.jpg){kind=logo}
Viterbi Conversations in Ethics Podcast
The Viterbi Conversations in Ethics Podcast is a series of podcasts affiliated with our online magazine, Viterbi Conversations in Ethics, published in the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California. Conversations in Ethics is dedicated to the exploration of ethics and engineering. This podcast was made possible with funding from the Viterbi School of Engineering Dean’s Office here at the University of Southern California.
Viterbi Conversations in Ethics Podcast
Navigating the Stars: Ethical Dilemmas in Interplanetary Expansion
In this episode of the Viterbi Conversations in Ethics podcast, we delve into the ethical complexities of space exploration and Mars colonization. Are we setting our sights too far with our interplanetary ambitions, or are there more pressing issues on Earth that demand our attention? Join host Deep Shah, along with guests Nakul Malik and James Austin, as they explore what drives humanity's journey beyond Earth and discuss how space technologies could revolutionize sustainability closer to home. Should we redirect the vast resources spent on space exploration to address more immediate concerns on our planet? Tune in and decide for yourself whether humanity’s future lies in the stars or here on Earth.
Welcome to the Viterbi Conversations in Ethics podcast. My name is Aryan, I'm Deep.
Speaker 2:And I am Caden Harmony. This is the next installment in a series of podcasts affiliated with the VCE Online Magazine published in the Viterbi School of Engineering here at the University of Southern California.
Speaker 1:This podcast is dedicated to exploring engineering ethics and was made possible with funding from WITABEE Dean's Office.
Speaker 2:And now on to the episode.
Speaker 1:Welcome to another episode of WITABEE Conversation in Ethics. Today we have Nakul and James, and our topic for today's discussion is going to be ethics in space. So if you could please take a moment and introduce yourselves.
Speaker 3:Hi, nice to be here. Thank you for having me here. I am Nakul Malik. I am a junior studying econ and data science.
Speaker 4:Hi, my name is James Austin. I am a senior at USC studying astronautical engineering.
Speaker 1:Wow, pretty cool. So space right Sounds like an interesting topic. A lot of Hollywood movies, I don't know. Interstellar Martian Gravity really got me interested in it. What was your driving factor? Why space specifically?
Speaker 4:Personally for me. I grew up in chilton, wisconsin not that anyone's going to know where that is, but around 40 minutes from us, uh, the biggest air show in the country, called the eaa, is hosted every summer, and the first time I can consciously remember going was when I was about four or five years old and during the time where the space shuttle program was kind of on its wind down period, nas, nasa hosted a few exhibits there, modeling either whether it was the aerodynamics or the inner mechanisms of the space shuttle engines or the body itself. I always found a lot of joy going to those, and since then I've just dedicated everything I've studied to learning more about space. I was in a bunch of research labs when I was in high school with the University of Minnesota and when I got to USC I found out that they have a dedicated space engineering program.
Speaker 3:So I was like no brainer might as well come here and I've been more than happy to dedicate all of my studies to physics, space, all that Well, I don't think I have an answer as cool as that. But the simple answer for me is I had to write a paper. But I guess you could say that I've always had an interest in the unknown. I've always had an interest in what's beyond the earth. I've grown up watching sci-fi. I've grown up watching these YouTube channels where they philosophize and theorize what are the infinite possibilities that are out there. And when I took that class and I had to write the paper, I was like space exploration has to be what I write about and that just kind of gave me an opportunity to throw myself into the field and learn more. And yeah, that's kind of the journey, cool sounds interesting.
Speaker 1:Um, okay, like I can totally resonate with that, like I think sci-fi in itself is such a great thing. Out of earth, the ether that exists, you know, just discovering about that I, I read this book from stephen hawking's uh called theory of everything, and then like a couple more relativity too from einstein. But it wasn't completely understood by me, but okay, yeah, and it's just great, like when you would imagine that. And have you seen Cosmos from, like Nat Geo?
