zubrin.txt

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Thank you very much for tuning in. We have one of our favorite all-time guests with us tonight Dr. Zuber and so I'm gonna cut to the chase and skip most of the the front end work in the announcements and I'm gonna treat the program as a short one and just call out our sponsors so that we can maximize our talk time with Bob but our phone number for those of you who would like to call us is toll-free one eight, six, six six, eight seven seven, two, two three. 

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Northrop Grumman the space foundation astronauts AIA moon words. Celeste. This the national space society and the integrated space plan. And as I said a few minutes ago, Dr. Robert Zuber and is our guest tonight and we're very happy to have him back and all of you should know who Bob is. 

He is a very well-known and highly regarded author. He is the founder of the Mars Society. He is always in the press and in the media in an interview's advocating for Mars and he can tell us why again tonight we can never get enough of it because in my opinion our, Country our nation and I think, our world really needs it. 

So you can check out Bob you can read his mobile it is on our website. I want to maximize our time talking with Bob. Welcome back to the show, how are you again? Bob I'm fine thanks for inviting me. Always a pleasure. So the the news was a couple of days ago that you went down to Texas to Boca Chica and you had a great meeting with Mr. 

Musk so can you start out and tell us about that? Yeah, it was an extremely interesting meeting and also a tour that followed meeting of the Site and saw what was going on there. And. Let me just start out by explaining the plan as Elon laid it out to me and then I'll give you my views of it. 

Okay, all right, so first of all, it's not building a ship he's building a shipyard. Okay as far as he's concerned the primary issue here is not developing the starship but developing a production line for star ships, okay that is it's not a question of building one or three or ten it's a question of building hundreds that's how they're going to be made cheap and so and in fact what I saw there was they were simultaneously expanding the facility and and creating facilities to to build. 

Starships and they were also building them already they have something like 300 people employed there now in a year, they'll be more like 3000. And Elon's goal as he put it is to be able to turn these out at a rate of two a week now and that's how they'll be made cheap now, you know and then the mission architecture he has described is to fly the starship to earth orbit refuel it with a number of tanker starships, you probably need about five or six to refuel it to go. 

To the Mars and then it would land on Mars and eventually be refueled to come back now. He recognizes that a problem with starship is because it is so massive it takes a great deal of facilities to be able to refuel it and so he anticipates. That the first several perhaps five starships that land on Mars will stay on Mars in other words at the the beginning of the mission architecture is to deliver a massive amount of cargo equipment the robots to set it all up before you send the first one out with crew when I you know pointed out that it depending upon the bass it might take between six and ten football fields of solar panels to refuel a starship within the, Five hundred day stay on Mars, he said fine that's what we'll do that is whether it's 600 kilowatt a hundred kilowatts on Mars average day 9 power is is about a football field and if you're doing a solar and and he wants to do the solar he needs not gonna have nuclear power and, Whether it's six or 10, he felt it was doable so the mission architecture is that it's a it's not a power it's d-day are and. 

And then presumably the first crew will be large it might not be a hundred but it's not gonna be four or five it might be 20 or 50 and create the facilities on greenhouses all this kind of stuff get it going and then you could start sending much larger numbers that sort of the the mission architecture right there and now. 

Now make some comments of my own. You know Elon recently over promises but nevertheless delivers far more than anyone else in the end, so you might not deliver first but it delivers the galaxy and the so. You know, two starships a week that's a lot maybe there'll be one a week in nineteen forty four the United States was producing an escort aircraft carrier every week, how do we do it it wasn't that the thing went from start to finish in a week, it was that they had a large number of groups and each one spent a few days on the carrier as it moved down the line and so it might take a year to for the individual carrier to be produced but there were 50 of them in production any one time and so, Hope they were coming off the line at a rate of one a week one could envision that sort of thing for the starships musk that party could produce them for five million each my own mental calculation of this is probably something more between ten and twenty nine. 

Um, but even so you know, let's say it's twenty million and let's say um, it sends um, A hundred people to Mars one way and it stays on Mars to provide housing for them, they expended hardware cost of sending people with their starship apartment house to Mars is two hundred thousand dollars per person. 

So and if you get to musk's numbers that's cheaper than twenty million then that that number goes down and so if we're talking about ticket prices tomorrow's of three hundred thousand dollars to Mars, which is a number the as being sort of the the the target range if you want to do immigration to Mars as opposed to exploration missions you're in that range, um the, Okay, so you know, so there's that now. 

One must say that if you compare this mission architecture to Mars direct which is of course the mission architecture that I was responsible for developing in which this is partially based on the first of all the the the biggest difference is the size of the ship it's about water magnitude bigger, that's why it takes an order magnitude more power to send it back it is. 

Optimized for colonization into suboptimal for exploration because you have to send a large amount of facilities to a given location before you can go there with people. Mars directly sent one earth return vehicle to the site that we were going to go to and then we would send the crew there here you have to send a number of heavy lift vehicles and set up a whole base before you can send a crew so. 

Exploration is not what this is about this is about building a major base and then commencing settlement and now there's some other issues here musk okay he wants to you know, I I have discussed with him the idea of building a mini starship and using you know, staging off of that and going to Mars with that the event and there's an advantage of of that which is first organs the starship if it doesn't go all the way to Mars and back you can reuse it. 

I said in 10 days, he said you can use. It again the next day he figures he can have a one day turn around well the shorter the turnaround the more disadvantage there is to sending the starship all the way to Mars and back but if you're producing very large numbers of starships the fact that some of them go to Mars one way and others are out of action for three years while they go to Mars and back is less important if you have a whole fleet of other ones do whatever you want with. 

The but as far as building a mini starship is concerned which would have a tremendous advantage for an exploration architecture because it wouldn't need a big base in order to refuel to come back he was adverse to that he feels that developing one thing. I is much better than developing two things now. 

I have a different feeling about that, especially in view of how rapidly SpaceX can develop things basically he does not have to pass a logical fear of development that the aerospace majors have he's quite willing to develop new things and develop a task but nevertheless he felt that it would be better to do this all with one vehicle the starship the, Course he needs to thank her starship as well, but he did not think of that as a major deviation from the basic Starship there are some other issues here that he may have to confront one is landing a big starship on Mars is a major plume impigment problem and by the way, it's much bigger problem on the moon, which is why I think the architecture that SpaceX has proposed of just landing starships on the moon is probably not feasible that would be a very strong reason to develop the mini starship. 

Or just use the starship as the fully reusable heavy lift launch vehicle and launch a conventional architectural off of it because I don't think you can land a starship on the moon until there's a lunar base that has created, you know, strong landing pads that can take the plume of the starship on the Mars it's a bit less of a problem but it's still a major problem and, If that can't be resolved he may be forced to go the many starship route, but he at this point he is it's going to see if he can make it work with just the basic starship there's also some other issues for instance the starship, you know has this stainless steel hull and he can do re-entry from earth orbit with that because he has a very low ballistic coefficient which reduces the heating load so you can do this with a steel ship without you know, shuttle tiles or anything sort but coming back from Mars. 

