WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.199 --> 00:00:06.200 Welcome to the Sentient Code, where intelligence is engineered, autonomy 2 00:00:06.280 --> 00:00:10.439 is emerging, and a line between human and machine grows thinner. 3 00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:15.359 Each episode, we decode the algorithms, explore the robotics, and 4 00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:22.280 examine the ideas shaping the future of artificial minds. 5 00:00:23.839 --> 00:00:26.120 I want to start this deep dive by asking you 6 00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:31.399 to visualize something. It's an image that I think really 7 00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:35.799 defines our generation's relationship with space, even if we don't 8 00:00:35.799 --> 00:00:38.679 always realize it. You've definitely seen it. 9 00:00:38.759 --> 00:00:39.840 I think I know the one you mean. 10 00:00:40.159 --> 00:00:42.759 It's probably on your phone, you know, scrolling through a 11 00:00:42.799 --> 00:00:46.479 news feed, a high definition photo from the surface of Mars. 12 00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:48.359 The rust colored planes exactly. 13 00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:53.759 You see this flat, dusty expands and it just stretches 14 00:00:53.799 --> 00:00:58.359 out forever. And there are these like sharp, jagged rocks 15 00:00:58.399 --> 00:00:59.200 scattered all over. 16 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:00.799 Yeah, and they look like they haven't moved in a 17 00:01:00.840 --> 00:01:02.159 billion years, not an inch. 18 00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:05.400 And the horizon it curves just a little too much. 19 00:01:05.439 --> 00:01:07.959 It's kind of unsettling. It just it immediately reminds you 20 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:08.879 that you are not on Earth. 21 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:13.000 It creates a very specific feeling, doesn't it. It's it's beautiful, 22 00:01:13.239 --> 00:01:16.239 but it's a haunting kind of beauty. It's profoundly empty. 23 00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:18.599 It is. But when I was looking at the research 24 00:01:18.599 --> 00:01:21.879 for today, I started thinking about the context of that photo. Yeah, 25 00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:26.560 and it's just terrifyingly lonely. There's this profound silence to it. 26 00:01:26.680 --> 00:01:29.079 And I don't just mean an acoustic silence, because you know, 27 00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:32.280 obviously the atmosphere is thin, but I mean the silence of. 28 00:01:32.239 --> 00:01:35.079 Distance, right, the time it takes for that image to 29 00:01:35.120 --> 00:01:36.079 even get to us. 30 00:01:36.319 --> 00:01:38.519 Yeah, I mean when you look at that picture, you 31 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:41.319 have to realize that the radio signal carrying and all 32 00:01:41.359 --> 00:01:44.640 those pixels took well anywhere from three to twenty minutes 33 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:47.120 just to cross the vacuum to get to Earth. 34 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:48.760 Right. It's not a live feed. 35 00:01:48.599 --> 00:01:49.319 Not even close. 36 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:49.680 Yeah. 37 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:51.640 By the time you see that rock on your screen, 38 00:01:52.040 --> 00:01:54.400 the rover that took the picture has already moved on 39 00:01:54.760 --> 00:01:55.760 or gone to sleep. 40 00:01:55.599 --> 00:01:57.959 Or driven off a cliff hypothetically. 41 00:01:57.400 --> 00:01:59.959 Well, let's hope not. But the thing that really hits me, 42 00:02:00.599 --> 00:02:02.879 and this is the key, is that no human eye 43 00:02:02.879 --> 00:02:06.879 has ever seen that scene, not directly. We are only 44 00:02:06.920 --> 00:02:10.000 seeing it because a machine went first. We are seeing 45 00:02:10.039 --> 00:02:11.439 it through the eyes of a robot. 46 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:14.479 And that is the fundamental truth of the entire space age. 47 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:14.879 Isn't it. 48 00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:19.400 I mean, we have this very romanticized view of space explosion. 49 00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:22.400 We think of Neil Armstrong, we think of the Martian 50 00:02:23.159 --> 00:02:24.000 boots on the ground. 51 00:02:24.120 --> 00:02:25.759 Sure, those are the big moments. 