Welcome back to the weekly question show your questions my answers remember
wherever you are on my channel ask a question I will answer here alright
let's get started first couple of questions are going to come from our
patrons Allen Pomeroy we're finding out a lot about the physiological problems
associated with prolonged exposure of humans to zero gravity in the Mars movie
in 2001 they solved the zero gravity issue with large revolving habitats to
create artificial gravity how big would such an artificial gravity structure
have to be and how difficult expensive to assemble in space right to get some
kind of artificial gravity you need this rotating Space Station and the size of
which I mean none have ever been built but the size is on the order of tens of
meters the problem is is that if it's too small you get this weird effect
where your feet are moving at a different speed from your head and it
causes nausea so you want a station that's got a big enough size and you're
going to need say tens of meters to one hundred meters to really get something
that feels comfortable and so there's been a few ideas you could have like an
actual ring but you could also have like just something with a counterbalance so
on one side you've got the crew compartment and on the other side you've
got say the reactor and the two just go around and around and that provides that
counterbalance there are plans right now is the thing called the Nautilus X which
could put an actual rotating part onto the International Space Station and then
that could test these ideas I could astronauts say sleep in in full gravity
and in my opinion I think this is the next most important step that we need to
take with being able to live long duration space light we just solve the
microgravity problem and that's going to be some kind of rotating artificial
gravity space station and in the future they're going to be these great big
O'Neil cylinders with hundreds of thousands of people living in them and
they wouldn't even know that they weren't living on on earth Larry Beckham
I wonder baryonic matter is a component of dark matter if you have a cluster of
billions of small cold dark objects like rocks or even crystals of frozen gases
could you detected at the distance of the Galactic
halo could you have a cluster of unseen rocks inside the many parts explain the
gravitational effect is anyone looking to the possibility the dark matters that
makes it very onic and nonbaryonic matter yes absolutely
astronomers have definitely wondered is the missing mass the dark matter
actually just regular stuff that's just so far away that we can't see it maybe
it's black holes but there are the kinds of observations that you would detect
that would tell you if that stuff was actually stuff it would interact in ways
that dark matter just doesn't seem to interact you would see it as galaxies
collided you'd see this matter coming together heating up releasing radiation
and astronomers don't see that the dark matter just passes right through each
other and forms these gigantic clouds now that said there is some amount of
mad a regular baryonic matter that does appear to be missing and it's probably
that it's probably gas dust rocks material that just hasn't been added up
they sort of adds to the survey so it's like there's the matter that we know
what it is there's the stuff that we know is matter but we don't know what it
is but we know that it's out there and then there's dark matter which we don't
even know what it is mark if there an RSS feed specifically for the audio not
that I mind the videos just I listen while working and don't need the video
the old RSS link that I have is for video and is an updating so just for
mark and everyone else to know we actually release the audio and the video
of the guide to space and the question show maybe as an audio and video podcast
so if you like to watch stuff on YouTube you can do that if you like to get your
stuff via a podcast you can do that as well they're on you we'll put the link
here so you can see them I think it's used today slash feed slash audio and
then flush feed / video but go to those put them into your pod caching app and
then you'll get the newest episodes in either audio or video right onto your
mobile device reasonable comment what do you expect once you reach the
technological singularity in the next three
240 years for anyone who doesn't know the idea of the technological
singularity is that our technology is advancing so quickly that at some point
in the near or far future technology will increase at a exponential rate and
we will we kind of don't know what happens after that if you get faster and
faster technology who knows what's going to happen now is the technological
singularity going to happen or not I don't know a lot of people think that it
is a lot of people think that that's crazy my instinct my hunch by gas as a
person who likes to think about the future is that that there will be once
we give computers the ability to make computers better it is going to create a
sort of runaway increase in technology and will have a really hard time really
knowing what looks what it looks like on the other side of that will the
computers take over will they turn the entire planet earth into computron ium
and then colonize the entire Hubble sphere of the universe and it's just
computers in all directions and they don't need us anymore maybe will we
merge with our computers and form some kind of robot hybrid humanity that then
explores the universe maybe oh I don't think so I mean really why do they keep
you need to keep us around except because they're feeling nostalgic like
they like humans like we make great pets will we master the computers and keep
them under control and fly around the universe with our meat bodies even
though we're soft and fragile and prone to radiation and dying that does sound
like a great idea so I think if I think of all those possible options I kind of
think that the robots are going to take over and it can happen in 3040 years
maybe or maybe a 100 I think it's going to happen so what will we do hope they
like us as pets Gibson and Roberts would it be
theoretically possible to accelerate a spacecraft to save one tenth the speed
of light by slingshots around the planet in our solar system or is it only
possible for a black hole to do how we're doing this effect the solar system