There's a much higher eating load than there is cut just coming back from Leo. So he may have to make specialized starships that are reinforced thermal protection to do that or else once again go with the mini starship or some other specialized vehicle and as it's not necessarily the case that one size can fit wall but that is what he's going to try to make work first. 

If it doesn't he'll adapt and and that's the other thing okay the thing that is remarkable about this whole approach. Is this it and this is what would cause many people analysis to shake their heads, but. He building these things in production before he is even flown the first test vehicle now it's most people would build one and approve it before you send it into production he sending it in production before it's been proven and his philosophy is it's going to launch the first one and it may well fail but he'll have five others on deck at that point and the second one will be modified to remedy. 

The cause of the failure the first and if that doesn't succeed then he's got a third and a fourth and by the time he gets to the fifth, they'll be five more waiting so. You know, NASA built five space shuttles over twelve years, um, he'll be building these things at a rate of at least ten a year to start and of course with his objective of getting to um, A hundred years, maybe he won't get to one maybe the two fifty but even so uh, the the. 

One reason why those space shuttles cost billions each is because the entire work force needed to build one needed to be kept around year after year in order to build a second and also of course launch operations space. X is already launching. Falcons every two weeks. Which is more than the rest of the American aerospace industry combined it's about a quarter of all the launches in the world the the and you know, they intend to take that model forward anyway, that's what's going on there it's it's an incredible thing to see but there already producing the parts for you know, several starships and they've created a facility which they are expanding with the idea of a father before the first starship. 

Lies they're probably will be at least you know, a thousand people there maybe three thousand and they'll be already turning them out, at least at a rate of one a month and probably faster that's what's going on now the you know. They might very well do a starship flight to high altitude 20 kilometers is the objective of the first starship light other than hover tests and they might even do a hundred kilometer flights, but I didn't see evidence of the super heavy in production and that's going to have to be produced before it reaches orbit so I do not think you know, they saying they want, you know, of course last October must that he's have starship reaching orbit in six months, which would be disabled that's not going to happen. 

Um, It's conceivable we might see suburbital flights of starships by the fall but I think we're going to have to wait at least until you know, the 2021 before starship makes it orbit that's still incredibly fast. I mean, it's it's wildly fast by current map standards where they've now been working on SLS for over 30 years and has loan but even by Apollo standards Saturn 5 was five years from program stock. 

Hart to first flight, that was pretty good but I think my school beat that with starship. I have a couple of email questions for you. Todd is in San Diego and he said Bob did you see or discuss anything about habitat and life support either what's gonna happen on the way out and the way back or on the surface of Mars? 

Um, Anything of that sort uh, I know that they are looking at like support systems elsewhere on the but. I think the main thing at this point the first objective is gonna be getting starship flying as a fully reusable earth to orbit system, so in other words to have a vehicle with satin five light capacity, but one tenth of the launch cost or less. 

Because it's before we reusable. That's that that is the first objective here. I I do have to say I don't think that they have the that they are yet devoting much thought certainly not enough thought to mars surface systems ISRU systems musk tends to focus on one or a few things at a time and right now is focus is on first and foremost creating the production facility for the starship and secondly perfecting the starship itself and, Which he views as two parts of the same problem because in order to perfect the starship is going to want to have lots of them to throw at the problem, you know, the landing of the Falcon 9 failed the first five times. 

Okay and so now of course. There was no loss in that because everyone else always lost their first stages without even trying to save them but nevertheless it took six tries before they successfully landed the Falcon 9th or stage, um, now they know a lot more about these things now. 

You know, of course when they launched Falcon heavy the two of the boosters were successfully landed in the center one was not you know, under very first launch so they. You know have reason to be optimistic that it won't take that many flight tests before they get it right but nevertheless that at this point they're prepared to take losses until they do get it, right. 

Listener Helen is in Seattle and she said is he concerned as he expressed any concern about potential regulatory roadblocks along the way including planetary protection, yes. He is concerned and he strongly urged me to continue the the the argument that I have made in depress and elsewhere against these crazy planetary protection people that would basically stop us from sending humans to Mars and are even impairing the robotic exploration program that the he saw this is something very important that I and other space advocates could do. 

Are on their behalf this fight needs to be one if they're going to succeed is he doing anything to fight it to or does he just calling on advocates and interested parties to help out? I don't know what he's doing himself he didn't discuss that but he was you know, it he he liked very much the several reason articles. 

I've written on this subject, um, Refuting these crazy planetary protection people including this recent article in Colette Colette where someone actually claimed that the danger was we would bring back microbes from Mars that would consume the water in the earth's oceans, yeah that's the one we talked about with bachelor a couple of weeks ago, yeah well musk saw that article and he saw my reputation as well as he he he yes, he feels this is something very important that that you know, they're building the ships. 

But we've got to help clear the way we can't be spectators here, well so good this gives me another question. I was going to bring it up later but we're at it now so this was posted on my blog for you it's by somebody named Mark it's very short. 

I'll read the whole thing but I don't think Mark is alone out there what makes doctors uber and so confident that there is no possibility of a dangerous organism on Mars as for biologists astrobiologists, like guild event and by the way mark he's not an acrobiologist a viking mission say the possibility. 

For harm to humans of Earth's biosphere cannot be excluded don't you believe in the possibility of Martian organisms mutating into harmful forms with unknown side effects on terrestrial life, thank you. I know it's not possible because we get rocks coming here all the time from Mars and careful examination of them in particular the Allen Hills meteorite which as a result of the controversy it provoked was subject to more detailed examination than probably any other rock in history showed that large portions of it had never been raised above 40 degree centigrade during entire career of ejection from bars quite to space and reentry and landing on earth and this has been we get 500 kilograms of this. 

Stuff landing on earth now and as you go back further in time, the rate was much higher because the rate of meteoric impact in the early solar system was much higher than now, you know, most of the debris has already crashed and and the rates are lower now they were faster so we've gotten billions of tons of Martian materials have been delivered to earth and though if we could get the red death from ours we already have okay, um, so the entire subject is the, Absurd, um, you know what it's like like these people who want NASA to go through heroic measures to quarantine or even pre sterilize the Mars sample brought back from the sample return which would be economic in science because if there is wifi mark there might be life on Mars, it's quite important but it's it's nothing we that hasn't had a chance to come here many many times already the idea. 

Of quarantine walks from Mars is like having the board of patrol stop cars crossing the border coming in from Canada to check to make sure no one's bringing in Canada keeps. Okay because the geese are coming in all the time in large numbers through the air and by comparison the numbers that tourists might bring in their cars soon that there are anyone who's doing that is insignificant are so this is simply not a possibility. 

And as far as by the way water consuming microbes, we already have water consuming but life on earth it's called plants okay and we have more water consuming microbes they're called algae and they've been on earth for three billion years and they have not destroyed our water supply they have created a cycle that makes use of water turns them into other things like organic material and oxygen which are then used by animals and recycled back. 

