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How the MARS Turbine Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant is picking his no. No, but
0:18
Speaker 1: you know what, I had to be off color. I
0:20
Speaker 1: had all these jokes about me generating wind, ready to go,
0:24
Speaker 1: and then i'd like the red light came on and
0:26
Speaker 1: I just went blank. I think it's probably good. I
0:29
Speaker 1: think it's for the best. So can I just say, Josh,
0:31
Speaker 1: I'm I'd love to generate wind. Yes, you can't. Okay,
0:34
Speaker 1: that's my that's my joke. It's a good one. Chuck. Yeah,
0:38
Speaker 1: you want to talk about wind generation, let's do it. Well,
0:41
Speaker 1: let's go a different direction. First. You know bats have
0:44
Speaker 1: been taken a hit lately, right as in flying bats. Yeah,
0:49
Speaker 1: I thought you meant like baseball bats. No, I've been
0:51
Speaker 1: taking a hit. I know. I wouldn't say something like that.
0:54
Speaker 1: Didn't take stuff, buddy. Um bats have been taking a hit.
0:58
Speaker 1: There's a um. This white fungus that basically has been
1:03
Speaker 1: wiping out entire bat colonies and coming close to wiping
1:07
Speaker 1: out entire species around the United States. Is the fungus
1:10
Speaker 1: on the bat? Yeah, it's on the bat snows muzzle.
1:12
Speaker 1: It's really horrible. Um and it's it's kind of a
1:16
Speaker 1: big deal. If you study bats, you're alarmed right now. Right. Sure,
1:22
Speaker 1: that's not the only thing that's probably the biggest risk
1:25
Speaker 1: to the bat population in the United States. But there's
1:28
Speaker 1: another one that UM was mysterious for a little while,
1:32
Speaker 1: and it was bats dying near wind turbines. Really yeah,
1:37
Speaker 1: but the weird thing was is you could walk up
1:40
Speaker 1: to a dead bat on the ground near this, near
1:42
Speaker 1: a windmill, right, a wind turbine that's used for generating electricity,
1:48
Speaker 1: um and the bat would be totally uninjured. There's nothing
1:51
Speaker 1: wrong with it. It wasn't bleeding, it didn't have any
1:53
Speaker 1: um signs of trauma. So I thought the radar might
1:57
Speaker 1: have said, like, this is food and it's smacked into
1:59
Speaker 1: one of the propeller budes. No, it did not actually
2:02
Speaker 1: um that that's addressed in this article. Wind turbines kill
2:05
Speaker 1: bats without impact on the Discovery channel um and and
2:11
Speaker 1: it says that bats don't run into things. This This
2:14
Speaker 1: expert who's quoted into it says that he's like, they're
2:17
Speaker 1: really good at with sonar, so they don't run into
2:20
Speaker 1: things that they didn't mean to write, which is weird
2:23
Speaker 1: because so that means when bats come down and hit
2:26
Speaker 1: you in the head, they meant to write. What they
2:29
Speaker 1: found out finally that solved this mystery was that their
2:32
Speaker 1: lungs were exploding because of a pressure drop. Yeah, the
2:38
Speaker 1: pressure drop from the rotation of the blades. When they
2:40
Speaker 1: got close enough to the blades, their lungs would explode. Um.
2:44
Speaker 1: It would take about a four kilo pascal change kilopascal.
2:52
Speaker 1: A pascal is a measure of pressure. A kilo pascal's
2:54
Speaker 1: a thousand measures of pressure um to kill a bat,
2:58
Speaker 1: it said in the article. And the wind turbines above
3:03
Speaker 1: the turbot and right above it, um it generates a
3:06
Speaker 1: five to ten kilopassical drop. So these baths are just
3:09
Speaker 1: getting near and then boom, their lungs were exploding. And
3:11
Speaker 1: then they were hitting the ground. Their little tiny lungs
3:13
Speaker 1: would just pop. It's like the saddest thing I've ever heard.