52 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:28.319 And rightfully so, those are the headlines. But if you 53 00:02:28.319 --> 00:02:31.560 actually look at the history the real story, robots have 54 00:02:31.639 --> 00:02:34.719 always been the advance guard. They are the scouts. They 55 00:02:34.759 --> 00:02:38.080 mapped the Moon before Armstrong ever set foot on it. 56 00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:41.520 They descended into the absolute hellscape of Venus. 57 00:02:41.199 --> 00:02:43.360 So we didn't have to, right They melted, so we 58 00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:46.240 didn't have to. They've orbited every single planet in our 59 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:46.919 Solar system. 60 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.599 They've been the busy ones. Okay, but here is the shift, 61 00:02:49.639 --> 00:02:51.879 and this is really what we're digging into today. For 62 00:02:51.919 --> 00:02:55.639 the last sixty seventy years, these robots have essentially been tourists, 63 00:02:56.439 --> 00:03:00.800 very expensive, very smart toy riss with PhDs. Exactly, they went, 64 00:03:01.159 --> 00:03:03.919 they looked, they measured, They've took some amazing selfies, and 65 00:03:03.960 --> 00:03:08.439 they sent back all this data. They were passive observers, right. 66 00:03:08.719 --> 00:03:11.479 But looking at the stack of sources for today, it 67 00:03:11.479 --> 00:03:14.919 seems like that entire relationship is fundamentally changing. 68 00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:17.960 It is we are in a transition era. Okay, how 69 00:03:18.039 --> 00:03:21.039 so the paradigm is shifting from robots as scouts to 70 00:03:21.240 --> 00:03:24.759 robots as builders. We aren't just sending them to look 71 00:03:24.759 --> 00:03:28.319 at the frontier anymore. We're sending them to well to 72 00:03:28.479 --> 00:03:29.479 construct the frontier. 73 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:32.599 They build the actual infrastructure that allows us to stay. 74 00:03:32.360 --> 00:03:36.960 There, precisely because here's the hard reality. Space is dangerous, 75 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:42.719 it's incredibly distant, and it is obscenely expensive. Humans simply 76 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:46.560 cannot go, not for a long time, not sustainably, until 77 00:03:46.680 --> 00:03:48.319 that infrastructure exists. 78 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:50.159 And since we can't be there to build. 79 00:03:49.919 --> 00:03:52.560 It because there's no life support yet, right, the robots 80 00:03:52.599 --> 00:03:53.400 have to do it for us. 81 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:56.680 So today we are doing a deep dive into the 82 00:03:56.759 --> 00:04:00.120 robotic architects of the lunar Frontier. We're going to look 83 00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:02.080 at the history of how we got here, which is 84 00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:06.479 frankly wilder than I thought, the insane engineering challenges of 85 00:04:06.520 --> 00:04:09.599 building on the moon, and what this robotic revolution actually 86 00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:10.039 looks like. 87 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:11.800 And I can give you a spoiler alert go on. 88 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:14.360 The biggest enemy isn't aliens, it's dust. 89 00:04:14.759 --> 00:04:17.439 The dust is absolutely the villain of this story. I 90 00:04:17.480 --> 00:04:18.279 was floored by that. 91 00:04:18.399 --> 00:04:19.519 It's the number one problem. 92 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:21.120 But before we get to the villain, let's talk about 93 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:23.120 the setting. We're talking about the Moon today. Okay, but 94 00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:25.720 why I feel like Mars gets all the cultural hype. 95 00:04:25.759 --> 00:04:27.759 Elon wants to go to Mars, NASA wants to go 96 00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:30.279 to Mars. Why are we focusing back on the moon. 97 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:33.959 Mars is the dream, Sure, it's the horizon goal, but 98 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:37.319 the Moon is the test site. It is the necessary 99 00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:41.160 testing ground for humanity's first off world construction efforts. So 100 00:04:41.279 --> 00:04:43.000 if we can't make it work, if we can't make 101 00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:46.040 the robots work there just three days away, we have 102 00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:48.600 absolutely no chance of making them work on Mars, which 103 00:04:48.639 --> 00:04:50.399 is a six month journey at best. 104 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:53.360 Okay, so it's the sandbox, it's the proving ground exactly. 