Brian Cox
speaker
1,719 appearances
13 recordings
8 series
first heard Oct 2024
last heard 16 Jun
Brian Cox’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 9 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.
Appearances
We've got loads of problems. Loads of problems, which will all be fixed by AI. Well, there is an exciting future, isn't there? It's always exciting. I feel that we are kind of a fork in the road here because, as you said, there are tremendous challenges that we face, environmental challenges and so on. Competition for resources.
Geopolitically, the world looks rather, I think it looks as unstable as it was in the 1930s in some respects. So it's quite terrifying. But we have nuclear weapons now. So it's terrifying. But on the other side, as you said, we have not only AI and quantum computers, which are potentially profoundly powerful things. But also, you know, the rockets that we have now, I mean, reusable rockets.
We haven't talked about that, but I think it's an absolute game changer. It is now the case that we have cheap and reliable access to space.
Yeah, this is really important. This is so incredible. I think we'll remember that in future generations. We'll remember that.
That's the road to the stars that right there, that that moment.
It does a bit, doesn't it? That does a lot. That didn't end well, though.
And also, of course, Blue Origin are maybe not far behind. Right. I love that.
Let's go. Yeah. You know, and I get, you know, I get criticised for this quite a lot and will no doubt after this interview, because I do think our future at some point is beyond Earth. It has to be, right? Obviously, logically it is. But the question is when. And there are two things to say.
One thing to emphasize, which I'm sure you'd agree with, is that I don't think anybody is suggesting that what we're able to do now is trash this planet and then move to another one. Right, of course. No one's saying that. That's way in the future.
Yeah, well, that's in our control. I mean, we can move those now. Sort of. Well, not quite yet.
Not really. That's true. So we need that technology. So we're on the verge of having that technology. That would be nice. It was Carl Sagan, wasn't it, who said that if dinosaurs had a space program, they'd still be around. So it's their fault, in a sense. Which I kind of, you know, they didn't build rockets.
Let's just reset.
Yeah. But I think that idea, that basic idea, I interviewed Jeff Bezos once and he was fascinating. And he said to me that, first of all, we need infrastructure in space. Because if you think about building Amazon, he said what I needed was two pieces of infrastructure, the postal service and the Internet. And so they were provided and I could build my company.
So I want to do that for the next generation of entrepreneurs in space. I don't know what they're going to do in space, but I would like the infrastructure to be there for them to do it. And that's really simple. Yeah. And then he also goes on to say, of course, as we said before, the resources are up there. They're infinite.
infinite resources infinite energy effectively up there and so the idea he said to me i want to zone the earth residential and and people say that's ridiculous what are you talking but how ridiculous is it when you see that when you see the fact that for the first time we have launch vehicles that really should be able to launch almost anything we want.
So the idea that we can build infrastructure in space and then, of course, build bases on the moon and then ultimately on Mars and then beyond, that's a lot closer now.
120-ish, is it?
So I think we're on the 1906. We're on the verge of a revolution in many fields. My worry is that we're also seeing increase in political instability. Yes. And so I think most people would agree a very dangerous moment.
And the question is how to get to that future. And that future that you talked about, this wonderful future that we have, might be 10 or 20 years away. But it might be an eternity away if we get the next few years wrong. Right. So I'm concerned that this... We don't know how to build a bridge to that future that we should see.
In our lifetime, we should see this future beginning to unfold before us. How do we get there?
Showing 1561–1580 of 1,719 · page 79 of 86
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