3:16
Speaker 1: So what do you do, Chuck? I mean, like wind,
3:21
Speaker 1: wind energy is just it's wonderful. It's it's generally a
3:23
Speaker 1: very green type of energy. I got some updated stats
3:28
Speaker 1: for you. You want to hear some stats. Let's talk
3:30
Speaker 1: about it. This is some wind energy stats, Josh. Last
3:33
Speaker 1: year in two thousand nine, UM we produced worldwide a
3:38
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty nine thousand, two hundred and thirteen mega
3:40
Speaker 1: watts of electricity thanks to wind. It's pretty good. It's
3:45
Speaker 1: enough to power Italy for a year, the whole country
3:48
Speaker 1: for the whole year. But that's a drop in the
3:50
Speaker 1: in the bucket for overall electricity production, right, Yeah, very
3:55
Speaker 1: small percentages is produced by wind. Um. They do predict
3:59
Speaker 1: by the end of this year that it will crack
4:02
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand. And they have also said that since
4:05
Speaker 1: they started this whole wacky wind capturing stuff that uh
4:11
Speaker 1: it's it doubles every three year's capacity does so we're
4:14
Speaker 1: heading in the right direction, it sounds like. And wind
4:17
Speaker 1: is a great way to get energy because you put
4:20
Speaker 1: up the thing, the wind blows, it produces. I mean,
4:23
Speaker 1: it's as easy as it gets, right, It's very Dutch,
4:26
Speaker 1: very very dutch. Um. The problem is, Chuck. As I said,
4:29
Speaker 1: it was a very green technology, but there's a lot
4:31
Speaker 1: of overlooked environmental impact. If we may jump around to
4:34
Speaker 1: Tad right, these things are enormous. I've never seen what
4:37
Speaker 1: I've seen pictures on the TV. We're on the internets, right,
4:41
Speaker 1: and rain Man, did they have did they pass a wind? Yeah?
4:45
Speaker 1: Like if you could drive to Palm Springs from l A,
4:47
Speaker 1: you go by that huge like famous wind turbine farm. Chuck,
4:50
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear the h is back. Did I
4:53
Speaker 1: say huge? Yes you did? Sorry I met huge, you
4:55
Speaker 1: didn't huge? Um, okay, yeah, but they're they're enormous. The
5:00
Speaker 1: turbines apparently are about the size of a seven forty
5:02
Speaker 1: seven thousands and thousands of pounds and they're catching wind
5:07
Speaker 1: at about two feet up. They're enormous. Just one single turbine, right,
5:13
Speaker 1: there are a lot of bat and bird deaths. And
5:16
Speaker 1: to get these things in there, um, you have to
5:20
Speaker 1: basically construct new roads. In a lot of cases, you're
5:24
Speaker 1: promoting soil erosion, uh and habitat fragmentation. So not quite
5:29
Speaker 1: as green as people would like to believe. Yeah right, yeah,
5:34
Speaker 1: Josh that it can be. It can have a big
5:36
Speaker 1: impact on the environment in setting it all up, and
5:38
Speaker 1: you kind of don't think about that when you're like, oh,
5:40
Speaker 1: I could get free wind energy or not free. Obviously
5:43
Speaker 1: it's pretty expensive, but it's it's it's a gift from nature,
5:46
Speaker 1: isn't it there? You go? Yeah? Um, so what what
5:51
Speaker 1: do you do though, chuck? Because everybody wants this more
5:54
Speaker 1: than say, fossil fuels, Well, everybody outside of the oil
5:57
Speaker 1: industry wants this more than aussil fuels. And by oil,
6:01
Speaker 1: of course I mean coal as well and natural gas,
6:04
Speaker 1: but I mean in the greener quarters of the globe. Um,
6:09
Speaker 1: wind energy is a winner, right, So how do you
6:12
Speaker 1: overcome these problems, these obstacles to make you know, a
6:18
Speaker 1: wind energy truly green? I'm glad you asked, Josh. Potentially,
6:21
Speaker 1: my friend, we may see little tiny blimp like balloons
6:29
Speaker 1: hovering in the air about a thousand feet harnessing wind
6:34
Speaker 1: much higher. And as I said, it's floating in the air,
6:38
Speaker 1: so it doesn't have some huge foundation that needs to
6:42
Speaker 1: be built and erode the ground. It's just tethered to
6:45
Speaker 1: the ground by a tether, a tether that serves as
6:48
Speaker 1: an electrical cable. Right. Yeah, So that's that's the Mars
6:51
Speaker 1: turbine M A R S. It does not have anything
6:54
Speaker 1: to do with the planet, the red planet. It stands
6:57
Speaker 1: for the is it major? I did not know how
7:01
Speaker 1: to pronounce it. I didn't want to touch that one
7:03
Speaker 1: for the same. M A G E n N is
7:05
Speaker 1: the name of the company, the Major Air Rotor System
7:08
Speaker 1: m A R S. So it's an acronym, right, and
7:11
Speaker 1: basically it's a well the CEO of we're gonna go
7:15
Speaker 1: with majorin Okay, I'm down with that. Okay. Um. He
7:19
Speaker 1: likened them to floating white sausages with paddle boat wheels, right,
7:23
Speaker 1: So that what he said. That's what it says. It's
7:26
Speaker 1: like a floating white sausage. Yeah, okay, it's just a
7:30
Speaker 1: little blimp with some turbines on it. It looks like
7:33
Speaker 1: a blimp with paddle wheels on it, right, Yeah, it's
7:35
Speaker 1: sort of like I'll call a football before I called
7:38
Speaker 1: white sausage. I don't know where this guy's head is,
7:40
Speaker 1: but he's hungry, I guess. So he's ready for some
7:43
Speaker 1: broad worst and you're ready for football season, Yes I am,
7:46
Speaker 1: which also includes brought worst. So yours is all encompassingly
7:51
Speaker 1: it is chuck. Yes, uh you you said that this.
