*singing* We'll rant and we'll roar like true Moooon Landers!
Hey you rantin' and roarin' Moon Landers! Trace here and we have spent three
episodes talking about why we might want to leave this cradle of humanity. We
talked about how we're not great at rockets, how Mars might not be, 'The Way,'
but what about The Moon? The moon is harsh, dead, and silent. It's not a place
that you can just run around and have a good time let's move there we got a lot
more to talk about. Let's kick into it!
We hit the moon in 1969 we were so excited like as a planet as a species it
was the first time that all of us felt like we did something together I feel
like the movies made it seem like the astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil
Armstrong landed and hopped right out to explore but that is not how it happened
y'all in real life they landed at 4:17 p.m. Eastern time on a Sunday and they
did not leave the lunar module until almost 11 p.m. they were inside that
spacecraft on the moon on the ground for 6 hours and 39 minutes which honestly
probably felt like forever in the movies it seems like they landed and he hops
right out and he's all like climbing down the ladder but in reality they just
got to look out the windows for over six hours China India Europe the US Russia
we all have space programs there are other countries that have space programs
too but these specifically have said they want a moon presence and they're
working on it some have already been there
it's just when we go we usually don't stay that long and as we know space is
trying to kill us or more specifically more accurately
there's no rule that says space shouldn't kill us just because we want
to go doesn't mean the rules of the universe will allow us to go there's no
rule that we should get to explore space it's not purely about getting there it's
also understanding what happens to our bodies when we live there so living on
the moon actually living there not just visiting that's a big deal luckily again
the National Research Council looked into this too there's so many benefits
to living on the moon there's astrobiology astronomy and astrophysics
heliophysics which is the fancy term for studying the Sun you can see how the Sun
works you can study the solar wind you don't have an atmosphere in the way to
stop it so you can really study every aspect of it speaking of you can
study stars you can see stars on the moon so much better than you can see
them here on earth because there's not an atmosphere their stars they don't
twinkle in space they're little teeny Suns the Sun doesn't twinkle when we're
up close to it right stars twinkle because of the atmosphere on the moon
there's no filtering not to mention on the moon without air and wind and water
to erode the surface we can see right there laid bare how the solar system
formed you don't even have to dig not on the moon it's amazing the surface of the
Moon has not changed since the lava stopped flowing or asteroid had last
impacted you can study asteroid impacts plus earth science you can see the earth
and watch it long-term it's always right there which means we gotta go back right
hey it's Ariel here again going back to the moon certainly is something that's
possible but it would require a lot more funding than NASA is currently being
given there are so many ways of thinking about surviving on the Moon or Mars or
just really anywhere off of the earth and this is actually the thing that
always gives me personally pause about if I would ever want to go into space or
not because there are some health considerations that are permanent
some people might know a lot of the astronauts you know go up and they lose
muscle and bone density some of that comes back but some of that bone density
some is lost forever not all of it gets built back also
astronauts on the International Space Station some of them have their eye
shape forever for lack of a better term d-formed in a way where they require
having glasses for the rest of their life when they come back on earth even
though they went into space with perfect vision we still don't fully understand
why that happens and why that happens to some astronauts and not others but there
are ways to avoid some of these problems for example living underground the moon
was formed by a great impact a giant thing hit the earth and it's spun off a
huge mass that became the moon's called Theia volcanic eruptions asteroid
impacts in the early solar system all of these things affected the moon early on
and some really incredible stuff lava flows on the moon eventually cooled and
left behind these giant caves lava tubes we have them here on earth as well and
some scientists believe that is where we should set up our lunar
base in lava tubes I love lava tubes in fact I've worked on
lava tubes we now know of over 300 caves and pits on the moon and possibly
something that's in excess of that on Mars so these cavities are interesting
because once you have a cave and that's fascinating because now all of a sudden
you have access to an environment it's very different from what you have at the
surface on earth when we think of lava tubes on volcanoes and all this I mean
it's not like all of a sudden it's a game changer for Volcanology but on the
moon the cave are places that are gonna be much more sheltered from the external
hazards than the surface itself so from the standpoint of biology a cave is a
really exciting environment on the Moon and Mars because you are shielded from
high-energy ionizing radiation from deep space and from the Sun you are also
shielded from micro meteorite impacts from the ultraviolet light you are also
