The Moon, why we're going back after 50 years

Hi, welcome to a new Space Cowboys podcast. Welcome, Jury. Thank you, Herbert. We have no ties. Yeah. Good to have you back. And just as a little explainer, we're in a biweekly frequency right now. So Tice is off on vacation and we're taking it easy. During the summer. And that's why we're once every fortnight right now. We have a guest and he's called Arno Wielders. Welcome, Arno. Thank you very much. And you're a space entrepreneur in Holland. Yes, that's what I am. Yeah. Okay. I've been doing that for 20 years now. Good. Beautiful. So let's first discuss the most important thing right now. We're approaching the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in 1969. Can I see your hands? Who was there? At the time. No hands on my side. No. Two young guys. I was there. I was 11 years old at the time. Okay. And I remember going outside and watching the moon that was to be seen at that precise moment when I went outside and realizing there's guys up there right now. They're walking around there. It was an unbelievable idea. So that's what I can tell about it. I know. What? What does the moon landing mean to you? You weren't even born then? No. It's a big frustration to be honest. Because I'm from 1973. So I missed it. Four years late. Four years late. So I missed it completely. And the only thing what I continuously remember is that people older than me talking about how it was when this was really happening. Yeah. And I have no clue how to imagine how this would feel. So for me, it's a bit abstract to be honest. Yeah. But of course. When you were born, the last moon mission was history. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I missed it completely. And I have to rely on people who are much older than me to tell the stories how it was. Yeah. You're welcome. Yeah. Well, thanks for that. But what I get out of it is that most of the people at that moment in time had the feeling that the whole world was one. Yeah. Somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Somehow. And for me, that's the key of space at this moment in time is that it brings people together. Yeah. And even though. Sort of a reverse overview effect, right? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Frank White has described this very well in his book, The Overview Effect. And I think it's true. So for me, this is the most important thing where we are currently working on together in the industry and in the community to restart this whole feeling again. So we want to go back to the moon and we want to go further to Mars. And Mars is not even the end station. It should be the asteroids. And then further to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. We have a whole solar system to explore. With people on board. Of course, with people on board. Okay. I'm a little bit skeptical about that, but that's all right. For me, that's the key. Yeah. Robots are nice, but they can never do what we want them to do fast. Yeah. Okay. So, Joeri, how about you? I think you're probably about half my age. Yeah, probably. Is your frustration even bigger than Arno's or is it different with you? I think it's a bit. I think it's a bit different. I'm from 1988. So I was born quite a long while after the first moon landing. For me, it always feels like the moon landing was the pinnacle of space exploration and that everything we did after that time was to make sure that we could reach that pinnacle once again. So I got into space flight when the constellation program was still on. Also with the aim to return to the moon. It got canceled. New programs arose. Yeah. Yeah. So going back to the moon to repeat what we did in 1969 was always something that was like the pinnacle of what we tried to do. It was always something that we aimed for. So I was raised with that kind of idea. Always something to look out for, to work for. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Did you ever... I'm going to ask that to Arno as well. Did you ever... Did you ever meet an astronaut, somebody who had been on the moon? No. Never. How many handshakes are you away from Neil Armstrong, for instance? I think... I'm not sure if André Kuypers ever met one of the lunar astronauts. Yeah, he met them. Probably, yeah. Then I'm one handshake away. Okay. How about you, Arno? I think I met two of them. Uh-huh. I met... Which ones? Let me see. Buzz Aldrin I met. All right, yeah. But very briefly, yeah. Sure. Just at the conference and stuff like that because he's always very busy. And the other one was a warden. A warden. Okay. So I met those two, but very briefly. Yeah. So they will not recognize or remember anything about it. Okay. Will you do anything in particular to celebrate the 50th anniversary on the 20th of July? I've been thinking about this. For me, the Apollo program is... It's on one hand very positive, but on the other hand, it was also the start of something which we didn't want. Like what? So... What they had to do afterwards is to find a program which basically had to fulfill some of the requirements they had back then. So having a reusable transportation system. Now, for me, the follow-on of Apollo was the space shuttle program. Sure. And initially, the program was really good, but they had to make so many compromises that in the end, the shuttle was not built to what it really... What the real goal was. And the initial number of flights for the shuttle... Yeah. The shuttle were 60 per year. Yeah. So... And in the end, it flew maybe... Max 10 or something. Yeah, something like that. So that's... And then you see a stagnation period, which luckily we're completely out now at the moment, which is very good. But the 90s and even the early of 2000s were for me periods where nothing was really happening. Although each shuttle flight... But my question was, what will you do to celebrate? Ah, that's a good question. Yeah. Well, I'm not really sure whether I'm going to celebrate. That's the whole thing. Yeah. Because it is something very special, but I look much more forward to the future at the moment. Okay. Sure. Yeah. So I will probably watch a few programs on TV, but I will not do anything very special, to be honest. Yeah. How about you, Joeri? I think there is a special program on the Dutch public broadcast here about the Apollo. I guess. I'm not even sure. So I'll watch that. But I'm not... I think... Yeah. That's about it. Just like Arno said, I'll look forward to the future, see what's going on there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You both are saying watch some TV or something. I'm turning to YouTube because, of course, the TV may offer a documentary or two, but YouTube offers lots of them. And many of them... I'll mention a couple later on. Many of them are very interesting. So I would advise listeners as well to go to YouTube. And look for documentaries about the moon landing. Interesting stuff. So, okay. Let's talk news. Joeri, tell me, what's your space news of the week? Yeah. I'd like to talk about Hayabusa 2, the Japanese probe that's currently in orbit around Ryugu. You mentioned it before. I think I mentioned it in one of the previous... Ryugu. Okay. Ryugu. Yeah. I think I mentioned it in one of the previous episodes. Sure. It's currently in orbit around the asteroid Ryugu. And its aim is to collect sun. And bring samples from that asteroid. And bring them home. Yeah. And bring them home somewhere next year. So they already collected the first set of samples from the surface of Ryugu back in February this year. But in April, they did something very cool. They fired a projectile towards the asteroids to create an artificial crater. And what they're going to do now is to land on the asteroid again, suck up some dust from that crater, and then return back to Earth. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now, of course, what is so interesting about this crater? This crater unurts new material. Material that hasn't been seen... Hasn't seen the day of light for billions of years. Wow. So it contains the building blocks of the early solar system instead of the surface material, which has been touched by solar radiation, by everything for billions of years. So this is pristine material from the early solar system. So I'm really interested in seeing if they manage to suck up some dust from that new artificial crater and if they're able to bring it back home and see what the results are going to be. So for me, that is the news of the week. We're going to analyze, we're going to suck up some dust from the early solar system. Okay. Interesting question maybe right now for Arno. You just said robots can't do all we want. True. So what would people do more than what Hayabusa 2 is doing now? What I really meant is that it's a combination, of course, between robots and people. But this can well be done by robots. I have no problem with that. But if you really want to explore and study for a long time and getting real details, then you have to do that with humans. That's my standpoint. Okay. And I think this robotic exploration of this complex… Of this comet, of this asteroid, it's taking quite a while. Of course, there's the communication that's difficult because it's quite a long distance from Earth. But you also see that, okay, they fired the impactor in April and then it took them three months before they finally were sure enough that they could land on the asteroid once again. Right. So they have to do all these checks, all these mechanical checks, all these software checks to make sure… Are you implying you do less of those checks? Do you do less of those checks when you have people on board? I think you're more flexible when you have people on board. Probably, yeah. Yeah. And you have quick thinkers. And I mean, a probe like this is, of course, able to think for itself, but not in the way that a human can do. It's not that flexible. Yeah. It's programmed in a certain way. Sure, that's true. Yeah. How many light minutes is Hayabusa 2 away from Earth right now? I'm not exactly sure. Okay. But probably a couple. Yeah. Yeah. Probably. Probably. It takes a while before you can… The order of magnitude will be a couple of minutes. Yeah. Probably. Sure. All right. Arno, what's your news? Well, the news I've heard just recently yesterday was that Firefly, which is a small launcher company, they've made a deal with the Israeli company who was behind the Bearshit lander, which unfortunately failed just before landing a couple of months ago. And what is exciting about this is that Firefly is going to use the technology from that lander, from that contractor. And that's going to be the first launch of a new launcher company to bid for NASA in the commercial lunar lander program. And this is something which you see more and more often, that you see companies joining forces to see whether they can bid something either for the institutional agencies like NASA or even ESA, but you also see some private initiatives and some commercial initiatives coming along. So this is a very good approach, I think. You have to join forces. You cannot do everything by yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Beautiful. I have a couple of news items, and I'll quickly walk through them. First of all, concerning the moon landing, there's this video, real, really, about the descent from the moon orbit onto the surface. And it's a video of 20 minutes. and I believe 12 of those are just the maneuver from the decoupling of the lunar lander until the actual moon landing. It was just 12 minutes, all the way down. And I can start the video right now as a sort of background noise. Okay, it's just real weak. You hear the conversation. And in the picture, it's also subtitled, and there is some more information that's presented in text. But all the time you're looking out of the window, and you see the moon becoming bigger, and you see more details on the surface, and you hear the conversation and everything. You're there. You're basically there. It's incredible. Just 20 minutes of video, and you're with the astronauts. So that's beautiful. Beautiful. That's one thing. I'll stop the video now. It gives you an idea of the atmosphere. Next I have, let me see. I'll just move to another page on the computer. Oh, yeah. I'm just going to tell about this and then put the link in the show notes so everybody can see for themselves. I love this. This monologue by Bill Mayer, American comedian and show host. And the title of it is, New Rule, No Planet B. And he's going up against the idea of Elon Musk, that we need a planet B, and we have to go to Mars to give the human race another... Terraform it. Yeah, right. And give the human race another foothold in space. I think this is a complete misunderstanding of what Musk is trying to achieve. I think they really misunderstood it. He's not saying that there should be a planet B. He says it very clearly. Take care of planet A first, because planet B will never be a home for all of humanity. All right. The only thing he's saying is that if you want to save humanity in general, you have to go and to populate other places, because the universe is too dangerous to stay on one spot only. Yeah. Let's not blame Elon Musk. No, no, no. There are people... I'm just trying to... Yeah, okay. Okay, that's beautiful. Thank you very much. You're right. But there are people, maybe people who misunderstand Elon Musk, who are telling the world, just in case we screw up planet Earth, we need to be on Mars. And Bill Maher is taking a stand against that idea, because he says, and I completely agree, Mars will always be less hospitable than Earth. You can't fuck up planet Earth this bad. That you need to go to Mars and be better off there. Well, I think we're capable of quite some feats here on Earth. I fear we are, but... Don't underestimate the power of humans. Exactly. Okay. But I completely agree with the standpoint. So planet Earth is the one we have to take care of first. Whether you agree or not, I would advise you to listen to this monologue of Bill Maher, because even if he's not right, he's funny. Okay. Okay, so that's that. And then there's a video called... Okay. Okay. So that's that. And then there's a video called... Okay. Okay. So that's that. And then there's a video called... Okay. Okay. So that's that. And then there's a video called... Why Russia Did Not Put a Man on the Moon. And that's a beautiful story. I told it to Juri today. And the fun thing was Juri knows more about this than I do. And he started telling me everything that was in the video without having seen it. Tell me something about it, Juri. Well, I think you're referring to the N1 rocket, right? Yeah, that's one of the elements in the video. So the Americans, they had the mighty Saturn rocket, which was about 110 meters tall. Saturn V, right? Saturn V. Saturn V rocket, yeah. It was just a huge rocket. Never been surpassed. 