7:56
Speaker 1: So we've got a floating white football sausage with turbines.
8:00
Speaker 1: It's connected to a tether at each end, right, and
8:03
Speaker 1: the wind hits it and it spins the whole thing spins.
8:06
Speaker 1: It's not like a it is like a pin wheel.
8:09
Speaker 1: The whole thing, The whole thing rotates as if a
8:12
Speaker 1: football were spiraling, right like. So the turbine is connected
8:15
Speaker 1: to the blimp, So the whole blimp is spinning. Turbine,
8:18
Speaker 1: blimp and all right. And then at the ends there's
8:21
Speaker 1: electrical generators. So the tethers, like I said, actually are
8:25
Speaker 1: double as electrical cables. It's not just a rope, right um.
8:30
Speaker 1: And so the blimp is spinning, it's generating electricity. It's
8:33
Speaker 1: sending the electricity down the tethers to a transformer which
8:37
Speaker 1: serves a power station which is connected to the grid,
8:40
Speaker 1: or stores and batteries. There's other things you can do
8:42
Speaker 1: with it. And it's really that simple. It runs on
8:46
Speaker 1: the the It runs an electromagnetic induction, right which I
8:50
Speaker 1: looked this up a little bit. Let's hear it. Remember
8:53
Speaker 1: Michael Faraday, he was on a genius list, could I forget?
8:56
Speaker 1: So Michael Faraday one came up with this heat I guess,
9:00
Speaker 1: was just sitting around his house, drunk on scotch um,
9:04
Speaker 1: screwing with wire coils and magnets, and he discovered that
9:08
Speaker 1: you could generate an electrical current. By passing a magnet
9:12
Speaker 1: through a series of wire coals, you're actually changing what
9:15
Speaker 1: should be ecstatic electrical field. Right. That was a very
9:19
Speaker 1: big discovery, it was. And he also found that the
9:23
Speaker 1: faster you passed the magnet through, the faster you move
9:25
Speaker 1: the magnet, the higher the current or the higher the voltage,
9:28
Speaker 1: stronger the current. Right. So what the the Mars turbine
9:33
Speaker 1: is doing is the faster it turns, the quicker it
9:37
Speaker 1: moves this the magnets through their wire coils, the stronger
9:41
Speaker 1: the electrical current, right, which is one reason why they
9:45
Speaker 1: float so high up, because the air speeds at a
9:48
Speaker 1: thousand feet are significantly stronger than they are at uh,
9:53
Speaker 1: you know two hundred feet where the ground based wind
9:56
Speaker 1: turbine is located, right. Yeah, every time you double your elevation,
10:00
Speaker 1: there's a twelve increase in wind speed, and every doubling
10:04
Speaker 1: of wind speed there's an eight times eight fold increase
10:07
Speaker 1: in wind power. So a two ft turbine and touched
10:11
Speaker 1: the ground is just not nearly as effective as it
10:14
Speaker 1: one that's floating a thousand feet up in the air
10:16
Speaker 1: with And the reason obviously is because there's no trees
10:20
Speaker 1: or buildings. There's no wind resistance, so it's just free flowing.
10:22
Speaker 1: But yeah, and it's UM. It's pretty constant up there
10:26
Speaker 1: as well. It's it's kind of windy up high, Yeah,
10:28
Speaker 1: which helps because inconsistent wind is one of the problems
10:31
Speaker 1: with wind generation obviously, but not only that. The Mars
10:34
Speaker 1: turbine UM. Also we should say here that we're getting
10:37
Speaker 1: no UM money whatsoever for this. We're just fans UM.