105 00:04:53.480 --> 00:04:55.839 Let's rewind a bit though. You mentioned this history of 106 00:04:55.959 --> 00:04:59.240 robots as the advance guard. I think most people know 107 00:04:59.279 --> 00:05:02.360 about the Mars rous spirit and opportunity and all that, 108 00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:05.720 But looking at the history here, it seems like we've 109 00:05:05.759 --> 00:05:09.399 forgotten about a whole era of robotic exploration that really 110 00:05:09.439 --> 00:05:11.480 set the stage for all of this we have. 111 00:05:11.759 --> 00:05:13.800 It goes back to the very beginning of the space race. 112 00:05:13.839 --> 00:05:16.439 If we look at the lunar surface, the first things 113 00:05:16.439 --> 00:05:19.160 to touch it weren't American boots. They were metal landing legs. 114 00:05:19.800 --> 00:05:22.639 You had the Soviet lunar program in nineteen sixty six 115 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:25.399 and then the American Surveyor won that same year. 116 00:05:25.480 --> 00:05:29.720 And reading about these early landers, they weren't exactly sophisticated, 117 00:05:29.720 --> 00:05:32.040 were they. I mean, compared to what we have now, 118 00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:33.959 they seem like, I don't know, ten cans. 119 00:05:34.439 --> 00:05:38.439 They were primitive, but they were brave. They were static landers. 120 00:05:38.519 --> 00:05:41.079 That's the key. They couldn't move, they could barely act. 121 00:05:41.519 --> 00:05:44.279 Their entire mission was just to answer the most basic, 122 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:48.399 almost primal question imaginable, which was if we land something here, 123 00:05:48.759 --> 00:05:49.399 will it sink? 124 00:05:49.639 --> 00:05:52.600 I remember reading about that. There was a genuine scientific 125 00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:56.959 fear that the moon dust the regolith was so deep 126 00:05:57.000 --> 00:05:59.319 and so fluffy that a lander would just. 127 00:05:59.240 --> 00:06:02.600 Be swallowed, like landing in quicksand exactly, and it was 128 00:06:02.639 --> 00:06:06.079 a real theory. Some very respected astronomers thought the dust 129 00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:09.800 could be meters thick. So these robots, Surveyor and Luna, 130 00:06:09.879 --> 00:06:13.839 they were basically sacrificial lambs. Their only job was to land, survive, 131 00:06:13.959 --> 00:06:16.040 and send back a signal saying hey, I'm still on. 132 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:18.439 The surface, And in doing that they proved the ground 133 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:18.959 was solid. 134 00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:22.759 They prepared the ground literally for human footsteps. 135 00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:25.040 So they were the confirmers step one. The floor is. 136 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:28.839 Real, exactly, but the real leap, the moment we moved 137 00:06:28.879 --> 00:06:33.199 from just landing and surviving to actually exploring, came in 138 00:06:33.240 --> 00:06:35.800 the early seventies, and this is a chapter of history 139 00:06:35.800 --> 00:06:40.120 that often gets completely overshadowed by Apollo, the Lino CODs, 140 00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:43.000 Luna CODs, the Soviet rovers. 141 00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:46.879 I was looking at pictures of these things. They look steampunk, 142 00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:47.720 is that the right word? 143 00:06:48.279 --> 00:06:51.399 They are wonderfully Soviet in their design. The best way 144 00:06:51.399 --> 00:06:53.879 to describe them is to imagine a bath tub on 145 00:06:53.959 --> 00:06:54.519 eight wheels. 146 00:06:54.680 --> 00:06:55.399 A bath tub. 147 00:06:55.560 --> 00:06:58.639 Literally, it was a pressurized tub to keep the electronics 148 00:06:58.680 --> 00:07:01.240 at a reasonable temperature, covered in a lid that would 149 00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:04.639 open up like a clamshell during the day to expose solar. 