80 meters high or something? No, more than 110 meters high. Okay. And the Russians had their own version of the Saturn V rocket, the N1 rocket. It was huge. It was even bigger than the Saturn V rocket. And there was just one big problem. It was a very complex machine. I think the first stage had about 30 or so NK-33 rocket engines. There was this big circle... Each... Yeah, each with their own plumbing system, each with their own turbo pump. It was incredibly complex. And this complexity ultimately doomed the whole N1 rocket system because they tried to launch it a few times. First one went out with a bang, it just exploded. And the second one exploded even quicker after launching and it became one of the biggest conventional non-nuclear explosions that was ever generated by... by human... humankind. And it's a fascinating story and it's fascinating to read about the plans that they had for this N1 rocket. And to read about all the tests they already did with their lunar lander, with their modified Soyuz capsule. It's just fascinating to see what they did. But ultimately the N1 rocket, the fact that it didn't work, that they weren't able to launch it, that they weren't able to make it work doomed the whole lunar program. Yeah. Okay. Thank you for this. Yeah. Quick list of facts concerning the N1 rocket. I have two more, no, maybe three more items. Quickly going through them. There's this interesting article on Ars Technica called An Anecdotal History of Space and Booze. You know, we all are used to the idea that Russians are great drinkers. And this story tells about American flyers and pilots. And there are astronauts who seem to be good drinkers themselves as well. And one of the elements in this story is about Apollo 8. You know, the mission that went around the moon for the first time. And it was supposed to be around the moon during Christmas time. And the astronauts had decided that there had to be booze on board just to celebrate Christmas. And there was. In the end... In the end, the commander, Frank Borman, decided that he was confiscating the bottles, plural. That's what I read in the story. To make sure that if anything went wrong during this mission, the booze wouldn't be to blame. So that's a beautiful story. Then there is the story about... Oh, yeah. About what's called the sweets called... Let me go to this. Moon Pie. There's this particular brand of sweets called Moon Pie. And per tweet, they did the suggestion, NASA, at NASA, let's put a Moon Pie on the dang moon. And Jim Bridenstine has tweeted back that he's all in for that. So this is probably one of the first ideas of the commercialization of sweets. So this is what spaceflight is getting to? Yeah. We've had lots of ideas about Coca-Cola logos in orbit, of course. I'm all skeptical about this. Will that work? Will not work? No. What do you mean, will it work? The first question is, will they do it? Yes or no? I'd be surprised if he would really go forward with it. But you never know. Jim Bridenstine seems to be a NASA administrator which is quite open to new ideas. He's willing to do sometimes a little bit of work. But he's not willing to do it. He's willing to do it. He's willing to do it. He's willing to do it. He's willing to do it. He's willing to do it. He's willing to do it. He's willing to do it. He's willing to do it. He's willing to do it. But he's not willing to go forward with it, but you never know, Jim Bridenstine seems to be a NASA administrator which is quite open to new ideas. He's willing to do sometimes selecting crazy missions like the new Titan mission, which is a really crazy mission. The Drone mission, we talked about it last time. The Drone mission with the nuclear powered drone. So they seem to be open to do some, but this is, I don't get a good feeling about this to be honest. Why would you do that? I think you should focus on... Well, to make some money, of course. So they decided to hire out the space station for like a hotel. No, but no, they have gone to hire the space station out for experiments. Something completely different. In the first instance, it's a national lab in the US. The news a couple of weeks ago was that tourists will get the opportunity to buy some time and be in the space station. There are many, many things which have to be done before NASA will allow this. And I think they will much further, much earlier, allow people who do actual experiments there. So researchers from companies to go up with their own experiments and do this. I think that's what they're more aiming for at the moment. Real tourists only to stay a couple of days on the space station is something they really have to find out whether that's going to work or not. Because there are many, many regulations at the moment which hamper this. And you need the correct amount of habitation on the space station. All right. So some skepticism here in the studio. Thank you very much. Last point. Did you get the news that Virgin Galactic is going public? Yeah. I talked yesterday with the BNR news radio about this online. You were on the station. Yeah, we were on station. So I think it's very exciting. I think that there is a company outside the space world which is willing to, with a bit of a reverse takeover trick, but okay, you can do that, to put 800 million in. And the projections they say is that already in 21, they think that Virgin Galactic is going to be profitable, which could well be. Nobody believes. Could well be. Could well be, all right. Let's see what the coming months to maybe half a year will bring. Because what I'm hearing… The thing is that they will launch not before 2020 with actual passengers. So already profitable in 21, that's really quick. Would surprise me, to say the least. I think Jeff Bezos with his new Shepard is going up there earlier than Virgin Galactic. And how about you, Juri? What do you think of this? It's been so long in the making, Virgin Galactic. It is. I think the first space flights, or at least above the Van Karmen line, were in 2015. And then they hit a few bumps, of course. And it's been so long in the making, this. I have to see. Well, of course, an injection of many hundreds of millions of dollars will bring this point closer. Yeah. And they have most of the infrastructure in place, of course, so that also helps. But I still have to see the first commercial flights happen anytime soon. That's right. Yeah. Okay. Just have to wait and see. Yeah. Right? Okay. Let's move to the Artemis project, Arno, because that's what you're really here for. Yes. Yeah, the new moon project. The new moon project. Well, yeah. Well, the most simple way to ask about this is, what do you think of it? It was initiated by President Trump. If you leave all the politics behind, and you look... Yeah, what then? Exactly. So I'm not a big fan of politics. So what happens is that if they are really able to put enough money behind the program, then I think you can land on the moon in 24 or maybe 25 or 6. You can. I don't see a problem with that. How much more money do they need to keep to their deadlines? Well, if you really want to do this, you have to invest heavily in the actual lunar lander. And I think this is for NASA. I always have to... I'm talking institutional terms. So for NASA, that would be a project in the order of 5 to 6 billion. A year, right? No, in total. In total. Okay. So they have to at least... And then you have to finish SLS. There's some other infrastructure you have to take into account. So you need to increase the budget for specifically Artemis to NASA at least to 1.5 to 2 billion a year. And that's not what they have been given. So like a lot of other presidents in the... In the past, NASA is being asked to execute a program without the relevant funding in place. That's right. That's exactly right. And this is something which I personally hate. If you want to do something, fine. If you want to... Go all the way. Go all the way. That's right. This