10:41
Speaker 1: But the Mars turbine is is sensitive enough to be
10:44
Speaker 1: able to produce usable electrical UM voltage with wind speeds
10:50
Speaker 1: of as low as seven miles an hour. But it's
10:53
Speaker 1: it can also UM withstand really strong winds that you know,
10:58
Speaker 1: land based turbines are designed to shut down in so
11:01
Speaker 1: I think a LAMB based turbines designed to shut down
11:03
Speaker 1: at about forty and the Mars turbine can continue to
11:09
Speaker 1: produce electricity in sixty three winds, I think yeah. And
11:13
Speaker 1: anything above that, anything above sixty three to sixty five
11:16
Speaker 1: they have UM just like blimps do. They have controls
11:20
Speaker 1: on it, like overspeed controls and uh bait emergency deflate,
11:26
Speaker 1: so if it gets they can do two things. If
11:28
Speaker 1: it starts spinning way too fast they can has has
11:31
Speaker 1: a system that kicks in that reels it in automatically
11:34
Speaker 1: and like lowers it. And the wind might not be
11:36
Speaker 1: as you know, as great at like three feet, so
11:39
Speaker 1: they can keep running it. If it's really out of control,
11:41
Speaker 1: they'll just reel it in all together. The system will
11:44
Speaker 1: um or if there's some really big emergency like the
11:47
Speaker 1: tether brakes and all of a sudden it's flying, you know,
11:49
Speaker 1: over your neighbor's farm, it will automatically deflate, which is
11:53
Speaker 1: what blimps have this emergency system, right, And and that's
11:57
Speaker 1: one of the things that we uh should probably mention
12:00
Speaker 1: is it's designed. Uh it floats because it's filled with helium,
12:05
Speaker 1: right or lighter some lighter than air gas, but I
12:07
Speaker 1: believe they use helium. They use helium, and the blimp
12:10
Speaker 1: itself is made out of um, as the writer Jennifer
12:14
Speaker 1: Horton put it, the same material used in bulletproof vest.
12:17
Speaker 1: I was wondering, is that kevlar? Is that chicken feathers
12:20
Speaker 1: or spider silk harvested from goats? I actually know the answer.
12:24
Speaker 1: What is? I checked into this because it was slightly vague. Um.
12:28
Speaker 1: The outer fabric is dacron, woven dacron, and that is
12:34
Speaker 1: what's used for boat sails. The actual fins that catch
12:38
Speaker 1: the wind to spend the football is vectoran and that
12:42
Speaker 1: is what is used in bulletproof vest these days, apparently
12:45
Speaker 1: some of them, all right. And then the coating it's
12:49
Speaker 1: also aligned with something called ted lar, and that's the
12:53
Speaker 1: same kind of plastic coating you find on like house sighting.
12:56
Speaker 1: So that's what protects it from UV damage, abrasion, stuff
13:01
Speaker 1: like that. And your new nickname is Chuck Tran. Chuck
13:05
Speaker 1: Trot and check your hands, no, Chuck Tran. And then
13:08
Speaker 1: the inner portion of it is have you ever seen
13:11
Speaker 1: those little uh milar balloons. Yeah, it's a little funny
13:13
Speaker 1: aluminum looking balloons. It's not aluminium, it's milar. And that's
13:17
Speaker 1: what this thing is lined with because that holds in
13:20
Speaker 1: your helium really well. They found it and just to
13:23
Speaker 1: keep it even greener. If you look closely inside the
13:27
Speaker 1: Mars turbine, you'll see little um sentiments like get well soon,
13:32
Speaker 1: or your one year cuter. It's a boy I did.
13:37
Speaker 1: That was one of my big questions when I was reading,
13:39
Speaker 1: and this was wait a minute, what about the helium?
13:41
Speaker 1: Because I've had those milar balloons and they don't hold
13:44
Speaker 1: it forever. No, they don't see weeks later. It's sadly
13:47
Speaker 1: hovering it like your kneecaps. The helium um. I think
13:51
Speaker 1: helium being held in uh milar space is greatly increased
13:59
Speaker 1: in cold temperatures. It's cold at a thousand feet okay,
14:03
Speaker 1: that helps much colder um and the pressure there's less
14:06
Speaker 1: air pressure at a thousand feet as well, right, so
14:09
Speaker 1: there's less um. Well, there's less pressure trying to force
14:12
Speaker 1: it out. Good point, I think. But I did find
14:16
Speaker 1: out how much leaks because it does leak, well, yeah,
14:19
Speaker 1: I would think it would have the point five per month.
