Latest / The Fourcast / ‘Even worse than you imagine’ - what Artemis II launch was really about

Transcript

‘Even worse than you imagine’ - what Artemis II launch was really about · The Fourcast

• 0:00
  The universe is literally infinite.
• 0:03
  This story will only go on and on, you know, throughout the
• 0:06
  21st century and beyond. You know, hopefully we don't
• 0:09
  completely blow up the planet by then.
• 0:12
  It is the next gold rush. In some ways, the pace of
• 0:15
  development, the pace that the commercial companies are moving
• 0:19
  at is far beyond the regulation that we've.
• 0:22
  Got Should we be worried about the militarisation of Space I?
• 0:25
  Think we should be cautious about it and worried about.
• 0:28
  It the next stop, we're told, is Mars.
• 0:32
  Is that realistic? I think so.
• 0:34
  Of course it is. Hello, welcome to the forecast.
• 0:41
  NASA's Artemis 2 mission has blasted off to the moon with the
• 0:44
  familiar rhetoric of exploration and human achievement.
• 0:47
  It is the first crude voyage out of low Earth orbit in more than
• 0:51
  half a century. But behind all the celebrations,
• 0:54
  another story is taking shape. The modern space race is a high
• 0:59
  stakes contest for military, economic and technological
• 1:02
  dominance. Back here on Earth, it's a
• 1:04
  contest where whoever controls orbit controls everything below.
• 1:08
  So does Artemis tell us about this contest, about the
• 1:12
  collision of scientific aspiration and strategic
• 1:14
  military rivalry and economic leverage?
• 1:17
  How are the world's governments, militaries and increasingly
• 1:19
  private companies shaping this orbital order?
• 1:23
  To discuss all of this is Libby Jackson, Head of Space at London
• 1:27
  Science Museum, formerly Head of Space exploration at the UK
• 1:30
  Space Agency, and Gabriel LF Terriu, who's the Senior
• 1:34
  Research Fellow in space Power at the Council on Geostrategy.
• 1:38
  His works on defence, the space policy and the global space
• 1:41
  power balance welcome both of you to the forecast.
• 1:45
  So we'll come to all the pomp and the ceremony and the
• 1:47
  celebration. And this is a celebration of
• 1:50
  scientific and engineering success.
• 1:54
  But what's really going on? Is this in fact, about power and
• 2:00
  control? It's a new chapter, Space
• 2:03
  Exploration. It's always about a number of
• 2:06
  things. There's always a geopolitical
• 2:08
  part of it. It's often the strongest.
• 2:10
  There is always a drive around straightforward exploration.
• 2:14
  Space agencies want to do things, they need a new
• 2:17
  challenge and this is the next chapter.
• 2:19
  There's scientific benefit, there's technological aims, but
• 2:23
  in the end, really the the driver, the fuel of all that
• 2:27
  fire at the moment certainly is China saying they are going to
• 2:30
  get astronauts back on the moon by 2030 and the US not wanting
• 2:35
  to cede that ground. And, and the US has said the
• 2:38
  Artemis project is largely around getting people to Mars.
• 2:45
  But before they do that, they want a base on the moon.
• 2:49
  So just talk us through Libby, what on Earth or what on the
• 2:53
  moon does setting up a moon base involve?
• 2:56
  The Moon is a relatively close neighbor to us.
• 3:00
  It's certainly much easier to explore and to learn to live and
• 3:03
  work on the Mars. So that's why it's the stepping
• 3:05
  stone to Mars. Since, well, since the last moon
• 3:10
  landings really, in the 60s and 70s, we humanity have learnt to
• 3:14
  live and work in low Earth orbit.
• 3:17
  We have had humans on the on the International Space Station
• 3:20
  continuously since 2000, and in that space we have learnt to
• 3:26
  keep humans alive in tin cans, supported by solar power with
• 3:30
  the recycling. We've done fantastic science and
• 3:34
  we're starting to figure out how to develop advanced materials,
• 3:38
  new pharmaceuticals, and we'll see a commercial aim part arrive
• 3:41
  in low Earth orbit. When you look at the moon, it
• 3:45
  has much of the same challenges as low Earth orbit, but you are
• 3:49
  outside the protection of the Earth's magnetic field.
• 3:53
  The solar wind that blasts from the sun every day bounces off,
• 3:58
  more or less. So it's much, much more exposed.
• 4:01
  It's a it's a much more extreme environment.
• 4:03
  Much more extreme environment. And so that's where you will
• 4:06
  have this collection of vehicles of of habitats probably at the
• 4:11
  South Pole. Humans will crew will probably
• 4:15
  go there for 30-60 days at a time.
• 4:18
  It won't be like the International Space Station.
• 4:20
  It will be more occasional than that, I think.
• 4:24
  But the Nasser have said the long term aim is a base that
• 4:28
  will have maybe 4-6 people, a Rover, a scientific experiments
• 4:34
  and and sort of prospecting for resources.