feels like Constellation all over again. All over again. I completely agree. There is only a couple of differences with Constellation from my point of view. They're talking about a commercial... Lunar lander to be put in place. So this is a different way of procuring a space hardware. What normally happens in the US is that they're doing it with cost plus. So you provide... Again, what's that? Cost plus means that whatever it costs, NASA will pay. Okay. Which is the wrong approach because companies are not being pushed to stay within cost or whatever. Exactly. So what you need to do is to have a different procurement approach. And that's something what we call... You buy a surface. So you don't buy actually the lunar lander. No, you buy the surface to bring your astronauts to the moon. And this approach, if Jim Bridenstine of NASA is able to pull that off, then I really start to believe this. But again, it's with the commercial program for people going to the ISS. Is it comparable to CRS or the commercial program? That's what I'm hearing. That's what the plans are. But if you have this program in place and again, you don't put enough money, then you... You will see delays. And this is happening with commercial crew. SpaceX is working on Dragon 2. Boeing is working on Starliner. But they've all been doing it on a very low budget if you compare it to all the other programs they have in place. If you compare the amount of money that went into Starliner to the amount of money that went into Orion... There's almost no comparison. Yeah. So I like the approach. Yeah. But I... I fear that Trump... He's tweeted so many different strange things after he said that they had to go to the moon that people were thinking, what does he actually want? Yeah. Among others, things like NASA shouldn't think about going to the moon, but just about going to Mars. We've done that. We've been there. That's what he said. So this was really a bit frustrating. And I think for a lot of people at NASA, this is frustrating as well. In the meantime, the whole SLS Orion program... Goes ahead full-fledged. So they have the funding. They're working towards this. And this thing will definitely fly. We can discuss whether it's really efficient how they did it. Yeah. They're working on it. And don't forget that ESA has quite a big contribution as well with the surface module, which is going to be provided. And Airbus is working very hard to get even the second version already in place to be delivered in a couple of years from now. And what's the role of this service? Well, basically... It basically gives the life support systems on board Orion and the propulsion. So it's basically the plumbing of everything. Right. Yeah. And that's a very important element. So it's nice that Europe is involved in this. And I think it's important for the U.S. as well. Does that also mean that they can barter astronauts? It depends. It depends. Why they promise to deliver the current version of the... The surface module is because they had to put a barter in place to get access to the ISS. We have no ATVs flying anymore. So they needed to find something else. ATVs? Help me? ATV is the European spaceship, cargo ship to the ISS. Okay. I think in total there flew six or seven of them. And they provided water, but experiments, food to the ISS. Similar to what Progress is doing from Russia. And in Japan they have a similar... Yeah, the HTV. The HTV. It sounds the same, but it's with an H. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay. So the barter is already in place. So for future surface modules and maybe for other elements for the lunar gateway or whatever, then I think that ESA has some barter in place to get astronauts in there as well. Okay. And barter astronauts, you brought that in, would mean have European astronauts go to the moon in exchange for delivering these... For the lunar services. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a possibility. No, it's not a certainty. It's a possibility. They did the same with the ISS, I think. They bartered eight of the ATVs in order to fly on the Russian Soyuz to the ISS and stay on the ISS with the expeditions that they're having over there. Yeah. It was also a barter. So it sounds like the same kind of... It's similar. Yeah. And what do you think about this, Arno? Should we care? Should we even care? I mean, this is an enterprise of humanity. Should we care that Europeans go to the moon instead of... Or along with Americans? Nah, I'm a proud European. You are? Okay, good. So I love to see Europeans walking on the moon. I think it's... As a continent, I think it's very important to be involved in these kinds of big projects. Yeah. If you're not... I sometimes compare Europe as... The last few decades of the Roman Empire, we are a bit decadent sometimes. Sure. And we're trying not to be involved in all these projects anymore. And I think it's completely wrong. We have to be ambitious. And not only on this aspect, but on many aspects. There is enough money in Europe to do it. But in one way, we're not really enthusiastic about this anymore. But I have to admit, the last couple of years, there seems to be a change. So more and more... In November this year, there will be a new ministerial conference where the ministers in Europe come together to decide the budget of ESA. And I think they're asking for quite a large increase in the budget. And some countries, I've heard, are quite positive about this. That's a good sign. That's a very good sign. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, now I have to ask this as well. The three of us in this studio happen to be Dutch. Are you also... Are you also... Are you also... Do you have a proud Dutchman that you want this European that might go to the moon to be a Dutch guy? No, not me. You don't care? I don't care. Okay. No. In the context of space, you're more a European guy than a Dutchman. Absolutely. A proud ESA fan. How about you, Jeroen? Yeah, same with you. Same. I mean, if I'd had to choose for ESA, NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, or the Chinese Space Agency, I'd always choose for ESA. So... A bit of a proud ESA fan. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Arno, you said something about this before, but let me ask you straight. What are the reasons to go to Mars at all? It's a very good question. On manned missions. Yeah. Okay. The answer is extremely simple. And the answer is because it's there. Okay. The mountaineering argument. Exactly. Exactly. And there are many sub-reasons where you can... And discuss. So one of them is for me, indeed, that humanity has to spread along into the solar system. That's for me very important for many reasons. What I like to see in the next 50, 60 years, and I will not be there to witness it all, but okay, I hope... I certainly won't. No. Is that... But I saw the moon landing. Yeah, exactly. So we're in between, maybe. That's right. So what I like to see is that we get rid of heavy industry from the surface, of the Earth. That's for me the key. All of that should be gone. That's an interesting idea. Yeah. And it's not my idea. It's the idea of many people. It comes from Jared O'Neill in the 60s and 70s. And this is something which you want to do to keep Earth in a very stable situation and the environment. Okay. Yeah. Environment-wise. Yes. Environment-wise. So that's the key. And the beauty of that is that you can do that with the resources we have in space. So that's why I like missions like Hayabusa. I like deep impact because what they do is they go to different objects in the solar system and try