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:There was like a short documentary, neil deGrasse Tyson yeah, dude, it was super crazy. No, yeah, yeah, so it's like a heaven and unknown realm that you explore, right, okay, cool. So everyone talks about space, everyone knows, like, wow, it's cool, it's nice. You know astronauts, super people, astronauts, yeah, but let's talk about what we leave behind. Our reminiscence Like innovation is something that the whole world is chasing after, but at what cost is something that we're going to answer in this episode. So, in your view, how can the technologies developed for mass colonization directly improve life back on Earth, especially in the realms of resource management and sustainability? And could you discuss a specific technology that excites you and its potential impacts? If you know, like mass colonization, I think both of your papers are also focused upon that topic itself. Um, what's your take like? If you could please explain, uh, why we are moving towards mass colonization and then, uh, where we are leading it, like how far have we succeeded in that and what's our cost of the success? Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3:yeah, no, that does make sense and that's a. That's going to be a pretty long-winded answer, yeah, uh, I feel like the general reason towards why at least the public believes, or why the great thinkers out there who are super vocal you know, the jeff bezos, the elon musks, even when um stephen hawking was around the general kind of thought process behind becoming an interplanetary species was that we need a hedge. We need to hedge our bets. We can't put all our eggs in the earth basket because, well, this is going shit, I mean, and you never know what's going to happen. You never know when an asteroid is going to strike, and we need to ensure that humanity goes on right. We need to ensure that we don't just end on this one planet, and I feel like that's the main reason and that's kind of what people think as well. Uh, when it comes to space, space colonization, there's also other reasons, like right, that I'm sure there's resources out there that we don't have anything close to on Earth that are going to help us make humanity a better species on Earth as well. But that's, I feel like, in terms of the reasons.
Speaker 3:Technologically there's still a lot we need to do, but when you said, your initial question is how we think these technologies can impact life on Earth.
Speaker 3:There's a lot right, because space and technological advancements in the space industry have always impacted and have had spillovers in other industries that have positively impacted our lives, and especially when it comes to Mars colonization, there's a lot we have to figure out that can potentially improve life on Earth in a massive way. There's a lot we have to figure out that can potentially improve life on Earth in a massive way. One of those things is we've got to figure out how to build planetary greenhouses right To grow food sustainably in Mars without using as much water as we do right now, without using all the resources that we do right now. Once we figure that out, we can bring that technology back to Earth and then make our planet more resource sustainable. That's just one of the technological advancements that we can bring back and make it better. I want to talk about the cost right now, but I want to give James a chance to say something.
Speaker 4:I agree with a lot of that sentiment. A lot of the billionaire voices are very vocal in their preach for setting up a safe haven for humanity. God forbid everything here goes awry and all 8 billion people on this planet somehow meet their untimely demise. At least we'll have something out there that is going to carry on our legacy. I think you'll find, though, a lot of the people in the industry, too, are not so much focused on Mars as they are the moon as well.
Speaker 4:The thing with getting to Mars is that right now, if you look at the Starship program SpaceX's big 33-engine behemoth that Elon Musk goes on Twitter and he claims this is going to take us to Mars, and I have no doubt that when it's successful, they'll find a way to do that, but right now they can't. You know they. They've blown it up on their fourth test launch now and trying on re-entry. Uh, and before it even goes to Mars, we have to prove that we can successfully get to the moon and back. You know, even when the United States expanded from the original 13 colonies, they had to cross the Mississippi River before they got to California. So a lot of the space industry right now. I was actually speaking with a gentleman earlier today who is working with extraterrestrial mining, and even he knows that his company is not going to immediately be shooting for asteroids. They're designing a lot of their stuff for on earth missions right now, translating it to the moon and then maybe going to an asteroid or Mars, because it really is a stepping stone and the technologies that we invent to get there Knuckles right will benefit us here back on earth.
Speaker 4:Primarily, like you said, resource utilization will be a huge thing. The soil on all these different terrestrial bodies, especially Mars, are very, very lacking in nutrients and that's not too far from a lot of the soil we have back on earth after over-farming. So if we figure out an effective way to use this low-nutrient soil and actually grow food successfully, we can better outlay our overused farms and repurpose them for continued growth and sustainability. And also just waste management is also a huge thing. I know that the waste that humanity produces is an especially big problem right now on trying to develop systems for clean sewage and clean resource reuse, reusability and those are things that are going to need to be solved in order to sustain a colony on Mars, because we do not have the resources to waste, we have to reuse everything. So once we figure that out, that technology will definitely be useful back on Earth. Whether or not you can convince people that reusing their own waste will be their most comfortable living style is a different thing, but it definitely will be beneficial.
Speaker 3:But yeah, no, what you said, it's all about the closed loops, right, I've been reading about that as well, as we have to establish those closed loops on on mars or on moon, where what we produce eventually becomes what what we eat, which goes back to the ground, and then that it's just a cycle. So how we have the carbon cycle on earth, how we have the water cycle, we're gonna find these sustainable closed loops for for the resources that we use, and then bring those techniques back on.
Speaker 1:Earth. Completely agree on that, Like, I think that's how Mother Nature wanted us to be, that's why they created a whole life cycle, like you know. But now, yeah, okay.