sheltered from dust the trouble with the whole idea of sort of occupying one of
these underground shelters is that first of all lava tubes are not very stable
environments I mean they are the result of the dramatic cooling of lava and so
by definition a very heavily fractured and then on the moon and/or Mars it
being pounded by impacts they're prone to collapse they're already prone to
collapse on the earth it's gonna be even worse on the moon so they're they're
unstable the terrain is very rough they often are have very weird configurations
and it's not like it's a clean subway tunnel some of them are like that but
most of them are not and it's gonna take quite a bit of remodeling to actually
move in to a lava tube unless you are particularly lucky in finding one that
sort of you know almost ready to move in it's sort of jules verne asked to
envision that somehow we would just occupy underground lava tubes and
networks on the moon okay just to be protected from radiation to me the the
fascinating thing about exploring caves on the moon is to go to the ones that
are near the poles and we actually identified a few candidates that we hope
to confirm in the years okay so no lava tubes but it's almost
like the moon wants us to live there I mean relative to other planets there
are poles and potentially water there there's water in moon craters that never
sees the Sun so it's just water ice waiting for us to harvest it the lunar
regolith has in it something called ilmenite which is iron titanium and
oxygen and together that is bad but if you break it up with hydrogen gas at
about a thousand Celsius you can take the oxygen and it creates water vapor
with the hydrogen gas then you add a bit of electricity a little electrolysis
break that water apart we're really good at that you get breathable oxygen with
local stuff that you can get right out of a soil of the moon regolith is also
good as a building material there are scientists who have recommended using
giant lenses to focus the powerful sunlight on the moon you use that to
create heat to bond soil together you just build bricks and heat them up with
solar energy if you use robots to build these bricks you could build a structure
out of them ten thousand bricks equals like one igloo a moon blue mooyah
grandma outside the moon blue you could build greenhouses and using lunar
regolith studies have shown that tomatoes and wheat could grow right in
the lunar soil naturally this is according to a German study nature.com
wrote about how a semi-permanent settlement might exist on the moon by
2030 using current technologies Lynn Rothschild this same researcher has also
developed things about like living in domes she also has a concept for using
fungi to build bricks on Mars so a way of having fungi that you could then feed
and develop your bricks for your domes or your habitations or little labs using
fungi so she is just like a wealth of amazing ideas for humans to be able to
survive on other planets and other moons the National Research Council plus-ones
all of this stuff they say this is all possible we can do it ensure the moon is
not safe from impacts but hey there's the earth so the moon is actually an OK
spot it's close enough that we can get there and we can come back easily it's
great for research we can look at the moon we can
look at the solar system we can look at the earth all from that vantage point
and yeah of course based on our original discussions of survivability this might
not save the species if the Sun burns out but asteroids the moon will be fine
and it does fulfill curiosity and the desire to explore and just the inability
for us to stay here for any length of time this is the first big step it also
helps us with climate destruction because we can use the resources of the
moon and bring them back we can also get to asteroids from there so living there
permanently maybe not so much do we still have the same problems with
radiation we still have the same problems with solar wind but if we're
living in caves underneath the moon's surface and just going outside for here
and there for a little bit that's pretty great we could camp out on the moon for
a while right Apollo 8 was tasked with flying around the moon over Christmas
holidays in 1968 it was a huge success they spent 20 hours circling the moon
and one orbit on the way heading back from the far side of the Moon the earth
came up over the horizon and astronaut Bill Anders grabbed his Hasselblad film
camera and clicked a bunch of shots it was Christmas Eve look at that picture
over there hey I'll take that schedule
Mei roller color oh man that's correct Ruby quick make similar trouble up here
get a condom huh I got it alright the beautiful shot this
is an earth selfie taken by earthlings of course this photo has been edited a
little bit by NASA to crop in and make the color a little better they actually
took it as Earth was coming up sideways from their view as they were flying
around the moon and it was very far away according to Anders but that doesn't
mean that it's not powerful living on the moon is possible living on the moon
is something that we can do with technology of today the thing that is
stopping us is not breakthrough technology the thing that is stopping us
is willpower we can do it should we let me know what you think this was episode
4 of 5 on living in space on leaving Earth on becoming multiplanetary tell me
what you think down in the comments send me a tweet come find me on Instagram I
love everyone watching this thank you for your comments so far I'm so excited
again one more episode to go make sure you subscribe I'm trace and I'll see you
in the future