0:00

Coming up on this episode of

0:02

This Week in Space, we get

0:04

Dr. Pascal Lee back in the

0:06

chair to talk about the best

0:08

place to land on the moon

0:10

and build a base, and it's

0:12

not the South Pole. Tune in,

0:14

you're going to want to find

0:17

out where it is. Podcasts You

0:19

Love. From People You Trust. This

0:21

is Tolt. This is This

0:23

Week in Space. Episode number

0:26

148 recorded on February 14,

0:28

2025. Klavious Base. Hello,

0:30

and welcome to Yet Another episode

0:33

of This Week in Space, The

0:35

Claviest Bass edition. I'm Rod Pyle,

0:38

Editor Chief Bad Aster magazine. I'm

0:40

joined by my Bestie Tarak Malek,

0:42

Editor-in, Chief, Award-winning, Editor-In-Chief, Award-Witting, Editor-Aditor,

0:45

Award-Witting, Student to stack up another

0:47

one at Space.com. Hello, Rod, how's

0:50

it going? Happy Valentine's Day, Rod.

0:52

Happy Valentine's Day, from... My space

0:54

Valentine? Moving on. We're joined by

0:56

the ever impressive Dr. Pascal Lee,

0:59

whose scientific reputation is growing faster

1:01

than the Kudso on SLS's mobile

1:03

launch structure. Hello Pascal. How are

1:06

you? Oh, too soon. I'll take

1:08

that as a compliment. Hi. Hi,

1:10

everybody. Hello. Thank you. Before

1:13

we start, as I always say,

1:15

please don't forget to us as

1:17

a solid. Make sure to like,

1:19

subscribe and all the other podcast

1:21

things because we love you and we

1:23

need to know you love us just as

1:25

much. So keep us fat and happy.

1:27

And we'll thank you forever. And

1:29

now, from the uncertain mind of

1:32

me with a nudge from Mark R

1:34

on Facebook. Hey Tarik. Yes, Ron.

1:36

In the spirit of renaming

1:38

bodies of water near Florida,

1:41

what is Elon decided to

1:43

rename Mars? I don't know what.

1:45

What has he decided? Planet X.

1:48

I get it. I get it. Get

1:50

it? You're not laughing much. Okay. I

1:52

mean, I get it. Do I want

1:54

to laugh? I don't know. I've

1:56

heard that some people want to

1:58

rename us. to something unflattering when

2:01

it's joke time in this show,

2:03

but you can help send your

2:05

best, worst, or most of the

2:07

different space joke to us at

2:09

twist. TV, because obviously we need

2:11

the help. All right, let's do

2:13

some headlines. Pascal, feel free to

2:16

jump in anywhere you wish. Headline

2:18

news. I did it! I did

2:20

it! Oh, it's pretty good. Yeah,

2:22

but you didn't do it with

2:24

an Australian accent. Hey, what's going

2:26

on a blue origin, buddy? Yeah,

2:28

your guess is as good as

2:31

mine, but it's really sad that

2:33

we found out that they decided

2:35

to lay off 10% of their

2:37

workforce. There's a bunch of reports

2:39

out this week. The one that

2:41

we've got cited here is from

2:44

Karen Weiss and Ken Chang over

2:46

at New York Times. They're both

2:48

K names. That's interesting. But they

2:50

got this memo from Dave Limp,

2:52

the CEO of Blue Origin, who

2:54

basically said that they're going to...

2:56

cut 10% of their workforce about

2:59

a thousand a thousand jobs is

3:01

what it looks like in order

3:03

to I guess refine or or

3:05

cut what they see as excess

3:07

now that they need to shift

3:09

into true operational flights you know

3:11

just just Last month they launched

3:14

their very first new Glenn rocket.

3:16

They did not stick the landing.

3:18

They're trying to launch the next

3:20

one in maybe like the spring

3:22

is what we found out because

3:24

there was a commercial space conference

3:27

in DC this week where where

3:29

Dave Limp was talking and that's

3:31

what he said there to according

3:33

to our writer Mike Wall. But

3:35

I guess to make that goal, they're

3:37

going to scale up their manufacturing and

3:40

launch cadence and reduce what they're seeing

3:42

as like overages in. management in design

3:44

and research and that sort of thing.

3:46

It is very upper management, they said,

3:49

right? Exactly. Yeah, they said, oh, I

3:51

just had it here. But it's like

3:53

upper management and a lot of like

3:56

the the research types of things where

3:58

they don't, I guess they don't need

4:00

that anymore because they've got the rocket

4:02

that they're ready. And allegedly, Blue Origin

4:05

is planning to launch like a moon

4:07

lander by the end of the year,

4:09

right, to show that they can do

4:12

it. And it's, you know, a cargo

4:14

version of it. And they want to

4:16

focus on that right now. And there

4:18

was a very interesting citation in the

4:21

story, and then we can move on.

4:23

But they were talking about why. Newglen

4:25

was so delayed and why they brought

4:27

in Devlin, because he replaced the previous

4:30

CEO to try to turn things around.

4:32

And the observation from Chad Adderson at

4:34

Space Capital was that Jeff Beezos was

4:37

just pumping in a billion dollars a

4:39

year into it. They didn't have to

4:41

rush anything because they had all this

4:43

money that they were flush for research

4:46

and so they were like. locked in

4:48

a permanent like R&D phase and they

4:50

didn't feel that urgency. That's what Dave

4:53

Limp was brought in to change. So

4:55

this could be part of that to

4:57

get them to catch up to SpaceX

4:59

because SpaceX is Falcon markets and now

5:02

with Starship have such a lead on

5:04

them in commercial markets. All right. Moving

5:06

on to the next story, which is

5:09

Space. Space.com. Yes. Scientists are alarmed as

5:11

the Vero Ruben observatory. changes the biography

5:13

of the Astronomer of Europe, after which

5:15

it is named, amidst the current administration's

5:18

push to streamline DEI, well, I'm being

5:20

polite, to eliminate references to DEI on

5:22

anything NASA and government. Did I get

5:24

that right? Yeah, this is a really

5:27

disappointing, but this was actually first reported

5:29

by Pro Publica as well last month.

5:31

But our writer Sharmela Kithner followed it

5:34

up with some really great interviews with

5:36

scientists. They're extremely upset because as we

5:38

all know, we're in this new administration

5:40

with the Trump office and they did

5:43

issue that executive order to all federal

5:45

government agencies to scrub their their DEA

5:47

programs, you know, to end them. or

5:50

whatever. And part of that has been

5:52

to change or remove websites and pages

5:54

and that sort of thing that that

5:56

celebrate any kind of diversity equality, etc.

5:59

types of programs. And what Pro Publica

6:01

found in our writer followed up on

6:03

is that the Rubin Observatory, Vera Rubin,

6:05

has her biography there. It's named after

6:08

the famed astronomer. And they've actually altered

6:10

the biography to kind of. remove all

6:12

of the missions of how the the

6:15

observatory is working to reduce barriers for

6:17

women and other historically excuse me and

6:19

significantly to rewrite but streamline the history

6:21

in which it was said she was

6:24

a champion for for women in the

6:26

engineering workplaces over engineering a sciences workplace

6:28

which that was really the part that

6:31

got me yeah and like when pro-publica

6:33

went back and forth through what the

6:35

a bio used to say and what

6:37

it says now there are things taken

6:40

out like a phrase of you know

6:42

how she advocated for women in science

6:44

it's removed you know there was a

6:46

another paragraph that read that you know

6:49

science was a was still predominantly like

6:51

a male dominated field and they took

6:53

they took things like that out too

6:56

and and it's just really strange because

6:58

it seems very petty right to go

7:00

that granular because like who is really

7:02

being affected by that when you're trying

7:05

to tell what is, you know, the

7:07

actual accurate history of what happened. And

7:09

I think that's what a lot of

7:12

these scientists are very concerned about, about

7:14

the kind of reworking and rewriting of

7:16

that science history that really doesn't paint

7:18

a picture of what it actually was,

7:21

what barriers actually did have to be

7:23

overcome, in fact, even to this day.