150 00:07:04.319 --> 00:07:06.519 Panels, and then close at night to stay warm. 151 00:07:06.439 --> 00:07:08.439 Right, to keep the heat in during that two week 152 00:07:08.519 --> 00:07:12.720 long night. A solar powered, remote controlled bathtub on wheels. 153 00:07:13.079 --> 00:07:15.319 That's effectively what it was. But here's the kicker, and 154 00:07:15.360 --> 00:07:19.160 this connects directly to the challenges we're facing today. These 155 00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:22.279 things were driven by teams on Earth in almost real time. 156 00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:25.079 Like a remote control car, a really expensive one, a 157 00:07:25.199 --> 00:07:29.639 very slow incredibly high stakes remote control car. You had 158 00:07:29.639 --> 00:07:32.279 a team of five controllers sitting in a command center 159 00:07:32.319 --> 00:07:36.360 in the Soviet Union. You had a driver, a navigator, 160 00:07:36.399 --> 00:07:40.000 and engineer, and they were looking at these grainy, black 161 00:07:40.040 --> 00:07:44.480 and white television images that updated maybe every few seconds, so. 162 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:47.279 Not exactly a smooth video feed. What about the delay? 163 00:07:47.560 --> 00:07:49.839 The round trip signal delay to the moon is about 164 00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:51.040 two point six seconds. 165 00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:52.360 Okay, so that's noticeable. 166 00:07:52.399 --> 00:07:54.959 It's very noticeable. You push the joystick forward and for 167 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:58.240 almost three seconds absolutely nothing happens. Then you see the 168 00:07:58.240 --> 00:07:58.879 image change. 169 00:08:00.079 --> 00:08:03.079 Maybe that sounds incredibly stressful. You'd have to be so careful. 170 00:08:03.160 --> 00:08:05.639 It was white knuckle driving, they said. If they saw 171 00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:07.680 a crater in the image that was right in front 172 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:09.439 of them, it was already too late to stop. If 173 00:08:09.439 --> 00:08:11.839 they were moving at any kind of speed. Oh, they 174 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:15.000 had to drive in these tiny short bursts. Drive stop, look, 175 00:08:15.079 --> 00:08:18.160 wait for the new image. Drive again. And despite that, 176 00:08:18.199 --> 00:08:22.879 I mean, despite that incredibly crude technology, they were remarkably successful. 177 00:08:22.959 --> 00:08:23.759 How successful. 178 00:08:23.879 --> 00:08:27.040 Lunicod too covered nearly forty kilometers in just four months. 179 00:08:27.399 --> 00:08:30.040 Forty kilometers. Wait a minute, I checked the stats on 180 00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:33.840 the modern Mars rovers opportunity, the famous one it took 181 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:36.840 years to cover a marathon distance, which is about forty 182 00:08:36.840 --> 00:08:40.559 two kilometers it did, and Lunicod did almost that in 183 00:08:40.639 --> 00:08:43.200 four months. Yeah, how is that possible? 184 00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:46.120 Because it had a human brain in the loop. Even 185 00:08:46.159 --> 00:08:48.360 if that brain was a quarter of a million miles away, 186 00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:51.200 it was still a human making judgments. It could make 187 00:08:51.240 --> 00:08:56.159 decisions slowly, but it could navigate complex terrain. It proved 188 00:08:56.279 --> 00:08:58.399 for the first time that a robot could be a 189 00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:02.840 useful exploring tool traversing unprepared ground under human direction. 190 00:09:03.039 --> 00:09:04.720 So that was the high water mark for a while. 191 00:09:04.919 --> 00:09:06.360 And then obviously we had Apollo. 192 00:09:06.519 --> 00:09:08.960 We did, but there's a paradox with Apollo that we 193 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:13.159 need to unpack. We remember the humans, Armstrong, Aldrin Sernin, 194 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:17.639 we picture them, but Apollo was critically reliant on robotic precursors. 195 00:09:17.720 --> 00:09:19.399 You mean to find the landing spots. 196 00:09:19.159 --> 00:09:22.759 The Ranger program, the Surveyor program, the lunar orbiters, they 197 00:09:22.799 --> 00:09:26.279 mapped the entire surface in minute detail. They were looking 198 00:09:26.360 --> 00:09:30.960 for flat, safe, boring places to land. Without those robotic maps, 199 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:33.919 the lunar module pilots would have been flying completely blind. 