Marking 50 years since the first moon landing, To the moon and beyond is a five-part podcast series from The Conversation. Through interviews with academic experts around the world – from space scientists to historians, lawyers, futurists and a former astronaut – science journalist Miriam Frankel and space scientist Martin Archer explore the past 50 years of space exploration and what the 50 years ahead have in store.
To the moon and beyond 5: What space exploration will look like in 2069
Jul 31, 2019
What will space exploration look like in 2069, a century after the first moon landing? In the fifth and final episode of podcast series, To the moon and beyond, we speak to space scientists about the missions they are dreaming about and planning for the future.
In episode four we heard about plans to establish a base on the moon, potentially mining the lunar surface for minerals and even water that could be turned into rocket fuel. Episode five finds out what happens when this is built. How could a base on the moon help us travel to other parts of the solar system? And where should we go? These are some of the questions we investigate.
We start by finding out why the moon is seen as such a great place from which to launch missions further into space. Ultimately it’s down to the fact that the hardest part of any space journey is getting a rocket out of Earth’s gravity.
Alex Ellery, an associate professor of Space Robotics and Space Technology at Carleton University in Canada, explains the different ways it’s possible to exploit the moon’s weak gravity. One way is to build a new space station that orbits the moon – something that NASA and other international space stations are already planning.
Another way is to build a base on the moon’s surface using lunar resources. This would be much more ambitious but could ultimately be safer and more sustainable, according to Ellery:
In fact, there is a veritable host of useful stuff on the moon. Iron, aluminium, titanium, silicon, ceramics, reagents, regolith gases of various kinds, and so on, from which it is possible to build an entire infrastructure and to do this robotically. This is how we get the true value of using the moon as a stepping stone towards Mars and elsewhere.
While different people have different views about when we’ll actually make it back to the moon and how, most academics we’ve spoken to are confident it will happen. Monica Grady, professor of planetary and space sciences at the Open University in the UK, told us where she would go, once a moon base is set up.
For her, it’s all about travelling to the places where life might be. This could be Mars, Jupiter’s moon, Europa, or Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. Europa and Enceladus are unusual in the sense that they have huge internal liquid oceans buried under a thick sheet of ice – heated by the gravitational tug of the huge planets they orbit. Grady says:
If I had to really pick one place where I thought there was definitely going to be life – a living life – I would say Europa. Because Europa has had all those building blocks, it’s had all the ingredients, it’s had plenty of time. I imagine that the ocean floor, Europa’s ocean floor must be a relatively stable environment [for life to develop].
Grady also explains how scientists would go about finding life on another planet – when that life is probably not going to be visible aliens walking around above ground. In cold places like Mars, Europa or Enceladus, it’s more likely to be some sort of microorganism that’s not visible to the naked eye and is deep below the surface.
When it comes to finding life elsewhere in the solar system, a big concern is the extent that humans (and robots built by humans) may contaminate alien ecosystems in the process. At the same time, futurists warn that space exploration is a necessary part of human survival. Anders Sandberg, from the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, says the financial cost of space exploration is a worthwhile investment:
In terms of cost effectiveness, space is maybe not in the cheapest way of saving humanity. There are many other important things we can and should do down here. But it’s not a competition. It’s not like the space budget is always eating into the budget of fixing the environment. In fact they’re quite complementary. One of the best ways of monitoring the environment is after all from space.
Sandberg predicts that humans could be living on Mars in 30 to 100 years time. Going beyond our solar system to exoplanets will be much trickier, but this is the next step. And there are scientists working on far flung missions to explore them. Frédéric Marin, an astrophysicist at the University of Strasbourg in France, is one. He tells us about ideas for a giant, multi-generational spaceship that could go the distance:
You have to find a way to keep your crew alive for centuries-long missions and part of my work is to investigate if this is feasible in biological terms, in terms of physics, chemistry, food production and energy production, artificial gravity, and so on. So I’m currently working on simulations of multi-generational space travels, in which a population will live inside a vessel and procreate, die and the new generation will continue this cycle until the population reaches an exoplanet.
While this kind of mission may get off the ground in the next 50 years, current technology would not see it arrive at the nearest exoplanet until well beyond 2069 into future centuries. So watch this space.
Credits
To the moon and beyond is produced by Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh. Additional reporting by Nehal El-Hadi and Aline Richard. Sound editing by Siva Thangarajah. Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios.
Archive footage: Apollo 11 and 17 audio from NASA.
Miriam Frankel works for The Conversation.
Martin Archer receives funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
To the moon and beyond 4: What’s the point of going back to the moon?
