WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.439 --> 00:00:07.719 Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos 2 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:12.279 with our soothing Bedtime Astronomie podcast. Each episode offers a 3 00:00:12.359 --> 00:00:16.320 gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for 4 00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:20.239 unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries 5 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:22.440 of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful 6 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:23.839 slumber under the night sky. 7 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:32.640 Okay, so let's unpack this because for basically the entirety 8 00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:35.320 of human history, looking up at the Moon has been 9 00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:39.119 this exercise in I don't know, romantic isolation, right. 10 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.079 Yeah, it's the untouched wilderness exactly. 11 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:43.759 You look at that silver disk and it represents this poetic, 12 00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:47.159 silent rock. But I really want you to just erase 13 00:00:47.240 --> 00:00:49.719 that image tonight, because when you look up now, you 14 00:00:49.719 --> 00:00:52.359 aren't looking at a silent wilderness. You are looking at 15 00:00:52.399 --> 00:00:57.840 a booming, highly capitalized, and incredibly active construction site. 16 00:00:57.880 --> 00:00:59.799 Oh. Absolutely, it's a complete paradigm shift. 17 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:04.159 The physical, technological, and honestly the economic foundation for a 18 00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:08.079 permanent human neighborhood is being poured right now, and the 19 00:01:08.079 --> 00:01:11.079 sheer scale of the capital being deployed to do it 20 00:01:11.120 --> 00:01:14.400 is just staggering. We are fundamentally shifting from science fiction 21 00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:18.239 into the gritty world of well municipal planning in a vacuum. 22 00:01:18.280 --> 00:01:21.719 We really are the era of exploration, that whole Apollo 23 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:24.439 mindset of planting a flag, leaving some footprints, and coming 24 00:01:24.519 --> 00:01:27.599 right back home. That is entirely over. What we're witnessing 25 00:01:27.680 --> 00:01:31.159 right now is the deployment of permanent infrastructure. And to 26 00:01:31.239 --> 00:01:34.159 really grasp the mechanics of the shift, you have to 27 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:37.359 look at the structural overhaul of how we move mass 28 00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:37.799 off this. 29 00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:39.920 Planet, which has always been the bottleneck. 30 00:01:39.519 --> 00:01:43.840 Rest Exactly for decades, the dominant model was the monolithic 31 00:01:44.040 --> 00:01:50.200 government designed spacecraft. It was exquisite, custom built, slow, and 32 00:01:50.280 --> 00:01:55.480 just astronomically expensive. You just can't build a permanent, expanding 33 00:01:55.599 --> 00:01:59.040 base using these bespoke one off vehicles, right. 34 00:01:58.959 --> 00:02:01.040 I mean, if you're building a sky scraper in Manhattan, 35 00:02:01.519 --> 00:02:04.280 you don't commission a team of engineers to design and 36 00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:07.719 build a brand new custom delivery truck from scratch every 37 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:08.800 single time you need a load of. 38 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:10.120 Steel, No, of course not. 39 00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:12.560 You just hire a logistics company that already has a fleet, 40 00:02:13.199 --> 00:02:14.680 like FedEx or ups. 41 00:02:14.759 --> 00:02:17.360 And that is exactly the pivot NASA has made here. 42 00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:21.120 They have essentially decided to stop building their own delivery trucks. 43 00:02:21.319 --> 00:02:24.319 They are now hiring the lunar equivalent of FedEx to 44 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:25.039 handle the freight. 45 00:02:25.240 --> 00:02:26.960 It's just wild to think about. 46 00:02:27.039 --> 00:02:30.199 It is, and the underlying economics of that decision are fascinating. 47 00:02:30.639 --> 00:02:33.080 We are looking at a nearly six hundred million dollar 48 00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:38.439 investment specifically targeted at four commercial moon landings, and all 49 00:02:38.439 --> 00:02:40.840 of these are scheduled to touch down in late twenty 50 00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:41.280 twenty eight. 