as so much energy would have been used we did a whole episode about gravitation
slingshots and here's the short version is that you take a spaceship and you get
close to a large planet like say Jupiter as you fall towards Jupiter you are
falling in and out of Jupiter's gravity well and that cancels out you pull in
you fall out you get your gain speed you lose speed it's the same thing but the
whole point is Jupiter is going around the Sun and it has an orbital momentum
and as your spaceship falls into Jupiter's gravity Jupiter pulls your
spaceship up to its orbital speed going around the Sun now you steal a little
bit of Jupiter's womanís you actually lower its its orbit around the Sun and
you get a speed boost in theory you could keep doing this game more and more
speed boosts go faster and faster faster I don't you couldn't go the speed of
light although theoretically you could gather our almost unlimited amount of
energy from the planets but the problem is is that as you got closer and closer
to Jupiter you would have to skim through the cloud tops so there's kind
of a maximum speed the other problem is just the physics involved of going close
to those planets and really getting cranked around by their gravity as you
do this gravitational slingshot and to take it to that caught that extreme
caution you get that black hole you come in for a gravitational slingshot of a
black hole that's maybe orbiting the center of the Milky Way and you're going
to get cranked in this really tight radius and what kind of spaceship could
go from zero to a significant portion of the speed of light in that in that one
slingshot so so the gravitational slingshots are really going to be used
by us to increase our speed within the solar system but not necessarily to go
to the kinds of speeds that would get you from star to star Rubik an one if
NASA offers you a three-month journey the ISS would you take it uh yeah if I
could get three months that's a long time like two weeks that would be cool I
would do that three months sure if you could promise to me that it was safe and
I would have some interesting science to do I would I would do a
three-month journeys ISS longer than that probably not like Earth Day is
great space is scary and dangerous and I really appreciate the sacrifices made by
the astronauts to go and help us explore and understand space but but I I would
go there for vacation or to check it out or like go to the surface of Mars
briefly but I still want to come back to earth it's excellent
buzzing oh damn er why don't you even episode of the beach instead of trees in
the background I don't know something different that is a great question
let me explain we shoot here in the forest because the light is generally
fairly even and blocked let's see by can you get there
blocked by some there's a tree there that's blocking the sunlight on me so so
we try to maintain the amount of light that we have the other part is if you
have like the beach you've got this really bright area behind you and it's
really hard to kind of luminate me compared to the beach getting blinded
here again the other problem is that when you're at the beach there's a lot
of wind so the wind blows in and hits the microphone though this is fun
so that's a problem I lost mine blue socks on the microphone anyway um and
then the other thing is when you're the beach people walk by and they're like
what are you doing and you're like we're shooting video about space like I love
space you know like I know me too but we're doing a video right now and they
want to talk about space so so we need places and we don't shoot inside because
it's actually harder to light inside you've seen some videos that I've done
where I shoot it you shoot inside and they kind of suck maybe because we're
not great at it so much time out in the forest but but the thing is that just
you know we like the outside lights more even to get to it's quicker and easier
for us to set up out here and it's kind of pretty right so we've if you kind of
go back we have we have shot at the beach we've actually shot up in the
mountains one time sometimes we shoot inside some of the shooting
back yard but this is like maybe we're like just super lazy at this point this
is like the place that we can shoot that we know how to do and everything is
dependable and it allows us to make these videos without really being
frustrated by all of the difficulties of shooting so that's why we do it
user WL twenty eight fifty question Fraser what's your thoughts on China
getting to Mars first maybe teaming up with Russia how advanced is China's
space program China space program is not as advanced as the United States program
or the Russian space program both have had tremendous experience in sending
humans to space that said China is single-mindedly moving towards their
human space exploration program so well Pratt it looks like the American program
is kind of like we're going to do the Orion and then we're gonna do the
constellation we're going to change your mind we're going to see an asteroid
coming out of the Mars or back to the moon
China is we're doing this then we're doing that then we're doing this then
we're doing that and we don't even know what the plans are but they sent up an
astronaut they send a multiple astronauts they send up a Space Station
they put people on the space station they put a rover on the moon they send a
mission past the moon their plans are probably to send humans to the moon and
so will they be the next people to set foot on the moon I wouldn't be surprised
if the next people to walk on the moon are the Chinese well the Russians help
them probably not the Russians provided a lot of their technology for the
Chinese to make their initial capsules and a lot of the way the Rockets work
but the Russians have their own plans for for how they're planning to send
people further and further into space so yeah I wouldn't be surprised
Glock fan 1990 what would happen if a human came in contact with dark matter
sorry for the stupid question not a stupid question it's a great question
watch out Dark Matters everywhere probably nothing in fact you could be
having Dark Matter streaming through your body right now
a good example of something that's like this is neutrinos right there are
neutrinos streaming from the Sun in vast quantities and they are all passing
