China shares. Yet there is a huge community of programmers, designers, space enthusiasts, whatever you may call them, in this one world where days go by as if the world is just getting along. Is that a safe way to say it? It is. They have to have to work with each other. They have to maintain this facility. They have to move forward.

They have strong relationships. You know, I'm not saying it doesn't ever affect them, you know, but it's generally from what I've heard from people I've talked to, it's been a very normal relationship during all of this. And kind of the bring back, kind of an interesting bring it back, it's kind of funny, but, the whole alcohol thing, it's because it has a relationship here.

Because one of the best one of the another story that I found while writing the book that directly relates to international cooperation also directly relates to consumption of alcohol, and it goes right to this whole issue. One of the primary benefits that alcohols played on ISS and Mir before then was bonding, camaraderie.

They wouldn't it wouldn't be something they do every day, but for special occasions when there was a new crew on the ISS and I don't know if this happens every time, but it certainly has happened a number of times. Everybody would come together in the Russian section. Excuse me.

They'd pull out the cognac, they'd have, you know, get together, have a shot of cognac, and it would serve as a bonding experience to crews that come from different, backgrounds, cultures, and from places that weren't necessarily getting along with each other. So I think it served that that diplomatic role of, building relationships in space. And I have you ever been to Russia? Yes, I have. Just once. The amazing thing is just as we all hear, when you're in Russia, you do drink.

I'm assuming we you I the my first I landed in in Moscow of Saint Petersburg. We didn't even go to the hotel. We went out, and we went to a club, and there were 33 of us, and they ordered a magnum full of vodka. And fast forward, there there ended up being 6 of us, but we fast forward to when I landed I had to go to Moscow next, and I was there about 5 days. And I kept track of how many shots I had. Every dinner, there was a person whose sole job was the poor.

There were cheers every single time we did something. And I had 70 shots, and I am not a drinker. I had 70 shots in 5 days. It was beyond imagination. Yeah. I mean, I drink, but I don't drink. I yeah. Yeah. I I don't drink either. I I I don't get drunk. It was just an amazing experience, but that's the bonding. Oh, every day, but not I can't I have the class of 1. And I I wouldn't be able to function with 70 shots.

Can I Well, that was over that was over 5 days, but let let's say you you have alcohol every day? Has it changed because of the coronavirus? Well, actually well yeah. No. It's it's actually increased slightly. I'm trying to maintain I'm trying to control that, you know, to make sure I don't partake too much. But and so it I have gone up a little bit, but I've been trying to keep that under wraps. That's okay. I'm pick I'm picking on you. Yeah. Bear in mind also, I have another 10 minutes.

So Yep. So, no, this is good. This is a good place to end, that the bonding happens. And, yeah, there's there's a lot here and there's a lot more that we haven't shared. And it's interesting, You brought up some things that I didn't know and didn't connect to. I like the I like the Antarctica, connection and this talking about that we'll have these depots, these stations, but not really having that community and that civilization long after.

I like the Budweiser example of how that's their work and engaged in the process of developing. And even the fact that our society wouldn't get there until we got rid of some of these taboos was another meaningful way of looking at how do we know when the metric has been met that we have we've reached that civilization outside of earth, which I'm not sure what that actual timeline will be. And I thought that's an interesting take. Any last thing that you wanna say to me? Any last thing?

No. I think we've pretty much covered it. I think it just I think the key thing here is that as a community, we just need to do a better job at articulating the connections. And, you know, when we're talking about these ambitious goals, we don't do a good job at showing why they're realistic, but it's the the absolute benefits that are already happening, and it's not just the big rocket companies.

You know, it's not just SpaceX, Boeing, Lockheed, you know, Arrogant Rocketdyne, and all the others. It's, you know, peep small companies around the country, around the world, companies every you know, you'd be amazed how many small companies are working on space exploration. It's not their primary contract, but, you know, in every pretty much every congressional history. There are very few of them in the around the United States that do not have something that's related to space.

There are a few small ones that, yeah, just don't get any, but virtually all of them do. And I think that's that's the key thing, showing how much this impacts society, how much it already has, and making the real argument of what it's gonna take to get there, but also tempering some of these overly ambition ambitious viewpoints. Yes. We all wanna get to that city on the moon that you mentioned at the beginning, but there are a number of steps we need to go through before we get there.

And so it is kind of finding that balance, maintaining that inspiring future, but also keeping people realistic. Well, I wanna thank you for being on the program. I truly appreciate it, and I want to thank, everybody who's out there listening in. I do hope that you learned something today in a way that you hadn't heard it and hopefully you're shifting, the need or what's happening in space has been expanded a little bit more to to what could happen.

And Project Moon has many of the activities that we've talked about. So we are looking to establish a box with a roof and a door to become that trigger, to become that final that that, Roger Bannister space where everything opens up and people do say, this is where we can thrive in the future. And Chris, what's the single best way to connect with you if someone wanted to connect with you?

Well, if they wanna email me, just [email protected], or they can just go to our web explore Mars website, exploromars.org. Okay. Well, I'd love to connect with anybody who's interested. You can reach me at [email protected]. We do have a YouTube channel, which is, Project Moon Hut. You can see our logo there. You can connect Twitter, project at project moon hut. For me personally, you can also do at goldsmith, or you can do LinkedIn and Facebook. You can look for me there.

So for everyone out there, I'm David Goldsmith, and thank you for listening.