But you know so this is is just hysteria. I mean, if you want to be afraid of of microbes what you the people you really got to watch out for our gardeners because every time you turn up a piece of soil, you're bringing back to the earth's surface material from the past and we know there were diseases on earth in the past get down a foot and you're bringing back sediments from 1919 when it was a flu epidemic that killed 50 million people take a few feet and you're bringing back sediments from the arrow the black death. 

Okay and and in other places of course you can dig in and reach the messazole and there's every reason to believe that there were diseases of the animal kingdom in the mesosilic and yet we don't quarantine archaeologists or paleontologists or gardeners and yet. You know, they are bringing back materials from errors in which they will they will certainly macro form and macro floor which there are not on Mars and in which there were unquestionably diseases. 

What is the effort to to counter some of the draconian effects of planetary protection is it just speaking out like yourself is there an organized formalized kind of resistance effort well no it it's a debate it's a war of ideas it's when we have to win our now there's another thing um, there's another issue that has come up which is that okay, so you have the scaremongers who are talking about back contamination and then you have the astrobiologist or some of them. 

Who are saying you don't want to send people to Mars because you could contaminate Mars with microsome earth and then you would never know if the microbes that you found on Mars were native or brought by you okay, okay now now there's two possibilities of microbes on Mars one is that they are different from earth microbes in which case you unquestionably know that their nata the other that they're the same well, they're same they could be brought by you or they could be needed, how would you know the difference it's simple if they're native it means they were there in the past. 

In which case they would have left residues viral biomarkers fossils all this stuff and this would unquestionably prove that they were there in the past just as finding fossils on earth proves that there was life on earth in the past the only people who don't believe that fossils proved the existence of past life on earth are creationists, okay, um and similarly if you don't believe that bottles and biomarkers found on large would prove that life was there before you got there, then you are the the that person is no better than a creationist. 

Denial of science. You have a phone call on hold let me let you talk to whoever this is hang on a high caller welcome to our program with doctor zubern who are you where are you? This is Doug from California, hi dog go for it, okay. Bob want to ask you back on that question of the starship landing on on the moon, do you think a first starship to do that could be a sort of low payload and use just a few engines in there for not have so much much exhaust. 

I I don't think it will work because even the starship was zero payload it's still something that always a hundred times it's going to have a gigantic plume and and. It would blow a crater and in fact it would because there's no air on the moon if there was a base on the moon this this material it would actually have unlimited range because the exhaust philosophy of a starship is greater than escape velocity from the moon you could actually not only blow material all over the moon you could blow it up and orbit in fact one positive side effect of this is that you could blow debris into space and destroy the lunar orbit total. 

So what I'm saying is if the very first one were to land there wouldn't be any base for the sandblast and if that first one that landed released a tele robot that started a construction it wouldn't land you don't understand it would dig a crater and and it would fall over in other words in order to land the starship on the moon, someone has to go there first and build a landing pad are and so that it's not blowing. 

To debris all over the place and picking itself a creator to fall into so that's not a good architecture and it just isn't it and a cycle of fact that there's no way to remove starship on the moon and the the so. Now you could send two starships to the moon and the first one has a payload of methane and then you make liquid oxygen on the moon and use the methane that you brought together the liquid oxygen that you make and anything it's it's it's a very awkward thing we look fundamentally starship is designed first of all our yes it is a fully reusable happy with booster and in that capacity, you know, it could do everything that SLS is supposed to do but at a tiny tiny fraction of the cloth less than ten percent, um, just with the heavy payload store. 

Orbit and then staging off the starship and doing lunar missions and in any number of more conventional ways, okay such as to the Apollo architecture you could do the moon direct architecture that I laid out you do anything would all be enabled by starship just simply acting as a reusable heavenly booster, but landing the starship on the moon is a bad idea and the aside from acting as a heavy lift booster that could enable. 

Well any kind of space activity in that way or and also it could do point to point surface to surface transportation on earth that's another very positive potential application of the starship and I discussed this a lot in my book the case for space because I think there's a much bigger market surface the surface travel on earth than there is in space launch at least for a long time into the future and that could be why you would want a thousand starships, you know. 

The. The the other thing it's force for the the colonization of Mars and it can deliver large payloads to bars it could deliver the starship landed on Mars you delivered an apartment house tomorrow along with a big cargo, um well and once you yes, um, did you speak with Elon or Facebook a about this issue of whether the starship can land on the moon and if so what did they say? 

Actually, um. I didn't speak to Elon I did speak to another engineer there about this and he said they're looking at it. Okay because they I presumably run simulation him they have artwork for what it's worth sort of raising expectations of starship landing on the moon. Look there there are certain things that can happen in certain things that can't happen, you know in Elon's initial presentation of you know, the international transfer international interplanetary transportation system at Guadalajara in 2016, he showed a starship landing on Callisto, okay, but the the the some of this stuff is fanciful some of it can work surfaces surface transportation starship is great because the you know, the two-state system the first stage returns to the initial base the other one, you know, you leave Los Angeles the The the super heavy lands on the offshore space port near Los Angeles the starship goes and lands in Sydney and then what the shore of Sidney there's another platform and they've got super heavies there and they can throw you back and methane oxygen at the propellant choice have has a number of virtues one, okay the reason why I chose it for Mars direct and why you want to stress into starship if it's the easiest propellant to make on Mars another is simply that it's a very good propellant combination, it's got the second highest Pacific. 

Impulse of any realistic chemical propellant and much higher density than hydrogen oxygen, but the third is that it's the cheapest propellant combination that there is okay running on natural gas and liquid oxygen is the cheapest propellant now if you have an expendable booster it doesn't really matter whether you're a fuel cloth a dollar a gallon or a hundred dollars a gallon okay, because the hardware you're thrown away dwarfs the propellant cost regardless, but if you have a reusable deep booster propellant cost matter, especially. 

If you're trying to produce get cost down to the range where you're competing with, you know, first class airplane prices and this can do that so that's another application so these are three very good applications for starship service to surface are reusable payload to Leo and the colonization of Mars but landing starships on the moon once there's a lunar base yeah, you'll be able to land starships on the moon be hard to refuel. 

Come back. And I mean, what is the necessity for you know, a ship that brings a hundred people to the moon and I guess lunar tourism once you have a fully operational interface but but the you know what NAS is trying to do on the moon right now is is exploration and perhaps the initial development of a base and for that the starship in terms of as a landing vehicle is is gone optimal as the heavy lift vehicle supporting it all it's very optimal. 

Okay, it's far better than anything they have but it's a little big to use for a limb. All right thank you friends my question thank you Doug appreciate it listeners. Doug has cleared the phone line and you're welcome to call in and and talk to doctors uber and if you too would like it as one eight six six six eight seven seven two, two three, but we we talked about the moon with that call with Doug and people are a little bit confused as to what our moon plans are on our can you unconfuse. 