Speaker 4:And especially on the cost aspect too. I know that's a very big limiting factor for, you know, the American taxpayer and you see, you look at the NASA reports that the Artemis program to get back to the moon considering that we've already been there is costing upwards of $97 billion right now, and it's been underway for around 10 years now and we haven't landed humans back on the moon for $97 billion. I know that the actual cost of these missions to get to Mars is going to be a huge turnoff for a lot of the public, especially given the fact that a majority of space exploration up to you know, 2015, maybe when SpaceX really started to ramp up their commercial launches has been funded by the government NASA, whether, whether you like to think that SpaceX is the, you know, the behemoth in the industry, the complete behemoth in the industry NASA still runs everything. Everything goes to them. They have all the money right now. If you want a contract that can sustain your company for a long time, nasa is the way to do it.
Speaker 3:They just gave SpaceX a $1.15 billion contract to design the lander for the Artemis missions for when they go to the moon, and you know, until they can find a way to justify to the American public spending, you know, $500 billion on developing the life systems and the spacecraft to actually get to Mars and sustain life on Mars.
Speaker 3:There's going to be a huge hurdle to overcome. No, yeah, and that's just the financial cost that you talk about. Right, as an economist, you look at the opportunity cost and that's everything that you haven't spent that money on that you could, because that's one of the biggest arguments against justifying why we need to spend the money. Right, because there's so much that we can spend that money on on Earth that it's hard for you to make that argument that we need the $60 or $70 billion for NASA, I think, if I'm not mistaken, the last fiscal year the budget for NASA was between 60 or 80 billion dollars.
Speaker 3:You might know the facts better, james, but for contrast or for I'm sorry, for context, the amount that the US government spent on combating homelessness and all housing programs was 6 billion, a fraction of the percent, and I've heard arguments. I think Neil deGrasse Tyson himself was like oh well, nasa is only 1% of the US GDP, that's not much. Well then, homelessness is 10 times less than that is, so we got to put that in context. We got to prioritize what we need and that's a big cost that I feel like people don't talk about the opportunity cost of actually pursuing this mission.
Speaker 1:Exactly Like that was going to be my next question. Like, as in every step that we take towards Mars or probably creating a plan B, the lesser we focus on plan A, that is, staying on Earth. Why not focus upon, like? I think in the recent times we have taken climate change more seriously. I think if we allocate those resources more to the Earth I don't know like, do you guys feel that, rather than creating an alternative planet to go to, if we try the betterment of our own Earth, it's going to be more beneficial because we already have things set up? Your life has been, I don't know, nurtured over here from like billions of years.
Speaker 4:I think the the path to get to Mars is going to inherently have a lot of focus on bringing resources back to earth, and the reason I say that is because there's a lot of milestones that have to happen to get there that will directly impact our life on earth. Just, for instance, well, of milestones that have to happen to get there that will directly impact our life on earth. Just, for instance, a little shameless sorry, shameless plug here. Um, my company specifically is focusing on developing a sustainable launch system for earth, such that we know that could you give a little bit context about your venture?
Speaker 4:yeah, so, um, uh, my, my venture search space systems. Um, shameless, plug again the uh. We are developing a launch system uh, similar you know how you get rockets up into space that eliminates the need for those 200 foot uh giant fuel fuel-filled bombs that we're launching into the earth. Launching uh into space and burning a bunch of atmosphere in the uh, burning a bunch of propellants in the atmosphere and replacing that with entirely renewable, renewably driven methods, whether that's's electricity well, it is electricity, electric, electrically driven methods. And then saving all the propulsion, because you need some sort of second stage propulsion to complete your momentum, momentum change and change to have the rest of the velocity to actually insert yourself into orbit. But saving all that propulsion, burn for outside of the atmosphere so that we don't have any sort of lingering carbon emissions in an ever-growing space industry, and there are a lot of companies like mine that are focused on using space as a way to better Earth. Just give some context on a few other missions that I think are very promising.
Speaker 4:There is a lot of talk, especially in the European Space Agency, about building an in-space solar farm, basically using the same technology that we use for wireless charging with our phones and wirelessly transmitting energy and building an in-orbit solar farm to capture solar power in space, where you don't have the refraction due to the atmosphere, and can, overall, gather that power more efficiently and beam it back down to Earth through a special set of different receivers that are specifically designed to receive that energy. Also, asteroid mining and lunar mining are also very big topics of interest right now, not only because it is a huge economic, a hotbed I don't know how much you know about the economics of it, not cool but um, uh, there is an estimate that even in the smallest of asteroids, there's upwards of what I think I think it was quintillion, something of quintillions of dollars in minerals on just even the smallest asteroids. And if you're able to you know, grant, gather those minerals and bring it back down to earth, uh, you could see a huge economic uh benefit from that. But aside from the economics, bringing that energy back down to earth, um, solves a lot, I think, of the energy crisis on earth, because I know a lot of what we're trying to do is right now convert a lot of our fossil fuel, of power sources, to renewable energy. That's no secret and that's what we have been trying to do for the past 20 years, paris Climate Accords really have pushed that through quite a bit. The only issue is is that currently still 60% of our infrastructure is reliant on fossil fuels and there is going to be tough to convert that, especially since we live in a closed environment at this point.