14:22
Speaker 1: So if you buy one of these things, and we
14:24
Speaker 1: should point out that theoretically these are gonna be available
14:27
Speaker 1: to consumers like early, that's what they're looking at right now,
14:33
Speaker 1: and you it does not. The price of the thing
14:36
Speaker 1: does not come with a helium. Just like when you
14:39
Speaker 1: buy a new car, they don't necessarily have it full
14:41
Speaker 1: of gas for you. You have to provide your own gas.
14:44
Speaker 1: And the hundred kilowatt version requires two hundred thousand cubic
14:48
Speaker 1: feet of helium, which is about wow. To fill it
14:52
Speaker 1: up with helium. That's how they get you that, Yeah, exactly,
14:55
Speaker 1: that's where they get you. But um, if it leaks
14:58
Speaker 1: point five or month, that means they say on the website,
15:00
Speaker 1: like every four or six months, just top her off
15:02
Speaker 1: with helium for five grand and you'll be fine. Right,
15:06
Speaker 1: But these things are built to last. The company I
15:08
Speaker 1: think estimates it said. Um that they can float there,
15:12
Speaker 1: I guess without being patched is what they meant for
15:16
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen years without a need for magtenance because of
15:19
Speaker 1: all the tough stuff it's made of, um and chuck.
15:22
Speaker 1: If you happen to wonder, this thing is spinning in
15:26
Speaker 1: the air right on an axis, how does the Magnus
15:30
Speaker 1: effect factor in? Does it factor in at all? The
15:33
Speaker 1: answer to that one, buddy, is yes. Are you talking
15:35
Speaker 1: about the Magnus von Magnus effect or just the Magnus
15:37
Speaker 1: effect the Magnus effect, Because the Magnus von Magnus effect
15:41
Speaker 1: is when you are able to lift a beer keg
15:44
Speaker 1: made of concrete in your overalls and carry it a
15:48
Speaker 1: hundred feet. Well, yeah, everybody knows that. Much lesser known
15:52
Speaker 1: is the regular old Magnus effect, right, and you see
15:56
Speaker 1: it in every day. It's the spin on a curveball. Yeah. Basically,
16:00
Speaker 1: as a UM, a spherical, round ish object travels through
16:05
Speaker 1: the air as it's spinning on an axis UM, it
16:09
Speaker 1: creates an actual area of high pressure beneath it that
16:13
Speaker 1: creates lift, right, that stabilizes it right, so well, it
16:18
Speaker 1: stabilizes that if the thing's tethered, right, which is how
16:22
Speaker 1: the UM. So that combined with the fact that it's
16:24
Speaker 1: filled with helium, which is lighter than air, UM allows
16:28
Speaker 1: this thing to stay vertical pretty much vertical all the time. Yeah,
16:32
Speaker 1: they said on the website that UM, but the helium
16:34
Speaker 1: and the magnets effects will not allow it to lean
16:37
Speaker 1: more than forty five degrees from vertical at any point. Wow,
16:40
Speaker 1: even if it's like when swirling in all different directions,
16:43
Speaker 1: it still stays pretty stable. Owner if there's a money
16:45
Speaker 1: back guarantee on that, there's a lot of money, but
16:49
Speaker 1: they don't pay you back for the helium. That's where
16:50
Speaker 1: they don't, you know. Yeah, um and actually chuck that.
16:54
Speaker 1: There's this thing called the Magnus airship that operates on
16:57
Speaker 1: the magnets effect principle that was invented in the seventies
17:01
Speaker 1: that gave rise to the Mars turbine, right, yeah, Freddy
17:04
Speaker 1: Ferguson who was the founder of this company, Old Fred Ferguson.
17:08
Speaker 1: He yeah, he invented the Magnus airship, patented it in
17:13
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, and then that later became he was like, hey,
17:17
Speaker 1: I can actually use this thing to generate wind. I
17:19
Speaker 1: bet it's pretty awesome. It's very awesome. Every once in
17:21
Speaker 1: a while you were run across like a green idea
17:24
Speaker 1: that's like, wow, this could actually work really well. Oh yeah.