I know that's bad grammar, but can you clarify it seems like the president's budget calls the first to go back to the moon, but The bipartisan house committee doesn't what's happening in is it important and can must bypass all of this and and just do his Mars thing well what is bypassing all this and doing his Mars thing okay, okay so that's point one, uh, so this is um, the real city's program and uh, it's quite possible the first starship will land on Mars before NASA accomplishes its moonland. 

I I you know, not yet the first human mission but the first starship landing on Mars happening on mass is not going to be landing a person on the moon by 2024, so maybe so if they're doing it by 2028, which is probably more like there's yeah, I think starships will be landing on Mars before national lands a person on the moon again, ah and, Because you know, while there are issues with his architecture, he's very determined and he's prepared to make changes and do whatever it takes to make it work, um, and um, So um the now in terms of NASA's moon program well, first of all it was confused by the insertion of this deep space gateway, which was something thought of before there wasn't program in fact it was thought of as an alternative to a group program during Charlie Bolden's time it was an alternative to the asteroid redirect mission, which itself was thought others just trying to create an excuse to send a line capsules to somewhere. 

Beyond. Leo but since they couldn't get an asteroid to lunar orbit and they thought it'd be a little silly to just go to Luna orbit and pretend there was an asteroid there, although they did discuss that for a while they said well we'll build a space station there and and then supposedly this space station would eventually be a base for sending missions to Mars which you could not come up with a stupid or plan for sending units to Mars, but then the Trump administration decided that they wanted to actually go somewhere for real. 

And they said we're going to the moon but then they had this lunar or the steep space gateway, which they called the lunar orbit gateway and I don't know what they're calling it now but. Forcing the lunar mission to use this station only makes the lunar mission harder, okay and it's really just like the thing that wrecked the first president bushes space exploration initiative at that point NASA was trying to sell the space station the internet what we now call the international space station. 

I think at that time it was called space station freedom and so it was a requirement that lunar missions be assembled at the space station and so they came up with a much more. Complex lunar mission plan than Apollo which dismayed I mean in 1989, there were plenty of people in NASA who had done Apollo was only 20 years before and you know, they looked at this crazy plan and and to build a gigantic space station with hangers and orbital construction shacks and cryogenic fuel depots and repair shops and and they said, you know, if we could put a man on the moon, why can't we put a man on the moon? 

And putting this lunar orbit gateway in on the critical path to landing on the moon only makes the mission much harder the. There's a lot to not like about SLS but if SLS had a proper upper stage and if they use a dragon as a capsule instead of the overweight Orion or simply scale the Orion down. 

I mean you could do an Apollo type architecture with those things but instead they the whole things very confused now this year, they are finally actually asking for money for a lunar lander, okay because I mean one thing, Do you want to land on the moon you need to be able to land on the moon you don't need a lunar gateway you do need a landing vehicle up some kind and now they're asking for the money and they might get it or they might not because you know, they're asking for this big plus up in NASA's budget at the same time they're demanding cuts and a large variety of social programs and I believe that in this polarized environment the Democrats will say, Are cutting the social programs and giving the money to the moon mission. 

Now, of course, they're not commensurable, they're only adding about two billion to nest budget they're coming hundreds of billions elsewhere. So it's not like that money is really going to the moon mission. But the contrast. Between what they're increasing and what they're decreasing and the fact that the house committee is not particularly supportive of this plan in any case. 

It throws it in some degree of doubt. Since you mentioned the gateway I'm gonna mention another blog comment or question that came in for you today. It's actually long and I've got to call her on hold so I'm not going to read it all but listeners if you want to read it all you can go read it all but I'm going to read the first liner to and the person who sent it uses a handle called not invented here and I have no idea what this person's real name is he does blog fairly often. 

I wonder if doctorsuban would consider toning down his criticism of gateway and the strict. Stage lunar lander design while gateway and that's three-stage lunar lander is not the most optimal way to reach the moon. They're the best solution if you want to maximize utilization of existing commercial launch capabilities, and then he goes on to defend the gateway and some other things. 

So I guess he wants you to tone down your criticism of the gateway which obviously you haven't done in this program. Now, okay and in particular as he gets through his page lunar the the this arc. Ite texture that they put forth on this arm with all these different white elements a three-stage lunar lander and an ascent vehicle, of course, the the various launch vehicles that four different launches there's five flight elements, there's actually six rendezvous in the mission. 

It is the least capable lunar architecture I've ever seen, you know by comparison Apollo had three flight elements and one rendezvous and the the one launched it was a far better architecture and basically what this architecture with all these you know, actually fifteen different critical things literally fifteen six rendezvous by flight elements for launchers. 

Is in it's like somebody riding the school play to make sure every kid gets apart. They are not. Spending money to do things they are doing things in order to spend money and make sure everybody gets a piece of the action. It's really wasteful on an abuse. Okay, and and and and furthermore the whole thing is crazy because you know, they they say we're going to the moon because we now know there's water on the moon well first of all, they're not going to the lunar pole and they're not building a base, okay either at the polar elsewhere they're building up a base in lunar orbit where there is no water. 

And if you do this thing that first is lockheed Martin up put forth this concept of having this thing go to the lunar pole get water and bring it back up to the gateway to electrolyze to make propellant to use to go down it turns out they use forty tons of propellant transported from earth to go to the surface of the moon and bring two tons of water back to the gate. 

It makes no sense at all it's a completely crazy architecture, uh, and and and really, uh, it must be criticized and and it's it's outrageous that people in the community know better are not speaking up because they want to be team players um, and you know reminds me of you know is a great book called life and fate by vastly grossman, it's about world war two in Russia, and and when you go through and there is is. 

How tyrannies are maintained both the stylus tyranny and monotony, yes, nobody is willing to speak up everyone is willing to live a lie and that is how these things are sustained and you know. I what can one say, uh, 

Well I guess to live in truth especially engineers engineering is about truth. Let's go to our our phone call that's on hold. I call our welcome to our program who are you and where are you and thank you for calling okay and all I can say is amen quote unquote gee you've got to make the people with the money happy oh that's congress and how many engineers are there in congress social engineers, no no no, no. 

I mean rocket science engine. Ers, you know math geeks. I don't know maybe well if you are one I mean, there's some blame to be placed in congress for sure, you know, there's a couple of influential people insisting that oh, you know, I SLS be used it Ryan be used and so forth but actually I have to say Brian Stein has simply taken those requirements and superimposed on that and additional requirement that additional money be thrown around to a bunch of new players as well. 

And it's a mess yeah the reason I actually called was not to listen to the sermon and and totally approve it but does heal on have any I any use for the international space station or is it basically something that really wasn't designed too well and hasn't adapted and should be scrapped. 

Well Elon is not using the space station other than the fact that the space station needs logistics requirements and he's quite willing to supply it the and basically those requirements have funded development of the Falcon 9 and Dragon and the further development and maturing in the SpaceX team in the process, so but the space station is not part of his mission architecture for going to Mars. 

