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International Space Station update! · Kvetch & Release

• 0:08
  Morning. We're back folks. Ten thirty four. John Lidkey here on AM
• 0:11
  eight hundred clw Are you claustrophobic? I get claustrophobic a little bit. The
• 0:18
  idea of being trapped in a small space without being able to get out,
• 0:22
  well, that's the whole point of being trapped disposed. Not something I like
• 0:26
  to think about too much. But right now, two NASA astronauts have no
• 0:30
  set date to return to Earth and are stuck waiting aboard the International Space Station
• 0:36
  due to several mechanical issue with Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. We're talking right now about
• 0:42
  the ISS, the International Space Station, because there's quite frankly a lot going
• 0:46
  on with it. In One person who always has his eyes up to the
• 0:50
  skies is Dan Sacks of the Canada Space Mining Corp. Hey Dan, how
• 0:55
  you doing very good? How about yourself? John? Doing really well?
• 1:00
  Thanks for joining me here, Probably better than these astronauts that are stuck up
• 1:03
  in the ISS. Is this like a concerning thing that they're up there?
• 1:08
  You know, I don't know that it's a concerning thing that they're up there.
• 1:11
  It's a concerning thing that Boeing wasn't able to iron out all all the
• 1:17
  kinks with with the star Liner, and and and some of the parts of
• 1:23
  that. Obviously, that's you know, a very long project ongoing where the
• 1:30
  philosophy was to take the time to take an approach which would be slow but
• 1:38
  steady, and ensure that they delivered a capability for NASA with something that was
• 1:46
  going to work right. And obviously there are a number of challenges these days
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  with the way Boeing runs those programs. That's probably a long conversation, but
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  but you know, you know, in terms of the astronauts being stuck up
• 2:04
  there, I mean, there's there's tons of opportunities to ensure that that's not
• 2:09
  necessarily a problem for them. I think they still have a reasonable window to
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  get them out of there. There's opportunities for you know, either resupplying the
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  spacecraft from from another mission, to send up a resupply, to send a
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  rescue shuttle to bring them back. You know that those options are out there,
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  so you know, this is not kind of catastrophic. I think that
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  the greater question is, like, you know, after the billions of dollars
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  that have been poured into two star Liner, I guess to end up at
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  this point on its demonstration flight where you have a number of problems with the
• 2:53
  system, are are more indicative of you know, where does that leave this
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  text? Right? You know? And and how how do we ensure that
• 3:04
  the next time, uh, this goes up it doesn't happen. And and
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  if there's other other flights that are that are reliant on this technology, what
• 3:15
  is that going to do to them? And they're scheduling in terms of delays,
• 3:20
  additional costs, right, how long is it gonna take them before they
• 3:24
  can fly this thing again reliably and and prove that they've ironed out all those
• 3:30
  kinks? And you know, a lot of this comes down to like these
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  differing philosophies of what are called kind of old space and new space right where
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  you have Elon Musk approach, which gets uh, you know, heavily criticized
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  for blowing up rocket after rocket, but the reason they blow up after rock,
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  rocket after rocket is to learn from those mistakes quickly, to make changes
• 3:57
  quickly, to get that data and then to you improving upon a product.
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  And you know, the results has been more rapid innovation at a lower cost.
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  The old approach to let's design something once that never fails, seems to
• 4:13
  take a lot longer and cost a lot more money. And I think that's
• 4:17
  what you're seeing here. Well, I suppose it's better to have it happen
• 4:20
  while they can still get resupply and they're in orbit, rather than you know,
• 4:27
  deep space exploration getting trapped into a capsule that you can't leave. That'd
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  be a problem. Oh for sure. Well, I want to assure you.
• 4:32
  I want to keep talking about the ISS here. We just found out
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  about yesterday a Brampton company, MDA Space, has just been awarded a one
• 4:42
  billion dollar contract by the Canadian Space Agency to develop and deliver Canada ARM three,
• 4:48
  the robotic manipulator ARM is now going to be a component of the Gateway
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  Space Station that will serve as a waste station for future missions. Obviously,
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  the Canada ARM is a big deal of the ISS. Tell us a little
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  bit about what the Gateway space Station is going to be, because as I
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  understand it, the ISS's days are numbered. Yeah, the ISS's days are
• 5:10
  numbered, and I'm not sure that has to do with Gateway. Gateway is
• 5:15
  going to be a state space station that operates in lunar orbit. There's two
• 5:19
  things going on here. You have the iss kind of retiring, and it's
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  reached the end of its what's called useful life. I mean it is.
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  Having spoken to astronauts, it is creaky, it has problems, and it's
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  been up there for a while, right, and so you're either going to
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  have to completely rehab this thing, which is probably cost prohibitive, or deorbited
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  or there have been some plans to reutilize it proposed by some parties. They
• 5:55
  have been rejected wholeheartedly by NASA and the international community, who has decided the
• 6:01
  better plan is to diorbit it, to let it burn up in the atmosphere,
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  as well as bring parts of it back down to Earth. And so
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  SpaceX want a contract to do that a couple of days ago, or I
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  think yet two days ago. And so that's kind of the plan to retire
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  the space Station twenty thirty and effectively dispose of it, and then gateways being
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  built to orbit the Moon as an outpost there where astronauts can live up there
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  while studying things down on the Moon and go back and forth to the Moon.
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  It can act as a jumping off point to the Moon as well as
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  deep spaces, and can be a refueling point for spacecraft to utilize space resources
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  that have been mined like water and oxygen, hydrogen gin on the Moon to
• 7:00
  make rocket fuel, and then to refuel spacecraft at Gateway so they can go
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  off to places like Mars with significantly less mass. And so that's kind of
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  what Gateway will function that it'll be fairly autonomous, and Canada ARM three plays
• 7:16
  a fairly crucial role in that in that autonomy. Canada ARM two has some
• 7:25
  levels of AI and autonomy, but but canad ARM three will be able to
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  be operated effectively autonomously. And so this is a big deal for Canada.
• 7:35
  You know what that means in in you know, taking things back to low
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  Earth orbit. You know, it's uncertain. There's a number of companies buying
• 7:45
  to create the first space commercial space stations in low Earth orbit. You know,
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  you've got three contracts that were given out by NASA, and I think
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  there are upwards of about a six or seven parties buying to build future space
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  stations in lower orbit. They all claim that they're going to be the first
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  to do it. We'll see who is exciting to watch. It's you know,
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  a different kind of space race, a commercial one, and and you've
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  got you know, not all these parties are Americans, so and a lot
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  of it involves in our national collaboration and and everything else. So we'll see.
• 8:24
  You know, it's it's an exciting time to be alive, as long
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  as you're not watching US presidential debate. But you know, it's an exciting
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  time to be alive. But uh, yeah, you could have a lot
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  of and certainly we'll have a lot of commercial activity going on in lower orbit.
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  And you know both you know, research labs, scientists, private astronauts
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  from from multiple nations, industrial parks, manufacturing goods. You know, this
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  is kind of what space looks like in lower orbit ten or fifteen years from
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  now. And and that's a really exciting proposition. You know, now you've
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  got in the tens of people living in space at the moment. You've got
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  you know, between the ISS and then the Chinese have their own space station
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  right now. They were kicked out of the ISS. But but and and
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  what their own pathway. But you know, you could have easily ten times
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  that figure. You know, you could have one hundred hundred, one hundred
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  and fifty people in orbit, you know, in the next ten years,
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  and and and that's really exciting, right, that's that's a bit of a
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  game changer.