• 4:38
  Given the the Apollo missions, we did a version of this 55
• 4:45
  years ago. Technologically, what has
• 4:48
  changed since then? What, what?
• 4:50
  What can we do now that we couldn't do before?
• 4:52
  Apollo was a Sprint and it was a very expensive Sprint to prove
• 4:56
  the point that the US were better than at the time of the
• 4:58
  Soviet Union. And with hindsight, you look
• 5:02
  back and I find it amazing the technology that was developed.
• 5:05
  We went from never having put a human in space in 1961 to
• 5:09
  landing on the moon eight years later.
• 5:11
  Phenomenal investment. The physics has stayed the same,
• 5:15
  the Rockets look the same, the spacecraft look more or less the
• 5:18
  same. But our technology has moved on.
• 5:21
  We've got better propulsion, we've got better science and so
• 5:25
  on. But I would argue in in many
• 5:28
  ways, really what's changed is that we've just got much more
• 5:31
  knowledge about how to live and work in space, and that will
• 5:35
  translate into being able to keep people alive more
• 5:38
  effectively on the surface of the moon.
• 5:40
  And it is the geopolitical landscape that has also shifted.
• 5:45
  And we're recording this on the very first day of the mission.
• 5:51
  Safety and and indeed just the kind of mundanity of being in
• 5:55
  space is also a massive part of this because one of the problems
• 5:58
  that they had to deal with early in the mission, early today was
• 6:03
  a a warning light in the on board toilet.
• 6:08
  That's not something you want to see on day one, is it?
• 6:10
  Absolutely not. It's the toilet is one of the
• 6:14
  most critical functions. Even on the International Space
• 6:16
  Station. When the toilet breaks,
• 6:18
  everything stops and you fix it. But I have to say that there was
• 6:21
  no toilet on the Apollo missions back then.
• 6:23
  So this in itself is a technological leap.
• 6:26
  They will have the facilities in the in their minivan size
• 6:30
  spacecraft of of a little bit of privacy for the toilet.
• 6:33
  There was a fan that was not working.
• 6:36
  It has been fixed and everyone sense really, but this is the
• 6:38
  point of the mission. It's the first time that humans
• 6:41
  have flown the spacecraft, the first time they've been on top
• 6:43
  of the rocket. It is a test mission.
• 6:44
  It's about shaking down these systems that have been designed,
• 6:47
  that have been. Will they work?
• 6:49
  When you can't feel the effects of gravity, it's easy to test
• 6:52
  things on the ground. You want to see if they work in
• 6:54
  space. Gabriel, we talked a little bit
• 6:56
  about technologically what has changed since the Apollo
• 7:01
  missions in 72. But what about the rules and
• 7:05
  regulations that govern how we as humans and how nations
• 7:12
  operate in space? Give us, give us the quick
• 7:15
  lowdown on that. Well, on that specific point, I
• 7:17
  would say that there hasn't, again, you know, there hasn't
• 7:19
  been that much change because the, the, the Foundation for
• 7:24
  space law remains the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which in
• 7:30
  in some respects is a good thing because everyone agrees with
• 7:34
  that. Is it?
• 7:34
  It is recognized by everyone, It's signed by everyone.
• 7:37
  But in other respects, of course, you know, the world has
• 7:41
  moved on, politics has changed, the coal war has stopped and
• 7:45
  there are many more actors now active in, in, in the space
• 7:49
  domain. So in in some ways the treaty's
• 7:53
  showing it's it's limits. But otherwise, broadly speaking,
• 7:57
  from a regulatory point of view, we are relatively in the same
• 8:02
  sort of general legal framework. I would say the other main thing
• 8:08
  that has changed is the role of the commercial sector now
• 8:15
  compared to what we saw in in in in the Cold War, the first base
• 8:20
  race was really a government affair.
• 8:23
  These were big government programs only.
• 8:27
  You know, space activity in general was a government
• 8:30
  activity. But now, as we all know, some of
• 8:35
  the most exciting sort of space sort of achievements and and
• 8:42
  technology is coming really from the private sector, obviously
• 8:46
  SpaceX and so on and the follow on missions for for the Artemis
• 8:51
  program for the entire, you know, development of of the moon
• 8:55
  rely heavily on commercially provided systems, including
• 9:02
  Starship and, and so. On let's do the detail on, on
• 9:05
  the commercial aspects of space exploration in a minute.
• 9:07
  But but if we can just stick for a moment and dig a little bit
• 9:10
  deeper into the into the current framework and guidelines around
• 9:17
  who, for example, owns the moon, what you, what can you, what can
• 9:22
  you do and what can you not do with regard, for example, to
• 9:26
  military exploration or trying to set up any kind of military
• 9:30
  facility on the moon. So no one can really own the
• 9:35
  moon. So you can't have, you can't
• 9:38
  declare sovereignty rights on the moon.