17:28
Speaker 1: The bad news is it's going to be really pricey
17:31
Speaker 1: at first at first, like all wind power. This price
17:37
Speaker 1: is already going down, right, right. So the initial the
17:40
Speaker 1: initial cost when this article was written, Um, the initial
17:44
Speaker 1: expected cost is about five to ten dollars per what right, Yes,
17:48
Speaker 1: and it's actually less now as of right now. Yeah,
17:52
Speaker 1: look today it's four fifty to seven dollars. So it's
17:54
Speaker 1: already dropped. And this was upfront cost. Yeah, this is
17:58
Speaker 1: like two years old. It's already gone down much so
18:01
Speaker 1: the take away the ten it's not five to ten anymore,
18:03
Speaker 1: it's five or less. It's say four four dollars and
18:05
Speaker 1: seventy cents a lot. That's way more than what you
18:08
Speaker 1: pay for electricity as it is now. Um, but you
18:12
Speaker 1: know you don't generally pay unless you're a Georgia Power
18:14
Speaker 1: customer upfront costs to create electricity. You're paying for the
18:19
Speaker 1: electricity generated, right, Um, this is you're paying for the turbine.
18:24
Speaker 1: Like you buy this turbine and hey, here's your turbine.
18:27
Speaker 1: Go create your own power. Right So um, again, the
18:31
Speaker 1: price probably will come down dramatically, but once you've got
18:35
Speaker 1: the thing up and running, the operating cost is about
18:38
Speaker 1: fifteen cents to kill a watt hour? Is that which
18:42
Speaker 1: is still more than what we pay now, but it's
18:45
Speaker 1: half of what wind energy used to cost it when
18:47
Speaker 1: it first really started to come along. Saying the rain
18:50
Speaker 1: Man era, it was thirty cents to kill a watt hour.
18:53
Speaker 1: So as wind power, as electricity generated by wind becomes
18:58
Speaker 1: more ubiquitous, that the price for it's going to drop
19:01
Speaker 1: across the board no matter how it's generated. And it's
19:05
Speaker 1: for God's sakes, it's a green technology. It's always a
19:08
Speaker 1: little expensive at first, but typically the people that outfit
19:11
Speaker 1: their houses with solar panels, it cost a little dough
19:15
Speaker 1: to do that. Typically there are people that want to
19:16
Speaker 1: do a little uh, favor to the environment and they
19:20
Speaker 1: realize over time they're going to make their money back. Probably,
19:23
Speaker 1: but not many people are going out and outfitting their
19:25
Speaker 1: house with thirty dollars with the solar panels because you know,
19:28
Speaker 1: they want to save a dime. You know. Well, yeah,
19:30
Speaker 1: that's true, but it would be helpful if there were
19:34
Speaker 1: I don't know, rebates for buying something like this, like
19:38
Speaker 1: government subsidies. I think they all expired. I really yeah,
19:43
Speaker 1: we'll have to look into that, and I bet there's
19:44
Speaker 1: still some out there. I have another question I don't
19:47
Speaker 1: know if you know the answer to does the do
19:49
Speaker 1: these things show up on radar airplanes? Yeah? They do.
19:54
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked that. You really didn't know. I
19:57
Speaker 1: really didn't. Well, the Air Force and the government uses
20:00
Speaker 1: uh tethered balloons up to like thousands of feet up
20:04
Speaker 1: in the air, and so they're they're they're cleared with
20:07
Speaker 1: the f a A. And in order to get one
20:09
Speaker 1: of these things, you have to get a special permit
20:12
Speaker 1: from the f a A. And you have to have
20:14
Speaker 1: a blinking tether. It's a system that it blinks once
20:17
Speaker 1: per second. That's an extra fifty dollars blinking blinking tether. So, um,
20:23
Speaker 1: there's some other rules to that f a A has
20:25
Speaker 1: already put forth uh here too. Um, you cannot have
20:29
Speaker 1: one within five miles of an airport at all or
20:32
Speaker 1: within any flight path in North America, do you know?
20:36
Speaker 1: I mean flight pass are? I imagine there's quite quite
20:39
Speaker 1: a few that you have to avoid. There's at least
20:41
Speaker 1: seventeen or eighteen seventeen or eighteen flight pass and um,
20:45
Speaker 1: you have to have the lighting system, like I said,
20:47
Speaker 1: and then you can't have it, Like you can't have it.
20:50
Speaker 1: You got to live out in the open. You're you're
20:52
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to put one of these up
20:54
Speaker 1: in your neighborhood in suburban Atlanta. Well, originally the thing
20:57
Speaker 1: was designed to be used in very remote places that
21:01
Speaker 1: are off the grid, like if you're on an Antarctic
21:04
Speaker 1: expedition or an Arctic expedition, whichever one. It could also
21:09
Speaker 1: be used in a disaster situation. That's the one I love.