51 00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:43.479 So this is part of the CLPS initiative, right the 52 00:02:43.479 --> 00:02:45.520 commercial nounopayload services. 53 00:02:45.039 --> 00:02:47.400 That's the one, and the distribution of that capital tells 54 00:02:47.400 --> 00:02:51.479 a very specific story about redundancy and competition. So you 55 00:02:51.639 --> 00:02:55.599 have Astrobotic receiving two hundred and ninety seven point nine 56 00:02:55.719 --> 00:02:59.000 million dollars to execute two separate surface deliveries. 57 00:02:59.199 --> 00:02:59.560 Wow. 58 00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:03.080 Yeah, And then Firefly Aerospace was awarded one hundred and 59 00:03:03.080 --> 00:03:05.919 forty four point two million for one delivery, and Intuitive 60 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:07.639 Machines is getting one hundred and forty eight point three 61 00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:08.520 million for another. 62 00:03:08.759 --> 00:03:10.719 But you know, here is the thing that really stood 63 00:03:10.759 --> 00:03:13.240 out to me when looking at the architecture of these formassions. 64 00:03:13.479 --> 00:03:17.479 They aren't unveiling some radical, never before seen sci fi spacecraft. 65 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:18.199 No, not at all. 66 00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:21.319 They are explicitly using upgraded versions of landers that have 67 00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:24.759 already flown, which I mean from a pr standpoint, maybe 68 00:03:24.759 --> 00:03:27.960 that sounds less exciting, but from a logistics standpoint, it 69 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:29.680 feels incredibly pragmatic. 70 00:03:29.919 --> 00:03:33.479 Well, pragmatism is literally the only way to survive the 71 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:37.280 tyranny of the rocket equation. Ryan Stefan, he's the acting 72 00:03:37.319 --> 00:03:40.520 director of cargo landers for the Moon base. He framed 73 00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:44.120 this beautifully. He characterized this entire operational phase as a 74 00:03:44.280 --> 00:03:48.159 proving ground. But the key metric he highlighted wasn't thrust 75 00:03:48.520 --> 00:03:52.120 or you know, payload capacity. It was ordering cadence. 76 00:03:52.319 --> 00:03:55.520 Ordering cadence meaning like the actual frequency with which they 77 00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:57.879 can just swipe the credit card and put a box 78 00:03:57.879 --> 00:03:58.280 on the Moon. 79 00:03:58.439 --> 00:04:02.080 Exactly that. Because the traditional spaceflight model meant waiting ten 80 00:04:02.159 --> 00:04:06.800 or fifteen years between missions. If a single valve stuck 81 00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:10.479 or a sensor degraded under radiation, the entire program would 82 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:13.479 just grind to a halt for a multi year redesign. 83 00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:14.039 Right totally buralyzing. 84 00:04:14.199 --> 00:04:17.439 But the commercial competition model flips that. If an intuitive 85 00:04:17.480 --> 00:04:20.519 machines lander has a thruster anomaly, they don't scrap the 86 00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:24.519 whole architecture, they pull the telemetry, tweak the upgraded model, 87 00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:27.360 and they fly the next iteration a few months later. 88 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:30.439 Let's run the numbers on that cadence, though, because this 89 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:33.360 is where the sheer volume of traffic becomes real. To me. 90 00:04:33.959 --> 00:04:38.279 We are talking about seventeen lunar surface deliveries already on 91 00:04:38.319 --> 00:04:38.759 the books. 92 00:04:38.920 --> 00:04:39.560 Seventeen. 93 00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:42.839 It's incredible, seventeen if you map that out over the 94 00:04:42.839 --> 00:04:46.680 next decade. The phrase lunar highway isn't just some cute metaphor. 95 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:49.959 It is a literal description of the orbital mechanics between 96 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:52.720 Earth and the Moon. Right now, we are moving away 97 00:04:52.879 --> 00:04:57.319 from these historic world stopping events into basically a scheduled 98 00:04:57.319 --> 00:04:58.120 transit system. 