• 9:41
  In that sense, the United States is obviously leading the Artemis
• 9:46
  Accords, which is a new legal framework that they're getting
• 9:49
  many countries to sign up to it. About more than 60 countries now
• 9:53
  signed up to it, which is designed to set new rules for
• 9:57
  exactly how lunar activity, how activity will actually unfold on
• 10:03
  the moon and what rules are in place in terms of, for example,
• 10:07
  safety zones around the places where people set their bases,
• 10:12
  where they land and so on. So there is that aspect of being
• 10:16
  first in order to set the standards and, you know, set the
• 10:23
  modes of operation and behaviour that then become, you know,
• 10:29
  yeah, norms and and become customary law perhaps in in in
• 10:34
  the future. But one is allowed to exploit
• 10:38
  the moon, for example, for potential minerals.
• 10:40
  Space resources are available for exploitation.
• 10:45
  So exploration and exploitation. This is why we have, you know,
• 10:51
  one of the big sort of forecasted business cases for
• 10:58
  space activities, for example, asteroid mining, right?
• 11:01
  So the idea that in in in the future, we'll be able to mine,
• 11:06
  you know, very, very sort of valuable pieces of rock that
• 11:10
  contain, you know, gold and other, other metals flying
• 11:16
  around in space. So there is no legal impediment
• 11:21
  to doing that if you can. Libby, what is it that we think
• 11:26
  might be on the moon that may be so valuable and not not least
• 11:30
  the vast or we think vast water deposits that can then be broken
• 11:36
  down to potentially hydrogen fuel and oxygen, of course.
• 11:41
  Yeah. So those water deposits are
• 11:43
  potentially useful to people who are on the moon or or activity
• 11:47
  on the moon. But there are also identified
• 11:49
  resources that could potentially be useful to everybody back on
• 11:53
  Earth. And there's two main categories.
• 11:55
  There are the rare earth minerals, which exist on Earth
• 11:59
  and actually aren't that rare on Earth, despite their name.
• 12:02
  These are the materials like lithium, which are so important
• 12:07
  to all of the technology that we use every day.
• 12:10
  A lot of those are controlled by China.
• 12:12
  They're barely environmentally destructive to mine.
• 12:16
  And China is one of the places where they're sort of prepared
• 12:19
  to to do that. And so some people see that A,
• 12:22
  we might run out of these one day.
• 12:24
  B, we need a competing different resource if if China got a
• 12:28
  whole, all of them. And so potentially we could mine
• 12:31
  those on the moon and bring them back.
• 12:33
  The other one is something called helium 3.
• 12:36
  Now helium 3 is a form of helium that doesn't exist naturally
• 12:40
  here on Earth. But thanks to the solar wind
• 12:43
  that blasts out from the sun and say we are protected from from
• 12:46
  those magnetic fields, but it bombards the moon, which has no
• 12:49
  magnetic field. And the particles get trapped in
• 12:53
  the lunar regolith in the soil. And that's where helium 3
• 12:57
  accumulates. And there are companies now who
• 13:00
  see that they think their hair is a business case potentially
• 13:02
  for mining the regolith, extracting that helium 3 and
• 13:05
  returning it to Earth where it could be used for nuclear fusion
• 13:09
  power. Now this is all pretty far
• 13:11
  fetched and so on. And I have a there's a lot of
• 13:13
  questions over will the business cases stack up?
• 13:16
  What state would the Earth be in when we are prepared to pay?
• 13:20
  And it's worth the time and the effort and the money and the
• 13:22
  resources to bring all these things back from the moon.
• 13:25
  But these are the markets that some people see could be worth
• 13:29
  something one day and are prepared to invest in today.
• 13:31
  In other words, whoever controls the spice controls the universe,
• 13:35
  as as a famous book once said. It is.
• 13:37
  It is the next Gold Rush in some ways.
• 13:39
  You mentioned China there for both of you.
• 13:44
  China of course recently also went to the the dark side or the
• 13:49
  far side of the moon, not as a not as a a crude mission, but an
• 13:55
  uncrewed mission, brought samples back as well.
• 13:59
  What is China going to be thinking as they see NASA, ergo
• 14:04
  USA, even though it is a somewhat multinational crew, the
• 14:08
  Canadian mission specialist? What is China going to be
• 14:11
  thinking when they see Artemis achieving something that that
• 14:15
  that hasn't been achieved before, assuming everything goes
• 14:18
  well? I don't think China will be
• 14:19
  particularly concerned. They have a clear long term
• 14:23
  plan. They've been ticking off their
• 14:26
  milestones one by one. They were the first country to
• 14:29
  return samples from the far side of the moon.
• 14:32
  They are getting on and now preparing for their TN when 3
• 14:35
  mission. Their Mars Sample Return
• 14:37
  mission, the US international collaboration Mars Sample Return
• 14:40
  has sort of fallen flat through over expenses and and doesn't
• 14:44
  look like it's going to go anywhere.