21:12
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. It makes a lot of sense. So
21:14
Speaker 1: if you if you um have the Mars turbine and
21:19
Speaker 1: that um, remember that that water manufacturing device like sucks
21:24
Speaker 1: it out of the ambient air. You're set. You're done. Yeah,
21:28
Speaker 1: build a bomb shelter and you're you're all set for life.
21:31
Speaker 1: Um I should also point out before we leave, they
21:33
Speaker 1: do um envision one day, probably five to ten years
21:36
Speaker 1: from now, Josh, where there is a four kilowatt backpack
21:39
Speaker 1: model that you can actually carry with you, dude, take
21:43
Speaker 1: it camping out in Yosemite and the TV fly that
21:46
Speaker 1: sucker up. Yeah, take your TV and your your computer
21:49
Speaker 1: and you can online gamble out there in the woods
21:52
Speaker 1: just like everyone else, just like home. Pretty cool. Yeah,
21:55
Speaker 1: So that's the Mars turbine. Um I saw on the
21:57
Speaker 1: site that they're taking orders for them. Yeah, and you
22:00
Speaker 1: can also if you fit requirements, you can be a
22:03
Speaker 1: test um location for these things. There's a lot of
22:07
Speaker 1: requirements and imagine a lot of people that live on
22:10
Speaker 1: farms in North Dakota by like, hey, I'll test it
22:12
Speaker 1: out of my house, right, you come out and set
22:14
Speaker 1: it up. I'll bet being photogenic has is one of
22:18
Speaker 1: the requirements. And no bare midri of shirts. Yeah, nothing
22:21
Speaker 1: see through. So again, if you want to see some
22:24
Speaker 1: cool illustrations of the Mars turbine, you can go to
22:28
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Type m A R S
22:31
Speaker 1: and the search bar and I'll bet it brings up
22:33
Speaker 1: a lot more than just this article. Yeah yeah, um chuck, Yes,
22:38
Speaker 1: that means it's time now for a listener mail. Correct. Yeah,
22:43
Speaker 1: I got a couple of short ones today. We're going
22:45
Speaker 1: right into it. You want to plug nah, okay, south
22:49
Speaker 1: By Southwest, Yeah, we should say. We're trying to go
22:53
Speaker 1: to south By Southwest next year in Austin, Texas. Um,
22:57
Speaker 1: and we are trying to get on a panel, and
22:59
Speaker 1: apparently they're d cent of whether or not they determine
23:03
Speaker 1: we can go to a panel is decided by votes. Right,
23:06
Speaker 1: so you can go to h T T P colon
23:08
Speaker 1: slash slash panel picker p A N E l P
23:12
Speaker 1: I c K E er dot s x s W
23:17
Speaker 1: dot com. Yes, and then you register and then you
23:20
Speaker 1: vote for the stuff you should know panel under interactive panels. Right. Yeah.
23:25
Speaker 1: When you go to click on our little thing to
23:26
Speaker 1: two thumbs up and vote for us, it'll um, it'll say, wait,
23:29
Speaker 1: you're not signed up yet, and it'll walk you through
23:31
Speaker 1: how to sign up. And they promised that you won't
23:33
Speaker 1: start getting email from south By Southwest's just to verify
23:36
Speaker 1: you that you're a human. Yeah, just explore the interactive panels,
23:40
Speaker 1: and on the interactive panel page you can search for
23:43
Speaker 1: panels and under title put stuff you should know and
23:45
Speaker 1: it should bring up ours and just ours right. Yeah,
23:48
Speaker 1: and even if you're not in Texas, we would appreciate
23:50
Speaker 1: your help here to get us to Texas. So um,
23:53
Speaker 1: we can go to south By Southwest and like hang
23:55
Speaker 1: out with bands. That's what I'm looking forward to. That's awesome. Okay, Josh,
24:00
Speaker 1: these are two short ones. And it's funny that you
24:01
Speaker 1: said the word search bar, because David from Sunny Canton,
24:06
Speaker 1: did you see this one. I'm sorry, David, this is
24:08
Speaker 1: a good one. Darn you. Josh is how he opens.
24:11
Speaker 1: I work at one of the state universities of New York.
24:13
Speaker 1: We are a week away from classes beginning, and my
24:16
Speaker 1: office has been besieged by calls from students and staff
24:19
Speaker 1: related to working on campus. This morning, I took two
24:22
Speaker 1: calls in a row of which I referred to callers
24:25
Speaker 1: to information on our website by saying you can type
24:28
Speaker 1: work study in the handy search bar. You're totally right.