Okay, so the the Starship really doesn't have any plans for going going or even doing a well, what would you call that day a pleasure cruise up to the International Space Station just so they can show that they can talk. We didn't discuss it, it's not inconceivable that he might do that. 

I mean in other words if he can get the cost of starships down as he says, uh, One potential application is actually a space tourism. I mean, you know. If you have a starship with living quarters for a hundred people and if a starship launched say is can be gotten down to say 10 million dollars, then that means a hundred thousand dollars per person you could take people to earth orbit and. 

Visit to say open and do it or space station or or not or just you know, we frankly the starship is a bigger space station then the space station or if I have to agree with that too. Okay, but yes, it could go to visit the space station you want to that would be you know, they could have day cruises week cruises month cruises, whatever, you know, there's things with the Japanese artist of sending a group of people on a trip to around the moon and back this sort of thing so you could you starships for these sort of things for a local tourism yeah well I was thinking the international space station has to be boosted. 

On a regular regular basis and I was thinking it could also be set up to to boost international space stations where really isn't going to in long term come crashing down. Well yes although the space station so long as you're supplying it they can use some of the use of consumables as propellants to maintain its altitude the space stations are the interesting altitude if you go much higher you get to the radiation belt so they orbit in this sort of, you know, 400 kilometer orbit where the radiation is is modest and, The reentry the orbital decay time is relatively long and so they can maintain that orbit and. 

Yeah and they don't really get too close to the vanilla and belts accepted the extremely high and the extremely low well the inclination is what 51 and a half degrees or something silly like that. I sell they they clip the north and south ends of the radiation belts which is causes the problem but anyway, I've already talked too long let's have somebody else had some fun thank you Marco, thank you listeners. 

Marshall has free the line if you'd like to call and talk to Bob one eight six six. Six eight seven seven two two three, now you have an email that came in while Marshall was calling from Stephanie and she is in New York City and she says, it seems to me that what musk is doing is sticking it to the government and many people in our industry because he isn't playing by the rules that they advocate and they think are so important one of those the rules is that we need to have international participation on our moon missions and going to Mars and a lot of what we're doing. 

I don't. See any room for international participation in what musk is doing unless they might be an investor in space X do you have any comments on international participation? SpaceX and this may be being an impediment for must down the road. 

The patient at SpaceX across as you may know the founder of SpaceX is an immigrant to the United States from another country namely South Africa, yeah and you know while I was at SpaceX I'm talking with Musk they had a mariachi band playing outside the building and hundreds of people were lined up applying for jobs and a large number of them were Mexican Americans the an engineer that. 

Showed me around the place was a Canadian viper actually Canadian anal Australian citizen who had immigrated to the United States, so the United States is the nation to immigrants and so people of all countries are participating in this venture. But not their governments, which is I think what Stephanie's talking about well. 

Yeah, well the who's fault is that now I I have to well she's deciding it as a possible impediment that must musk reminds all these people that their dream is not being met through what he's doing well. It depends I think there are people all over the world. I know in Russia who are cheering from us are who you know, what us to open up the the space age the age of humanity is a space during species and either here all around the world and now there are some who would emulate him. 

I know there are people in China who are tempting to put together a Chinese space acts and there are five such companies that have. Actually. You see significant investment. And you know Musk has proven that entrepreneurial space is is possible that it can outperform the old guard by a lot and there are plenty of people who are willing to step up a the the entrepreneurial space race is opening the ability to participate in space to people of every country. 

You know, the the other entrepreneurial company that has actually reached orbit is rocket lab and that's a new zebra company and New Zealand doesn't even have. A space program. You know until there was rocket lab if you were from New Zealand that wanted to participate in space activities you needed to immigrate to the United States but perhaps to Europe, but now New Zealand has a space program not brought you by the New Zealand government but by new the creativity of New Zealand people and so yeah. 

You can you know immigrates the US and join the SpaceX team as many as people have or you can start your own in any country, whether it has a space program or not you have another caller waiting to talk to you. High caller, welcome to our program who are you where are you please? 

Oh, this is John of Fort Worth. Hi John. Of course, should I have your talk about planning the starship on the moon? Is the issue that that that the moon dust? Itself is coming blown up but this by this landing that yeah it that's exactly the issue and the the amount of dust that you blow up the big the size of the crater you create is a very strong function. 

It's like the cube of the thrust of the lander. And so what was very doable for the Apollo lamb is just a the extremely formidable problem for a starship. Okay, well questions. I have is. Okay, do we have good measurements of the depth of the dust? I mean how deep it goes, you know, don't you but. 

I guess the answer to that is is is no I don't know exactly how deep the Apollo astronaut stuck but it certainly wasn't you know, 10 feet so it no we don't have good measurements of that. So there's somewhat of an open question there but the people that have looked at this seriously regardless is very serious problem. 

I look starship is couldn't help support the lunar initiative tremendously as they're usable heavy with vehicle. It would enable. You know, the moon direct architecture that I've advocated. I was a very powerful lunar architecture, very cost effective. It couldn't in a course enable an Apollo type architecture, except with starship replacing the Saturn 5 making the whole thing much more cost effective. 

Does any number of things to do? But using a starship as a limb, it's just, You know, it's like using a battleship for white water rafting, it's just not the right vehicle for that application. Well the drivers they buy suggested this is the once it's flying it the only vehicle that perhaps could actually do it until this NASA mission that you're talking about actually gets ironed out or whatever happens with it and I I'm going to see your point of that can become cumbersome and politically difficult you could you use it as reusable happy with vehicle if you develop the tanker system, which must is going to develop you could fly the thing all the way to trans lunar injection or even into lunar orbit and then deliver a lander. 

To such a position, you know, I prefer just to fly to Earth orbit and then use a reusable hydrogen oxygen vehicle to go from there to the surface of the moon where it could be fuel and go back to earth orbit and then you have a fully reusable lunar architecture that and I I've described that in my moon direct architecture and in those articles I had it supported by a falcon heavy, but in this starships would make it do it on. 

A larger scale, um, but it just the wrong athlete, you know, the distortion is a reusable satin five it is not a limb. I agree with that. I've deployed his wife I ever suggested hypothetically we might have it available we wouldn't have a lemon available at that time, well yeah brought the thing down to a hover and then try to actually land and to do a measurement of how big a crater would would make and then and then just go up after that not try to land on the first mission and then make some observations as To. 

What happened or something, you know, well, I don't know I I just think you're you know someone whether it's musk or you know, if blue origin ever actually gets active are the the they could develop a lunar lander why does everyone expect moss to develop every piece of space hardware that someone might want if someone wants to land on the moon they should develop a lunar lander. 

You have that whatever that job to be so sorry. I kind of like that idea in a sense that idea of commercial space trying to copy what that everybody else is doing and competing against the same thing rather than taking out their own specialization and and excel in that one area, you know, but that's a good idea. 