to get the content of that asteroid or comet identified. And if you're able to find the right rocks, then you could, in the end, exploit them and create a space infrastructure out of it. Yeah. Space infrastructure. But you're not telling me, I guess, that we could replace the Earth's steel industry, for instance. By a steel industry in space, because you're not going to bring stuff from one gravity well into another, will you? No, you'll probably not do that in the beginning. I agree. It would be too expensive, right? It would be too expensive in the beginning. But I think that if you have an infrastructure in space which is operating for 30, 40 years, it will be a completely different story. You think so? Yeah. Yeah. I think you will. Why? Because it's always going to cost you tremendous amounts of energy. Energy will always be expensive. Won't it? No, I don't think so. You don't think so? No, I don't think so. If you look, we always said that launching stuff into space is costing a lot of money. And for the last 30 to 40 years, it has been. But just yesterday, SpaceX won a contract for NASA to launch this XP mission for only $50 million. This is... If you would have told people that 10 years ago, they would have looked at you and think you would be... You're crazy. So there are many, many things happening at the moment. Reusing innovations like reusing rockets. Reusability is the key word at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. So how much has the cost of bringing up one kilogram, how much has this cost gone down? Well, I think in the beginning, you were talking about $20,000, $30,000 per kilogram. And now you're back to maybe at the moment, I think it's $4,000 or $5,000. Okay. And I think... And this will continue to improve? Definitely. If Starship is going to fly with the SpaceX, you're going back to maybe a couple of hundred dollars per kilogram. So it's going to be expensive kind of steel at that price? No, because what you can do at that moment is you can go for very cheap steel. So the initial... How do you call this? Yeah. So the initial material can be cheaper than what you normally use in space. You're also able... If launch is not such a high cost anymore, you can allow for much more things to go wrong. Ah. Yeah. Yeah. Because you can launch a replacement very easily because it's not costing that much money anymore. It's a bit like Starlink, the SpaceX constellation. I mean, they're launching a huge amount of satellites. They're not always perfect. They're not always triple redundant. No. Okay. Okay. So I asked, what are the reasons to go? To Mars and beyond. Yeah. You said, well, to go there in the first place because it's there. Because it's there. You also said to help humanity spread. Yeah. And third argument to... Reduce the pressure on Earth. Yes. To have an industry there. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? For me, that's already quite significant. Sure. Yeah. Important reason. And I have a personal... My personal reason to try to be involved in all of this is that I think that... If you're able to see with your own eyes the rings of Saturn or the clouds on Jupiter, you will be blown away by the majesty of this. This is huge. I absolutely agree. So already the images which we get from Juno and the images we get from Cassini in the past, I think they only give you maybe one or two percent of the effect of what you would really be... If you would be there. Yeah. So this would be mind-blowing. Yeah. Okay. Now let's look at another aspect of Artemis, the project, and how sensible it is. Do we need the moon as an in-between stage? Well, there are many, many... What's so funny about that? Well, if you want to go to Mars... Yeah. And you want to have the equipment you need to survive on Mars tested, you don't need... You don't need to go to the moon. This is very simple. You don't need to build a base first on the moon and then go to Mars. Not even to practice, for instance? No, because what is there to practice? I'm sorry. Well, landing, for instance. But landing on Mars is completely different. Surviving, having... Surviving you can do on Antarctica. Yeah, sure. Or underwater. Or underwater. I don't buy the argument that you have to go to the moon first to test systems, which will be completely different. Because if... It's an airless body. The moon is an airless body. Mars has a significant atmosphere. The landing systems are completely different. Isn't it true that Mars, for all practical purposes, has no atmosphere? I mean, it's not useful for braking when you land. It's not useful for breathing. What difference does Mars' atmosphere make? Well, it has a huge impact on the way you land. Because it does have an atmosphere, even though it's one hundredth of the atmosphere on Earth. But you will heat up quite significantly. All right. So the thermal fluxes on your spacecraft are going to be very, very severe. So you have to properly think this through. And that means that the design will be completely different from what you would use if you go to land on the moon. On the moon. Okay. So is having the moon as an in-between stage, is that a stupid idea? No, I think... Can we better leave that out? No. If you would have asked me maybe 10, 15 years ago, when I was much younger, I would have said yes. But now, because I've taken into account the political situation, I think it's very wise to do it first. Okay. You need to have quick results. Yes. To have quick results. To have something to show for. Exactly. To have quick results, but also to show people that people can live on a different place. Okay. I think lots of people are still skeptical that a human body is able to survive in an environment which is less than 1G. Yeah. The moon has 1,6. Mars has 1 of 40%. So there are still many people who think that the human body will not thrive in such a situation. That's one of the reasons why I'm very disappointed personally, why we haven't seen this experiment being done on either the ISS or another. There should be a centrifuge on the ISS where you're able to simulate different kinds of... They had ideas. Yeah, they had it. Yeah. So centrifuge accommodation module... Which was unfortunately canceled. Yeah. And it was one of the most brilliant ideas to execute. That would have been very, very useful. Yeah. And it was canceled for cost reasons, I guess. Cost. And I think that most people said that the usefulness of it would take a long time because yeah, when are you going back to the moon? When are you going to Mars? So I think other priorities got the better of it. Okay. Do you agree with Arno? I was also wondering, does it also matter that China is also aiming for the moon? Of course. That there is a political reason that they want to go... There's a reason for going for the Americans. I think for the Americans, this is very important. And just another space race. Well, whether it's a space race, this is hard to see, but I think that the Americans are taking a lot of notice of what China is doing. Whether they... Well, look, it's simple. If they see that China is going to go to Mars, they're going to go to Mars. If they see that China is launching a human being to the moon within two years, then the American space program is going to accelerate. You will see your money raining down on NASA. Money flying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you will see something similar to the Apollo program. Their money is not an issue anymore. But we don't see that. And the Chinese have quite some difficulties launching their Long March 5. Yeah. So we discussed in the previous episode the