24:32
Speaker 1: It is an awful phrase, because remember you had a
24:34
Speaker 1: big problem with us. Hate it. I hate handy search bar.
24:37
Speaker 1: After two hundred plus times you've said you hate it,
24:39
Speaker 1: I love it. Uh, I don't love it. I love
24:41
Speaker 1: it that you said that, Um, Josh is an awful phrase.
24:45
Speaker 1: But it's awful because it's awful and campy. It's like
24:48
Speaker 1: Karma Chameleon. I hate that song, but if I hear
24:50
Speaker 1: it just once, it's in my head. You know. I
24:52
Speaker 1: think Culture Club is one of the more underrated bands
24:54
Speaker 1: that came out of the eighties. They get lumped in
24:56
Speaker 1: with like crappy bands from the eighties, but they like
24:59
Speaker 1: They and Dream and Duran, We're actually very talented musically.
25:02
Speaker 1: I would like to add Adam and the Ants on
25:03
Speaker 1: that list too. Okay, they were awesome, uh and not
25:07
Speaker 1: at all camp too. You know, he's in He was
25:09
Speaker 1: in a mental institution for a little while. You had
25:11
Speaker 1: a breakdown at a benefit concert. He started railing on
25:14
Speaker 1: Christians and they took him away and said you need
25:17
Speaker 1: some rest, really, and he's like, no, I just don'tly Christians. Yeah,
25:20
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm rested, Fine, Let's finish this email. He says,
25:24
Speaker 1: these things are like gray matter super glue. With great
25:27
Speaker 1: power comes great responsibility. Josh, you started this, you need
25:30
Speaker 1: to finish it come up with a better meme. Help us, Obi,
25:33
Speaker 1: Josh Kenobi, your only hope. That is David from Cooney
25:37
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Sunny Canton right, and David from Sunny Canton Um,
25:41
Speaker 1: which I assumed means State University of New York. You
25:44
Speaker 1: got it? Okay, Um, I am taking your email quite seriously.
25:49
Speaker 1: I'm already beating you to the punch. I haven't come
25:51
Speaker 1: up with anything yet, but I will get handy sorted
25:53
Speaker 1: far out of everyone's head, including my own. Okay, yeah, okay,
25:56
Speaker 1: And I got another quick one, Josh. This one made
25:58
Speaker 1: me laugh. This is from Kurt, Minnesota. After listening to
26:01
Speaker 1: the tick episode, Guys, I was reminded of one of
26:03
Speaker 1: my most disgusting memories. When I was little, my neighbor
26:06
Speaker 1: and I were sitting on his front porch playing with
26:08
Speaker 1: his dog. Out of nowhere, the neighbor kid gets really excited,
26:13
Speaker 1: has this look on his face, pulls a tick off
26:15
Speaker 1: the dog and eats it. Who you didn't see this one?
26:19
Speaker 1: The memory still haunts me today. After looking online about
26:21
Speaker 1: similar cases, I came across someone calling them dog berries,
26:25
Speaker 1: which makes it even more disturbing. I hope this hasn't
26:28
Speaker 1: ruined your day, Kurt from Minnesota. It takes a lot
26:31
Speaker 1: more to ruin our day than that, doesn't it. I
26:34
Speaker 1: don't know, dog berries, it's pretty gross. What's sad is
26:38
Speaker 1: our days are consistently rumoring? Yeah, every day. So thank
26:43
Speaker 1: you for that, So, Kurt and then David, right, Yes,
26:47
Speaker 1: thanks for sharing. We appreciate that. UM. I promise you
26:50
Speaker 1: I will come up with something to replace handy search bar.
26:53
Speaker 1: I've just kind of gone to the sterile search bar.
26:55
Speaker 1: Now have you noticed Hinky search bar? No, not Hinky either.
26:59
Speaker 1: Hinky's in that same group, the same ballpark as Handy.
27:03
Speaker 1: We've been over using it. We're gonna mix it up.
27:06
Speaker 1: We will, all right, Frank, Okay, Jimmy, So if you
27:09
Speaker 1: want to send Frank or Jimmy an email, you can
27:12
Speaker 1: do that. And don't forget Chuck's new nickname is Chuck Tran.
27:18
Speaker 1: Just send us an email with you so we can
27:20
Speaker 1: end this podcast, wrap it up and send it off
27:24
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For
27:33
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, is that
27:36
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
27:39
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
27:42
Speaker 1: com home page