99 00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:00.839 And this is a big but a The scheduled transit 100 00:05:00.879 --> 00:05:05.680 system built on a decentralized commercial fleet introduces a massive 101 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:09.160 scientific and engineering headache. How so, well, think about the 102 00:05:09.240 --> 00:05:14.040 variables at play here. Astrobotic, firefly and intuitive machines are 103 00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:19.519 all utilizing highly proprietary delivery vehicles. They have different structural geometries, 104 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:25.079 different engine thrust profiles, different propellant mixtures, and vastly different 105 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:26.600 autonomous descent software. 106 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:28.600 Oh right, and they aren't all landing at the same 107 00:05:28.639 --> 00:05:31.399 spaceport either, they are targeting entirely different regions of the 108 00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:35.319 lunar surface, exactly like Astrobotic might be putting down near 109 00:05:35.399 --> 00:05:39.439 an equatorial mare while Firefly is targeting a heavily cratered 110 00:05:39.439 --> 00:05:40.639 plateau near the. 111 00:05:40.639 --> 00:05:44.319 South Pole, which means the physical interaction between the vehicle 112 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:47.279 and the lunar environment during touchdown is going to be 113 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:50.839 completely unique on every single flight. So if your NASA 114 00:05:51.279 --> 00:05:55.079 and you are trying to gather reliable, actionable engineering data 115 00:05:55.079 --> 00:05:58.600 to design your future permanent habitats, how do you account 116 00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:00.680 for all those vehicle specific variables. 117 00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:03.519 Yeah, that makes sense. Like if a sensor spikes on 118 00:06:03.560 --> 00:06:06.720 the Firefly lander, was that caused by the unique geology 119 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:08.800 of the South Pole or was it just a weird 120 00:06:08.920 --> 00:06:12.000 vibration resonance from Firefly's specific engine design. 121 00:06:12.079 --> 00:06:14.600 Precisely, you have no way of knowing unless you have 122 00:06:14.639 --> 00:06:16.199 a control Okay, wait, I. 123 00:06:16.199 --> 00:06:17.800 Have to push back on the solution to this though, 124 00:06:17.839 --> 00:06:20.639 because payload mass is the single most expensive commodity in 125 00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:23.279 the Solar System. Yeah, every gram you lift out of 126 00:06:23.279 --> 00:06:26.399 Earth's gravity well costs thousands of dollars. It does, so 127 00:06:26.519 --> 00:06:29.480 NASA's mandate. Their solution to this data problem is to 128 00:06:29.519 --> 00:06:32.360 force all four of these late twenty twenty eight flights 129 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:35.879 to carry the exact same trio of science instruments. But 130 00:06:36.040 --> 00:06:38.399 if we already know the instrument works on the first flight, 131 00:06:39.079 --> 00:06:42.120 flying the exact same mass three more times feels like 132 00:06:42.160 --> 00:06:46.199 a staggering redundancy, doesn't it. Yeah, Like why burn millions 133 00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:49.680 of dollars in payload capacity just to replicate the cargo. 134 00:06:49.639 --> 00:06:53.680 Because without that replication, the data is essentially worthless for 135 00:06:53.800 --> 00:06:59.480 building predictive models. Joel Kerns, the Deputy Associate Administrator, likened 136 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:03.800 this stratug to deploying a network of weather stations. If 137 00:07:03.800 --> 00:07:06.319 you build the most sophisticated weather station on Earth and 138 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:09.680 put it in Chicago, you still know absolutely nothing about 139 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:13.519 the global climate. You only have localized data for Chicago. 140 00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:16.040 Right, But you wouldn't put four weather stations in Chicago. 141 00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:18.160 Now, you put one in Chicago, one in the Sahara, 142 00:07:18.199 --> 00:07:20.800 one in the Amazon, and one in Antarctica. But and 143 00:07:20.839 --> 00:07:23.199 this is the critical part, you have to make sure 144 00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:26.639 all four stations are using the exact same brand of 145 00:07:26.639 --> 00:07:29.800 thermometer and the exact same animometer. Oh I say, because 146 00:07:29.879 --> 00:07:33.319 these landers have different thrusts, use different fuels, and are 147 00:07:33.399 --> 00:07:37.160 landing in different topographies. The scientific method actually demands a 148 00:07:37.199 --> 00:07:41.720 standardized control payload. By flying the identical instruments on all 149 00:07:41.720 --> 00:07:45.839 four missions, they isolate the lander as a variable. They 150 00:07:45.879 --> 00:07:50.560 aren't just taking isolated readings anymore. They are creating a baseline. 