7:25

So it was a... a very interesting

7:27

story. I really recommend people to not

7:30

just check out this story on space.com,

7:32

but also the pro-publical one because it's

7:34

a very detailed deep dive to see

7:37

how science is being affected by all

7:39

of this, because Trump's... stuff. All right,

7:41

let's let's keep moving quickly here and

7:43

by the way it's it's diversity equity

7:46

and inclusion just for people. I said

7:48

equality that kind of stuff yeah which

7:50

is different. This is right down past

7:53

Gals Alley we have iridescent clouds on

7:55

Mars captured during Martian Twilight in a

7:57

robot. These are great. I just, I

7:59

kind of wanted after that really heavy

8:02

one to find something that was really

8:04

fun. And actually, if you scroll down,

8:06

there's a video here, Anthony, that you

8:09

can see. And these are from the

8:11

Curiosity Rover, NASA's Curiosity Room, over on

8:13

Mars. And they saw these red and

8:15

green tinted clouds, these night shining clouds,

8:18

way at the top of Mars's atmosphere.

8:20

And it's just spectacular that you can

8:22

see these types of colors on another

8:24

planet. I mean, I've only seen night

8:27

shining clouds maybe once or twice in

8:29

my actual life on Earth, and the

8:31

fact that we can see them on

8:34

Mars just as like one another. Another

8:36

example of how wondrous that planet is

8:38

they are knocked loose in clouds. We

8:40

do have them on Earth as well.

8:43

And I think that what they did

8:45

is they took a bunch of pictures

8:47

over about 16 minutes or so, and

8:50

then they sped them up something like

8:52

480 times the actual speed of these

8:54

clouds. This is not how fast the

8:56

clouds were moving on Mars themselves, but

8:59

they're about 37, 50 miles above the

9:01

surface, and it's a lot colder up

9:03

there. So very, very interesting. to see

9:05

and I don't know maybe astronauts will

9:08

be looking at this one day in

9:10

the future. I was going to say

9:12

I expect Pascal to be one of

9:15

the first to be up there and

9:17

see them. That's right. You know it's

9:19

really beautiful and for your listeners who

9:21

might not remember enough to listen clouds

9:24

are clouds that are simply lit from

9:26

below when the sun is actually below

9:28

our horizon. So after sunset or before

9:31

sunrise the sun rays can actually hit

9:33

clouds that are very high up in

9:35

the atmosphere. in other places too. And

9:37

the clouds acquire this transient, so it

9:40

doesn't last very long, but you know

9:42

beautiful glow to them. And this is

9:44

what's being captured here. All right. And

9:46

as our Valentine's gift day to everybody,

9:49

well, if you live far and up

9:51

north, we give you the Aurora Borealis.

9:53

That's right, there is a Valentine's Day

9:56

aurora alert because this week there was

9:58

a a coronal hole in this and

10:00

that's when a hole in the magnetic

10:02

field so a lot of charge particles

10:05

come out and it triggered a G1

10:07

geomagnetic storm this week so if you're

10:09

in the United States maybe in Michigan

10:12

or Maine you might be able to

10:14

see some amplified northern lice north of

10:16

that of course and it's just a

10:18

reminder to to keep looking up because

10:21

according to Noah this storm might actually

10:23

get more intense or be repeated as

10:25

that coronal hole rotates more to face

10:27

the earth over the next few days

10:30

to a week or so. So keep

10:32

looking up and hopefully it'll get down

10:34

to New Jersey again where I can

10:37

see it so it's not raining the

10:39

whole time. And if you are going

10:41

to look up, go somewhere dark. Very

10:43

dark. Yeah. And just for a reminder,

10:46

you know, this is just speaking recently

10:48

to friends who had seen the last

10:50

round of this and it's not like

10:53

it looks on the cell phone videos.

10:55

That's pretty faint. You know, all right,

10:57

a couple of quick housekeeping items. Rannon

10:59

Jones said in a question, why shouldn't

11:02

we worry more about the 2032 asteroid?

11:04

And as we've discussed a little bit

11:06

on the show, it's not unusual for

11:08

the first sighting to have a certain

11:11

percentage of chance of an impact with

11:13

Earth. And then for the next site

11:15

he'd be a little higher, but as

11:18

JPL and others continue observing and charting

11:20

this thing and figuring out his trajectory,

11:22

those numbers traditionally have gone down. That

11:24

doesn't mean it absolutely will, but it

11:27

probably will. And I would add, this

11:29

thing's actually only about 35 or 40%

11:31

the size of the asteroid that the

11:34

dart mission changes to trajectory of. So

11:36

we do know now, it's a couple

11:38

hundred feet across, darts was almost 600

11:40

feet across dimorphos. So as we know

11:43

now we can change a trajectory of

11:45

these things so if it became a

11:47

risk and if we caught it early

11:50

enough a big slam or a nudge

11:52

or a tractor engine or however you

11:54

want to do it would push this

11:56

thing far enough off that it would

11:59

probably go somewhere else hopefully not out

12:01

of the moon but that would be

12:03

spectacular to see so. even airing on

12:05

the side of caution, I don't think

12:08

it's something to worry about and we

12:10

probably should have made that clear. Yeah,

12:12

just be careful at the headlines because

12:15

you're going to see a lot of

12:17

headlines. I say, the odds of impact

12:19

have doubled. And that's right, because they've

12:21

gone from like 1% to 2%. So

12:24

there you go, you know, you know,

12:26

it doesn't mean 50%. Yeah, which is

12:28

for you, Tarak, we got a question

12:31

from Brett Wesley, who I think is

12:33

a recently retired retired, retired engineer. who

12:35

wants to see a Starship launch, but

12:37

he says it's hard to spot when

12:40

they're going to schedule them, although you

12:42

do put them up on space.com and

12:44

he's wondering where the best place to

12:46

view it is. Well, so, you know,

12:49

thank you. Thank you so much, Brett,

12:51

for the note. If you're really looking

12:53

for like up to minute, like what's

12:56

happening at Star Base, NASA Space Flight.

12:58

is probably like the best site to

13:00

look at. They have actually live cameras

13:02

of what's going on there all the

13:05

time plus they've got some dates when

13:07

they think the launches are going to

13:09

happen based on a lot of different

13:12

sources like the county commissioners when they

13:14

do road closures and that sort of

13:16

thing. SpaceX tends to not announce the

13:18

launch target until very close to it.

13:21

So like about a day, maybe a

13:23

two days, sometimes a week if they

13:25

if they. if they're feeling generous. I

13:27

would say that if they've got a

13:30

rocket on the pad, you can get

13:32

very close to it almost all of

13:34

the time when the roads aren't closed

13:37

because you can pull up right across

13:39

the street from the spaceport and look

13:41

at it. The place that I would

13:43

recommend watching from is from South Padre

13:46

Island. It's right across the bay from

13:48

the place, and there's a lot of

13:50

hotels there, and you can actually walk

13:53

from the hotel down to the launch

13:55

site, avoid some traffic. It's not very

13:57

far. But you can also get it

13:59

from, there's like a campground around there,

14:02

the Boca Chika area, but the Boca

14:04

Chika beach itself gets closed off, so

14:06

you can't go there. But there's a

14:08

Boca Chika camping ground that has very

14:11

clear views. I see people camp there

14:13

during the launches and watch it there

14:15

too. But I have like South Padre

14:18

Island. And if you're flying, McCallon Texas

14:20

is the better airport. It's got more

14:22

cars. For rental cars, it's easier to

14:24

get into and out of so. All right

14:27

if you have any other questions just drop

14:29

us an email and see to it the

14:31

taric response Let's go to a quick break

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16:07

nine two three three all right

16:09

we are back with speaking of

16:12

beloved things our beloved dr. pass

16:14

galle who's a planetary scientist is

16:16

SETI director of the Mars Institute

16:18

founder of the Houghton Mars project

16:20

Explorer registered francophile I guess by

16:23

you know by long affiliation and

16:25

discover of Martian glaciers and volcanoes

16:27

did I miss anything my friend

16:29

Yes, but they'll do it for

16:31

today. Okay. I did get artists

16:33

in there. So, okay. Well, that'll

16:36

do for a day. I love

16:38

dogs, and my dog, Apollo here,

16:40

is taking an app. Apollo, the

16:42

polar bear warning system. Yes, hello,

16:44

Apollo. Keep that dog at treat.

