space race

When the Odysseus lander touched down on the lunar surface last month, it became the first US presence on the moon in more than fifty years. But unlike the Cold War space race between two global superpowers, we now see a growing roster of nations - and private companies - vying to announce their presence on the moon. So with competition for rare resources looking set to intensify…who owns the moon, and could conflict there mean war on earth?

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Guests: Professor Anthony Grayling, Principal of Northeastern University, London, philosopher and author of Who Owns the Moon?

Host: Luke Jones.

Clips: CNBC News, Fox News, NASA, BBC News, CBS News, ABC News, C-SPAN, NBC News, CBC News.

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What hurdles must humanity face before it can inhabit the final frontier? A City on Mars co-author Zach Weinersmith is here to ground us with the facts.

What We Discuss with Zach Weinersmith:

• How tethered to reality are Elon Musk's grand plans for the human colonization of Mars? Shouldn't we focus on ensuring the sustainability of our current world before investing in centuries-long efforts to squeeze life out of a dead planet?
• With current technology, how well can human bodies be protected against prolonged exposure to radiation, extreme temperature fluctuation, and lesser gravity on the Red Planet and the Lunar surface?
• The economics of farming, mining, and extracting resources in space.
• The political, legal, and ethical considerations of space colonization.
• If now's not the most prudent time to hurl our species into the cold, uncaring void, then when?
• And much more...

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/944

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Today, we have an episode with Chris Power, the founder and CEO of Hadrian. Hadrian is a company trying to build the most efficient factories on the planet. 

In this conversation, we’ll introduce the audience to advanced manufacturing, and expose them to the reality that it’s a remnant of the first space race. We also cover the challenge of manufacturing, the importance of visibility in complex systems, the killer app for space, how simplifying the world of atoms can be done through bits – and ultimately, what kind of experimentation that may unlock.

Timestamps: 

0:00 - Introduction

1:28 - What is advanced manufacturing?

4:18 - When a hatch is jammed at the ISS

6:11 - What’s happened since Space Race 1?

8:56 - A retiring workforce

13:20 - What is at stake?

21:03 - Onshoring manufacturing

24:06 - Is capital enough?

24:43 - Fixing the problem with technology

28:55 - Convincing the old guard

31:20 - Building a new culture

34:45 - Experimenting with hardware

37:24 - The value of observability

41:47 - The cost of timeliness

46:09 - Hadrian’s key risks

49:22 - Why Hadrian pivoted

52:22 - What talent is needed

57:31 - Why focus on space first?

1:03:38 - The killer app of space

1:10:36 - Who inspires Chris?

Resources: 

Hadrian’s website: https://www.hadrian.co/

Chris’ Twitter: https://twitter.com/2112Power

Stay Updated: 

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China launches a hypersonic space missile, over 100,000 American workers go on strike, U.S. police officers push back against COVID-19 vaccination mandates, and more.

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When you think of the Apollo Mission, the first thing that probably comes to mind is Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepping foot on the moon. But even Armstrong didn’t think his moon landing was the most important or daring of all the Apollo missions. For Armstrong, Apollo 8 best fit that description.

If you’re like most people, you probably know very little about Apollo 8, let alone the names of the three astronauts who flew on that mission. But that will definitely change after this episode. In fact, you'll likely never forget their stories.

My guest on the show today is Robert Kurson who's out with a new book called Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon. We begin our conversation discussing the state of America’s space program before John F. Kennedy made his famous “moonshot” speech in 1961 and why the Soviets kept beating America in the space race. We then discuss the audacious and near impossible plan made in a few hours in August 1968 to put men into orbit around the moon by Christmas of that year.

Robert then tells us about the lives of the three men who would be the first humans to leave earth’s orbit and the first to orbit the moon, and why they were the perfect astronauts for this mission. We also discuss the role the wives of these astronauts played and why out of all the married astronauts who took part in the Apollo missions, the astronauts of Apollo 8 were the only ones to never get divorced.

We end our conversation discussing the climactic speech the astronauts made on Christmas Eve from the moon and the life lessons Robert learned from writing about and talking with the men of Apollo 8.

Get the show notes at aom.is/rocketmen.

In the 1950s and 60s, the United States and the Soviet Union battled it out to see who would dominate the race for outer space. The Soviets got out to an early lead, but the U.S. would ultimately win. Learn all about the Space Race in this week's episode.

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Join your cosmic tour guide, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, as we explore the most memorable moments from your favorite episodes in Season 4, our most popular season ever.

Join Commander Neil deGrasse Tyson, Co-Pilot Eugene Mirman and crew members Buzz Aldrin, John Oliver and Andrew Chaikin on StarTalk Live’s mission to explore Town Hall in NYC.

Why did the US really go into space? Why did the Apollo program end early? Find out when Neil deGrasse Tyson digs into the history of space exploration with Prof. John Logsdon.

Three decades after the first reported manned lunar landing, some theorists still believe the landing was faked. Check in as Chuck and Josh take a look at the evidence on both sides of the debate in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.

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