Speaker 4:We are a very dynamic species. Throughout our entire history, back 70,000 years, we lived in small tribes Small tribes. You have the few that venture out and grow outwards, and we're a species that's used to growing outwards. And we've reached the modern times where there's 8 billion people on our planet. You, the United Nations, estimates that our carrying capacity is around 9 to 11. And we don't really have that much room to grow. We're like bacteria in a petri dish and we're fully developed and there's no more room in this petri dish to grow, and really the only way to enable us to go further is to pop the lid off and let us venture out elsewhere. So that's going to be the primary goal of the space industry itself for the next 25 years is not even just Mars, but the steps to get there and primarily, making sure Earth is in a good spot before we do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree with almost everything that James said, and I say almost, and I'll tell you why I said almost. But I want to see humanity thrive. I want to see us eventually learn how to make the best of our technology, make the best of this opportunity. We have to explore the great beyond and any resource we bring back, any way we can make the energy or the life on Earth more sustainable, better for us. I'm all for that. But just simply answering your question when you say that would we be better off in the now if we directed these resources towards the problems we have, towards fighting climate change, towards fighting drug addiction, homelessness, any of the problems we're riddled with Would we be better off in the short term, in the next 25 years, where every space agency is looking to make us interplanetary? Yes, simply put, I would say, if we direct those funds towards these causes, we would be better off right now.
Speaker 3:That's not to say that I don't think we should consider looking outwards at all, but I feel like we need to be in a better spot ourselves. First we need to help fix Earth, we need to bring it to a state which isn't the state right now, and then we should look to to expand. There's this quote that that I'm reminded of, that says growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell, and that's that's what we are. We have no evidence right now, there's nothing in recent history, or or any any history, that that serves as evidence that we're going to be good caretakers of whatever planet we eventually go on to, because we've ruined one already exactly um, so yeah, no, I I agree, there's, there's a, there's tons of potential outside. Um, like you said, just an individual small asteroid can can bring so much change and economic development to a country on earth. But we need to first prioritize fixing ourselves before we look outwards.
Speaker 4:That's fair. Do you think that the main source of criticism should be agencies that are devoted to science and technology development? Because I know that a very common source of judgment, especially in our generation, is the fact that the United States military budget is $700-something billion. In our generation is the fact that the United States military budget is, you know, 700 something billion dollars, and then, you know, compare it, and then we people in the space industry, like to you know, say like, well, us measly NASA folk are only working with like 30. So I just feel like there's other places that we could, you know, get that funding from.
Speaker 4:I agree that we should very much focus on Earth. Right now, earth is not, I don't think it's at a point where we can say, well, we're screwed. You know it can, because there's still very much things that can be done. To agree, there are still very much things that can be done and should be done to make sure that we don't, you know, just leave it worse, right, you know, if you have a messy room, you might as well. Just, even if you don't plan on cleaning it that day, don don't make it messier. That's just going to make your job harder in the future. So I just think there are a lot of other places that we could direct. You know, we could focus our redirection of funding from, and maybe not science and technology. While I do agree, the government should be doing a significantly better job at funding those necessary programs, not just the United States, but the governments across the world, especially the United Nations.
Speaker 3:Yep, no, yeah, 100%, it's not. This wasn't a dig at just the space industry. For sure, there needs to be massive, and now we're kind of heading into a more holistic discussion. There needs to be a massive resource. I'm sorry, I'm kind of blanking on the words right now. That's cool. There needs to be a massive resource redirection from all these other sectors. The military might be the biggest one where we could kind of start defunding that and funding other things. But since we're on the topic of space and I feel like we also need to talk about what people believe is most essential, and I think it's just harder to convince, or it's easier to convince people that we need the military more than we need space programs especially right and no one likes to change right, as you said, like, uh, we don't have proof, strong proof, that that's going to be it.
Speaker 1:Why the military? They can see it in their eyes that, oh, you have so many arms, tanks, you know you've got personnels on the ground. That's more convincing to them. Maybe. I think the way forward would be, as I said.
Speaker 1:There was a good example of if you have a messier room, you try to not make it more messy, clean that up and not buy another room. You get it, but I think the room also has a life cycle where it has some fixtures. That cannot be. I think probably the structure is bad, I don't know. So probably we have done some damage historically. That's kind of permanent to earth and, yeah, mars could be a good option. But uh, do you think it's heading towards a pr game too, where, uh, nasa, there's russia, there's india, israel, if you know about it, um, there's a space war going and then, like, everyone needs to be in that race and it's just about who reaches it first, although I totally agree upon fact that three different, the more institutions are there, you get different approaches, you get better ideas. Trial and error is probably one fails, another could succeed and learn from them. You know, but do you think a lot of money has is being spent on achieving the tag on who reached the mass first, or is spent, or was spent.