issues with the upper stage. Yeah. That's right. This is far from solved from what I'm hearing. And 2020 is now the launch date, I think, for the next one. Yeah. Yeah. If all the tests go well. And I think the previous test went wrong again. So they're in a bit of a deadlock right now. Yeah. But if the Americans wait until there is an acute threat, won't it be too late? No. Because I personally think that the capability of the US industry... Yeah. ...like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman... SpaceX. SpaceX now, Blue Origin, those people know how to build this stuff, eh? Mm-hmm. They've been doing this for ages. And what always surprises me is that when they're really being pushed and they really have deadlines because there's a national threat, they can deliver. I remember that reading a book about the one of my favorite aircraft of all times, the SR-71. What kind of aircraft was that? This is the aircraft made out of titanium completely. Could fly Mach 2.7, I think. And it had to be continuously refueled before takeoff because it was leaking on the ground because it had so much expansion of the materials when it would be up that you had to do it like that. But this aircraft was delivered in time and under budget. Wow. And this was one of the most difficult engineering aircraft ever built. So I think there is quite some capability in the US. So I don't fear that when it's... If they really have to, they can do it within a decade, to quote some famous person. I think they can do it within five years if really necessary. What role does the commercial sector play in this whole Artemis program, in this race to the moon? What I hope is what, again, what I said before, what I hope is what NASA will do is that they will commercially have what we in ESA terms call an invitation to tender, where companies could just come to NASA and say, OK, we're able to deliver you this service. It would cost you this and this, and we can deliver this in four or five years or not. You can build a lunar lander in four to five years, but you have to give them sufficient budget to do it properly. That's right. OK. A gateway in orbit. Right. A space station in orbit around the moon. A space station in orbit around the moon. Is that a sensible thing? I've been trying to understand why this was proposed, to be honest. And maybe it's wise from a point of view that you put money into different states in the US. I can buy that argument. But for me, if you want to go to the moon, you have to go to the moon. True. It means... Landing on the moon and not creating a... Not going halfway and park there. I don't see the reason why you would need an orbital station. What were the official reasons to start the gateway project? Well, I think it had to do partly with... It might ease some of the landing spots you would like to go to. But even when you talk to people who are discussing this, it's very difficult to get very good arguments out of it. But I think it's for industrial reasons. So we know how to build a space station. We need to make sure... Or at least in the US, they need to make sure that those people stay within the job. It's a jobs program. That's what a lot of people say. Okay. Well, okay. That is interesting because you see Boeing got a number of contracts. SpaceX got a number of contracts. Lockheed Martin. And then for the gateway, we saw the first contract go to Moxar, which is the old Ford aerospace system. So that's... So that's also a different state. So you think they're aiming to spread all the contracts? That's how it works in the US. The senators... In Europe as well. And in Europe as well, but in a slightly different way. In a slightly different way. Okay, okay. There in the US, certain senators have so much power that they can divert money into, for example, the Europa lender. Nobody was working towards this in the past. NASA did not even want it. But there was one senator, who said, no, this is really something we do. And he was able to gather some support from other senators. So NASA got money to study a Europa lender. And what you see in the Artemis program, in the Lunar Gateway program, is that there are some senators which see that this is very beneficial for their states and the industry in their state. So they're doing... Yeah, they're supporting that. Bringing home jobs. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. That's it. And I agree. Yeah. In Europe, we have something similar. What's we... Which we call geo-return. So what the countries bring into ESA, that needs to flow back into contracts as well. But it's slightly different. Yeah. And there is... I think the countries are more discussing also to use that kind of money in a certain sensible way. Okay. Which you might not always see within the states in the US. So suppose we're going to Mars. So, what scientific problems still need to be solved? You have medical stuff, you have psychological stuff, growing food, space weather, what have you. What's the most important one in your opinion? Space weather is not such a big deal. Because you can protect yourself from that. And you have early warning systems. So I don't... Yeah. People talk about radiation all the time, but most of the people have no clue what radiation actually is. So we have to be a bit careful. The protection costs. Weight. Yes, of course. You need to bring up material. We have to be a little bit careful, because the new rockets, they don't care that much weight anymore. We're not talking about 20 tons. You just said it's become cheaper. Yeah. And we're talking about 100 plus ton in one launch. This is something completely different from what we had in the past. So what would you use to protect yourself? I would put water. Water is the most efficient... Not lead. No, not lead. I would use the water you either use for drinking and... And you will have that on board anyway. Yes, you have it on board anyway. So you have to do that smartly. And then for the outbursts of the sun, you get a warning and you have to be in a certain place in the spacecraft. That's even more protected somehow. That's more protected. Yes, of course. You have to do that. But it's an issue which you have to take into account in the design of the whole spacecraft. But it's not a problem. What is more of a problem where we don't really know what happened is, for example, what we talked about the gravity. Gravity is a big issue. Yeah. Gravity is much less... Bone loss and all that. Exactly. That's something which I would like to see solved within the next three to four years. Weakening of the heart and muscles. Exactly. Eye problems. Yeah. Yeah. So let's see. There are some indications already. There's some scientific study being done which says that, okay, zero gravity is really bad for you. But if you go to four tenths of the gravity, you will already see much less effect of that. A tenth of... Four tenths. Four tenths. Four tenths. 