I think maybe so should take that on yeah if you want to go to the moon, you know, you should develop a lander and they talk about a lander but, I don't think there's must is approaching the problem of getting humans to Mars as if he really wants to do it. 

Okay and that's fundamental here, okay and. 

You know. NASA is not approaching the problem of sending people to the moon with the same urgency that Apollo had let alone the urgency that must have the the the you know it if you want to do it you really got to commit yourself and that means not doing things that are tangential. 

I mean, you know one thing, You know, and as I discussing with Musk about you know, I'm talking about a mini starship and and how could be used which by the way in my view is something that needs directly on the critical path and clearly. I'm sure most couldn't agree wouldn't be useful nevertheless, he thought he could do Mars without it. 

But NASA is taking an approach to the moon of yeah we want to go to the moon but before we do that, we're going to be able to orbit space station and we will dream up architectures that make use of it even though it's obvious that you can get to the moon without it because they did it before without it, um, and and and and and so, You want to take the attitude of you know, I I want to go directly and if you want to if you want me to develop anything beyond what I'm developing now prove to me that I need it. 

As opposed to I want to develop as many things as I can and I can dream up excuses for doing all sorts of things before I do but I'm supposedly trying to do. The work the week, like well what the issue landing on the on the Mars this won't be a problem like it would be on the moon. 

I guess well, it's not as big a problem. I mean for one thing Marsh has an atmosphere so you don't get. Microscopic, you know, dust particles would very quickly come to a halt if they're blown around on Mars whereas on the moon they can just they make a little they can fly all the way to earth the and the it's less of a problem on Mars it could be a problem but. 

It's probably less of a problem but it is less of a problem and. 

Well, I'll close with this thing well. I had quite a little smirk when you mentioned the idea that musk might get the Mars before the NASA program succeeds and landing on the moon with that idea, but it could happen. I guess it could it could easily happen are it it could easily happen that not necessarily people land on Marshall though that is even possible but I would actually think that a starship and an unmanned starship will land on Mars before NASA lands person on the moon. 

Well, well well, I'll get off the lines if anybody else wants to contact you thank you. John okay, um listeners John is freed up our line, if you want to call their still as time one eight six six six eight seven seven two, two three and bill is in Tucson with another email and he says Bob earlier in the program when you were giving a an impression of what was going on at Boca and the must project you mentioned that the price might get down for tourism with musk at. 

About three hundred thousand dollars per ticket, this is going to Mars as I understood it that's around the going price of several orbital tourism with this destroy the sub orbital industry. Well there is a set of article industry the I'm skeptical of the suburbital in industry because how many people are going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few minutes zero gravity. 

I think if there's going to be space tourism has to at least go to orbit and. But yeah, I mean look last year 2018 there were about a hundred satellite launches in the world must got by 24 of them the quarter of the whole world which is to say about half of the launches in the free world where you conceivably could compete for them and that was just a falcons he is cut the cost of spaceborne by a factor of five starship will cut it by an at least another factor three, this is what people are going to. 

Compete with and so people who want to be in this business are going to have to get serious at this point, you know. You know and must first came along with the Falcon ones people could laugh at all say his back cute, um, and when he developed the Falcon 9 they said okay, okay he's one of us now but we can do pretty much the same thing but then the Falcon 9's become reusable and the cost start coming down and all of a sudden he's taking all the launches and you know there there will be launch companies in other countries that have protected markets from SpaceX like China. 

Russia and and there may be some for a small launchers that are launching cubesats and stuff like rocket lab, but people launching sizable payloads are are either going to have to get with the program or get out of the program. You have another caller I call or welcome to the program who are you where are you please this is Tim from Huntsville, hi Tim go for it. 

Yeah, I was wondering if Elon Musk was a planning on using maybe nuclear power for his uh for it for his uh mars endeavors, maybe killer power, have you ever heard of that? By certainly her to kill a power are the issue is this, uh, The government needs to develop space nuclear power, okay, it really does need to be the government because the materials involved are very protected okay, and so if NASA did produce a space nuclear reactor and. 

I think we're the interesting to him now to refuel a starship you need at least 600 kilowatts if not a megawatt depending upon how their weights ultimately turn out to be and kill a powers like a 10 kilowatt unit now 10 kilowatt unit is of some interest for a bar space because it gives you a reliable amount of power for life support in the case of a dust storm turns all your solar panels off. 

ISRU doesn't need. How can I put it reliable power in the sense that you know, you have power today and not just tomorrow, you know life support you must have the power all the time period ISR you can so long as the average power is enough to get the job done it can proceed and stops and starts so a killer power reactor as a backup life support system for basis of some interest, but I really think NASA should step up to the plate and not kill a powers very good, by the way. 

I'm not putting it down. It's great that they're finally doing something real in the space nuclear power arena but they need to go beyond it they need to start making at least one hundred kilowatt units, okay under killed by units you could have six or ten of them and you could be fuel starship if you had one of them you could do Mars direct. 

But that's the kind of and and and I think that. You know. The reason why we have government scientific agencies is to develop things that the private sector can't do and space nuclear power is one of those things and so I think that this is a very good thing for NASA to be doing. 

Tim are you there yeah? I'm there. I'm I was just I was just you know, kind of taking everything in what about thorium would would would would the the regulations be more lacked on maybe a thorium reactor well for I am. Thorium is very good for commercial reactors on earth and it would if you could also use it on Mars historian on Mars the the but it forum, you breed into uranium 233 space nuclear reactors. 

You want them to be light for the amount of power and so you use highly enriched fuel which is why it's so carefully control because the kind of material the use of space nuclear reactors is basically bond grade and and that's why this is something that NASA should do this is something that the government needs to do this is why we pay our tax dollars. 

You know, we don't expect Elon more a must to create a marine core for the United States that's a job for the US government well space nuclear power is also a job for the US government. Tim well that's it. I'm done thank you very much no problem you can listeners if you want to talk to Bob he's still available and we still have time left it is one eight six six eight seven seven two, two three, how do you think space and all of what we're talking about will will fair when we have our after we have our elections do you think presidential politics are going to interfere with any of this and our plans or we're just going to go? 

On and continue to develop as usual, especially on the private side, well the private side. I believe will continue okay that's one of the great things about this entrepreneurial space revolution is that you know must is going to keep at this regardless of whether Trump is elected or closer as elected. 

Bernie Sanders could be a problem but the but in the mean, you know, NASA has always had this problem being constantly being jerked around every time this change administration are all the medium and long-term plans. Go out the window and it's made it very difficult to accomplish things. I mean, one of the reasons why Apollo was successful is you had basically between Kennedy and Johnson a two-term administration got the whole job done which by the way is why if the government is to do it, they cannot do it on a 30-year schedule because that guarantees there will be change of administrations that will wreck the program it needs to be done on, you know, Ten years or less okay, and that was also part of the logic behind. 