Jul 24, 2019
It’s been 47 years since the last time a man stepped on the moon, and yet now a host of countries – from the US, to Russia and China – are racing to send astronauts back there, and set up base.
In the fourth episode of The Conversation’s To the moon and beyond podcast, we delve into why there’s a renewed drive to put humans back on the surface of the moon. What’s there to go back for? And what are the practical, legal and ethical questions facing those who want to set up a base there – and potentially start mining the moon.
We find out that while no one country owns the moon – a principle set out in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 – the question of who owns the resources on the moon is more complicated. Tanja Masson-Zwaan, an assistant professor of space law at Leiden University in The Netherlands, explains that another international agreement, the Moon Treaty, which entered into force in 1984, has only been ratified by 18 countries, and by none of the major space powers. The big sticking point is the principle that the moon and its natural resources are the “common heritage of mankind” – the exact meaning of which is unclear.
Does it mean that everything that a company could have in profits from exploiting resources in outer space has to be split among all countries? What exactly it means is unclear and that is why many states don’t don’t like it and will not ratify it.
Masson-Zwaan says that while a new international treaty is unlikely, a new set of guidelines are needed to govern exploitation of the moon’s resources.
Part of the attraction of going back lies in what’s under the moon’s dusty surface. Katherine Joy, a Royal Society university research fellow at the University of Manchester in the UK, explains some of the elements that could potentially be found on the moon – from water and oxygen to Helium 3 – and what they could be used for.
The great question we have next is not so much in terms of how can we go to mine the moon but first of all we need to understand the potential resources and where they’re located, how they’re accessible and we need to also develop the technology to be able to detect them and extract them to make them into usable products.
She explains that she’d love to get her hands on a piece of water ice from the moon’s surface back in her lab – but that this might not be so simple as no mission so far has plans to bring one back cryogenically.
But even if a country or company could overcome the many technical hurdles of mining on the moon, there’s no global police force able to punish those breaking any new rules. We asked Frans von der Dunk, professor of space law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the US, whether he could envisage a space war breaking out and what it might look like.
It will probably start first on the level of a trade war … but that can already do a lot of damage to everyone around. But if things further escalate as we’ve seen in the past, economic wars can also then escalate into real fighting and I can only say I hope that never happens.
He also discusses some of the other questions raised by mining on the moon – including whether it’s ethical that those who can afford to go and mine the moon do it, and those who can’t, don’t.
And even if all these practical and legal challenges are overcome, what would it actually be like to live there? Frédéric Marin, an astrophysicist at the University of Strasbourg in France, explains just how inhospitable it would be to live in an environment with such low gravity, covered in abrasive dust. And Rowena Christiansen, a medical educator and doctor at the University of Melbourne in Australia, talks through some of the side effects that spending prolonged amounts of time in space can have on the human body.
Your muscles start to lose mass because they don’t have to work against gravity anymore and that includes the heart, which is basically just made up of muscle. And also your bone mineral density tends to decrease.
To the moon and beyond is a global collaboration between different editions of The Conversation around the world, hosted by Miriam Frankel and Martin Archer. You can listen via The Conversation, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts by hitting the “Listen and Subscribe” button at the top of this page. And please do give us a review on Apple Podcasts.
Credits:
To the moon and beyond is produced by Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh. Sound editing by Siva Thangarajah. Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios.
Archive footage: Apollo 11 and 17 audio from NASA.
Miriam Frankel works for The Conversation.
Martin Archer receives funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
To the moon and beyond 3: The new space race and what winning it looks like
Jul 17, 2019
From Algeria to Vietnam, there are 72 countries with some sort of space programme. And the new space race involves a number of private companies too, that are becoming increasingly crucial to national missions.
In the third episode of To the moon and beyond, we find out who some of the key players are in this new space race, what they are competing for and what winning looks like.
Space exploration has long been driven by competition. As we heard in the first episode of this podcast series, the success of NASA’s Apollo missions to the moon was driven by the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. After the US had won this space race, they soon stopped sending manned missions to the moon because of the cost and the risks involved.
But, for all the similarities with 50 years ago, John Horack, who holds the Neil Armstrong chair in aerospace policy at Ohio State University in the US, says today is very different.
There are still significant national prestige and pride factors associated with spaceflight. But there are many many things going on in space that have absolutely nothing to do with national prestige. They’re about economics. They’re about philanthropic activities, they’re about testing new business models. So it’s less of a race and more of an explosion.