151 00:07:50.040 --> 00:07:52.959 A baseline for the new neighborhood. I love that, and 152 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:55.600 that actually brings us to the first of these three 153 00:07:56.079 --> 00:08:01.800 mandated standardized tools, which is designed to tap the most chaotic, violent, 154 00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:05.240 and just immediate threat to any lunar infrastructure. 155 00:08:05.319 --> 00:08:06.839 The landing itself. 156 00:08:06.439 --> 00:08:08.199 Exactly the final descent. 157 00:08:07.959 --> 00:08:10.560 Right the interaction between the exhaust plume and the regolith. 158 00:08:10.720 --> 00:08:12.800 Here's where it gets really interesting. Let's talk about the 159 00:08:12.839 --> 00:08:14.800 physics of that interaction, because I think a lot of 160 00:08:14.800 --> 00:08:18.279 people picture a lunar landing like a helicopter touching down 161 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:21.040 in a desert. The dust billows up in these big 162 00:08:21.079 --> 00:08:24.399 fluffy clouds, swirls around a bit, and eventually settles. 163 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:25.399 That's the movie version. 164 00:08:26.199 --> 00:08:28.480 But the reality of a lunar landing is closer to 165 00:08:28.519 --> 00:08:30.639 a sustained microscopic explosion. 166 00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:34.519 It really is. We have to completely discard our earth 167 00:08:34.559 --> 00:08:39.080 bound intuition about how dust behaves on Earth. Sand and 168 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:42.759 dirt are the products of millions of years of continuous weathering. 169 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:47.200 They're tumbled by rivers, blown by atmospheric winds, ground down 170 00:08:47.320 --> 00:08:50.480 by glaciers. So there's soft Yeah, the edges of a 171 00:08:50.519 --> 00:08:53.360 grain of sand on Earth are generally rounded and smooth. 172 00:08:53.480 --> 00:08:56.600 Put on the Moon, you have a hard vacuum, no wind, 173 00:08:56.799 --> 00:08:59.960 no rain, no atmospheric friction none. 174 00:09:00.039 --> 00:09:03.960 Unar regolith was created over billions of years by micrometeorites 175 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:08.120 slamming into the basaltic surface at hypervelocity. They basically shatter 176 00:09:08.240 --> 00:09:11.759 the bedrock into microscopic fragments, and because there is no 177 00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:16.879 weathering process to smooth them out, those particles remain incredibly jagged. Wow. 178 00:09:16.960 --> 00:09:19.960 They are essentially microscopic shards of razor sharp glass. 179 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:23.799 And beyond the shape, there's the electrostatic charge. Because there's 180 00:09:23.840 --> 00:09:27.080 no atmosphere to shield the surface, some solar radiation. The 181 00:09:27.120 --> 00:09:31.159 Sun's ultraviolet light knocks electrons off the dust particles, giving 182 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:34.039 them the strong positive charge. So they repel each other, 183 00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:36.759 but they cling desperately to literally anything they touch. 184 00:09:37.080 --> 00:09:40.759 Exactly. Now, introduce a chemical rocket engine into that environment. 185 00:09:41.399 --> 00:09:44.600 When a lander fires its descent engines to bleed off 186 00:09:44.799 --> 00:09:49.080 orbital velocity. It isn't blowing air. It is expelling superheated 187 00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:51.759 gas at thousands of meters per second into a vacuum, 188 00:09:51.799 --> 00:09:55.320 which is terrifying, right because on Earth, the atmosphere provides 189 00:09:55.399 --> 00:09:58.840 resistance which causes the exhaust to billow and swirl into 190 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:02.200 those fluffy cloudsy meen. But in a vacuum, there is 191 00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:06.159 no atmospheric pressure to push back, so the exhaust expands 192 00:10:06.240 --> 00:10:10.639 outward radially, incredibly fast and completely parallel to the ground. 193 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:14.759 So it picks up these electrostatically charged microscopic glass shards 194 00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:18.440 and accelerates them outward as supersonic speeds. It's not a 195 00:10:18.519 --> 00:10:21.279 dust cloud at all. It's a continuous three hundred and 196 00:10:21.279 --> 00:10:23.000 sixty degree shotgun blast. 197 00:10:22.799 --> 00:10:25.200 That is the lunar plume. And we know exactly how 198 00:10:25.200 --> 00:10:27.000 destructive this is because we've actually seen it. 199 00:10:27.159 --> 00:10:27.840 During Apollo. 