Speaker 4:I think NASA or any other government institutions, space and relative space organization, I think their main competition is not each other, it's the commercial companies. What NASA can't do, that SpaceX can and a lot of other companies can do, is fail, and that's what SpaceX is. I hate to say this and this is going to sound very bad, so no judgment meant they're really good at it, and not in the fact that they're just terrible at succeeding. They're good at learning from failure, and SpaceX can launch a starship, blow it up and be like woo-hoo, that was successful. We expected it to get this high and then we had a button in there that we can do a rapid disassembly.
Speaker 4:Midair, nasa blows up an Artemis spacecraft. It's sorry, guys, we wasted all your money. Back to the drawing board, step one. And for the government agencies, that space race is being won right now by those private companies, and NASA itself has decided to, you know, give out more and more contracts to those private companies. So I feel like their financial space race is not being invested too much on beating the Russians. It's focused on helping those private companies actually get going, while also trying to maintain their own missions. I know JPL has been on the receiving end of a lot of budget cuts. A lot of people lost their jobs recently and NASA itself is going through a lot of financial restructuring at the moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had. I actually had no idea about. That's actually a really good point. You bring up about how private agencies have that capacity they can afford to fail and learn from their successes whereas government agencies don't really have that because they're on the line. But, that being said, I think national prestige is definitely on the line.
Speaker 3:I do think we've entered this new era of a space race again, where each country is trying to put their mark. And I don't know if you're familiar with the Artemis records, artemis Accords, but it's a treaty or a document that outlines the guidelines for fair and for countries to collaborate together and act in a way that is respectful of the other countries in space. So when we eventually set up colonies on Mars or set have like, a mining, a mining platform over there or in the moon, the Artemis Accords kind of serve as guidelines that countries follow. None of these laws are binding, they're just guidelines, and even the outer space treaty that was signed in the 1960s are also is also just gives us guidelines to follow. So it's on paper.
Speaker 3:We can say that, yeah, we're all cooperating and every, every nation is in this together, but I still believe that we're acting as countries and not as a species, because, okay, let me just put out a hypothetical example here that we still don't have the legal structure to deal with.
Speaker 3:If a country sets up a mining base on the moon first, does that country have all the rights to the space allocated in the mining base. If another country also happens to be there, can it not set up a mining base in the same location? Let's say, the United States set up a mining base on the moon, does it have to justly and equitably share the resources allocated with everyone who signed the Artemis Accords, or can it bring everything back to the United States? Stuff like that tells me, because stuff like that is still unanswered and again, all of these are non-binding guidelines that the Artemis Accord and the Outer Space Treaty outlines. It leads me to believe that the geopolitical tensions we have on Earth will continue to exist in space and the way we're going about the space race right now will only make tensions on earth worse.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's fair, especially when you look at the uh, the chinese weather balloon scandal. That happened last year. Yeah, and that was huge. That was yeah, yeah, I, yeah. I can see it being a very big geopolitical issue going forward and and I mean the utmost accords.
Speaker 3:There's like, I think, 30 or something countries in it, but Russia's not in it, china's not in it, and I believe Russia, china, saudi, pakistan they're trying to set up their own international space lab on the moon, without anything to do with what the US and the other 30 or so signatories of the Artemis Accords are trying to do with what the US and the other 30 or so signatories of the Artemis Accords are trying to do. So I'm just we haven't started approaching the problem as humanity and we're still looking at it from a lens of what we can do for our own countries right now, which is not the way we should be going about it.
Speaker 1:True, I totally agree. As humans, we never miss a chance to miss out on drama. Groupism has always been in our genes. But I think the way forward is to work together, as you said. Like different entities, different organizations. Yeah, you should learn from each other, but repeating the same mistakes while having two groups is not gonna work out. But okay, that's for the geopolitics to decide. But what do you think about space debris? Like all of our space missions waste a lot of fuel. We let the shells of the spacecrafts be rotated around in orbits, and more missions to the Mars or more missions in attempt to colonization means more of it. Are we equipped to better handle it? Because then we are going to go create garbage all over, like that's rotating around and probably might interfere with our satellite I'm sure they take care of that Like it doesn't enter the same orbit, but some point in time we probably might face obstacles because of our own debris.
Speaker 3:That's actually quite interesting. I'm not. I don't know how well equipped we are to deal with the exceeding debris. And from the the limited, I have to say it's limited research that I've done. But from the limited, I have to say it's limited research that I've done. But from the limited research I've done, I haven't seen in any guideline or in any kind of mission statement that something that says that, oh, we will deal with the debris in XYZ way, or anything that acknowledges the fact that they're going to be leaving a bunch of waste in the atmosphere just floating around in space.