Still, only three countries have successfully sent astronauts into space: Russia, the US and China. And one of the most exciting developments in space exploration, which took place earlier this year, was China’s successful Chang’e 4 mission. In January 2019, Chang’e 4 made a soft landing on the mysterious far side of the moon – the first time this has been done.
Yang Gao, professor of space autonomous systems at the University of Surrey, tells us why this was a remarkable feat of engineering. She also explains some of China’s plans to conduct scientific research on this south side of the moon – where there is evidence of an abundance of hydrogen and water ice.
These are really very exciting for us because those resources can potentially provide in the future the life support for human habitation or long-term existence on the moon, instead of us transporting those resources from Earth.
China’s success seems to have put rocket boosters under the US government’s space plans. Donald Trump’s administration has talked a lot about increasing NASA’s budget in order to send a manned mission to the moon in the next five years, looking to use it as a base for exploring Mars and beyond.
As well as new countries getting involved in space, the explosion of space activity that’s taken place in recent years has come from a number of commercial players entering the fray. The world’s first space tourist was an American billionaire called Dennis Tito who paid US$20m for an eight-day trip to the International Space Station in 2001. But the space tourism industry is still struggling to get off the ground. We talk to Louis Brennan, a business professor at Trinity College Dublin who researches space businesses, about whether the industry will ever take off.
If you imagine civil aviation and the way civil aviation evolved from being one which very few people partook in to one in which it became an activity engaged in by the masses. If space were to evolve in a similar way, space travel, then one could envisage these companies becoming quite profitable.
It’s not just tourism, though. There are myriad opportunities to make money through space now. Brennan talks us through the business models of Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Both are successfully reducing the costs of space travel by developing reusable rockets. And riding on their coat tails are a number of other new and innovative companies.
So for all the talk of a new space race, today’s competition doesn’t to be a zero sum game where some groups win and others lose. From scientific projects to business endeavours, we find out how different countries and businesses are collaborating to push the boundaries of human discovery.
To the moon and beyond is a global collaboration between different editions of The Conversation around the world, hosted by Miriam Frankel and Martin Archer. You can listen via The Conversation, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts by hitting the “Listen and Subscribe” button at the top of this page.
Credits:
To the moon and beyond is produced by Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh. Additional reporting by Johnathan Gang. Sound editing by Siva Thangarajah. Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios.
Martin Archer receives funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
Miriam Frankel works for The Conversation.
To the moon and beyond 2: how humanity reacted to the moon landing and why it led to conspiracy theories
Jul 10, 2019
In the second episode of The Conversation’s To the moon and beyond podcast series, we take a look at the impact going to the moon had on humanity – and why it generated so many conspiracy theories.
While an estimated half a billion people tuned in to watch the moon landings on television in late July 1969, what about those who didn’t have access to one? We hear from Keith Gottschalk, a political scientist at the University of the Western Cape, who explains what it was like to learn about the moon landings in apartheid South Africa – one of the few countries in the world where people couldn’t watch the moon landings.
The apartheid regime banned TV so we would have seen the newspaper posters tied up to all the lampposts on the road and the SABC radio (South African Broadcasting Corporation) – in those days the apartheid regime banned all radios except the SABC – would have broadcast extracts.
Gottschalk also explains how the news that the US had beaten the Soviet Union to the lunar surface was met in a country where Cold War rivalry was central to politics and foreign affairs.
We also hear from Alice Gorman, senior lecturer in archaeology and space studies, at Flinders University in Australia. She studies the heritage of what’s been left by humans on the moon’s surface and what it means for people back on Earth. She laments what was lost when astronauts stopped going to the moon in 1972.
We lost a tradition. We lost the continuity of technologies and cultures that enable people to survive on other planets. So now we’re kind of reinventing those again.
One of the enduring legacies of the moon landings has been the conspiracy theories it generated, which claim that the Apollo missions were all a hoax orchestrated by the US government. Peter Knight, a professor of American studies and an expert in conspiracy theories at the University of Manchester in the UK, explains the cultural moment in which these sprang up in the mid 1970s.
The immediate context that we need to think about is the Vietnam War and a sense of disillusionment with the official version of events and, in effect, the lies that Americans felt their government had been telling them.
But what can be done about it? We hear from Viren Swami, a professor of social psychology at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK and Centre for Psychological Medicine at Pedana University in Malaysia, who has carried out psychological experiments testing belief in moon landing conspiracy theories. He explains some of his findings:
When you already believe in a conspiracy or a conspiratorial world view – when you see patterns in data that make you believe that there are conspiracies in the world – you’re more likely to adopt different conspiracy theories. Even if they are sometimes contradictory, or even if they don’t make sense.