• 14:46
  They've very quietly got on and developed human Space Flight.
• 14:51
  They have their own space station.
• 14:52
  They are taking a crew to and from orbit.
• 14:56
  And I think they're just gonna get on with it.
• 14:58
  And they've said they will land tiger knots on the moon by
• 15:01
  20-30. And based on their past
• 15:05
  performance and their current progress, I think there's a lot
• 15:07
  of people out there who would expect them to meet that goal.
• 15:10
  So Gabriel, not necessarily so much of A space race then
• 15:14
  they're just going at it at their own trajectory.
• 15:17
  I, I, I think that's broadly correct.
• 15:19
  The Chinese do operate on very well thought out and laid out
• 15:25
  plans as Libby was saying, You know, they, they put out their
• 15:30
  milestones, they are very disciplined in, in meeting them,
• 15:35
  in working through each, each stage as required in funding,
• 15:39
  funding these these milestones and so on.
• 15:43
  It may not be a, a race per SE as it was in the Cold War
• 15:47
  because the situation is also different.
• 15:50
  There isn't the same sort of ideological competition at the
• 15:53
  moment between China and the United States, but there is a
• 15:58
  geopolitical competition. So perhaps it's a space
• 16:02
  competition rather than a space race.
• 16:04
  But certainly the Chinese have a major ambition as part of their
• 16:10
  grand strategy for their nation to become the pre eminent space
• 16:15
  power. So they want to get ahead of the
• 16:18
  United States by around 2049 when it's obviously the big
• 16:23
  anniversary of the Chinese people, People's Republic.
• 16:27
  So they've got these, these benchmarks and space in, in the
• 16:33
  Chinese thinking and strategy and, and policy, and indeed in
• 16:37
  the political landscape, in the national landscape as well, has,
• 16:41
  you know, a, a foundational role in terms of benchmarking their
• 16:48
  own development as a nation. And they also see it as a again,
• 16:53
  like as a strategic challenge. So this is about science, it's
• 16:56
  about politics is about the culture and sending those
• 17:01
  messages of increasing Chinese prestige and competence and so
• 17:04
  on. But it's also about, you know,
• 17:07
  just just hard power and increasing Chinese strategic
• 17:13
  advantage in this open-ended space competition.
• 17:17
  There's there's clearly a huge amount of national pride wrapped
• 17:20
  up in space exploration. Where is Russia in this?
• 17:24
  Russia really nowhere at the moment.
• 17:27
  They have long passed their their heyday, the mere space
• 17:31
  station was there. It was a jewel in the crown.
• 17:34
  In in the 80s and the 90s they joined with the US, the
• 17:37
  International Space Station. But they've had other priorities
• 17:41
  at home. The the war really has decimated
• 17:43
  their funding and they are still getting their crew to and from
• 17:47
  the International Space Station. Even in this, this world of
• 17:50
  conflict, the US and Russia have to work together because the
• 17:53
  International Space Station is an interconnected vehicle and
• 17:57
  their options are work together to deorbit it or work together
• 18:00
  to keep it inspected. They have to work together.
• 18:04
  So they they are servicing that. But so there's no real
• 18:09
  improvement or or sort of ambition.
• 18:12
  They have said they would join with China in the proposed lunar
• 18:16
  research station that China are leading, but I haven't seen any
• 18:19
  real evidence that they've got the resources or the time to to
• 18:23
  really play their part significantly in that at the
• 18:26
  moment. And Libby, what about Europe?
• 18:29
  What about the ESA where you used to work?
• 18:31
  And indeed the UK, which is still part of visa, but Brexit
• 18:37
  kind of helped the UK space industry.
• 18:39
  The UK has always been a member of the European Space Agency.
• 18:43
  It was a founding member and it's really important that the
• 18:46
  to know that the European Space Agency is not an EU
• 18:49
  organization. So Brexit from that point of
• 18:51
  view left us in there. Certainly the changes to the
• 18:54
  trading relationship and the economic conditions have played
• 18:58
  their part and have been a detriment to the space industry,
• 19:02
  I think arguably as they have been fit for many other
• 19:04
  industries. But the European Space Agency is
• 19:07
  involved in this Artemis 2 flight.
• 19:10
  The Orion spacecraft there's on top of the rocket that the crew
• 19:14
  are flying in is powered, is supported by the European Space
• 19:17
  Agency's European Service Module, which is the part
• 19:21
  underneath. It's got the solar arrays, it
• 19:22
  has the oxygen tanks, it's got the rocket engines which are
• 19:26
  going to set the spacecraft on course for the moon.
• 19:30
  So ESA are playing a key role. They partnered with NASA in the
• 19:33
  Lunar Gateway, a space station that was going to orbit the moon
• 19:37
  that that NASA have paused for now.