16:46

That dog has left more little

16:49

nips on your heels than anything

16:51

else I've seen. So we're here

16:53

today to talk about moon base

16:55

sighting. And your favorite location for

16:57

that, which you've worked out pretty

17:00

thoroughly, is the crater Clavius. Now,

17:02

when we think of Clavius, of

17:04

course, most of us, at least

17:06

of a certain age, think of

17:08

2001, a space Odyssey, where we

17:10

have a massive lunar base, in

17:13

which the Orion spacecraft, not the

17:15

Orion we know, the Iran from

17:17

1968 lands. The Pan-EM. Right. No,

17:19

that's, the Panam gets to the,

17:21

to the space station, and then

17:24

Arion, the Moon shuttle. Young man

17:26

and and and and moon monoliths

17:28

and moon buses and all kinds

17:30

of other cool stuff so Maybe

17:32

you can pass out to sort

17:34

of give us a general orientation

17:37

and primer on clavius and why

17:39

it's important Yeah, well first of

17:41

all, let me preface this whole

17:43

discussion with the notion that I

17:45

think Artemis right now is on

17:47

course to achieving great things the

17:50

idea of pushing for base at

17:52

anywhere on the moon including at

17:54

Clavius, is not to suggest that

17:56

we should stop doing what we're

17:58

doing with automata. and somehow have

18:01

shipped gears in a dramatic way.

18:03

But I think that we should

18:05

nudge the program as early as

18:07

possible to really focus on having

18:09

human set up, having American astronauts

18:11

and then a partner set up

18:14

a base on the moon and

18:16

at an off polar site. The

18:18

polar regions are terrible to set

18:20

up an exploration base. You want

18:22

to set up a mine there.

18:25

if you find water that you

18:27

can extract economically, you don't want

18:29

to set up an exploration base

18:31

from where you want to roam

18:33

around a lot. So therefore, we've

18:35

been looking for a place to

18:38

set up potentially an autonomous base

18:40

camp that would be in an

18:42

off-polar site. And so here are

18:44

some criteria. We wanted it to

18:46

be on the near side of

18:48

the moon so that you can

18:51

see the earth from it at

18:53

all times. You want it to

18:55

be in a place that is

18:57

inherently... geologically very interesting so ideally

18:59

covering a long expanse of lunar

19:02

history. You want it to be

19:04

a wide open space where you

19:06

can land and expand your base

19:08

and also do lots of traverses

19:10

without running immediately into a lot

19:12

of terrain challenges. You want a

19:15

place that can give you access

19:17

to caves because that's really what

19:19

we want to do ultimately on

19:21

Mars and so For that reason

19:23

alone, it's a good idea to

19:26

start practicing as early as possible

19:28

cave exploration on the moon. And

19:30

so if you combine all these

19:32

criteria together, Clavius rises to the

19:34

top very quickly. Wow, beautiful. Yeah,

19:36

thank you. So you're looking at

19:39

Clavius from the south. It's this

19:41

giant basin. It's 263 kilometers across,

19:43

which is the distance between Washington

19:45

and Philadelphia. The large fresher crater

19:47

that's sitting on its rim in

19:49

the foreground is Rutherford and both

19:52

inside Rutherford and on the ejector

19:54

blanket outside of Rutherford there are

19:56

caves, pits and caves and the

19:58

base site that we're proposing At

20:00

least to check out robotically first,

20:03

of course, before you start, moving

20:05

a whole bunch of assets there

20:07

is right to the west, in

20:09

other words, to the left of

20:11

Rutherford in that flat spot in

20:13

the foreground on the floor, Clavius

20:16

Crater, that you see here, at

20:18

the bottom of the page. If

20:20

I'm looking at the moon, like,

20:22

it's a full moon this week,

20:24

for example, right? It's great time

20:27

to look at it with telescopes.

20:29

Can I see? Clavius, like you

20:31

mentioned, so where, where, like, is

20:33

it in the center, dead, dead,

20:35

dead, dead heart? For people, lower

20:37

left. The lower left. Yes, you,

20:40

if you look at the lower

20:42

left of the moon, at least

20:44

from the northern hemisphere, it's at

20:46

the lower left, right, if you're

20:48

southern hemisphere, it's the other way

20:50

around, but you will see a

20:53

very bright impact crater with bright

20:55

rays, ejector rays, ejector seen from

20:57

the earth is on. appears to

20:59

be almost at the edge of

21:01

the moon, although it's still quite

21:04

clear of it. If you were

21:06

at Clavius, you would see the

21:08

well clear of the horizon, but

21:10

near the horizon still, then that

21:12

would be really a beautiful sight.

21:14

Yeah, that would be an awesome

21:17

picture window for sure. The Clavius

21:19

is 60 degrees south. So that's

21:21

actually considered to be high southern

21:23

latitude on the moon. Are we

21:25

likely to find ice slash PSRs

21:28

there or would that be from

21:30

the south? In fact, this is

21:32

actually the limit where you still

21:34

have permanently shadow regions. They're not

21:36

as big and cold either as

21:38

the ones that are at the

21:41

South Pole or the North Pole,

21:43

but they are still PSRs, permanently

21:45

shadowed regions and they are essentially

21:47

tucked at the base of the

21:49

inner walls of craters on their

21:51

or of impact craters on their

21:54

northern side. And so... There are

21:56

therefore places on the floor of

21:58

Clavius where the sun don't shine.