200 00:10:27.960 --> 00:10:31.600 Right, Yes, Apolo twelve, Pete Conrad and Alan Bean executed 201 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:34.879 a precision landing of the Intrepid Lunar module about one 202 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:37.639 hundred and sixty meters away from the Robotic Survey three probe, 203 00:10:37.840 --> 00:10:40.120 which had landed there a few years prior, and when 204 00:10:40.159 --> 00:10:43.200 they walked over to inspect surveyor three. They found that 205 00:10:43.240 --> 00:10:46.879 the exhaust plume from their own landing had completely sand 206 00:10:46.919 --> 00:10:50.399 blasted the probe. It pitted the metal and deeply scored 207 00:10:50.440 --> 00:10:53.559 the optical lenses. And that was despite being over a 208 00:10:53.559 --> 00:10:54.600 football field away. 209 00:10:54.840 --> 00:10:58.080 And that was just a tiny apollo descent stage. Now 210 00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:03.519 we're talking about landing assive commercial cargo freighters, eventually followed 211 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:06.159 by multiton habitats and extraction machinery. 212 00:11:06.200 --> 00:11:08.159 It scales up the danger exponentially. 213 00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:10.320 If you land your supply flator too close to your 214 00:11:10.360 --> 00:11:13.879 permanent solar array, your own engine exhaust will strip the 215 00:11:13.919 --> 00:11:17.559 protective coatings right off the panels and permanently blind all 216 00:11:17.600 --> 00:11:19.039 your optical sensors, which. 217 00:11:18.879 --> 00:11:22.639 Is exactly why the first standardized instrument is absolutely critical 218 00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:25.519 for base planning. It's called the Stereo Camera for Lunar 219 00:11:25.559 --> 00:11:29.480 Plume Surface Studies or six SCALPSS. 220 00:11:29.679 --> 00:11:31.960 I love when engineers clearly work backward to create a 221 00:11:31.960 --> 00:11:35.600 good acronym, says scale. PSSC is memorable at least, but 222 00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:39.919 the engineering inside SIPPSS is brilliant. It utilizes an array 223 00:11:39.960 --> 00:11:42.000 of four cameras mounted around the base of the lander, 224 00:11:42.279 --> 00:11:46.840 and it employs stereophotogrammetry. Okay, let's break down how stereophotogrammetry 225 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:49.279 actually works in this context, because they aren't just taking 226 00:11:49.279 --> 00:11:52.440 a cool go pro video of the dust flying around. 227 00:11:52.519 --> 00:11:55.159 No. No, they are measuring the physical volume of the 228 00:11:55.200 --> 00:11:59.440 crater being excavated in real time by having four cameras 229 00:11:59.440 --> 00:12:03.879 with overlappping fields of view. SCALPSS uses parallax, which is 230 00:12:03.919 --> 00:12:06.679 the same principle, are two eyes used to perceive depth. 231 00:12:07.320 --> 00:12:10.000 So as the engine fires and the gas begins displacing 232 00:12:10.039 --> 00:12:16.039 the regolith, SCALPSS takes continuous, simultaneous images. The software then 233 00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:19.600 analyzes the slight differences in perspective between the cameras to 234 00:12:19.639 --> 00:12:22.720 calculate the exact distance to millions of individual points on 235 00:12:22.759 --> 00:12:23.639 the ground below. 236 00:12:23.480 --> 00:12:26.480 So it's basically mapping the erosion as it happens exactly. 237 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:30.440 It creates a high fidelity, three dimensional topographical map that 238 00:12:30.559 --> 00:12:33.639 updates multiple times a second during the final seconds of descent. 239 00:12:34.120 --> 00:12:36.840 It shows exactly how deep the thrust is digging into 240 00:12:36.879 --> 00:12:39.519 the surface, the angle of the trench being carved, and 241 00:12:39.559 --> 00:12:41.639 the total mass of the material being ejected. 242 00:12:41.720 --> 00:12:45.559 And because NASA is forcing astrobotic firefly and intuitive machines 243 00:12:45.600 --> 00:12:48.600 to all carry SCALPSS. They get this three D data 244 00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:51.279 across a massive variety of variable right, they get to 245 00:12:51.279 --> 00:12:55.120 see how a continuous throttle engine excavates dust compared to 246 00:12:55.399 --> 00:12:58.039 like a pulse to engine. They see the difference in 247 00:12:58.080 --> 00:13:02.320 plume dynamics when landing on impacted equatorial regolith versus the 248 00:13:02.399 --> 00:13:04.559 looser colder soils at the south pole. 249 00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:07.320 And they are feeding all of this data into fluid 250 00:13:07.399 --> 00:13:11.840 dynamics supercomputers to build a universal predictive model. Because if 251 00:13:11.840 --> 00:13:14.279 you want to build a permanent moon base, you need 252 00:13:14.480 --> 00:13:17.600 zoning laws. Zoning laws, yet you need a mathematical certainty 253 00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:20.639 that tells you if we place our habitat here, the 254 00:13:20.759 --> 00:13:23.519 landing pad for the supply rockets must be exactly eight 255 00:13:23.559 --> 00:13:26.759 hundred meters away behind a topographical berm to ensure the 256 00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:29.159 habitat doesn't get shredded by supersonic glass. 