• 19:40
  So I think relations are strained in some ways between
• 19:43
  NASA and ESA, but ESA are forging ahead and the member
• 19:48
  states are really clear in some ways that they have to have
• 19:50
  their own autonomy. They're developing the Argonaut
• 19:54
  Lander, a cargo Lander that will land cargo on the moon as part
• 19:59
  of that sort of lunar base, we expect.
• 20:01
  And the UK is playing a key role in that through propulsion
• 20:04
  systems. And we see in the UK great
• 20:06
  contributions to the scientific endeavours.
• 20:08
  Notwithstanding the European European Space Agency's crucial
• 20:13
  role in Artemis, it it would seem from the outside that this
• 20:17
  is kind of A2 horse NASA, China race when it comes to the Moon,
• 20:24
  When it comes to Mars, who's going to win?
• 20:27
  That's true. Well, this is what I was going
• 20:30
  to say earlier when we were talking about the space
• 20:35
  competition that that it is an open-ended space competition.
• 20:39
  The universe is literally infinite.
• 20:42
  So there is a lot to explore out there.
• 20:45
  This story will only go on and on, you know, throughout the
• 20:50
  21st century and beyond. You know, hopefully we don't
• 20:53
  completely blow up the planet by then and we'll still be in this
• 20:57
  space exploration game as a as a species.
• 21:00
  But the point is from a program perspective, from a policy
• 21:04
  perspective, and the politics of all of this will only become
• 21:07
  more and more important, strategically important,
• 21:11
  economically important, politically important.
• 21:13
  So I'm not sure there is a single point that we can imagine
• 21:20
  in the future where we can say someone has won this
• 21:24
  competition. Certainly the United States is
• 21:29
  now on on course to be the first to return to the moon.
• 21:35
  So obviously fingers crossed for this mission and the follow on
• 21:38
  mission, which will actually put the astronauts on on the moon.
• 21:42
  But you know, the the the Chinese will redouble their
• 21:46
  efforts. As I was saying, it's very
• 21:47
  important to them as well. Let us let us also say again
• 21:54
  that this happens in is happening in a geopolitical
• 21:57
  context. And for example, Russia, even
• 22:00
  though Russia is not involved in the civil aspects of this as
• 22:04
  much they are the Russian state is in a partnership with China
• 22:10
  in terms of space security and certainly in the military field
• 22:15
  and so on. And at some point we will have
• 22:18
  to confront the fact that space exploration and, and going to
• 22:22
  the moon, the race for the moon and developing this lunar
• 22:24
  economy also requires hard military power to secure it and
• 22:30
  to defend it. And that that is where we should
• 22:32
  not discount the the the Russian input on the Chinese side in in
• 22:37
  this proposition. And, and help us understand
• 22:39
  this, NASA is largely or entirely separate from the kind
• 22:44
  of formalized U.S. military, but Chinese space exploration has
• 22:49
  Chinese military involvement. Is that an accurate assessment?
• 22:53
  And if so, what? What does that tell us about the
• 22:56
  proximity of Chinese military to space and ergo, who's got the
• 23:04
  upper hand militarily in space? On the American side, as you
• 23:08
  described, there is a very clear distinction between civil
• 23:11
  activities which NASA is handling and the military side,
• 23:16
  which is under the Pentagon in China is very is very different.
• 23:22
  Chinese civil and military space activities are entwined.
• 23:27
  They have the Chinese space agency that, you know, sort of
• 23:32
  looks like a civil space agency and in in some ways it is.
• 23:36
  But in terms of the technologies, the way they
• 23:39
  develop this, you know, the different, different
• 23:42
  technologies from launch technologies to everything else,
• 23:44
  you know, it is they, they use civil military fusion, you know,
• 23:50
  which is a, you know, a doctrinal concept in the
• 23:54
  workings of the Chinese Communist state.
• 23:59
  And yeah, it's a very different model.
• 24:02
  It's it's you. I think it's safe to assume and
• 24:06
  to work on the sort of premise that the Chinese space program
• 24:11
  is primarily A strategic national program with military
• 24:20
  with, with with military purposes sort of integrated with
• 24:25
  within it. Is it then possible to say that
• 24:27
  actually the the Chinese have a military advantage in space?
• 24:34
  I think, you know, anyone who establishes a presence on the
• 24:40
  moon and begins to deploy infrastructure, permanent
• 24:43
  infrastructure there, will start to accrue military advantages as
• 24:48
  well. This is what's happened
• 24:51
  everywhere where humans have explored and have settled and
• 24:55
  and so on. Absolutely.
• 24:58
  The moon is a floating platform in space.
• 25:01
  I know Libby will kill me before I'm using such language, but
• 25:05
  from a military standpoint, that that is what it is.
• 25:08
  It's a platform on which you can deploy all sorts of military
• 25:12
  infrastructure, perhaps even weapons.
• 25:15
  To your earlier question, the Outer Space Treaty only
• 25:18
  prohibits the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in
• 25:21
  space. So you know you're fine with
• 25:24
  other other forms of destructive weapons, conventional and oh.
