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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
A Listener Production.
Happy Sunday and welcome to this bonus episode of The Briefing. I'm Chris Biru. NASA this week revealed its first detailed blueprint for long-term life on the moon. We're talking robotic landers, high-tech moon buggies and tech to harvest lunar ice for water and rocket fuel.
They say the project will unfold over decades and will eventually evolve into a continuously occupied base starting in 2032. But NASA isn't the only one trying to plant a flag on the lunar surface. China has its own rival lunar-based project in the works alongside Russia, while private space billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are aiming even higher.
In fact, the last time we did a deep dive on the race to colonise the moon specifically was back in February when Elon revealed his ambitious plans to get a massive self-sustaining city up there within the next decade. I spoke with my fellow favourite space person on this earth, ANU astrophysicist and associate professor Brad Tucker about it all at the time. And here is that chat for you now.
Chapter 2: What are SpaceX's new lunar plans?
Brad, welcome back to The Briefing. Let's start with this city that Musk wants on the moon. What exactly is it and what would it look like?
Yeah, look, it's trying to create, you know, replicate the human process, experience, but yes, on a different object. You know, we talk about building new suburbs, new cities, growth and housing crisis here in Australia and on Earth. What you're trying to do is essentially create that.
And part of this larger goal, and this is not just Elon Musk and SpaceX, but just space in general, is trying to actually create a space economy. So if you think about it right now, everything that goes into space is actually from the Earth, made on the Earth, and then launched up. You want to get to the point where you're actually ā
building and creating in space from stuff in space, then you're creating your own self-sustaining entity. And so a lot of this is examples like food stores. How do you have enough food and storage of that to create that? How do you have the buildings and equipment to do that on the moon? Now, you're never going to be 100 percent, especially in technology and electronics.
But this is the not that long term goal that a lot of the groups are trying to get to, because if you want to do this on Mars, you have to try and get it right on the moon first, because at least. The moon is kind of the safe test case. If something were to really, really, really go wrong, you can get back to the Earth in a few days, right? None of that is an option on Mars, right?
Once you are there, you're pretty much not getting back where if you are, it's going to take at least six months. So nothing is quick or solvable. So you want to be self-sustaining in the future space enterprises.
Okay, so are we talking like factories, high rises?
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Chapter 3: Who are the major players in lunar exploration?
Are we talking about all of this sort of stuff?
We're talking about just at least simple infrastructure. We're talking about housing and buildings and that sort of thing. Now, look, I do not think we are going to have space cities with lots of people living in there.
Okay, so not like Star Wars. None of this like flying around between buildings.
No, unfortunately not. Not anytime soon, at least. A lot of this right now is for astronauts and research. Now, that can grow in scale. And you can kind of think of it like how we've done and operated in Antarctica, right? There are many bases with hundreds of people literally working there, spending six months at a time. That's crazy.
kind of the future vision and future of the moon, at least in the next couple of decades. But that's still a lot of work, right? But we are talking about building materials. How do we actually use lunar surface to create infrastructure? How do we do printing and manufacturing? How do we build in space? And there's a lot of work of this happening.
And in fact, in some industries, it may actually be better in space than on Earth, believe it or not, in terms of the peculiar nature of gravity in the environment. So there are some benefits in some cases that we could see of doing this. And that's where we want to head.
Is there anything out there in space at the moment that kind of looks like the infrastructure you're talking about? The only thing that's coming to my mind at the moment is like the International Space Station, but that's
floating around exactly that's the only thing we got and this is again one of these maybe that's why there's been the full admittance of pivoting that we're not going to be doing this on mars soon we at least need to try this do on moon you know nasa's time frame has always been 2040s for mars so the international space stations are close now there is uh what's called the gateway this will be the moon space station this is already being built and
to get going and be put in orbit around the moon in the next couple of years, and then slowly build and work towards on the ground. And it's not just the US. China and Russia are working together on these plans as well. So this is that future. And it's going to take time. Again, no different than building suburbs and cities and housing developments here in Australia and Earth.
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Chapter 4: What does a self-growing lunar city look like?
It's ambitious. Yes.
Okay.
And I... Look, you know, I think Elon Musk thinks big. And in some cases, that's good. I think in some cases that does stretch reality. We are talking about having a lot of this needing to get done by the time the Brisbane Olympics is going on. Think of all the discussions of all the work that are needed for stadiums and everything being built in Brisbane.
But you want to do that on the moon, right? I mean, it is not as straightforward. Yes, it's not quite the same scale, but the principles are the same. So it is going to take time. Now, the benefit also where I think compared to what happened in the 60s and 70s with the US getting to the moon is it isn't just one group. It isn't just NASA.
There are many countries working together with NASA and many companies do this. And what we're starting to see are groups specializing in certain equipment and views. And that's kind of going to be the wave of the future is a lot of people working on different things, no different than industries here on Earth. But I do think it's going to take...
more than 10 years to have this grandioso vision. You mentioned a bunch of industries, and I want to get to one in particular in a moment. But you said Brisbane Olympics, and it got me thinking about the regulation process. No one technically owns the moon. So who's approving all of this and who oversees it?
Yeah, look, this is kind of the gray area. There are space treaties that govern a lot of activity, including something called the Moon and Outer Space Treaty. No one can claim ownership of the moon. And so it's very clear, and that's very good. There's a huge amount of discussion, though, about how do you maintain stuff on the moon. So your equipment is yours. It is recognized. But so...
for the past it's only been in the case of scientific exploration all right you have a rover you have a lander and even if you extract samples those samples are yours to keep and everyone's been okay with it every country and that sort of thing this is a different scale and no one's really sure what the answer is if i extract something from the moon let's say i extract water for fuel or i i soil and make it into brick or something like that
Who claims ownership of it? And in a lot of ways, both answers are complicated. If I do get to claim ownership, then we still have created a pseudo land grab where I want the best spots and the best resources. If I don't get to claim ownership of it, then do I get to claim ownership of the byproducts of that? That gets into the realm of conflict and even piracy.
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