257 00:13:29.159 --> 00:13:32.759 Okay, so scale PSS solves the landing hazard. It allows 258 00:13:32.840 --> 00:13:35.759 us to mathematically zone the base. The violent descend is over, 259 00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:39.120 the engines cut off, and the microscopic glass storm finally settles. 260 00:13:39.639 --> 00:13:43.000 But now you have a multimillion dollar lander sitting in 261 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:46.440 the middle of a barren gray, hyper extreme environment. The 262 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:49.919 next massive logistical hurdle is knowing exactly where you. 263 00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:54.720 Are right navigation without infrastructure on Earth, we take absolute 264 00:13:54.799 --> 00:13:58.159 location for granted. We have this constellation of dozens of 265 00:13:58.200 --> 00:14:03.679 GPS satellites constantly broadcasting highly precise timing signals that allow 266 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:07.039 our phones to triangulate our position down to a few meters. 267 00:14:07.159 --> 00:14:08.679 But the moon has no GPS. 268 00:14:08.799 --> 00:14:11.320 The moon has zero GPS. 269 00:14:10.799 --> 00:14:14.720 And beyond that, the visual landmarks can be incredibly deceptive. 270 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:15.480 Right yeah. 271 00:14:15.559 --> 00:14:19.799 The lack of atmospheric haze completely messes with human depth perception. 272 00:14:20.480 --> 00:14:22.639 A mountain that looks like it's a two hour hike 273 00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:25.080 away might actually be fifty miles distant. 274 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:26.039 Oh absolutely. 275 00:14:26.120 --> 00:14:28.480 And the shadows cast by the sun in a vacuum 276 00:14:28.600 --> 00:14:32.200 are absolute pitch black. They completely hide craters and ravines. 277 00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:34.120 You can't just look out the window and draw an 278 00:14:34.279 --> 00:14:35.159 X on a map. 279 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:38.519 Which is why the second standardized payload is so deeply elegant. 280 00:14:38.799 --> 00:14:41.879 It's called the laser retro reflector array, or the l array. 281 00:14:42.039 --> 00:14:44.240 This is perhaps my favorite piece of technology in this 282 00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:47.200 entire discussion, because when you read the technical specs, it 283 00:14:47.320 --> 00:14:50.279 sounds absurdly low tech compared to the rocket it's riding on. 284 00:14:50.759 --> 00:14:53.159 We are talking about a device roughly the size. 285 00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:54.320 Of a cookie, just a little cookie. 286 00:14:54.399 --> 00:14:57.840 It's a hemispherical aluminum frame, and embedded inside that dome 287 00:14:57.919 --> 00:15:03.080 are eight tiny quartz corner cube prisms. And that's it. 288 00:15:03.320 --> 00:15:06.360 Well, the brilliance of the LRA is precisely its lack 289 00:15:06.399 --> 00:15:10.720 of complexity. When you engineer systems for deep space, complexity 290 00:15:10.799 --> 00:15:15.399 is your worst enemy. Active systems require power. Batteries freeze 291 00:15:15.440 --> 00:15:17.840 during the fourteen day lunar night when temperatures drop to 292 00:15:17.919 --> 00:15:21.799 negative two hundred degrees celsius, right solar panels degrade from radiation, 293 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:26.399 Electronic circuits get fried by cosmic rays. The LRA has 294 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:29.840 zero moving parts. It requires absolutely zero electrical power. It 295 00:15:29.879 --> 00:15:32.720 is an entirely passive piece of optical geometry. 296 00:15:32.759 --> 00:15:35.279 So in the middle of all this billion dollar high 297 00:15:35.279 --> 00:15:39.799 tech rocketry, we are basically leaving behind a highly engineered, 298 00:15:40.080 --> 00:15:41.840 immortal bicycle reflector. 299 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:44.360 That's exactly what it is. What's fascinating here is the 300 00:15:44.360 --> 00:15:48.000 sheer resilience of passive technology and the brutal environment of space. 301 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:50.799 Wait, how does a corner cube prism actually work? Why 302 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:52.080 don't just use a flat mirror? 