• 25:28
  That's that's OK, Ben. Yeah, Yeah, it's all OK.
• 25:31
  It's a it's, it's just a matter of who can actually put it
• 25:35
  there. And of course, no, I mean we are
• 25:36
  we are being a bit light hearted about it here.
• 25:40
  But what I want to stress is that there is this entire
• 25:45
  military strategic, the dimension to the space race and
• 25:50
  to the idea of returning to the moon and setting up, you know,
• 25:54
  bases there, which should also, you know, we should also be
• 25:59
  aware of. Libby Should we be worried about
• 26:01
  the militarisation of space and is it inevitable?
• 26:04
  I think we should be cautious about it and worried about it.
• 26:10
  I, I might be hopeful, but I, I like to look at Antarctica and,
• 26:15
  and, and how that has been used for scientific and collaborative
• 26:18
  purposes. I think we've passed that in
• 26:20
  space, but space has a unique thing about it, which is that it
• 26:28
  is by default global and it doesn't clear itself up in quite
• 26:33
  the same way. Space debris is a real
• 26:36
  challenge. And if we start firing things at
• 26:39
  each other and we start creating lots of debris, we risk ruining
• 26:43
  space for everybody. But that said, there's always
• 26:47
  been a military presence in space.
• 26:49
  We've had military satellite communications in space for
• 26:52
  decades. They've been protected by the
• 26:54
  military. There's been electromagnetic
• 26:57
  warfare and jamming. That's that's the same.
• 27:01
  And if as we develop space, we see for example, the development
• 27:06
  of perhaps space based solar power, giant solar farms which
• 27:11
  collect power and beam it down, well that's a critical energy
• 27:15
  infrastructure and we would want to defend that against any any
• 27:19
  enemies and protect it. And so from that perspective, it
• 27:22
  probably is inevitable. I just think there is a line to
• 27:26
  be drawn between sort of non combat military protection and
• 27:33
  protection of sovereign assets versus sort of more perhaps
• 27:38
  sci-fi gun slinging military people having battles in space.
• 27:44
  And I don't think we will see that.
• 27:46
  I certainly hope we won't see that.
• 27:48
  And you speak to the proliferation of objects
• 27:53
  orbiting space, functioning satellites, old satellites, bits
• 27:57
  of kit that's broken off. I suspect most of the people
• 28:01
  listening to this and and both of you will have seen Gravity
• 28:05
  the movie. But this is something that
• 28:08
  scientists are really worried about, right?
• 28:09
  Yeah, the film is not great. The physics gets really bad
• 28:13
  towards the end, but the opening part of that film of Gravity
• 28:16
  where ignore the fact that the astronauts are floating around
• 28:20
  as if they're dancing and untethered, it's it's terrible.
• 28:23
  You've destroyed all my dreams, like of of space walking.
• 28:26
  But, but the fundamental premise of it that there is what is
• 28:30
  called the Kessler Syndrome taking place.
• 28:33
  Two objects in space hit each other.
• 28:36
  When you're orbiting the Earth, you are orbiting at 17 1/2
• 28:38
  thousand miles an hour, and that's an awful lot of stored
• 28:41
  kinetic energy. If two objects hit a head on,
• 28:44
  they will shatter into lots and lots of pieces.
• 28:47
  And those pieces of debris won't just sort of fall to the floor
• 28:52
  and out of the way. They will continue to orbit.
• 28:54
  And you can then have a domino effect where one piece of debris
• 28:57
  from a collision hits another, which is another, which is
• 29:00
  another. It's called the Kessler effect.
• 29:03
  It's a real worry. And as more and more more space
• 29:08
  satellites launch into space, we get more congested and we get
• 29:11
  more crowded. And we don't today have
• 29:13
  universally agreed rules of the road or rules of space.
• 29:17
  If two satellites are coming each other, there's no universal
• 29:21
  law that says we're both going to go to the West or, you know,
• 29:25
  to to the left so that we avoid each other as you would on a
• 29:27
  road or in the air. There's.
• 29:29
  No. There's no Highway Code in
• 29:31
  space, No. Highway coded space exactly.
• 29:34
  Gabriel a lot of this stuff is now put being put up there by
• 29:36
  commercial companies. Certainly a lot of the successes
• 29:40
  that we've seen with NASA have have been down to commercial
• 29:45
  ingenuity. The the next round of testing
• 29:49
  for Artemis around the lunar module is essentially a kind of
• 29:53
  test phase between two competing private companies.
• 30:00
  How, how significant is private investment and private
• 30:06
  experimentation in the next phase of the space race, even
• 30:13
  though we've said it's not quite a race?
• 30:14
  The most important thing I think from my perspective in terms of
• 30:18
  how global space development will, will, will, will continue
• 30:23
  is simply the financial question.
• 30:25
  So the private sector is the source of the financing for what
• 30:32
  is obviously a very expensive activity.