Mars direct you want to get to Mars and 10 years old less you can't do it in 30 years and but. So the private initiatives will continue especially mosque who is willing to proceed. I mean, he's going to Mars whether the government's going there enough, okay, um, but. The the moon program could easily be tossed in the trash if if the the Democrats when the election and, Dental come out with a different program and unless that program is put on a quick timeline, it will probably end up in the trash before it is carried out. 

So well you just wonder what one can really do to assure these things continue especially when the the government program is kind of a crappy program to begin with so yeah, yeah, it is a problem. I mean, look, you know the asteroid retrieval mission. Was absolutely doomed as soon as Trump was elected because it had no rational basis it was only being supported because this is what we're saying we want to do. 

Be a team player and support whatever we're doing the Trump moon program is a crazy in the way it's being done and so the Democrats win it'll be very easy for them to shut it down because they will look there's a stupid right so I we're shutting it down are now the problem is that there's everything justice stupid. 

I mean, there is a Mars program associated with the lunar obligate weight which involves building a deep space transport it giant of. Electric propulsion system that will travel back and forth between the lunar gateway in a bars gateway and never land on Mars which is totally stupid. I think that is the program that was supported by this house committee so they were opposing one crazy program with another crazy program and but if you have a program which is got a strong rational basis, it can get public support and it can get enduring political support. 

Ing partisan and I think a humans to Mars program based intelligently conceived could be that you know, I I still think. Called me all fashions, you know, I mean, my father all my uncle serves in world war, two they set the world straight when I was growing up we sent people to the moon and you know. 

We believe that the American people through its government could accomplish great things okay, right and it it's been a very distressful experience to watch the increased senility of the NASA. 

Human spaceflight program, you know, trying to find us developing five years shuttle was developed in ten. FLS I was on the team that did the preliminary design of what is now called SLS in 1988, it's been 32 years and it hasn't flown and SLS is just the shuttle stack without the orbiter. 

The whole orbiter including the launch stack and the orbiter the whole shuttle was developed in 10 years. And here it is they just so this has been distressing but nevertheless I I retained disbelief that under the right circumstances this thing can be put together again and we can have a can do space agency again. 

I mean the robotics space program is can do but the human spaceflight program is not and the, You know if it's SpaceX is flying starships to earth orbit by 2023 2024 and I believe they certainly will be that they'll be operational starships delivering payloads to lower orbit before the next presidential election then whoever is elected in 2024 will be looking at that in saying she look at this could we have people on March by the end of my second term and the answer is going to be yes, they say well what's needed well, they'll say well sorry they must already have the starships and the tankers and stuff you need to contribute the space. 

Nuclear reactors in a variety of other systems NASA still has considerable expertise and life support systems that is not apparent that SpaceX has yet, you know ISRU technology, you know meet them halfway let's do this is a public-private partnership will be on Mars by 2030 and you know, and and you can take a bow as the one who made it happen and I think you know by must muscles gonna by making this. 

Feasible muscles gonna make it sellable and so I think that he won't have to ultimately develop but all I think the American government once they finally see that this is doable will step up and make a contribution. You have another email question it may be the last one of the evening Joe is in Las Vegas and he says Bob there are a couple of other Mars programs or options that you haven't given us your thoughts about Lockheed has a program called Mars base camp. 

I think it's still is is a viable are you familiar with it your thoughts and also many suggest rather than going to Mars that we set up and work on one of the Martian moons, mostly demos your thoughts about that. Yeah, I I do not have a high opinion of either the Lockheed base camp or the demos plant which is related to it you the purpose of going to Mars is to go to Mars the surface of Mars is where the sciences and it's where the resources are okay? 

I mean the Lockheed put forth this plan of this vehicle that would lead their so-called base camp in Mars orbit fly down to the Martian surface acquire water bring it back to orbit and make propellant. To use to fly back. Down well guess what it takes more propellant to deliver that water to Mars orbit than the amount of propellant water uses the same thing as their problem with their lunar orbit toll booth plan and it's frankly ridiculous it makes no sense if you're going to Mars you go to Mars you don't go to Mars orbit, you're going to make propellant not in Mars orbit, you're going to make it on the Martian surface and you could use that minimally to go to orbit but better yet to go direct back to earth. 

As I made clear with the Mars direct plan and as Musk was going to implement. What about demos? I think. So they say it's cheaper and easier and safer for the astronauts to be a demos any anywhere yeah it's imperative easier for the astronauts to stay home, but if you want to go to Mars go tomorrow. 

It's the purpose of interplanetary flight is not to set an altitude record for the aviation almanac. Okay it is not we travel into space not to fly around in space it's to go to the world on the other side of space okay, and so we don't you know do missions to do more orbit in order to you know, look out the window at the moon if you want to go to the moon go to the moon and if you want to go to Mars you go to Mars. 

And anything else is just silly you have a collar on hold but I was going to bring up a and I'll just mention it but it's probably too late in the show now you're Atlantis article but you have a whole section in that about purposeful spaceflights, which is what what purposeful programs which you're talking about now, yes, it's the difference between a purpose-driven space program and a vendor-driven space program a purpose-driven space for has a goal. 

And it spends money to do things to accomplish that goal a vendor-driven program does things in order to spend money to please the vendors. The moon program is being conducted as a vendor-driven program that's why it has four launches permission a gateway, you know five flight elements and six rendezvous it's in order to it's designed that way in order to spend the maximum amount of money and in the maximum number of parties to give everybody a piece of the action. 

Musk's program is purpose driven he's trying to get to Mars with as few flight elements as he possibly can now he may be pushing that beyond the limit. They need an additional flight element, which I have advocated to him and he does not yet accept which is a mini starship but basically his attitude is show me why I need it. 

Okay, which is the right attitude to have. Okay as opposed to I want to do it show me why I shouldn't make yeah show me why yeah you have another caller and this will probably be our our final call for the evening. I call her welcome to the show who are you where are you hi it's Tony Crook calling from Griffith observatory, hi Tony here, hey, how are you doing pretty guy? 

I was wondering if you had heard the news that today that Grister Meyer who used to be the head of NASA's human space program. Or spaceflight I guess program yeah he went over to SpaceX yeah it was just hired by SpaceX. I didn't know if that had been discussed at all no it had no discount not there's any no and I hadn't sure that and that was not discussed with us so that's news to me, so they're getting out someone in there who has a very large amount of human spaceflight experience so that will strengthen them. 

I think though that. The culture will remain that defined by musk which is go like hell this the only other thing is I was wondering if dr super in a few think that Artemis is salvageable at all is assume it's given some reprieve which doesn't seem likely but if it were could it be could elements of it be turned into a successful program that would help develop resources that could be used for going I suppose so but it has to change. 

Radically, you know, as if you're going to the moon are you need to go to the moon not to lunar orbit, you need to be focused on building a lunar base, you need to be focused on making use of lunar resources and having a mission architecture that is designed to use them so you want to have I mean, minimally ascent vehicles that use liquid oxygen at the oxidizer and the potentially hydrogen oxygen vehicles that use both hydrogen and oxygen to dry criminal water. 