200 00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:36.919 So even in our greatest human achievement in space, the 201 00:09:37.039 --> 00:09:42.039 robots paved the way always. But then after Apollo, humans 202 00:09:42.159 --> 00:09:46.639 just stopped going. The funding dried up, the political will vanished. 203 00:09:46.840 --> 00:09:50.440 Humans stopped going, but the robots didn't. In fact, that's 204 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:52.480 when we entered what you could call the golden age 205 00:09:52.559 --> 00:09:57.320 of robotic science. The post Apollo era was almost entirely robotic, right. 206 00:09:57.360 --> 00:09:59.879 That's when we sent Vulking to Mars to look for life. 207 00:10:00.080 --> 00:10:02.919 We sent Voyager to the outer planets on its grand tour, 208 00:10:03.320 --> 00:10:06.240 Galileo to Jupiter, Cassini to Saturn. 209 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:09.240 This was the era where robots became our primary eyes 210 00:10:09.240 --> 00:10:12.320 and ears in the Solar System. We basically accepted that 211 00:10:12.759 --> 00:10:15.799 for a while we weren't leaving low Worth orbit, so 212 00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:18.519 we sent our machines as our proxies exactly. 213 00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:21.000 And while all those orbiters were doing amazing work, the 214 00:10:21.080 --> 00:10:25.200 surface technology was quietly evolving, specifically for Mars. And this 215 00:10:25.320 --> 00:10:27.879 is crucial for understanding where we're going next with these 216 00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:30.919 architects on the Moon. How so, the Mars rovers forced 217 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:33.559 us to solve a problem that Lunocod, with its backtob 218 00:10:33.639 --> 00:10:35.840 on wheels didn't really have to deal. 219 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:38.559 With the distance, the time delay, the time delay. 220 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:42.240 This is the great driver of innovation in robotics. Remember 221 00:10:42.279 --> 00:10:47.480 the lunar cuts two point six seconds. Annoying but manageable. 222 00:10:47.759 --> 00:10:49.159 You can deal with a bad zoom call. 223 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:53.519 But Mars is what ten twenty minutes away? 224 00:10:53.879 --> 00:10:56.320 It varies depending on where the planets are in their orbits. 225 00:10:56.799 --> 00:10:59.000 A signal to Mars can take anywhere from three to 226 00:10:59.039 --> 00:11:02.200 twenty two minutes, so a round trip could be almost 227 00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:03.039 forty five minutes. 228 00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:07.840 You can't joystick a Mars rover. It's physically impossible, completely impossible. 229 00:11:08.039 --> 00:11:10.000 If you see a cliff approaching on your video feed 230 00:11:10.039 --> 00:11:12.440 and you slam on the brakes, the rover actually fell 231 00:11:12.440 --> 00:11:13.840 off that cliff twenty minutes ago. 232 00:11:13.960 --> 00:11:16.080 That is a terrifying thought. Yes, you can't drive it. 233 00:11:16.120 --> 00:11:18.240 You have to tell it where to go. 234 00:11:18.399 --> 00:11:21.279 You have to give it goals. And this necessity forced 235 00:11:21.279 --> 00:11:24.759 the development of autonomy. It started small with Sojourner in 236 00:11:24.840 --> 00:11:25.960 nineteen ninety seven. 237 00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:28.120 The little microwave sized one, the cute one. 238 00:11:27.960 --> 00:11:30.039 The cute one. It couldn't do much, but it had 239 00:11:30.039 --> 00:11:33.360 a basic refuse to die instinct. You know, if it's 240 00:11:33.399 --> 00:11:35.639 tilt sensorfelt it was tipping too far, it would just stop. 241 00:11:35.639 --> 00:11:36.600 It was a baby step, but. 242 00:11:36.559 --> 00:11:37.320 A crucial one. 243 00:11:37.519 --> 00:11:40.000 Then you had the huge leap with Spirit and Opportunity 244 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:43.360 in two thousand and four. They were true robot geologists, 245 00:11:43.399 --> 00:11:47.159 and they completely transformed our understanding of Martian history and water. 246 00:11:47.919 --> 00:11:51.399 And then the Big Ones Curiosity in twenty twelve and 247 00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:53.120 Perseverance in twenty twenty. 