22:00

And the thing I wanted to

22:02

add is that Jack Schmidt, you

22:05

know, Apollo 17, astronaut hero and

22:07

geologist, has been advocating along with

22:09

Noah Petrow, who is heading the

22:11

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, that we

22:13

actually go to a place like

22:15

one of these craters that are

22:18

within the area of Clavius. to

22:20

actually learn how to explore PSR

22:22

and probably shadow regions and to

22:24

sort of get back into the

22:26

flow of lunar exploration with humans

22:29

before we tackle something as challenging

22:31

as the South polar regions. So

22:33

again, I think it's possibly too

22:35

late to pull the plug on

22:37

what Artemis 3 plans to do,

22:39

which is the first human return

22:42

with two astronauts at the surface

22:44

of the moon with, you know,

22:46

the scenario that we're on right

22:48

now. But very quickly I wish

22:50

we could ship gears towards setting

22:52

up a base because human astronauts

22:55

are really not ideally suited to

22:57

search for water in these permanently

22:59

shadow regions. I mean they're extremely

23:01

cold. The cell polar regions are

23:03

extremely rough and steep. It's the

23:06

lunar highlands. They have shadowing that

23:08

is. shadows roll in and out

23:10

very quickly and very dangerous. If

23:12

you're caught in one of these

23:14

shadowed regions, you could be trapped

23:16

in shadows for, you know, a

23:19

long several weeks sometimes. And that

23:21

is very bad news for temperature

23:23

and surface operations. It's on the

23:25

other hand, ideally suited for robotic

23:27

exploration. So if I had things

23:30

my way and I would do

23:32

more robotic exploration in the South

23:34

Polar regions. target all these places

23:36

where we're considering finding possibly extracting

23:38

water someday and assessing them systematically

23:40

with robots, and then have humans

23:43

beyond the first maybe landing to

23:45

symbolically mark a return to the

23:47

moon, shift gears to towards setting

23:49

up habitats and then pressurize, doing

23:51

pressurize rule which reverses, but from

23:54

a base that's a lot more

23:56

manageable, you know, logistically operational. And

23:58

Pascal, have we ever like actually

24:00

landed anything on clavies? Because as

24:02

we're speaking, you know, Firefly announced

24:04

that their blue ghost lander officially,

24:07

like, successfully. entered orbit around the

24:09

moon. And if all goes well,

24:11

they will land on Merichrisium, the

24:13

Sea of Crisis, on like in

24:15

early, in early March. Meanwhile, in

24:17

a couple of weeks, intuitive machines

24:20

is launching the IM2 mission. And

24:22

of course, IceBases Lander is resilience

24:24

is also making its way. It

24:26

seems like we're sending a lot

24:28

of stuff to the moon, but

24:31

have we actually landed anything on

24:33

Clavius at all? China, there's the

24:35

rumor that they are targeting a

24:37

landing, if not their first landing

24:39

with humans, on the floor, Tyco,

24:41

which is a very recent, but

24:44

very rough terrain-wise and steep in

24:46

some places, impact crater. Klaivius, nothing

24:48

yet, and as Rod and you

24:50

guys are pointing out, Klaivius has

24:52

been on the map, so to

24:55

speak, for a long time, thanks

24:57

to 2001 and Space Odyssey. but

24:59

the reason why Arthur C. Clark

25:01

picked that spot was was just

25:03

based on you know the general

25:05

knowledge that this was a wide

25:08

open space from which you could

25:10

see the earth in a very

25:12

spectacular way with the earth low

25:14

on the horizon as opposed to

25:16

like we had at the Apollo

25:18

sites overhead essentially and but there

25:21

was otherwise very little known about

25:23

the place at the time when

25:25

it was proposed. And so but

25:27

since then a lot of things

25:29

have been found at Clavius. I

25:32

just mentioned the lava tubes and

25:34

pits, I mentioned the PSRs, the

25:36

primarily shadow regions, but there's for

25:38

example water, molecular water, unlike at

25:40

the poles where we're detecting mostly

25:42

hydrogen. person and inferring that it's

25:45

H2O. At Clavius, the Sophia mission,

25:47

NASA's airborne observatory that does infrared

25:49

astronomy, which is now defunct, it's

25:51

no longer being operated, but during

25:53

its test run, it detected up

25:56

to 418, I think, parts per

25:58

million water molecule at the surface,

26:00

at the surface of, on the

26:02

floor of Clavius. So there could

26:04

be more underneath. There could be

26:06

more in the need. It's unclear

26:09

what the what the origin of

26:11

that water is. People like Pete

26:13

Schultz was a planetary scientist, was

26:15

well known that Brown University suggested

26:17

that the Rutherford crater, which is

26:19

relatively recent, was formed by the

26:22

impact of a water-rich asteroid or

26:24

even a comet, and so it

26:26

could have just dumped a lot

26:28

of water then, which you're seeing

26:30

was a residual of that. But

26:33

what that means is that the

26:35

caves and the PSRs could actually

26:37

have traps on all this water,

26:39

if it's somehow concentrated there. And

26:41

so, lots of things for us

26:43

to look into. And then we,

26:46

in the recent study, I did

26:48

with a student online, Aaron Sampson,

26:50

who's at the University of, who's

26:52

at the University of Colorado Boulder,

26:54

we find some potential volcanoes on

26:57

the floor of Clavius that would

26:59

be really exciting to explore. And

27:01

then the different craters that you

27:03

see across the floor of Clavius

27:05

are different ages. And so they've,

27:07

uh, They themselves are going to

27:10

inform us about, you know, how

27:12

the terrain and the subsurface of

27:14

the moon evolves over time by

27:16

exploring there, the different geologies. So

27:18

we need to go to a

27:20

break, but just very quickly, Tarak,

27:23

mares or horses, maraiser. Oh wow,

27:25

calling me out. Just so it's,

27:27

I thought I was a ward

27:29

winning rod, wow. You are, and

27:31

we're just about to give you

27:34

another one. In fact, it's the

27:36

same one that both Pascal and

27:38

I got. The plural is Maria,

27:40

not Maria. So, so past... Pascal,

27:42

I have to figure out a

27:44

way to present Pascal's, excuse me,

27:47

Tarak's award that will best the

27:49

way I presented yours by, by

27:51

pretending to drop it on the

27:53

stage. That'll be, I'll have to

27:55

think of that. Maybe I'll bonk

27:58

him on the head with it

28:00

or something. Okay, so. And congratulations

28:02

for you. You big time deserve

28:04

it. I'm really happy. Thank you.

28:06

Thank you very much. All right,

28:08

you guys knock it off here.

28:11

We're going to go to a

28:13

break real quick real quick and

28:15

we'll be right back with my

28:17

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30:01

Pascal, you and I have talked

30:03

a lot, mostly in the Martian

30:05

context, but I think it applies

30:07

to Moon too about sorting missions

30:09

versus longer stay slash permit or

30:11

semi-permanent habitats of one size or

30:13

another. And I'd like to get

30:15

your collective thoughts on why that

30:17

matters and how to accomplish it

30:19

best, probably a clavious. Yeah. Well,

30:21

you know, sortie missions is what

30:23

we do with Apollo, right? We...

30:25

We, we, the nation had the

30:28

commitment to landing a man on

30:30

the moon and turning him safely

30:32

by the end of the decade.

30:34

That was achieved with Apollo 11,

30:36

but then there were, you know,

30:38

some hardware developed and some, there

30:40

was an exciting momentum there to

30:42

do a little more on the

30:44

moon, especially we, a rover, lunar

30:46

rover came on the line. So

30:48

we went all the way to

30:50

Apollo 17. You know, it was

30:52

never the goal for Apollo to

30:54

establish a permanent human presence on

30:56

the moon. That wasn't the. the

30:58

what was at stake in the

31:00

competition in the Cold War. And

31:02

so what was on was sortie

31:04

missions you land here and then

31:06

next time you go to another

31:08

interesting place like particularly next time

31:11

we go to some other place

31:13

where you went it mattered to

31:15

the geopolitics of it. But it

31:17

mattered a lot to the scientists

31:19

and so by landing in different

31:21

places you were sort of doing

31:23

the science buffet of sampling what

31:25

the geology of the moon has

31:27

to offer. But it's really not

31:29

an efficient strategy. Even if you're

31:31

a scientist, but especially if you're

31:33

considering other things like geopolitics of

31:35

being on the moon, the sort

31:37

of our strategic presence, our long-term

31:39

ability to explore the place, a

31:41

logistics, just a logistics chain of

31:43

going back to the moon each

31:45

time, you really want to get

31:47

into a mode where you are

31:49

setting up an infrastructure as fast

31:52

as possible. So, you know, the

31:54

analogy of course are the Antarctic

31:56

or Arctic bases. You set up

31:58

a base. But the base in

32:00

itself is not enough. The base

32:02

would just anchor you to one

32:04

point. It's a base plus a

32:06

mobility system. So ways to travel

32:08

from your base to sites of

32:10

exploration, sites of mining eventually on

32:12

the moon, sites of possibly tourism.

32:14

So the idea of a base

32:16

is really very important because it

32:18

creates an infrastructure, a shelter, a

32:20

safe haven for you at the

32:22

surface of the moon where you're

32:24

operating bar. I mean, some people

32:26

propose a base in lunar orbit,

32:28

but that doesn't really help with

32:30

building infrastructure to increase safety in

32:33

your surface operations. And then once

32:35

you have a base, everything is

32:37

possible. So, you know, with McMurdo

32:39

and Antarctica, we can roam the

32:41

entire continent with different mobility systems,

32:43

C-130 airplanes for long range helicopters

32:45

for short range or twin orders

32:47

snowmobiles for, you know, on the

32:49

ground surface short roaming, short range

32:51

roaming. And the, what, what I

32:53

think should be decoupled is the

32:55

idea that We do want a

32:57

base on the moon, but we

32:59

don't want it in a South

33:01

polar region because the South polar

33:03

region is being focused on because

33:05

we're looking for water ice there

33:07

mainly. That's sort of the main

33:09

draw for being there. And we

33:11

don't know where we want to

33:14

set up shore up there yet

33:16

or if at all ever. And

33:18

even if we found a place

33:20

to extract water that was economically

33:22

viable to extract water, what you

33:24

would want to set up there

33:26

is a mine, not an exploration

33:28

base or you would roam around

33:30

to explore other places. The terrain

33:32

is just too difficult, the lighting

33:34

too crazy and risky. And so

33:36

those are two different things. And

33:38

you know, you can look at

33:40

the Arctic or extreme environments on

33:42

earth, you set up a town,

33:44

but then you have different minds,

33:46

you serve by roaming from there.

33:48

So, I mean, I'm pushing for

33:50

Clavius because I love the place

33:52

at this point now that we've

33:55

studied it quite a bit. And

33:57

the other beauty, of course, is

33:59

that from Clavius. You have a

34:01

very nice... gentle sloped corridor down

34:03

which could drive and within a

34:05

few days you're at the South

34:07

Pole for the moon. Which is

34:09

not true for a whole bunch

34:11

of other high latitude sites on

34:13

the near side or the far

34:15

side. The lunar polar regions are

34:17

very very hard to sort of

34:19

break into. They are surrounded by

34:21

a fortress of very steep crater

34:23

walls that are contiguous and all

34:25

of a sudden there's a break

34:27

if you if you if you

34:29

at the South Pole of the

34:31

moon and you drive northwest. you

34:33

can break out of the polar

34:35

regions on the north on the

34:38

near side of the of the

34:40

earth of the mill and and

34:42

reach the first big basin and

34:44

that's Cloudwood Crater. So I compliment

34:46

the Northwest Passage. And you said

34:48

it would take a few days

34:50

to drive to make that drive?