The you know, now look at starship is flying they have a fully reusable heavy lift vehicle that could make Artemis a much more doable proposition now, of course at that point, you know, the LB senator shelby if he's still in office saying no, I want you to use SLS the whole point of the Artemis program is to use SLS and the the the and so that they'll be some conflict there. 

You know now. Okay look I think the starship program is going to succeed but it hasn't succeeded yet and who knows what could happen perhaps a good fail, you know, there could be a hurricane and the Boca Chica could be destroyed or must might get himself into trouble with his Twitter account and and and and things can happen okay, and if starship fails are SLS will get a a lease on life, although I have to say, SLS we designed it we ended up a stage with 250,000 pounds of thrust was a J2 they've put a week upper stage on SLS which cuts its capacity in half it doesn't they even on its own terms SLS is not currently it could be implemented correctly and but if they correct that and and they're certainly people around who are making that point the, Although I think the Trump budget proposal they avoided funding the upgraded upper stage for the SLS right now vice president hence talk to people at Huntsville early on I get I guess it was around during the summertime he kind of said, you know, if SLS is and ready on time we're not committed we don't feel committed to use it as like these other things being developed will go to that if it's not if that's what's going to hold us up yeah. 

Well, it will haven't seen it to kind of back up that they're really thinking of using anything else but. No they're not because I mean this look the gateway itself and before the asteroid retrieval mission, we're thought of as things to do with SLS and Orion the Justice the space station frankly was thought of as a place to fly the shuttle up and down to the the the you know, the these are our. 

But. Okay if I heavy with vehicles are very useful thing now. SLS should have been fine 1954 because as I said, it was just the shuttle stack and they certainly made a meal of this and so it's arriving. 30 years well 25 years later than it should and by the time it flies it it's going to be faced with competition that make it obsolescent or obsolete actually and that said if it had been flying in the mid 90s would have had a nice quarter century career enabling a variety of great missions and then be ready for honorable retirement instead, you know, it's it's showing up at work just in time to be fired. 

And after spending god knows how much money it's a lot but. You know. Yeah, but well there it is, okay well I guess I look at like China's approach like with the shaggy mission which are eventually supposed to get to the point of being able to demonstrate like 3d building using lunar materials and carrying little life support, you know units and you know actually building stuff out of lunar material to verify the base actually could be built it, you know, the 2030s they that seems like a more rational approach than. 

Just. You know Willie Millie buying all kinds of lunar landers and things Well I think I think you're going to if you want to establish a lunar base, you're going to need a lunar lander even need to land some have modules on the moon and a lot of different kinds of equipment because before you start 3D printing things on the moon, you're going to have to make you can make iron on the moon by reducing lunar soil, but it requires power arms certain kinds of technology. 

We're going to have to deliver that stuff. Right, but they are actually looking at what materials are there now, so you know, Anyway oh thank you so much Thank you very much Tony Okay bye Good night Okay there's one more thing I'd like to talk about. Okay, I've got a quick email for you can you can put this away real quick can I give you that first sure Tim from Huntsville who you just talked to wrote in and said of geneticists can track your ancestry back tens of thousands of years, they can tell whether Earth-based microbes got to Mars and whether they hitched a ride with astronauts or debris from the KT asteroid that struck the earth millions of years ago, let alone the difference between martian life and earth. 

Life. Well, that's true. In fact, if you remember back in 2001, there was this what's it called that anthrax right there right and so anthrax is being delivered to people and by a terrorist of some kind and the referral they could I didn't find that the microbe was anthrax it wasn't some generic unknown microbe, okay right identify what it was but not only that they could see that it actually came from a lab. 

's Iowa and that it differed from the current strain there and the amount of genetic drift was such that it had been taken from there 15 years before that as you could actually tell that this sample of these were descended from were taken from Ames in 1986. Okay. So if you find microbes on Mars it you know, if they're identical to E coli found in Florida right now, you can you know good reason to believe you brought it but if they've had a lot of genetic drift maybe they came from the kt impact are or maybe they came three billion years ago, or maybe we came from there three billion. 

But if they're native once again, there will be residues life league stuff behind and you know every kind of life leads footprints at least shells, it leads cell walls, it leads deposits of metabolic waste at least fossils, and if they were there before us that stuff will be there. 

Okay, what is that that you wanted to bring up before I mentioned Tim well the more society just announced today and you should know Elon was very supportive of this a contest international engineering design contest to design a one million person bars colony, there's a ten thousand dollar first prize five thousand dollar second prize two thousand five hundred dollar third prize thousand dollar what price five hundred dollar fifth price last year, as you may know we had a similar contest design a One thousand person bars. 

Colony we had a hundred teams from around the world, he contest was eventually one by MIT a Polish team second the the. So now this time it's gonna be a one million person city state okay, they'll be thirty points for the technical merit of the design thirty points for the economic concept of how it can be sustained twenty points for the social and political aspects of it and twenty points for the aesthetics the architecture, uh, and it's open to people of all nations, it's university teams are welcome but it's, Not just university teams you don't have to be any university you can be a single individual you can be a club a group of friends you could be a network of people anyway, we just announced it today it's posted on our website the concept and the rules I'll link to it in the summary and on the blog to make sure people see it well right and by the way, we just published last week the book of continuing the designs of the ten finalists and, Most of the semi-finalists of the Mars Colony contest of last year, it's available on Amazon both in paperback and Kindle the Kindle versions a lot cheaper it's just eight dollars and it's in color but if you like paper books you can get it there as well. 

I think the paper book is also a bit cheaper at Barnes and Noble dot com. So if you actually want the paperback that might be the best place to go but the Kindle version is available on Amazon what is the name of name of the book is Mars colonies and it's edited by Frankie member has an introduction by me the the the and so it's called Mars colonies it's on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com, okay, well we'll point everybody to it any other concluding comments anything you'd like to leave us with. 

No it's just one last thing is that um looks like the more society is going to be in Los Angeles again this year quite probably at the University of Southern California and probably in October but the arrangements final arrangements have yet to be made we hope to announce that within a couple of weeks, okay great let me know when that is done so I can put it out there too, all right, thank you thank you. 

Bob we appreciate it very much and look forward to the next time we get a chance to talk with you on the space show same here, okay. I listeners Bob is off the line. And we thank those of you who called an email and of course, we absolutely thank Bob and we have a hotel Mars tomorrow so Bill Harwood is talking to us from CBS News about America resuming human spaceflight that'll be a different take from what we had tonight and then we have our Friday program in the morning and we have our Sunday program all of which is posted on our website website newsletter our blog, etc, remember we're listeners supported show we. 

Thank all of you for listening tonight and for supporting us your feedback is always welcome. Dr space at the space show dot com goodnight from Bob who has already left the stage and a good night from David goodnight from the space show everybody have a great rest of the week keep looking up and keep it safe.