248 00:11:52.840 --> 00:11:57.159 One, and Perseverance even carried a helicopter Ingenuity, the first 249 00:11:57.480 --> 00:12:01.879 powered controlled flight on another world, a true Right Brothers moment. 250 00:12:02.279 --> 00:12:05.240 But the key takeaway here isn't just the amazing hardware. 251 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:09.639 It's the software. It's the brain, the otomy. Over these decades, 252 00:12:09.759 --> 00:12:14.960 NASA and JPL developed incredibly sophisticated autonomous driving, things like 253 00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:19.720 hazard avoidance, pathfinding, visual odometry, where the rover tracks its 254 00:12:19.720 --> 00:12:21.679 position by watching the landscape move. 255 00:12:21.960 --> 00:12:24.240 So the robots learned to think for themselves, at least 256 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:25.320 geographically speaking. 257 00:12:25.399 --> 00:12:27.480 They learned to look at a field of rocks and say, okay, 258 00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:29.720 I can't go that way. That's dangerous. I'll plot a 259 00:12:29.720 --> 00:12:33.120 course around to the left without asking a human for permission. 260 00:12:32.720 --> 00:12:35.399 First, because they had to. If they waited for permission 261 00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:39.000 for every single meter of driving, they'd never get anywhere exactly. 262 00:12:39.360 --> 00:12:42.200 And now this is the punchline. We are taking all 263 00:12:42.240 --> 00:12:45.480 that hard won expertise, that autonomy that was born from 264 00:12:45.519 --> 00:12:48.679 the isolation of Mars, and we are bringing it back home, 265 00:12:48.840 --> 00:12:50.159 so to speak, back. 266 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:51.960 To the Moon, but for a totally different jobs. 267 00:12:51.960 --> 00:12:53.960 We're a totally different job. We aren't just driving around 268 00:12:53.960 --> 00:12:56.120 looking at rocks anymore. We're going there to build a base. 269 00:12:56.480 --> 00:12:59.200 Okay, So that sets the stage perfectly. We've got the history, 270 00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:03.480 We've got the tech evolution from a remote control bathtub 271 00:13:03.559 --> 00:13:06.639 to a self driving, nuclear powered science lab. But I 272 00:13:06.679 --> 00:13:09.720 want to circle back to the why you said the 273 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:14.519 Moon is the testing ground. But from a resources perspective, Honestly, 274 00:13:14.600 --> 00:13:16.200 I look at the Moon and I see a dead, 275 00:13:16.320 --> 00:13:19.440 dry rock. Why are we building infrastructure there? What is 276 00:13:19.480 --> 00:13:21.000 there to mind that makes it all worthwhile? 277 00:13:21.279 --> 00:13:24.480 This is the part that usually surprises people. We tend 278 00:13:24.519 --> 00:13:26.360 to think of the Moon as just I don't know, 279 00:13:26.440 --> 00:13:29.519 a source of rock for concrete or something. But the 280 00:13:29.559 --> 00:13:33.200 real treasure, the strategic resource that changes the economics of 281 00:13:33.240 --> 00:13:35.440 the entire Solar system is water. 282 00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:38.679 Water on the Moon. I'm talking about ice, right, like 283 00:13:38.919 --> 00:13:39.679 liquid oceans. 284 00:13:39.879 --> 00:13:43.639 Right water ice specifically, it's trapped in the regolith, in 285 00:13:43.720 --> 00:13:47.240 the soil inside permanently shadowed craters at the. 286 00:13:47.240 --> 00:13:51.200 Poles permanently shadowed, so places the sun has never reached. 287 00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:54.279 Exactly deep craters near the North and South Poles, where 288 00:13:54.320 --> 00:13:57.440 the angle of sunlight is so low that the bottom 289 00:13:57.440 --> 00:14:00.320 of the crater has been in total darkness and for 290 00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:03.159 unimaginably cold for maybe billions of years. 291 00:14:03.679 --> 00:14:05.480 And how do we know it's there? I mean we 292 00:14:05.519 --> 00:14:07.840 actually like drilled and found it. 293 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:11.039 Not yet, but we have very strong evidence. Missions like 294 00:14:11.080 --> 00:14:14.639 the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and India's Chandra in one have 295 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:19.000 used instruments that detected hydrogen signatures. Where there's hydrogen in 296 00:14:19.039 --> 00:14:22.279 that kind of concentration, it strongly suggests water. 