34:52

Two days? Not the original reconnaissance

34:54

of course that would take a

34:56

little while. But once you flag

34:58

the route and you know that

35:00

rain is safe and yeah, it's

35:02

a few days. Well I'm curious

35:04

about where everything is in Clavius

35:06

depending on where you would want

35:08

to set up a shop because

35:10

you mentioned that there's like a

35:12

lot of other things so you've

35:14

got the water on the surface

35:16

maybe water underground you're within driving

35:19

you know like a two-day drive

35:21

a road trip a weekend road

35:23

trip to the to the moon

35:25

south pole you mentioned that there

35:27

are caves and pits and stuff

35:29

like that and then we saw

35:31

in like the images that we've

35:33

got on the screen for folks

35:35

tuning in. that there's a lot

35:37

of interior younger craters as well.

35:39

And I'm wondering if there's like

35:41

a specific spot in Clavius that

35:43

is the very sweet spot that

35:45

you see that it's like it

35:47

makes all of these different environments

35:49

within reach because I think even

35:51

I, you know, I'm not a

35:53

geologist, but I can see the

35:55

advantage of being able to reach

35:57

different types of terrain, different types

36:00

of features. See it's it's it's

36:02

why when I go to the

36:04

supermarket I go to the one

36:06

that's right by the target right

36:08

because I got more options so

36:10

So I can see I can

36:12

see this for for the moon

36:14

too, but how how how close

36:16

is everything else? clavius if it's

36:18

between Washington and Philadelphia. So the

36:20

candidate's site, the candidate's spot that

36:22

we have in mind, you can

36:24

see it on this on this

36:26

picture. Again, the big round ancient

36:28

crater that you're seeing, that's clavius,

36:30

all of it is clavius, and

36:32

then the clavius has a relatively

36:34

flat floor as you can see.

36:36

And again, the crater that's fresh

36:38

in the foreground and bit to

36:41

the right of it straddling its

36:43

rim as a Rutherford crater. And

36:45

the site, the spot that we're

36:47

thinking about, is immediately to the

36:49

west of Rutherford in that relatively

36:51

tight but flat spot on the

36:53

southern floor of Cladius. So that's

36:55

where it is. And the beauty

36:57

of that place is that you're

36:59

now within just a few hundred

37:01

meters to a few kilometers from

37:03

caves. You are from several caves.

37:05

You actually can drive up and

37:07

out of Cladius crater right there

37:09

in front there in front of

37:11

you. on this, there's a breach

37:13

in the southern rim of Cleveeus

37:15

that's very driveable with slopes less

37:17

than 15 degrees which is what

37:19

the Apollo lunar over could handle.

37:21

So and then from there you

37:24

you drive on south and the

37:26

south the road to the south

37:28

pole is is right in the

37:30

middle of your screen there it

37:32

disappears below you right above the

37:34

date Friday the 14. keep driving

37:36

south that way towards towards yourself

37:38

you're heading your head itself. So

37:40

it's any you know where is

37:42

if you were in the eastern

37:44

part of Clavius you can see

37:46

that there's some pretty steep hills

37:48

and cliffs and other places that

37:50

are not so easy to get

37:52

out of Clavius from but it'd

37:54

be a again a lot more

37:56

site certification has to be done

37:58

before we sort of say okay

38:00

this is the spot but yeah

38:02

we and then it's right these

38:05

two volcanoes as well and So

38:07

lest anybody guess the second guess

38:09

Pascal's expertise on these images I

38:11

can. personally attest the fact that

38:13

this guy can stare at lunar

38:15

or Martian images for 10 hours

38:17

at a time studying and memorizing

38:19

everything while I'm trying to remember

38:21

my middle name. Let's jump to

38:23

a quick early break because I'm

38:25

going to come back with questions

38:27

I expect a lengthy answer for.

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okay nine two three three. Okay

39:51

so specific to a let's say

39:53

a medium-sized long-term habitat so something

39:55

that would house 12 20 people.

39:57

something like that. And I picked

39:59

that number by the way, dipping

40:01

in my memory back to the

40:03

US Army plans for Project Horizon

40:05

from 1958, because they were going

40:07

to send 12 to 20. soldiers

40:10

to the moon to live in

40:12

their base that they thought they

40:14

could construct in less than two

40:16

months, which was absolute fantasy. Oh,

40:18

and for six billion dollars all

40:20

in. But enough about that. So

40:22

citing and construction and shielding, are

40:24

you talking in your mind, are

40:26

you talking mostly about building on

40:28

the surface or maybe something of

40:30

the surface split between the surface

40:32

and down in a lava tube

40:34

or one of the other? How

40:36

do you shield it against radiation

40:38

and so forth? Yeah, that's a

40:40

good point. To me, the solution

40:42

to shielded habitats are modules that

40:44

you lay down at the surface,

40:46

possibly on struts, like what NASA

40:48

is actually thinking about for its

40:51

first module in the autonomous program.

40:53

So it's a bit off the

40:55

ground, but it's on landing legs,

40:57

if you will. So modules at

40:59

the surface, and of course, to

41:01

add radiation shielding, you sandbag them.

41:03

as opposed to burying them, as

41:05

opposed to somehow inflating them inside

41:07

a lava tube. All of those

41:09

things I think are fraught with

41:11

risk, uncertainty, and even though you

41:13

might gain in radiation shielding, now

41:15

you have all kinds of logistical

41:17

issues for getting out of those

41:19

places. So I see as a

41:21

reasonable approach to building a base

41:23

to just do it at the

41:25

surface, and then over time you

41:27

sandbag it. you sandbag the modules.

41:29

Sandbagging is easy. You, I mean,

41:32

we do that already with robotic

41:34

systems on earth, you know, around

41:36

river or ocean front levees. You,

41:38

you know, they scoop sand in

41:40

the front and they poop a

41:42

sandbag at the back. So you,

41:44

and they're very, very movable. And,

41:46

you know, so if you want

41:48

to reconfigure your base a bit

41:50

and things around, you can just,

41:52

with a robotic. off the sandbags

41:54

and put them back on. It's

41:56

quite, it's quite manageable. That feels

41:58

like a job for the intern,

42:00

right? All right, go out, fill

42:02

some, fill some moon dirt bags,

42:04

right? No, actually that's a job

42:06

for you and me because we

42:08

go up there and they say,

42:10

okay, what's your science background? We

42:13

just stand there with a sad

42:15

look on our face, remembering our

42:17

failures and college. I would do

42:19

that job in a heartbeat. like

42:21

a sandbagger for the moon i

42:23

don't i'm not promising to do

42:25

more than like being able to

42:27

do sandbags but i can do

42:29

that also probably careful because he

42:31

does a lot of this kind

42:33

of stuff on earth and he

42:35

may recruit you to go up

42:37

and do it somewhere here's a

42:39

sandbag carrier but so and you

42:41

know here's another thing clavius being

42:43

so old it's a it's a

42:45

nectarian in age so roughly you

42:47

know between 3.9 and 3.85 billion

42:49

years old it has a very

42:51

well develop regulates very broken down.