303 00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:55.679 Good question, if you shine a laser at a flat mirror, 304 00:15:56.080 --> 00:15:58.679 the light bounces off at an angle equal to the 305 00:15:58.679 --> 00:16:02.080 angle it struck. So if you are orbiting the Moon 306 00:16:02.159 --> 00:16:04.799 in a command module and you shine a laser down 307 00:16:04.919 --> 00:16:07.759 at a flat mirror on the surface, unless you are 308 00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:10.919 perfectly perpendicularly aligned directly above it. 309 00:16:10.840 --> 00:16:13.559 The laser will bounce off into deep space exactly. 310 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:15.039 You'll never see the return signal. 311 00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:17.279 But a corner cube is different, very different. 312 00:16:17.320 --> 00:16:19.759 A corner cube is essentially the inside corner of a 313 00:16:19.759 --> 00:16:25.720 perfect glass box three mutually perpendicular flat surfaces. Because of 314 00:16:25.759 --> 00:16:28.320 the geometry of those three angles, any light that enters 315 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:31.759 the prism bounces off all three walls and is reflected 316 00:16:31.799 --> 00:16:34.919 back on the exact same vector it arrived on. Oh wow, 317 00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:37.600 it does not matter what angle the spacecraft is at 318 00:16:37.639 --> 00:16:40.480 when it fires a laser. The light always returns straight 319 00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:41.080 to the source. 320 00:16:41.279 --> 00:16:44.279 So a future incoming lander or an orbiting satellite can 321 00:16:44.360 --> 00:16:47.799 just sweep the surface with a laser altimeter. The moment 322 00:16:47.799 --> 00:16:50.679 the laser hits that cookie sized lra on the ground, 323 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:53.799 the photon packet bounces straight back to the ship's sensor. 324 00:16:54.159 --> 00:16:56.399 And because we know the speed of light is a constant, 325 00:16:56.840 --> 00:17:00.600 the ship's computer simply measures the time of flight microscopic 326 00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:02.559 fraction of a second it took for the laser to 327 00:17:02.600 --> 00:17:06.960 travel down and back. That single measurement instantly gives the 328 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:11.400 spacecraft its exact distance from that specific fixed point on 329 00:17:11.519 --> 00:17:12.440 the lunar surface. 330 00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:15.319 But there has to be an engineering catch here. If 331 00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:18.480 it's just quartz and aluminum, how does it survive the 332 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:22.240 thermal expansion the moon swings from boiling hot in the 333 00:17:22.279 --> 00:17:26.039 sun to hundreds of degrees below zero in the shade. 334 00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:29.359 Wouldn't the aluminum frame contract in the cold and just 335 00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:30.640 crush the quartz prism. 336 00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:34.160 That is the exact thermal engineering nightmare that went into 337 00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:37.000 designing the housing. The quartz prisms are actually floating within 338 00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:39.640 the aluminum dome. Really yeah. They are held in place 339 00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:43.160 by highly specialized retention rings that absorb the different coefficients 340 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:46.880 of thermal expansion. So the aluminum expands and contracts violently 341 00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:50.279 with the temperature swings, but the quartz prisms remain isolated 342 00:17:50.319 --> 00:17:51.480 and perfectly aligned. 343 00:17:51.720 --> 00:17:55.960 It is the ultimate long term unicipal investment. By forcing 344 00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:58.440 every single one of these commercial landings to bolt an 345 00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:02.599 LRA to their roof, Yessa isn't just navigating these specific missions, 346 00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:06.839 long after the astrobotic or firefly landers have completely dyed, 347 00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:10.119 their batteries, dead, their circuits fried, just sitting there as 348 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:14.480 silent monuments, those quartz prisms will still be functioning perfectly. 