297 00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:25.840 Ice. Okay, so there's ice, but what's the what I mean, 298 00:14:25.960 --> 00:14:27.480 is it just for astronauts to drink. 299 00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:29.279 That's part of it, for sure, But the so what 300 00:14:29.399 --> 00:14:32.200 here is massive? It's not about drinking water. Is H 301 00:14:32.279 --> 00:14:33.679 two O hydrogen and. 302 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:35.679 Oxygen, which it's rocket fuel. 303 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:39.519 It is the most efficient chemical rocket propellant. We have 304 00:14:40.159 --> 00:14:43.879 liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, the same stuff that powered 305 00:14:43.879 --> 00:14:47.559 the Space Shuttle. If you can mine that ice, melt it, 306 00:14:47.799 --> 00:14:51.600 purify it, and then split it with electrolysis, you have 307 00:14:51.679 --> 00:14:52.919 a gas station in orbit. 308 00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:55.080 Okay, let's unpack this because I feel like this is 309 00:14:55.080 --> 00:14:56.840 a point that gets glossed over a lot, but it 310 00:14:56.879 --> 00:14:59.679 sounds like it's the entire reason for this new push. 311 00:15:00.519 --> 00:15:02.879 Why is a gas station on the Moon such a 312 00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:05.679 big deal. We have plenty of water here. Can't we 313 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:07.200 just bring fuel from Earth? 314 00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:09.960 We can, and we do, but you have to fight 315 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:12.440 Earth's gravity well to get it up there. This is 316 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:15.000 the single biggest problem in space travel. 317 00:15:15.080 --> 00:15:16.759 Explain that the gravity, well. 318 00:15:16.720 --> 00:15:19.200 Think of Earth's gravity like a really really deep pit. 319 00:15:19.279 --> 00:15:22.080 To get anything out of that pit, a satellite, an astronaut, 320 00:15:22.120 --> 00:15:24.720 a liter of water, you have to burn a colossal 321 00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:27.600 amount of fuel just to lift it. It costs thousands 322 00:15:27.679 --> 00:15:30.639 upon thousands of dollars per kilogram to launch anything to 323 00:15:30.679 --> 00:15:30.960 the Moon. 324 00:15:31.159 --> 00:15:33.120 So if you're launching a tank or full of fuel 325 00:15:33.159 --> 00:15:36.000 to the Moon, a huge portion of the fuel in 326 00:15:36.039 --> 00:15:38.200 the rocket blow it is just there to lift the 327 00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:38.919 fuel above it. 328 00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:42.399 Exactly. It's this vicious cycle called the tyranny of the 329 00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:44.919 rocket equation. The more you want to carry, the more 330 00:15:44.919 --> 00:15:47.480 fuel you need. But that fuel has mass, so you 331 00:15:47.559 --> 00:15:49.879 need more fuel to lift that fuel and so on. 332 00:15:49.960 --> 00:15:50.799 It's brutal. 333 00:15:50.919 --> 00:15:52.000 But the Moon is different. 334 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:54.879 The Moon has a much much shallower gravity. Well, it's 335 00:15:54.919 --> 00:15:59.159 about one six of the berths. It is vastly easier 336 00:15:59.399 --> 00:16:03.320 energetically speaking, to lift a kilogram of fuel from the 337 00:16:03.399 --> 00:16:06.159 lunar surface up to lunar orbit than it is to 338 00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:07.679 lift it from Earth's surface. 339 00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:10.120 So if you can refuel your spaceship at the Moon. 340 00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:11.840 You don't have to carry all your fuel for the 341 00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:14.799 return trip or for an onward journey to Mars all 342 00:16:14.840 --> 00:16:17.480 the way from the bottom of Earth's deep gravity pit. 343 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:19.519 You can launch with just enough to get to the 344 00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:20.960 Moon and they top off the. 345 00:16:20.919 --> 00:16:22.720 Tanks, and that changes the math completely. 346 00:16:22.759 --> 00:16:25.679 It transforms the entire logistics of space travel. It makes 347 00:16:25.720 --> 00:16:28.759 the Moon a propellant depot, a stepping stone to the 348 00:16:28.759 --> 00:16:29.879 rest of the Solar System. 