42:54

It's it's going to be the

42:56

easiest stuff in a relative sets

42:58

to just sort of scoop up

43:00

and harvest for and biking. I

43:02

never thought of that. So on

43:04

the pole, there would have been

43:06

a lot fewer impacts, right? Well,

43:08

the poles, you have a lot

43:10

of impacts too, except that they're

43:12

in the lunar highlands and then,

43:14

you know, a lot of the

43:16

craters at the pole is so

43:18

we'll have, you know, dug up

43:20

a lot of chunky pieces of

43:22

dirt, including relatively recent craters. Clevis

43:24

is very old. Of course there

43:26

are some recent craters in there

43:28

but it's you know my I

43:30

don't anticipate there being a problem

43:32

finding sand so to speak to

43:34

to bag you know a couple

43:37

things I think need to be

43:39

of course brought up which are

43:41

the the power okay at the

43:43

polls the claim is that you

43:45

could use permanently suddenly at areas

43:47

but then when you think about

43:49

it you can't you can't really

43:51

seriously think of powering a base

43:53

let alone a mine with a

43:55

farm, a solar farm at the

43:57

surface of the moon. with all

43:59

the dust that's going to be

44:01

picked up, the Starship landings and

44:03

launches. Solar panels are really fine

44:05

for relatively small and initial infrastructures,

44:07

but it's not the way to

44:09

power a base. So to have

44:11

a base, you need to go

44:13

nuclear. And that's basically the solution

44:15

for at Clavius, where you no

44:18

longer have the permanent sunlight, you

44:20

have 14 days of daylight, followed

44:22

by 14 days of night, and

44:24

to survive a lunar night, we

44:26

need nuclear power. So I think

44:28

we should might as well go

44:30

down that road early. We need

44:32

that for Mars and that's recognized

44:34

already now. The NASA Moon to

44:36

Mars Architecture Workshop and team has

44:38

already identified nuclear power on Mars

44:40

as something that we have to

44:42

develop for long-term presence on Mars.

44:44

Let me ask about that real

44:46

quick because I know that we've

44:48

sent probes to Saturn to Jupiter

44:50

out of the solar system. entirely

44:52

with those radio isotope generators those

44:54

RTGs you know and that's what

44:56

I think a lot of people

44:59

think about when they think about

45:01

oh a nuclear battery for space

45:03

the curiosity and perseverance rovers have

45:05

them what kind of nuclear power

45:07

are we talking about because the

45:09

ones here You know at Three

45:11

Mile Island are ginormous and so

45:13

there's one on the on the

45:15

on the B line down to

45:17

down to the KSC you can

45:19

see the smokestacks. Can we even

45:21

build a small one that would

45:23

power the base like this there?

45:25

Yes we can. In fact McMurdo

45:27

the American base of the South

45:29

Pole was initially powered by a

45:31

nuclear power reactor. I did not

45:33

know that. And in fact it

45:35

was hard to control. It was

45:37

down half the time. So for

45:40

a variety of reasons, and then

45:42

also the US wasn't wanting to

45:44

encourage other nations in Antarctica to

45:46

sort of go nuclear either as

45:48

well. So the plot was pulled

45:50

on that, but we have powered

45:52

bases and places where, you know,

45:54

solar panels at the time at

45:56

least were not up to speed

45:58

yet. And so we're talking about.

46:00

you know, a small nuclear battery,

46:02

so to speak, and then actually

46:04

a nuclear reactor, a efficient reactor.

46:06

And you know, I grew up in France

46:09

where 90% of power is produced

46:11

by nuclear reactors, so I'm

46:13

over the psychological barrier of

46:15

nuclear power. But I think it's sort

46:18

of the way to go, really, it's this

46:20

now. I'm not saying we should fear it.

46:22

It's just, I've only seen it

46:24

these ginormous things, you know, I've

46:26

never seen what a compact... fission

46:28

reactor would look like right except

46:30

maybe like a NASA rendering they're

46:32

small. I also think space-based solar

46:35

power has some future especially

46:37

for small dispersed infrastructures I

46:39

mean if you have an outpost temporarily

46:42

somewhere or it's a relatively small operation

46:44

then you you could have space-based

46:46

solar power like a you know essentially

46:48

solar farm and orbit beaming down some

46:51

power to you because you have a lot of scattered

46:53

assets it doesn't become practical anymore

46:55

to have you know nuclear power

46:57

them. each one of them. But,

46:59

and then of course Space Base

47:01

Solar Power can handle a bit

47:03

of power support across the lunar

47:06

night. But I don't see Space

47:08

Base Solar Power as being

47:10

a solution that's practical once

47:12

you have a growing base

47:14

that's substantial in size, let alone

47:17

on Mars. So, I mean, that's just

47:19

my take on it, but not an

47:21

expert. Well, and looking at the

47:23

discord here, out of sync, mention...

47:26

Naval nukes subs in subs and ships

47:28

those are fairly small reactors that create

47:30

a lot of power in fact I

47:32

remember I didn't think about that there

47:34

was a hurricane in Hawaii years ago

47:36

and the power went out I think it

47:39

was in Kauai which isn't a huge island

47:41

but it's it's got a large population

47:43

an American nuclear sub pulled up and

47:45

ran cables out of a hatch and

47:47

powered the whole island for a couple

47:49

of years to get their power back

47:52

up and The Soviet Union back in

47:54

the dark days of the Cold War,

47:56

early Cold War 60s, were sticking nuclear

47:58

reactors every... A lot, most of

48:01

them are still there, they're just kind

48:03

of riding away because they never took

48:05

them out, but all over the Antarctic

48:07

and up in the Arctic North and

48:10

so forth. So, and that was in

48:12

the dark days when these things could

48:14

just like go bonkers. So they've come

48:16

a long way since then for smaller

48:18

ones. And of course we've got the

48:21

DOD working on, is it called kilow

48:23

power? They've got that compact reactor that

48:25

they've been working on for quite a

48:27

while. Would you

48:30

want a nuclear power like a

48:32

rover? I want one. Because then

48:34

you could like go off for

48:36

like a month at a time

48:38

or like to go to all

48:40

these different sites, go down to

48:42

the south welcome back? I mean

48:44

robotic rover could sort of use

48:47

an RTG type of approach to

48:49

power it, although I think currently

48:51

pressurized rovers for crude missions are

48:53

I thought of as being powered

48:55

by fuel cells. You know, and

48:57

that might be the way to

48:59

go for now and of course

49:02

you would recharge them somehow at

49:04

some point. I think about Mark

49:06

Watney in the Martian. Well, in

49:08

our TG, so you're talking about

49:10

a nuclear fuel pellet that isn't

49:12

actually fishing. It's just sitting there

49:14

having heat converted electricity, but it

49:16

have to be massive for a

49:19

crude rover, wouldn't it? Yeah, so

49:21

I won't comment further on that,

49:23

but it's a very, lots of

49:25

applications are possible, lots of options

49:27

are available as well. But let

49:29

me say something. I think I

49:31

don't want to just miss that,

49:33

which is that, you know, why

49:36

we even think of setting an

49:38

infrastructure that's off polar if there's,

49:40

you know, if we really think

49:42

there's so much potential for for

49:44

mining and resource extraction, especially water

49:46

at the South Pole. And I

49:48

think the reality check that I

49:50

want to sort of throw out

49:53

here is that, yes, there, you

49:55

know, there is plenty of water

49:57

at the South Pole. We now

49:59

know from the shadow cam mission,

50:01

which is a American camera on

50:03

a Korean orbiter that these permanently

50:05

shadowed regions don't seem to have

50:07

a lot of exposed ice in

50:10

them. And so the ice is

50:12

most likely buried, you know, at

50:14

least within the top meter of

50:16

the regalith the soil and possibly

50:18

extending further down. But from what

50:20

we can tell from these orbital

50:22

surveys with neutron spectrometry, which measures

50:25

how much hydrogen the soil contains,

50:27

the equivalent amount of water in

50:29

the places where you have the

50:31

highest concentrations of hydrogen, therefore water.

50:33

only reach a level of about

50:35

0.5 weight percent of water equivalent

50:37

hydrogen. So what that means is

50:39

that if you dig out one

50:42

metric ton of lunar dirt in

50:44

one of these areas that has

50:46

the highest concentration of hydrogen, you

50:48

get five liters of water at

50:50

most. If you don't lose any

50:52

of it, out of that five

50:54

kilos, five kilos per metric ton

50:56

of dirt. To a starship when

50:59

it launches... holes, you know, something

51:01

of order, 1,000, I think it's

51:03

even 1,200, metric tons of fuel.

51:05

If you wanted to refuel a

51:07

single Starship, we say a thousand

51:09

metric tons of water in the

51:11

form of hydrogen and oxygen split

51:13

up, you would have to dig

51:16

up, excavate a football, 26, sorry,

51:18

25 football fields down to the

51:20

depth of one meter to get

51:22

a thousand metric tons. of hydrogen.