40 percent. Yeah. For Mars gravity, you see already there are indications. There's no full proof. No. But there are indications that the effects are much less. Yeah. But this is something you have to... And nobody has tried that before, right? Because astronauts have been in a space station for about a year. The record is slightly more than a year, I believe. Yeah. But nobody has ever tried 40 percent for any... Exactly. ...any significant amount of time. Yeah. So that's why the centrifuge is an important thing. So I hope that maybe in a future couple of years that they will do something like that. Yeah. And these psychological effects of going on a round trip to Mars, because I've heard that it takes about 500 days. Yeah. A round trip. Yeah. With the current state of technique. Enough to drive many people crazy. Yeah. But I have a very pragmatic approach for this, which is that you can train whatever you like. And I think you should. Don't get me wrong. You should. But you have to train people and you have to put them in situations where they are really packed with respect to each other. They don't have much space. They only talk to three, four people. You can weed out a couple of the traits in people which you don't want. But in the end, it's the real thing which is going to decide whether people go crazy or not. You cannot simulate that. No. Because in the back of your mind, you always know that you're either on Earth or you're very close to Earth where you can get retrieved. On some Hawaiian mountain. Yeah. Because we've had these experiments where people were locked up in a… For half a year. For half a year or for 500 days. Whatever. So the Mars 500 experiment between Russia and Europe. But you always doubted the results of that. But you cannot get any reasonable results out of it from my point of view because those people know in the back of their mind that they're on Earth. They're not in danger. If you're in life danger, they will get you out. Exactly. They have to. By law. Yeah. Yeah. Morally or whatever. Exactly. Even with… they have to abide to the rules of using humans in experiments and which means that… Exactly. And rightly so. I'm not doubting that. But if you really want to find out what the psychological effects are, you just have to do it. You're not going to solve it. So that means… Take the risk. Yeah. It will be a risk. It will be an uncertainty. Exactly. In the outcome of your trip to Mars. Yes. And you have to… again, you have to put a lot of effort in trying to minimize potential effects. I completely agree. So you look for mentally stable people and you make a team of people who can get along very well with one another. Exactly. But you… Look, for me… And then you just send them on their way and hope everything goes okay. Yeah. In essence, that's it. Yeah. And I think it cannot be more than that. And let's be open about this. People will die. Of course. Right? Yeah, of course. People will die when they go to Mars. People will die when we have bases on the moon. Of course. But it's for me unthinkable not thinking about people dying. Because this is just part of exploring. Yeah. And again, this is a discussion I have with a lot of people is that there seems to be a trend in society where we don't allow people to take risks. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't allow people to take risks anymore. They're very risk averse. Exactly. Which I think is completely wrong. The richer your country, the more risk averse you get. Yeah. The more risk averse, the more value of life is. And only rich countries can do space flight. Yeah. Which is complete nonsense, of course. Excuse me? It's complete nonsense. You don't need to be rich to do space flight. No. No. Well, okay. South Africa just had an astronaut who died, by the way, in a traffic accident. Okay. So, the science may be a bit far off for the time being, but you see... Oh, I see. Like, with being used in... Using space as a tool. That's what I meant. Yeah. Yeah. So, CubeSats are being launched now by small universities in South Africa, Uganda, or whatever. Sure. Sure. Very nice. Which is a very positive development. That's true. And you will see this continue in different areas of space as well. Things will get cheaper and easier to do. Yeah. No. But I meant... I mean, when you do manned space flight, you've got to be a rich country, and rich countries are risk averse. So that's a paradox in manned space flight. I agree. Yeah. Okay. So, we had the psychology, we had space weather, we talked about the medical stuff. I'm interested in growing food. How do you feed an expedition to Mars? Well, first of all, you bring enough. You bring enough yourself. Okay. Supplies. And it also depends on what are you going to do? Are you staying for maybe 30 days on the surface, or are you going to decide that it's going to be a base with long-term attendance? Okay. So, the question will be, the first question we have to answer, can you bring enough supplies for a round trip to Mars? Yes, you can. A very short one. Yes, you can. Yeah. That's all been calculated and established. You need a sufficient size spacecraft, but yes, you can. Oh, yeah. But okay. Will it be affordable then? Affordable. This is a different question. This is a different story. We're not doing this to get rich, right? No, it's an important question because politicians are going to decide about this. Yes, but let's see what's happening with the program in the next 10 years. I think the next 10 years will be really leading on what will happen further on. I don't think it will end up being only the space agencies deciding this. I think it will shift more and more towards companies which have… Yeah. I mean, Jeff Bezos alone is rich enough to fund a mission to Mars. Yeah, no problem whatsoever. What would be the price tag in your opinion? Okay, there are two… This guy owns about $100 billion, give or take. Yeah, this is probably, if you do it in a NASA framework, probably that's the amount you have to spend. Okay. But this is not the way to go. No, because NASA buys very expensive screws. Well, no. For instance. They're being forced by government rules… Yeah. …to act in a certain way, which is not really efficient. So that's why they're more expensive. But you can't do it for much less. I think if you really want to do it, you could do it for maybe $25 to $30 billion. Okay. Assuming you have to build everything. Yeah. So Jeff Bezos can do it, Elon Musk probably not. Well, Elon Musk is doing it. That's the good thing about it. That's true. Starliner program, yeah. Yeah, the Starship is there. He's scraping money from everywhere because he can't afford it on his own. No, he cannot afford it. But he's… What is interesting about the way Musk is doing it is that he's using other elements like launches, like Starlink… Yeah. …to show people that there's money. You can make money out of space programs. Sure. Something which people didn't believe 10, 15 years ago. And with that, he's able to attract additional money to basically fund his whole Starship idea. Yeah. And I'm following this because I'm fascinated by what's going on there. From Munchausen trick to… Exactly. …pull himself up by his own hair out of the financial morass. Yes, that's what he's doing. And the engineering associated with it is just… What do you call this? Salivating. Salivating, exactly. That's the right word. I was looking for that one. It's amazing what they're doing. So these two Starships being built in Polka and in Cape Canaveral, this is exciting stuff. It feels like watching a tech startup develop their first product. Exactly. It's growth hacking your way into space instead of a Prince 2-like approach where you start out with a project plan and then start working on it for months and then end up with something that you don't really need. I'm referring to SLS. Yeah, I think you're right. And for me, especially, such a ship needs to be done like that with many times you build it, many times you fail. Because you only learn by failure. Sure. It's very simple. We arrived here by me asking the food question. Yes. I will ask the question again. But no, never mind. No problem. I'll phrase the question differently. Does the technology to grow enough food on your way to Mars or on Mars itself, does this technology exist? Well, I would not grow any food on your way to Mars. This is for me seven months. That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make sense even. No, I don't think so. Why not? Because you can bring the food… Because you can bring it. So building a hydroponic system in a spaceship is not very easy to do. What I would do, especially for… So bringing your food is either cheaper or simpler, making your mission less complex. Yeah, and less costly. So in the end, cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. Yeah. And the other thing is that if you are on Mars and you stay there for a longer time, then I would definitely experiment. So we have one professor in Wageningen here in the Netherlands. Yeah. He is a professor in the Netherlands who is working on really growing potatoes, tomatoes, beans out of simulated… Like in the movie with Matt Damon. Exactly. And it works. I visited him. What he even has done, he had some kind of crowdfunding campaign where people could spend some money and then in the end they all had dinner from Martian grown food. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. So and I know that similar experiments are going on in the US. And what we find is that… Yeah. What we find is that you can grow certain food, certain vegetables in the Martian soil. Yeah. So you have to create, you have to make this experiment ten times bigger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you have to take into account that you have less sunlight over there. Sunlight is not such… Just one thing. Yes. But what you can do is you have, you should bring enough energy supplies with you so that you can give them artificial lighting. Like solar panels and then concentrate the light. Well, my personal preference. My personal preference would be nuclear power. Yeah. Okay. Radio isotope generators. Well, not for the base. For the base you really need the reactor. Yeah. Because the radio isotope can only do a couple of hundred watts. But the real reactor, that's something which we should develop ASAP. Yeah. And do you think the, what's it called again, the planetary protection officer will agree? Well, they will probably don't care about the nuclear power system. They're more… Microbes. They care about humans. That's a big thing. Humans are filthy. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. By definition. Yeah. So this is something, and I know that people are working on this in this committee of COSPAR where they work on planetary protection rules. They understand that something needs to change if you want to send humans to Mars. So this is a big discussion. What needs to change? The rules about planetary protection? Yes. They have to change. All right. Yeah. Yeah. So you can do that. So you could say that for certain parts of Mars, you don't really apply certain rules of this planetary protection. You allow for more contamination. But for specific places where there might have been a genesis of life, that's where you decide, okay, that area is out of bounds for humans. You stay away with a ring for… So you create… You create oasis. Human reservations. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And people are not allowed to go there. They're not even allowing the rovers associated with a human base to go there because they could be microbes. Yeah, protected and non-protected areas. And I think this is a very reasonable approach. Yeah. But they have to change because you cannot keep Mars clean like that. Okay. Now, the schedule that President Trump asked for or the schedule that NASA uses, whatever schedules there may be. What is your idea about how many years we need to get there? It depends. In reality. In reality. That's a good question. I think that 24 is not going to make it because I don't see the money flowing in the right direction for the years coming. And 24 is for Moon or Mars? Moon. Moon. Just Moon. Okay. Yeah. Although… And not even that we're going to make. Well, we'll see. I say this for the NASA approach. Yeah. If NASA on 24 basis finds a way to create some kind of business case out of this, I think they can do it within four or five years. I think Starship could… Yeah, it could fly in 24. I don't think it flies in 21 like he says now. I don't believe that. It's a Musk schedule. It's a Musk schedule. So you take Musk schedule and you add… Yeah, two years. Or maybe a factor of two. Everybody knows this in these days. It's really nice. Sure, sure, sure, sure. But what's funny is that… Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's funny out of this is that whatever you can say, he always delivers. In the end. In the end. He always delivers on what he said. True, true. So I give him that freedom to be a little bit aggressive on schedule, to be honest. I mean, we've all done that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like refurbishing your house. You say, ah… Three months. We do it in three months and in the end it's six months or maybe even two years. So Moon, what year? Moon, I think. Yeah. NASA schedule more 27. If Musk achieves his flight, then it could be 24. And Mars can be done within 2033. 2033. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, early 30s. Yeah. We've recorded this and we'll confront you when the time comes. But one more thing. You said if they find a business case. Do you have any idea what such a business case might be? No. No. Neither do I. I'm thinking who would fund such a mission? I don't think there are enough crazy billionaires out there to fund this mission. You could be wrong in that. Because this Japanese guy, he already made a large payment. Maybe if you pool together enough crazy millionaires and billionaires, then you could fund one mission. But then it's just a one-off shot. Yeah, but then you have all the systems developed. So your development cost is gone. And then maybe you can make sure that government costs are gone. Yeah. And then the government contracts start flowing in because you've proved yourself. Exactly. Okay. So it's not such an unlikely scenario. Maybe it's a starship scenario where one person funds the first mission for 250 million or something. And then the rest of it starts developing. So we need some kind of a billionaire crowdfunding thing to start. I think that's already happening because that's exactly what Musk is doing. What Musk is doing. What Bezos is doing. And to be honest. We also need Bill Gates, Carlos Slim, Jack Ma. I think the investment agency behind the, what is it called? The Richard Branson Virgin Galactic. There was also a Facebook billionaire behind it that funded this. I'm thinking not Sean Parker. No, I'm not sure exactly. We got a lot of money from Facebook. Yeah. Not Bono. No. So yeah, maybe these billionaires, those tech billionaires are going to save. Okay. We're hoping for billionaire help here. Well, I think the help is already in place. Yeah. Some of them do. Yeah. So, well, there are two, for me, there are only two real projects which are currently developing large rockets and that's Bezos and it's Musk. Except for SLS, of course. Yeah. But those are the only two which I see happening within the near future. Okay. We're going to have to wait and see. Thank you very much, Arno Wielders. It was nice to be here. For your views. Sure. Thank you very much, Juri. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Thanks. Okay. My name is Herbert and we'll hope to see you again in two weeks time when we'll have another session with Space News with Juri. Yeah. The latest and greatest in Space News. Okay. Thanks a lot, guys, for listening and see you next time on Space Cowboys. Bye bye.