Swami also explains how promoting analytical thinking can help reduce belief in conspiracy theories.
To the moon and beyond is a global collaboration between different editions of The Conversation around the world, hosted by Miriam Frankel and Martin Archer. You can listen via The Conversation, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts by hitting the “Listen and Subscribe” button at the top of this page.
Credits:
To the moon and beyond is produced by Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh. Reporting by Nontobeko Mtshali, Sarah Keenihan and Johnathan Gang. Sound editing by Siva Thangarajah. Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios.
Martin Archer receives funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
To the moon and beyond 1: What we learned from landing on the moon and why we stopped going
Jul 03, 2019
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Welcome to the first episode of To the moon and beyond, a brand new global podcast series from The Conversation marking 50 years since the first moon landing in July 1969.
Humanity has the moon landings to thank for a lot. But what did we actually learn from exploring the lunar surface? Why did we stop going there after just a few short years? And when – and who – will be going back next?
In this first episode, Bonnie J. Dunbar, a retired NASA astronaut who is now a professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University, explains what it’s like being in space.
I think the closest that anyone can actually get to experience it on the ground here on Earth is if you’re in an IMAX theatre in the front row or close to the front row with surround sound. But that doesn’t capture everything, that only captures part of the visual. It doesn’t capture being weightless. It doesn’t capture actually orbiting the Earth once every 90 minutes.
Dunbar also explains how a mission to the moon would be done differently today, with communications being far more efficient, for example.
But despite the technological progress we’ve made over the past few decades, humans haven’t actually been back to the the moon since 1972, with Apollo 17. John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and a former member of the NASA Advisory Council, explains why NASA stopped sending astronauts to the moon and why no other country has since.
By defining Apollo as a race to the moon, once you win the race there is no strong urge or compelling reason to continue to race. You’ve already won. And there was that sense not only within NASA and within the White House but in the general public.
Logsdon explains that after a few years of watching the Apollo missions, TV audiences weren’t tuning into the moon landings in large numbers, and the danger of the missions meant NASA chose to quit while it was ahead.
The Apollo missions were never really about science, according to Logsdon. But the trips to the lunar surface nevertheless did a lot to help scientists understand the moon’s geology. Daniel Brown, associate professor of astronomy and science communication at Nottingham Trent University, explains how going to the moon helped answer questions about where the moon’s craters came from. He also talks us through how some of the technological advances sparked by the race to the moon in the 1960s helped humanity back on Earth – and busts some myths about inventions that came out of the space programme.
To the moon and beyond is a global collaboration between different editions of The Conversation around the world, hosted by Miriam Frankel and Martin Archer. You can listen via The Conversation, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from by hitting the “Listen and Subscribe” button at the top of this page.
To the moon and beyond is produced by Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh. Reporting by Jonathan Gang. Sound editing by Siva Thangarajah. Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios.
Martin Archer receives funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
To the moon and beyond podcast series – Trailer
Jun 26, 2019
It’s been 50 years since Neil Armstrong made his giant leap for mankind by becoming the first person to set foot on the lunar surface. While the historic event was followed by six further crewed missions – five of which landed – nobody has been back to the moon since the astronauts of Apollo 17 bid their goodbyes in 1972.
A growing number of countries and private companies have since started exploring the moon with robotic spacecraft and landers, with China recently becoming the first country to land a rover on the far side of the moon. These players are now in a new space race to put people back on the moon in the next few years. But who will be first and where will it all take us?
These are some of the questions we’ll explore in To the moon and beyond – a five part global podcast series created by the different editions of The Conversation around the world. We’ll investigate the past 50 years of space exploration and the 50 years ahead of us by talking to academic experts across the world, ranging from space scientists and psychologists to historians, lawyers and futurists.
Starting in 1969, we’ll speak to an astronaut-turned-academic about what it must have been like for Armstrong to take that first small step. And we’ll find out from historians why we suddenly stopped sending people to the moon in 1972. We’ll also discover what impact the moon landings have had on humanity and why they have generated so many conspiracy theories.
We’ll then travel all the way to 2069, looking at plans to use the moon as a staging post for future space exploration. This could take humans as far as Mars and the habitable icy moons surrounding the gas giant planets.
The first episode will launch on July 3. You can listen via The Conversation, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from by hitting the “Listen and Subscribe” button at the top of this page.
To the moon and beyond is produced by Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh. Sound editing by Siva Thangarajah. Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios.
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