• 30:36
  And this is way beyond what governments can do.
• 30:41
  As we can see these days, we can't even fund defence properly
• 30:45
  and other, you know, very, very important aspects of our, you
• 30:50
  know, daily life. So governments really don't
• 30:53
  don't have enough financial power, firepower to, you know,
• 31:00
  to drive global space development overall and to build
• 31:06
  that lunar economy that's, you know, that's part of a growing
• 31:09
  space economy that that we all expect.
• 31:14
  So yes, the commercial sector is foundational for that.
• 31:18
  The commercial sector is now increasingly important in
• 31:22
  delivering also space security. So it is supporting and it's
• 31:30
  involved on the American side, for example, with the Space
• 31:33
  Force in Europe, as well as Europe is now ramping up its own
• 31:38
  space defence space capabilities and is is looking to develop
• 31:44
  more, more capacity in that area.
• 31:47
  It's also looking to the private sector to do that.
• 31:50
  These are not going to be systems built in government
• 31:54
  labs. It's all going to come from
• 31:56
  commercial companies. And Gabriel, the next stop,
• 32:01
  we're told, is Mars. Is that realistic?
• 32:05
  I think so. Of course it is.
• 32:09
  It is it, it, it is realistic just as much as anything in
• 32:14
  space exploration is, is realistic.
• 32:17
  When you say realistic, obviously we need to bound that,
• 32:20
  that wide, wide term with, you know, dates and, and sort of
• 32:24
  time horizons that we might consider.
• 32:28
  But from sort of logical and sort of strategic point of view,
• 32:35
  the moon, the return to the moon is being presented as that
• 32:39
  stepping stone to, to Mars, as Libby was saying earlier in the
• 32:43
  conversation, you know, it's, it's the, the moon is much
• 32:46
  closer to Earth. So you can get to the moon, you
• 32:48
  can refuel there and perhaps sort of jump off to, to Mars.
• 32:53
  So it makes it makes accessing the the Martian environment
• 33:00
  more, vastly more easier from from the moon.
• 33:04
  But first let's get the moon sorted.
• 33:07
  Let's make sure that we can build, we can produce fuel on
• 33:13
  the moon. So this is a big, big aspect of
• 33:15
  this entire business case really, because that's again,
• 33:20
  that that's going to be a commercial venture to produce
• 33:23
  rocket fuel on the moon from that water that we were
• 33:25
  discussing about breaking it up and producing rocket fuel.
• 33:31
  I mean, This is why Elon Musk is has also pivoted to the Moon as,
• 33:36
  you know, a step towards his final Mars dream.
• 33:41
  Libby, Is Mars realistic? Yeah, yes.
• 33:44
  But when it's Mars is hard, the moon is close, it's two days
• 33:51
  away, there is communication with a second or two, two delay
• 33:56
  between Earth and the Moon. And because it's closer we can
• 34:01
  get more things there to. With current rocket technology,
• 34:05
  a trip to Mars is about nine months one way.
• 34:09
  You'd have to stay for either a month or nearly a year.
• 34:13
  And that's because the moon and Mars are both orbiting the sun
• 34:16
  in a race track and you have to jump from one to the other at
• 34:19
  the right time. And then there's another nine
• 34:21
  month trip home. And whilst you are there, you
• 34:24
  will have no direct two way communication with Earth because
• 34:28
  information travels at the speed of light.
• 34:30
  And at their closest it's about an 8 minute round trip, 4-4
• 34:35
  minutes each way. At their most distant Earth and
• 34:38
  Mars it's nearly an hour. And so there would be no two way
• 34:41
  conversation. You wouldn't be calling up
• 34:42
  Mission Control and saying help me with this problem.
• 34:45
  You'd be sending them an e-mail and you'd be waiting for maybe
• 34:48
  20 minutes, maybe an hour minimum for that answer to come
• 34:52
  back. You need to take everything with
• 34:54
  you. We're a lot long way away from
• 34:57
  self sustainability on the International Space Station, on
• 35:01
  the moon. Everything still comes from
• 35:02
  Earth. Earth is where we were evolved
• 35:04
  to live. So I think it's absolutely
• 35:06
  realistic that we will, I hope, send humans to explore Mars in
• 35:11
  my lifetime. But I'm a little bit skeptical
• 35:14
  about the potential of of colonization of lots of people
• 35:19
  living there and and I remain skeptical about the economic
• 35:22
  cases. So.
• 35:23
  Space exploration is governed by rules and treaties and accords.
• 35:29
  But but as we have seen recently with many political leaders,
• 35:35
  they're not very fond of treaties and I'm quite happy to
• 35:37
  tear them up. What prospects do you think
• 35:41
  there might be should we be concerned that somebody, a
• 35:45
  president like Trump, for example, might turn around and
• 35:49
  say the space treaty? I don't really care about it.