Speaker 4:So yeah, I actually don't know, I know from a, from a purely technological standpoint, in terms of dealing with incoming debris. Like, let's say, you put a brand new satellite into orbit, when you launch it and you code all your algorithms into it. We have space debris maps pretty well. I think we have known locations or orbit data for almost all space debris out there and when you launch that new spacecraft, you'll have collision algorithms built in that are built in to detect okay, if my spacecraft is on this current path, will it interject within? Will it come into this far away from any space debris? And if it does come this far away, will it do an orbit maintenance burn and will burn this direction, this direction, whichever way you need to avoid it.
Speaker 4:But then when you actually talk about de-orbiting said spacecraft, I know in the past which is why we have a lot of space debris is it wasn't a huge concern. You know it just flowed around there. You know eventually, um, because when you go out in space it's not really nothing. There are huge particles in there and you're traveling at seven point something kilometers per second.
Speaker 4:Um, those very small particles can slow you down, uh, quite a bit over time yeah so there's just, it's just the hope that, you know, eventually all this stuff will de-orbit at some point. But now, uh, we do design spacecraft with the intention of having some sort of de-orbit mechanism in there. If that just means saving propellant on board to slow down the velocity such that at the end of our mission life cycle we can come back down into the atmosphere and slowly decelerate through contacting the atmosphere, through drag or, if it's just doing a suicide, burn down to the atmosphere. In current satellites we do, in fact, build that in. However, getting a lot of that to be out of the way is going to become a very important thing in the near future. However, getting a lot of that debris out of the way is going to become a very important thing in the near future. Actually, there's a couple startups right now. One of them was started by Steve Wozniak that's focused on going back up into space, locating that debris, grabbing it and bringing it back down to recycle those materials.
Speaker 4:Because if you look at the satellite data for the next until 2030, there are a lot of satellite constellation missions planned and kind of building off that success of Starlink. A lot more small satellite big net missions are going out and I think the sources Quintly for the analysis. They predicted upwards of 400 plus thousand satellites that needs to be launched by 2030 to make all those missions successful. But just to be generous, we're going to say 100,000 plus satellites need to be launched by 2030 to be successful. And with the amount of space debris that's up there right now, even if the current state is that you know the length scale is incredible. There's a lot of room up there and every graphic you look at where it shows all the big dots around the Earth.
Speaker 4:That's like oh, here's where all the space debris is. They're small, there's a lot of space between that, but you know, you put 100,000 of these things up there, there won't be that much space anymore, especially if you're leaving it all up there as junk. So space debris is a problem that needs to be solved in the next five years at the very next five years, I think, minimum in order for us to be successful, especially if we're going to justify, especially if we're going to try to justify permanent lunar bases and permanent Mars missions.
Speaker 1:Right, perfect, that makes sense. It's very interesting. Yeah, all of your arguments like I don't know that they had space maps for tracking the debris. That's a very smart way and definitely they would done so. They would do so, but yeah, it's nice. Um, yeah, seems like a problem to be adjusted in the next decade or so, but yeah, uh, what do you think right now is the most compelling argument against the mass colonization? Like, I think that holds a lot of weight. Um, as you say, if NASA is allocating $30 billion for their space missions, what is the most sensible argument that you see is contradicting that?
Speaker 4:Simply the fact that our planet is not in a very good state right now. Everyone knows it. It's hard to argue. Everyone who's lived in LA said oh, go back 10 years ago. You weren't able to see even the hollywood sign. And yeah, that's, that's the big. That's the most credible, credible argument, it's the most sensible one and it's like yeah, why would we invest in another planet if we can't even take care of ours? That's just the biggest one, right?
Speaker 3:no, yeah, I, I agree. I feel like that's that is the most credible argument. But just for the sake of arguments, I'd like to put a couple more on the table. The fact that space colonization now, at least in the US, has taken a super. The industry is going private. Right, there's SpaceX and there's other organizations that are essentially commercializing space travel and eventual space tourism. That's the goal. These things raise a couple of questions that we need to kind of consider. Some ethical pitfalls, just regular ethical pitfalls of a capitalistic society. One, a private corporation, is always chasing profit, right, that's bottom line. They are driven.
Speaker 4:I mean, it's the reality. It's the reality of the business world. I mean, yeah, that's what a guy the guy I met today said he was like. The first thing I had to learn is that, uh, if you're a space startup, yeah, you can go to all these investors, say I have this really cool dream, but at the end of the day, the people who have the money want to make more money, and that's just this. That's as much as you can care about science and technology. That's your passion. If you want to get off the ground, you have to cater to that.