349 00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:32.879 So that's the why, that's the business case we need 350 00:16:32.919 --> 00:16:35.080 a gas station. But now let's talk about the how, 351 00:16:35.759 --> 00:16:39.519 because reading about the conditions on the Moon it sounds 352 00:16:39.559 --> 00:16:42.480 like an absolute nightmare. You called it a hostile job site. 353 00:16:42.600 --> 00:16:46.960 It is profoundly hostile. If you were a construction site 354 00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:49.360 manager on Earth and you were presented with the Moon 355 00:16:49.399 --> 00:16:52.440 as a job site, you would quit immediately. You'd cite 356 00:16:52.440 --> 00:16:54.840 safety violations that haven't even been invented yet. 357 00:16:54.840 --> 00:16:57.159 Okay, give me the list of grievances. What are these 358 00:16:57.240 --> 00:16:58.440 poor robots up against. 359 00:16:58.600 --> 00:17:01.360 Where do you even start? Let's let's start with temperature. 360 00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:05.480 The thermal extremes are just brutal. In the sunlight near 361 00:17:05.559 --> 00:17:08.519 the lunar equator, the surface can hit one hundred and 362 00:17:08.519 --> 00:17:10.720 twenty seven degrees celsius. 363 00:17:10.559 --> 00:17:12.200 So well above boiling. 364 00:17:12.279 --> 00:17:15.119 Yeah, water would boil off instantly, your equipment is becking. 365 00:17:15.559 --> 00:17:17.720 But the moment you step into shadow, or when the 366 00:17:17.720 --> 00:17:20.680 two week night falls, the temperature plummets to minus one 367 00:17:20.759 --> 00:17:22.839 hundred and seventy three degrees celsius. 368 00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:24.640 That is the three hundred degrees. 369 00:17:24.359 --> 00:17:27.279 Swing, a massive swing. And remember it's not equipped change. 370 00:17:27.519 --> 00:17:29.880 A lunar day is two weeks long, so you bake 371 00:17:30.039 --> 00:17:33.119 for fourteen earth days and then you deep freeze for 372 00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:34.240 fourteen earth days. 373 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:35.559 What does that do to the machines. 374 00:17:35.720 --> 00:17:39.200 It's terrible for them. This thermal cycling just stresses materials 375 00:17:39.240 --> 00:17:43.559 like crazy. Metal expands and contracts over and over. Solder 376 00:17:43.640 --> 00:17:46.839 joints on electronics can crack. Batteries hate it. And if 377 00:17:46.839 --> 00:17:49.240 we're talking about the poles where the precious water is, 378 00:17:49.279 --> 00:17:52.839 it's even trickier. Why because the sun when you see 379 00:17:52.839 --> 00:17:55.519 it is always at a very low angle, just skimming 380 00:17:55.519 --> 00:17:59.559 the horizon, so you have these long, long, stretching shadows. 381 00:17:59.559 --> 00:18:01.880 You can go from sunlight to deep freeze just by 382 00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:03.279 moving a few feet, which. 383 00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:06.559 Means solar power becomes incredibly unreliable just when you need 384 00:18:06.599 --> 00:18:09.079 it most to run your heaters to survive the cold. 385 00:18:09.200 --> 00:18:13.440 Exactly, your robots are constantly chasing the light. But honestly, 386 00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:18.160 the temperature is a known problem. We can engineer for it. It's manageable. 387 00:18:18.200 --> 00:18:21.839 Compared to the real enemy, the dust, the regolith, I 388 00:18:21.880 --> 00:18:24.720 would argue, and most engineers in this field would agree. 389 00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:28.880 This is the number one engineering challenge for sustainable lunar operations. 390 00:18:29.200 --> 00:18:32.200 So explain this to me. Because on Earth dust is 391 00:18:32.200 --> 00:18:34.160 an annoyance. You know, I have to dust my bookshelf. 392 00:18:34.559 --> 00:18:37.160 Why is lunar dust a mission killer? 393 00:18:37.240 --> 00:18:39.440 Because it's not dust in the way we think of it. 394 00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:42.119 On Earth, we have weather, We have wind and water. 395 00:18:42.599 --> 00:18:45.480 Over millions of years, sand grains get tumbled in rivers 396 00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:47.759 are blown around in the desert. They rub against each 397 00:18:47.759 --> 00:18:50.000 other and all their sharp edges get worn down. They 398 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:50.920 become rounded and. 399 00:18:50.920 --> 00:18:52.240 Smooth like sea glass. 400 00:18:52.359 --> 00:18:55.319 Perfect analogy It's like sea glass, but on the Moon 401 00:18:55.599 --> 00:18:57.680