349 00:18:14.759 --> 00:18:18.480 We are laying down a permanent, fail proof navigational grid. 350 00:18:19.079 --> 00:18:21.960 Ten twenty or fifty years from now, when the Lunar 351 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:25.480 Transit Highway is crowded with autonomous cargo freighters, they won't 352 00:18:25.480 --> 00:18:28.079 be landing blind. They will be using the LRAY grid 353 00:18:28.200 --> 00:18:31.440 established by these twenty twenty eight missions to triangulate their 354 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:33.480 descent profiles down to the millimeter. 355 00:18:33.720 --> 00:18:36.160 Okay, so we've mapped the destructive physics of the landing 356 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:39.880 plume with SCALOPSS, we've laid down the immortal location grid 357 00:18:39.880 --> 00:18:42.440 with the LRA. We can land safely and we know 358 00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:45.000 our exact coordinates. But now we have to deal with 359 00:18:45.039 --> 00:18:46.480 the most fragile cargo. 360 00:18:46.160 --> 00:18:48.599 Of all biology, the human element. 361 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:53.240 Yes, because the lunar surface is a profoundly toxic environment 362 00:18:53.279 --> 00:18:56.279 for organic chemistry. We often get caught up in the 363 00:18:56.359 --> 00:18:59.119 romance of space travel and forget that the universe is 364 00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:03.599 constantly throwing invisible, highly charged energy at you, basically trying 365 00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:04.000 to kill you. 366 00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:08.079 It is actively hostile. We take Earth's magnetic field for granted. 367 00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:11.960 The dynamo generated by Earth's molten iron core creates a 368 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:15.720 massive magnetosphere that acts as a planetary deflector shield. It 369 00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:18.759 redirects the vast majority of the lethal solar and cosmic 370 00:19:18.839 --> 00:19:20.440 radiation safely around the planet. 371 00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:22.480 But the Moon has no active dynamo. 372 00:19:22.640 --> 00:19:25.839 Right It has no global magnetic field. It is completely 373 00:19:25.920 --> 00:19:26.920 naked to the cosmos. 374 00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:30.440 Which brings us to the third standardized instrument, the linear 375 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:34.160 energy transfer spectrometer, or LS. And to understand what LS 376 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:37.000 is measuring, we need to categorize the two distinct types 377 00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:40.440 of radiation bombarding the linar surface right correct. 378 00:19:40.839 --> 00:19:44.599 The first category is solar particle events or spees. These 379 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:47.559 are driven directly by the Sun. During a solar flare 380 00:19:47.640 --> 00:19:50.480 or a coronal mass ejection, the Sun expels a massive 381 00:19:50.519 --> 00:19:54.240 wave of highly energized protons. These events are somewhat directional, 382 00:19:54.279 --> 00:19:56.559 and they can spike incredibly rapidly, so. 383 00:19:56.519 --> 00:19:59.119 If an astronaut is caught outside on the lunar surface 384 00:19:59.480 --> 00:20:03.960 during a sear vere spe without adequate physical shielding. 385 00:20:03.599 --> 00:20:06.440 The acute radiation poisoning can be lethal within hours. 386 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:10.079 That's horrifying. So that's the localized weather of our solar system. 387 00:20:10.440 --> 00:20:14.079 But the second type is arguably much more terrifying because 388 00:20:14.079 --> 00:20:15.000 of where it comes from. 389 00:20:15.200 --> 00:20:20.319 Yes, galactic cosmic rays or GCRs, these do not originate 390 00:20:20.319 --> 00:20:24.359 from our sun. GCRs are heavy, high energy ions, often 391 00:20:24.440 --> 00:20:26.680 the nuclei of atoms like iron or carbon that have 392 00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:29.319 been stripped of their electrons and accelerated to nearly the 393 00:20:29.319 --> 00:20:32.680 speed of light by cataclysmic events outside our solar system, 394 00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:34.039 like distant supernovas. 395 00:20:34.119 --> 00:20:35.880 Basically microscopic cannonballs. 396 00:20:35.920 --> 00:20:39.000 That's a very apt description. Because they possess such immense 397 00:20:39.079 --> 00:20:42.680 kinetic energy, they are incredibly difficult to shield against. When 398 00:20:42.720 --> 00:20:46.039 a GCR smashes into the aluminum hull of a spacecraft 399 00:20:46.119 --> 00:20:48.559 or you know, the fabric of a spacesuit, it doesn't 400 00:20:48.599 --> 00:20:51.880 just stop. It shatters the atoms of the shielding material, 401 00:20:51.960 --> 00:20:55.759