Speaker 1:That's just that's just reality probably, you know, fuels innovation too, yeah oh yeah, 100, 100.
Speaker 3:That's. That's probably why, um, you said spacex is good at it, because because it's there, it's. There is this incentive that fuels the innovation. But this incentive also, it gives them an incentive to cut costs, to maybe take short corners, to maybe not follow guidelines 100% and when we're dealing with space, this is a massive breach of safety and a breach of protocol and we do not know. The results of cutting costs and maybe not building a spacecraft that's 100% up to code are unprecedented.
Speaker 3:When we went to the moon for the first time, we tried to control transfer of life and transfer organisms as much as we could, but it wasn't a hundred percent. We we could have done a better job and we need to ensure that before we we do more interplanetary missions, there's there's proper laws and guidelines in place that restrict us making any mistakes or or private companies greed getting in the way of of safety and protocol. Secondly, because we of the privatization it kind of is leading us in the direction of the resources and all the money being concentrated in the hands of a few. Obviously, when, let's say, space tourism comes, or when space colonization eventually becomes a reality, it's only going to be a select few, within a select few countries that can actually achieve that, that can actually afford to travel in space or can afford to enjoy the benefits of the resources that space gives us, and that'll only widen the socioeconomic gaps that exist in this country and within other countries and the way we're dealing with it right now.
Speaker 3:Space colonization may just become another tool to exacerbate this disconnect that we have, this disproportionate inequality that we have between groups, between income levels, and that's again just an impact of the privatization of the industry. That's nothing to do with the geopolitical impacts. Countries in Africa or South America don't even have programs nearly as extensive as the US or India or China or Russia. I feel like 90% or 95% of the funding is into space, into the space. Industry worldwide is only done by a handful of countries. What about the other countries? Would they need visas to travel to space? Would their future generations um see themselves left on a stranded earth while the while the inhabitants of the us or other developed countries thrive in on mars or on the moon? These are just also questions we have to consider if we're going to go down this road wow, that's an interesting point.
Speaker 1:But do you think like how? You know we always find a way to what's luxury now becomes the need, probably two decades after. Like, for example, owning a car was a great deal two to three decades before. But then private companies enter. You know they find a way for everyone to get a car and show no profits. Obviously that's a win-win for, you know, normal people getting access to the luxurious stuff that existed then. Obviously that also means that new luxurious stuff is just going to be there. You know innovation is going to happen, but I think, like companies or people, the governments will find a way out there that will probably lower the costs of space travel.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, right, yeah mean eventually it will become more affordable and that's pretty far out there eventually. But yeah, especially with private companies entering into the mix, they would want to increase the profit margin, they would find ways to make it cheaper, they would find ways to reach out to a bigger target audience. But it's just, it's going to take some time. And that time, that time lag, isn't unlike the cars example that you brought up. That time lag of not having a car isn't that serious. But when you see that everyone, all the top leaders or the developed countries, are shifting abroad, they've kind of given up. On the earth. There's generations on the earth who are going to suffer and that's. That's not like you're not having a car, it's a. It's a real impact on on your life and your children's lives.
Speaker 4:Yeah, last point I might be slightly biased in this, but I don't think cheap space travel is that far out I think within by the 20, by 2030, we'll see a price tag of a couple thousand dollars is still quite a bit, but considering that your cheapest option to get a spacecraft into orbit right now is $300,000 through SpaceX's rideshare program, I think within the next six or seven years someone will come out hopefully us will come out that can make space more accessible, not just to companies but to university students who are excited about researching in space. I know that's a huge area. Usc has a CIRC program where we design CubeSats and I know that's a huge program, not just for university students but for high school students, because it's a very cheap and affordable way to build satellites. Then your barrier is the fact that launching one costs around 10 times what you spend actually building the thing. So I just think it's very, it's very soon and I think it'll be not just beneficial for commercial uses but for educational purposes too.
Speaker 3:That would be very cool.
Speaker 1:Honestly, yeah for commercial uses, but for educational purposes too. That would be very cool, honestly. Yeah, sounds great. I think everything that I wanted to talk about is already covered by all of your discussions. Do you have any more points to bring to the audience? That might be like something, because I think the main media isn't covering a lot of mass colonization, like right now it's been the AI game, as you know. I think we we have, I don't know, like uh, it's not in the mainstream, right, you get it like the focus on where we are leading towards the mass colonization, or probably the space thing. I haven't heard about it from like a couple of years now, the covid thing and then this hit. I think people aren't so much in sync with what's happening in the industry, except for NASA launching satellites, people just watching it. Could you throw a little bit more light about what's the recent developments where we are leading?