• 35:51
  And I am going to put something approaching a weapon station or
• 35:56
  a military base on the moon. Start with you, Libya.
• 35:59
  And then we'll go to Gabriel. I think we're already there.
• 36:02
  The pace of development, the pace that the commercial
• 36:06
  companies are moving at, is far beyond the regulation that we've
• 36:11
  got. And the Outer Space Treaty was
• 36:12
  written in the 60s. It didn't envisage the future
• 36:16
  where the moon was a valuable resource.
• 36:18
  And the US are already pushing at that, along with countries
• 36:21
  like Luxembourg, as we've discussed, to change things.
• 36:25
  We said there's no Highway Code in space.
• 36:27
  And, and, and so it is really imperative that that regulation
• 36:32
  and agreements and and global understanding catch up.
• 36:37
  I say, yeah, I hope that everybody keeps respecting the
• 36:42
  global Commons. I'd really like to see that we
• 36:45
  all keep protecting space for the benefit of everybody in the
• 36:48
  future. Gabriel what risk of of a
• 36:51
  leader, a muscular leader saying I I don't need these
• 36:56
  regulations, my country first. Well, as as I as I was saying,
• 37:02
  there is no regulation saying you can't put your military base
• 37:06
  with weapons on the moon or in orbit.
• 37:10
  You can't. You shouldn't.
• 37:12
  I mean you. Can't, just can't have nukes or
• 37:13
  weapons of mass destruction. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 37:17
  So, But will people in the future look to break even that
• 37:21
  rule? I mean, who knows, but I don't
• 37:23
  think it'll be necessary anytime soon.
• 37:26
  But yes, I mean, think about the Golden Dome, this missile
• 37:29
  defense system that the United States is planning to deploy in
• 37:34
  Earth orbit. So these will be satellites
• 37:36
  orbiting the Earth with ballistic missile interceptors
• 37:41
  on them. Of course, if you target a
• 37:46
  missile in the atmosphere from space, right, you can direct
• 37:51
  that interceptor or whatever munition are dropping from space
• 37:55
  towards an airborne target. You can direct that to any
• 37:59
  target on the ground. So we are already in a situation
• 38:02
  where orbital strike on Earth from space is actually part of
• 38:07
  military doctrine. The Space Force.
• 38:09
  The the last iteration of the, the current iteration of the US
• 38:12
  Space Force, Space Force doctrine actually has orbital
• 38:17
  strike written, you know, black on white.
• 38:20
  So just to, you know, sort of increase your concerns, you
• 38:27
  know, it's even if it's even worse than you, you imagined.
• 38:31
  And, and look, let's go from that to something that I hope
• 38:33
  might be more hopeful. One of the most famous and
• 38:40
  affecting and consequential photographs ever taken is
• 38:44
  Earthrise, which I, I believe was Apollo 8.
• 38:48
  And that that that image showed humanity just how small Earth
• 38:54
  is, that we are one, that we have one planet.
• 38:57
  What chance do you think that missions such as Artemis 2 and
• 39:02
  subsequent ones, subsequent ones, might be able to capture a
• 39:06
  moment or feel more in poetry that encourages us to care for
• 39:13
  each other in the way that that that first photo unleashed a
• 39:17
  whole new culture of environmental awareness?
• 39:20
  I I very much wish that will be the case.
• 39:24
  We have had, we have drawn so much inspiration from the
• 39:27
  original space race and all that imagery.
• 39:30
  And, and, and I expect as we are opening up this this new
• 39:34
  chapter, I expect it will invite more and renewed reflection on
• 39:39
  these values and on the fact that, yeah, as you say,
• 39:43
  ultimately we're just one humanity on on one planet.
• 39:46
  We're trying to explore around in our space neighborhood.
• 39:50
  But ultimately there's nowhere else to go and it's very
• 39:55
  beautiful out here. We should try to preserve what
• 39:57
  we have. I am certain that they will.
• 40:01
  Space has this amazing ability to capture our imaginations and
• 40:07
  I see it every day in the Science Museum here in London
• 40:10
  with our visitors. They are all inspired by seeing
• 40:13
  Apollo 10 and the moon rock and that hasn't got old after 50
• 40:18
  years and the crew who are there.
• 40:21
  Which is for the first time, a woman, a person of colour, a
• 40:24
  person not from America, travelling to the moon with high
• 40:27
  definition, with live streaming. I can't wait to see what they
• 40:31
  bring back on this mission and in the future missions.
• 40:34
  And I know that whatever happens, they are going to
• 40:38
  inspire an Artemis generation. I've waited my whole life for
• 40:41
  this, and I'm so excited for what it will do to open the next
• 40:45
  generation's eyes to space and to technology and what it can do
• 40:49
  for us all. Libby Jackson and Gabriel LF
• 40:52
  Teriu, thank you so much for joining us on The Forecast.
• 40:56
  That is it from us on The Forecast.
• 41:00
  Thanks for joining us.