51:24

That is not a job. That

51:26

is not a job for this

51:28

intern. I will not be doing

51:30

that. Well, and my point here

51:33

is that this is why I

51:35

don't know if the water on

51:37

the South Pole, the moon, even

51:39

though we say that of course

51:41

in total it amounts to, you

51:43

know, 100,000 Olympic swimming pools, or

51:45

whatever the number is, I don't

51:48

know if it will ever turn

51:50

out to be economically viable. And

51:52

of course the competing approach is

51:54

bringing the water from the earth.

51:56

any single landing of a Starship

51:58

could land 100 say metric tons

52:00

of clean purified water sitting where

52:02

you wanted with a tap at

52:05

the bottom of the rocket, it's

52:07

a water tower. And I don't

52:09

know when we will have that

52:11

on the moon with water extracted

52:13

from the moon of ever. And

52:15

it's not just a matter of

52:17

excavating the water, you have to

52:19

extract, filter it out from the

52:22

dirt, you have to contain it,

52:24

you have to... pipe it in

52:26

other words transport it from the

52:28

extraction site to wherever you want

52:30

which means they have to to

52:32

warm it up that's very power

52:34

intensive to thaw ice at 50

52:36

Kelvin that's minus 270 Fahrenheit 370

52:39

Fahrenheit so I mean it's it's

52:41

a monumental task to to liquefy

52:43

the water and to transport it.

52:45

Okay. I'm not saying it's not

52:47

possible. The question is, will it

52:49

ever be economically viable? And to

52:51

me, it's at the very least

52:53

huge question mark. So throwing all

52:56

our assets and setting up a

52:58

base and all this with not

53:00

knowing the answer to this question,

53:02

if it will ever be economically

53:04

viable to extract a water on

53:06

the boat, we should read the

53:08

couple of the two things. Establishing

53:10

our permanent presence and a base

53:13

we supply from the earth and

53:15

explore the moon, including the South

53:17

Pole regions, and then keeps prospecting

53:19

for water with robotic assets at

53:21

the South Pole. All right, let's

53:23

go to our last break and

53:25

we'll be right back. Go nowhere.

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54:59

every time you talk about flying

55:01

up a star ship filled with

55:03

water i think of this massive

55:05

300 foot no how tall is

55:08

star ship 400 stage no lunar

55:10

star ship it's To something right?

55:12

I think it's a hundred eighty

55:14

or whatever, but this huge coffee

55:16

urn with a little tap at

55:18

the bottom that I would run

55:20

out for my lunar habitat and

55:22

fill up a couple water and

55:25

try and run back into habitat

55:27

drink it before it freezes or

55:29

sublimbs. All right. So you kind

55:31

of alluded to this earlier, but

55:33

this is not NASA's favorite favorite

55:35

plan. And without that it isn't.

55:37

I've had discussions from folks in

55:39

NASA headquarters this week. Some some

55:42

were telling me yeah, we were

55:44

we're very concerned about our eyes

55:46

for a year. It's it's not

55:48

you know I mean NASA actually

55:50

did not choose to go to

55:52

the South Pole and this was

55:54

something that was directed or if

55:56

he's guided the National Space Council

55:59

at the time and again, I

56:01

think it would on paper it

56:03

looks good and it sounds like

56:05

you're making the right move. I

56:07

mean everybody's so obsessed with living

56:09

off the land and somehow making

56:11

that the way to go. You

56:13

have to really be very pragmatic

56:16

about you know how much exactly

56:18

are you talking about being able

56:20

to extract and at what cost

56:22

and and when and by when.

56:24

And all of these things I

56:26

think were not really fleshed out.

56:28

before the whole bandwagon got moving

56:31

towards setting people to the South

56:33

Pole. Well, and you'll wonder, you

56:35

know, regardless of the source of

56:37

South Pole, South Pole, South Pole,

56:39

how much of that is engineering

56:41

driven, how much of any of

56:43

that is science driven, which it

56:45

doesn't sound like it is, and

56:48

how much of its geopolitically driven,

56:50

which sounds like the majority of

56:52

the cause syllab, if you will.

56:54

Yeah, I think it's a geopolitical

56:56

decision, which... I mean, the engineers

56:58

are faced with a new novel

57:00

challenge, but I think if it

57:02

was just setting up a base

57:05

on the moon and returning there,

57:07

it'd be as challenging, but maybe

57:09

more permanent, more durable, more meaningful

57:11

in the end. You know, the

57:13

scientists, of course, are not pushing

57:15

back too strongly because at some

57:17

level, wow, again, it's the same

57:19

Apollo attraction. We're going to land

57:22

in a different place every time

57:24

instead of setting up a base.

57:26

let's do the buffet science approach

57:28

of sampling as many places on

57:30

the moon as we can. But

57:32

the truth is, you know, if

57:34

you if you understand how fuel

57:36

science works in Antarctica, it's a

57:39

godsend to have a base. A

57:41

base is actually a good thing

57:43

for science. It does not anchor

57:45

you down. It's a springboard to

57:47

other places. And so this is

57:49

not necessarily understood, you know, by...

57:51

all of my science peers is

57:54

just one of those things where

57:56

you don't convince yourself of the

57:58

value of this unless you've experienced

58:00

working in Antarctica or the Arctic.

58:02

places where you need a base

58:04

really to be to be safe

58:06

and productive. Well, you don't know

58:08

more about that than most of

58:11

us. Tarak, you got one more?

58:13

Yeah, I'm just wondering if there's

58:15

one thing, Pascal. One thing about

58:17

Clavey is that you, when you

58:19

get there, are going to go

58:21

see first. Is it a specific?

58:23

Is it a cave? Is it

58:25

just digging your hands in the

58:28

moon dirt? What's the first thing

58:30

you want to do? when you

58:32

land at Clavius and hop off

58:34

the lander in your space suit

58:36

and you know I guess give

58:38

a stretch because it's a long

58:40

trip. But anyway after that what's

58:42

the first thing you'd want to

58:45

go look at either scientifically or

58:47

personally? You know personally I think

58:49

I would like to run up

58:51

that hill that's loaded to the

58:53

south and look at our infrastructure

58:55

in the foreground down on the

58:57

floor of Clavius and and basically

58:59

take the equivalent picture as what

59:02

was portrayed in 2001 a space

59:04

Odyssey. Maybe I can call that

59:06

up as money. I have that

59:08

background picture as well. It's a

59:10

kitten. After the next break, I

59:12

can put it up. But just

59:14

because, you know, here's another, here's

59:16

a thing that turns out to

59:19

be really interesting. We did not

59:21

choose Clavius because of 2001 a

59:23

space office. We chose Clavius because

59:25

it had some really good attributes

59:27

as a place to set up

59:29

a base. And But however, this

59:31

amazing connection that it would have

59:34

with this movie, and the movie

59:36

was a lot more than just,

59:38

you know, some artist concept, it

59:40

was the real vision in our

59:42

early steps in space exploration. The

59:44

fact that, you know, reality would

59:46

end up needing fiction in such

59:48

an amazing way, it's a bit

59:51

like, you know, launching from Cape

59:53

Canavoral and Kennedy Space Center, you

59:55

know, comparing that with Jules Verns.

59:57

from the earth to the moon

59:59

where he had predicted that launches

1:00:01

would be from Florida. It's sort

1:00:03

of at that level, if somehow

1:00:05

we could start building a base

1:00:08

at Clavius, it would be very

1:00:10

attractive, I think, for the public

1:00:12

to see that more of the

1:00:14

time. See, that's a very altruistic

1:00:16

and like picturesque desire for what

1:00:18

you do. I would probably just

1:00:20

write my name in the moon

1:00:22

dirt and just write Tark was

1:00:25

here, you know. with a Z

1:00:27

instead of a Ness, you know.

1:00:29

W-U-Z. Take a selfie. Let's not

1:00:31

forget that Jules Vern also suggested

1:00:33

that in that little tiny spacecraft

1:00:35

that was accelerated to about 900

1:00:37

G's as it was fired out

1:00:39

of the big cannon, you were

1:00:42

also supposed to take a bunch

1:00:44

of chickens, the moon with a

1:00:46

bunch of chickens flapping around. My

1:00:48

last question is... What are we

1:00:50

going to see from you in

1:00:52

the near future in terms of

1:00:54

new research papers, new artwork, any

1:00:57

books in the planning? What have

1:00:59

you got? So Aaron Sampson is

1:01:01

presenting our geological map and human

1:01:03

exploration target sites paper at the

1:01:05

upcoming lunar and planetary science conference

1:01:07

in Houston next month? I love

1:01:09

the particular one I just put

1:01:11

up. Yeah, that's what he wants

1:01:14

to see. Yeah, that's what he

1:01:16

wants to see. So the earth

1:01:18

is too low on the horizon

1:01:20

there because this would almost be

1:01:22

a polar view of the earth.