Speaker 4:I think the industry is just becoming more realistic. It's a matter of the fact that now that we've had some time to really assess our capabilities and evaluate those goals we set for ourselves like by 2030 we want to land on mars. I think it. I think, uh, spacex and musk said they wanted to get to mars earlier than that, maybe 10 years ago and now that we've had that time to actually develop this technology and you know, see, are those goals really realistic? Not really. So let's focus on this short-term stuff that might not seem as impressive like it's. It's much more exciting to go into new york to the wall street journal new york times say, like we're gonna colonize mars, uh, then we're gonna drop the cost of launching down by another eight percent this year. It's uh. Those more realistic moves don't gain as much attention.
Speaker 4:As much as cool as space is to the enthusiasts, a lot of stuff that people do might not be that, you know, uh, catching to the public like there's a lot of. There are a lot of uh, cool space missions being done right now. If you're an enthusiast, like um, for instance, varda space very recently, just um brought back the first ever product manufactured or, I guess, grown is the better term. In space, they had a drug on an in-orbit capsule. Uh, growing and developing. Um, because crystals grow in different, uh way in more, I think, more effective ways and zero gravity environments and their first time we've ever brought back a component manufactured in space. Um, but that's much uh, that's a much more enthusiast thing because varda was a startup up until that point and, um, there's a lot of cool stuff being a lot of cool stuff being done.
Speaker 4:If you are more of a space enthusiast, spacecom is a great place to finda lot of those more specific topics. Um, and you know, if you're just interested in learning more of the generals about industry, a lot of space futurists like to go on TEDx talk. There's an author I'd suggest anyone who's interested in the space industry takes a look at. His name is Peter Diamandis. He was the founder of the XPRIZE, the XPRIZE award, and he hosts a lot of conferences on the future of technology and it's more enthusiast driven. But there's a lot of cool stuff being done. So I just suggest everyone just give it a shot. There's a lot of cool stuff that might not be eye catching, but if you look into what it actually means, there's a lot of big stuff that's happening so sure.
Speaker 3:Sounds interesting. Yeah, I mean there's. There's nothing. He said that I couldn't afford better. Um, uh, it's super exciting the whole, the whole the idea of becoming interplanetary, the idea of of living someday not on earth, and that's how the when you were talking about mainstream media and how mainstream media covers this. I mean it's not not as much anymore because all we talk about is AI, and before that it was COVID, but in general it's, it's all a very positive thing, right, and I feel like we just need to bring a little nuance into the discourse, just a little bit of like oh, what if? Or a little bit of the ethical considerations of actually pursuing this dream. But once we do that, once we actually try to have these difficult conversations and involve as many countries as we can, and we come at this goal as a species and not as countries, not representing our individual kind of mini colonies, I think we're in for a pretty exciting future.
Speaker 4:I think what a big roadblocker is too. I don't know if you'll agree with me on this, but I think a big roadblocker is too the current figureheads we have in the industry. Oh, I do agree. Yes, you know, everyone thinks of elon musk, jeff bezos and when they think of the space industry.
Speaker 4:Those aren't really and no, no shade to be thrown, but those aren't really the figureheads of even even I can't uh humanitarianism. They're not, uh, you know they, they're billionaires. And the public perception of billionaires is, you know, they're just like money. So maybe if we had different people in that public sphere taking the limelight, we would have a much more positive light on the benefit of the space industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense, Like the highlight is pretty much oh, I mean, I mean they steal the limelight because they have better outreach and people who really are doing the work don't get much recognition as is. But okay, where do you feel AI is leading into the space regime?
Speaker 4:I know that AI is the gateway for a lot of mining techniques, because a lot of asteroid mining or lunar mining has to be done autonomously by robots. So artificial intelligence is huge there and it's also going to be big for more telescopes. I know someone who is I'm not sure if they'd like me to say their name, so I won't. I know someone who is particularly interested in smart telescopes, using AI to enhance our efficiency in detecting exoplanets and learning more about our universe, and I just think AI is going to be just a great way to enhance our efficiency and data collection. There's a lot of ways to make satellites more efficient, I think, with it.
Speaker 1:Makes sense. Nice, okay, I think we're done. Thank you so much. You've been a wonderful set of guests and this knowledge really contributes to all of our guests. You know insights on how space is mass colonization, ethical implications of the same. Thank you so much and have a great weekend.
Speaker 3:I love this conversation. Thank you again for having me Really nice to meet you.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having me too. It was a pleasure to meet you. Handshake real quick.
Speaker 3:Good luck with the thing.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you very much. Thanks. Please stay tuned for more content exploring ethical issues Again. I'm Aryan, I'm Deep.
Speaker 2:And I am Caden Harmony, and don't forget to check out our other podcasts and online magazines at vceuscedu. That's vceuscedu.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening.