right through your body right now and they have no impact
whatsoever that you could fire neutrinos through a Lightyear of solid lead and it
would probably make its way through it so dark matter
you know astronomers say the dark matter has a very low cross section right so
it's like how big is the particle of dark matter and the thinking is that the
particle is incredibly small like neutrinos small or smaller and so dark
matter would just pass through your body and you wouldn't even experience it and
you could very well have it going to your body right now
or maybe it's clumped up in other places but the point is is that what we can
tell it doesn't interact in any way shape or form with regular matter Nico's
mine what do think of the ISS I've heard scientists call it international pork
and Freeman Dyson was hired with the board of scientists looking to IFS and
the experiments on it out of the 46 projects they deemed 44 to be better
done on earth or off the IFS too much noise the only experiments they deemed
the ISS was needed for was to humans in space experiments I have mixed feelings
about the International Space Station on the one hand it is the most complicated
vehicle thing that humanity has ever built and so to build the most complex
machine is a tremendous accomplishment and to put this thing in space that is
like just doing it is worthy of doing it right and at the same time it is just a
perfect example of international collaboration the Russians the Americans
the Canadian the British have you know many many many other countries of
Brazilians like so many other countries that helped build parts for the
International Space Station and astronauts from different countries in
the world have staffed onboard so that feels like like the Federation from Star
Trek like countries coming together building this thing being up there in
space now is it the most efficient thing that could be built in space well no
probably not but then sometimes you can just kind of never know what's the most
efficient thing until you build a thing and realize that that was the most
efficient thing so there are experiments that have been done that could be done
there's more experiments going up all the time to the station some of them are
a good idea some of them are a bad idea but I'm really glad that they're being
done good money be usable effectively than the International Space
Station maybe but chances are that other thing would run into cost overruns and
would have would people would realize that it was wasn't as good of an idea as
they thought at the time and needed tweak it like like that's that's
discovery that's advance and that's curiosity that's pushing your
capabilities further than they are today I think there are a lot of really
complicated unsolved questions in space exploration that that it's time to go to
next right we know that humans can go around and around the earth can he go
around around the earth further can we figure out a way to deal with the
radiation in space can we create artificial gravity in some kind of
rotating cylinder like these are the next steps and so I'm really a fan of of
just taking what's been done so far and just pushing it more and more into the
future so if we never go any further the International Space Station then I'd be
super disappointed but I see it as a stepping stone into what we're doing
next and a tremendous accomplishment for humankind so I I'm not I don't see what
people are so down on the space station right like it cost a lot of money but
not as much as war black hole could there be a chain of l4 l5 points like
the planet is at zero degrees planet B is in Planet al four point Plenty is at
the planet please l four point etc right the idea of mcgraw joints is that there
are these places where the gravity forces balance out so you could have say
the Sun and the earth and in between them there's a little dissolve different
Lagrange points l4 and the l5 points are the ones that go before and after in
sort of on a planet's orbit and they are stable which means that if you put
something in New York in that place it will tend to return back to that place
with no additional energy the deal with the Lagrange points though is that you
need to have two objects of mass and then the little garage point you can
have a thing that is essentially of zero mass or close to zero mass in other
words a tiny asteroid or a saddle it has to be negligible as compared to the
objects that are creating the LaGrant so a space station or an asteroid that's
fine a hole in it then it can act like a Lagrangian
anymore now could you set up a bunch of stable stable orbits where they're all
in sort of perfect position from each other orbiting around the Sun maybe but
chances are they're going to start to slightly drift around and clump up and
gnash into each other and explode and everybody dies so so that would be the
kind of the reality I guess theoretically you could keep things in
in place from each other who you rastenn hey Perez I got a question we go in any
direction in space and go for billions of years or the speed near that of light
we eventually get back to where we started it all depends on whether the
universe is infinite or finite if the universe is infinite if it goes on
forever than the answer is no you go in any one direction you just keep going
forever and ever and ever never for infinity and you never return if the
universe is finite then the answer is maybe that if you go in any one
direction on earth for example you return to your starting point and if the
universe is finite then in any one direction you go you would return to
your starting point and so it's kind of crazy where you you know you look in
that direction you could see the back of your head from
that direction but we don't know whether the universe is finite or infinite but
that's one of the implications of a finite universe well thanks everyone for
your questions that was awesome as always I had a lot of fun once again if
you are watching videos anywhere go ahead put in a question on any one of my
videos and I will find a bunch of them and answer them here as I did last time
I put together a playlist of cool space astronomy science videos that I've been
watching the last little while so you can kind of see what I'm watching and
that starts right here thanks forever
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