1:01:24

The earth is more like where

1:01:26

the lunar module that's landing dated.

1:01:28

And the earth would be a

1:01:31

little less big. But anyway, Aaron

1:01:33

is presenting the geological map of

1:01:35

Clavius. Daniel Sykes, who's a senior

1:01:37

at University of Kansas, has discovered

1:01:39

a bunch of caves inside Rutherford.

1:01:41

Aaron found several outside of the

1:01:43

Rutherford crater. So we, one thing

1:01:45

that we plan to flesh out

1:01:48

in the near future is this

1:01:50

route to drive from the South

1:01:52

Rim of Clavius all the way

1:01:54

to the South Pole. We have

1:01:56

a rough route. plotted already, but

1:01:58

we're talking about now, you know,

1:02:00

looking exactly which boulders we're going

1:02:02

to go around to get there.

1:02:05

It's a lot of fun. Pretty

1:02:07

cool. Sorry, this is actually my

1:02:09

last question. If you were to

1:02:11

pick somewhere on earth that would

1:02:13

make sense for testing mobility systems

1:02:15

for this region, the moon, where

1:02:17

would you pick? A place on

1:02:20

earth where we would test mobility

1:02:22

systems for the moon? Yeah, like...

1:02:24

like this. Yeah, I would take

1:02:26

obviously an open, rocky desert with

1:02:28

geologic features that are similar to

1:02:30

what we would see on the

1:02:32

moon. I mean, I work on

1:02:34

Devon Island every summer, so of

1:02:37

course, I have a self-spot for

1:02:39

that place, but there are a

1:02:41

few places like the Anakama Desert,

1:02:43

like even the Sahara Desert, the

1:02:45

Rocky parts of the Sahara Desert,

1:02:47

you know, like Chad, Mauritaniaania, regardless

1:02:49

of what's going on geopolitically there,

1:02:51

they are... from a landscape standpoint,

1:02:54

you know, very relevant to the

1:02:56

type of terrain. And in fact,

1:02:58

a lot of, this is actually

1:03:00

a nice opportunity for countries that

1:03:02

don't necessarily have a high-tech space

1:03:04

program to offer. They have in

1:03:06

their backyards, it's amazing, desert scapes.

1:03:08

They can really be part of

1:03:11

this global community that's going back

1:03:13

to the moon and offer their

1:03:15

backing artists nesting ground. That's a

1:03:17

really good point because there has

1:03:19

been a lot of talk about

1:03:21

surrounding the Artemis protocols and the

1:03:23

Artemis agreements of okay you got

1:03:25

us to sign up what can

1:03:28

we do now so contributing real

1:03:30

estate for research efforts would be

1:03:32

a good thing. It's time for

1:03:34

us to go think about moon

1:03:36

bases on our own time. We've

1:03:38

spent enough time with you now.

1:03:40

and I've enjoyed every minute of

1:03:42

it. And I want to thank

1:03:45

you Pascal for joining us and

1:03:47

our audience for joining us today

1:03:49

for episode 148 that we like

1:03:51

to call Clavius Base because it

1:03:53

sounds cool. Pascal reminded us of

1:03:55

all the online places we can

1:03:57

track your adventures if you would.

1:04:00

Yeah, Mars Institute.net/HMP for the Health

1:04:02

and Mars Project. We're also creating

1:04:04

a new web page for the

1:04:06

HMP at the SETI Institute. It's

1:04:08

not online yet. Pascali.net for my

1:04:11

personal stuff, some artwork as well.

1:04:13

If you're interested in that, I'm

1:04:15

otherwise on social media, on on

1:04:17

X and LinkedIn. So that's pretty

1:04:19

much it. I'll come in for

1:04:21

it and questions. Great. Tarak, where

1:04:23

can we find you writing your

1:04:25

name in the soil these days?

1:04:27

Well, you can find me at

1:04:29

space.com as always, of course. It's

1:04:32

Valentine's Day, so maybe I'll, I'll.

1:04:34

Be doing something nice for my

1:04:36

wife that'd be good and better

1:04:38

I know and of course of

1:04:40

course you can if you're if

1:04:42

you're if you're looking for video

1:04:44

games you can find me at

1:04:46

well you can find me on

1:04:48

X and and most places at

1:04:50

Tarik Jay Malik there and if

1:04:53

you like video games you'll find

1:04:55

me at Space Front plays on

1:04:57

YouTube this weekend there's a live

1:04:59

event in Fortnight very excited it's

1:05:01

gonna be a little small thing

1:05:03

but we're coming up on the

1:05:05

end of the season very excited

1:05:07

oh sorry it's all about space

1:05:09

Yes, how exciting. And of course

1:05:12

you can always find me at

1:05:14

pilebooks.com or at Astor Magazine.com where

1:05:16

we encourage you to go download

1:05:18

a free issue of At Astor

1:05:20

magazine and there'll be an article

1:05:22

concerning Pascal coming up the next

1:05:24

issue actually and maybe join the

1:05:26

National Space Society if you see

1:05:28

that as being appropriate. And of

1:05:30

course remember you can drop us

1:05:33

a line anytime it twists at

1:05:35

TW. Twis at twit.

1:05:37

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1:05:39

We always welcome your comments, suggestions,

1:05:41

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1:05:44

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1:05:46

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1:05:50

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1:06:19

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1:06:22

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1:06:24

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1:06:26

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1:06:28

one of you. So thank you

1:06:30

so much for coming along for

1:06:33

the ride. You can also follow

1:06:35

the question. Sure. Yeah, sorry. What

1:06:37

about you? Where would you like

1:06:39

to land and see the moon

1:06:42

from the surface? Oh my God,

1:06:44

I just want to go back

1:06:46

up to your Arctic base again.

1:06:48

No, no, no, but I'm talking

1:06:51

about... No, I know. But see,

1:06:53

when I was up there with

1:06:55

you, I was on Mars, except

1:06:57

I could breathe, I had normal

1:06:59

gravity, and I wasn't being fried

1:07:02

by radiation, at least not inordinately,

1:07:04

and I thought that was every

1:07:06

bit enough. I don't actually I'd

1:07:08

want to go to one of

1:07:11

the last three Apollo landing sites

1:07:13

I think because I'd want to

1:07:15

see the hardware I want to

1:07:17

go over and not touch not

1:07:19

touch for all moon kind but

1:07:22

just look at those artifacts and

1:07:24

those first missions because when you

1:07:26

really start if you read about

1:07:28

the space race days and remember

1:07:31

exactly what we had at our

1:07:33

disposal technologically when Apollo flew Not

1:07:35

only is it amazing that it

1:07:37

worked, but it's kind of terrifying

1:07:40

in terms of how primitive that

1:07:42

technology was, you know, the very

1:07:44

first portable computers and all that

1:07:46

kind of thing, it's just, it's

1:07:48

jaw dropping to be. And I'm

1:07:51

actually, the new book I'm working

1:07:53

on has some of that in

1:07:55

it, and the more I think

1:07:57

about it, the more I'm amazed

1:08:00

that it worked. Let me just

1:08:02

say, you can all also follow

1:08:04

the Twit Tech Podcast Podcast Network

1:08:06

at Twit on Twitter. X. and

1:08:09

on Facebook and Twitter TV on

1:08:11

Instagram. Pascal, thank you so much

1:08:13

for joining us today. You're always

1:08:15

a crowd favorite. What about you,

1:08:17

Terry? Oh, where's that orange dirt?

1:08:20

With the Apollo astronauts found the

1:08:22

orange dirt. I want to see

1:08:24

the orange dirt on the moon.

1:08:26

That's what I want to go.

1:08:29

Yeah. Thank you guys. Good pleasure.

1:08:31

Thank you. Thank you. All right,

1:08:33

take care of everybody. See you.

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