You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
Hey, shortwaveers, Regina Barber here. And if you've been listening to this show for any time at all, you probably know that I'm a formally trained physicist with a focus in astrophysics, because I love all things space.
Basically, I'm all about any chance to learn more about,
you know, everything. So I am so excited, because today we're going to try something new. Something I've been workshopping with colleagues for a while. We're dedicating this entire episode to nerding out about a bunch of space news.
And with the power vested in me as host, I'm summoning friends from around NPR to do just that. And who better to do that for this inaugural episode than Science Correspondent Jeff Bramville? Hey, Jeff.
Hello. And I've brought known space nerd. All things considered host, one of the co-creators of this great idea. I think I was the other people. The only other co-creator of this great idea, Scott Detro.
Hey, Scott. I'm excited. This has gone from something we have talked excitedly about around the coffee machine at work, something into microphones. Yeah.
Okay. Can we call this podcast segment Spacey Now with Gina? What a good idea. It's your show. You can call it whatever you want.
Excellent. Okay.
“I think the only way to start is to tell our listeners why you both deserve”
to be here. I've talked about my like field of science. I loved hanging out with my dad and watching like star trick next generation. Jeff, why do you love space?
I don't know. It's quiet. Less bad things seem to happen there. Oh, maybe. Maybe.
What about you? I think I could answer that on a lot of different levels. I think on the human level. There's so many things that, you know, world where it is hard to sometimes feel good and inspired by the news that we cover.
There's so many things that I think are really inspiring whether it's telescopes that are reaching back into the prehistoric early days. Exactly. Like the beginning of time. That is exciting to me.
Whether it's launching a probe that crashes into an asteroid. I think like that's really cool when exciting. Whether it's astronauts returning to the moon. Like I just really enjoy reading about it and makes people good. And I think on a deeper level like space is so fast and so infinite.
Sometimes I will think about it to the point of like personal paralysis. Yes. Because it is so overwhelming to think about that you just like can't move and like that's kind of uncomfortable but in the cool way. I mean Jeff, is that ever happened to you?
“Because I remember talking to my little cousins about what I do for, you know,”
when I was in grad school and they were like 10 and they just started being like, I don't want to think about it and it started freaking out. Yeah. You know, I don't know.
I've always felt it kind of comforting.
Yeah. In fact, the world being a bad place is sometimes not always. Yeah. But, you know, space is a reminder that, you know, we are, but on a tiny little dot and at the end of the day,
there's much larger things of food. Maybe we shouldn't all stress out so much. Oh. Keeps me chill. Okay.
What's the flip side to that exact same idea? Well, both of you have definitely earned your spot. And with that, today on the show, we're talking about three space stories in the news. First, the film Project Hail Mary,
then the prospect of data centers in space and a quick update on the upcoming Artemis mission. You're listening to Sherwin. The science podcast from NPR. Okay. Scott.
Jeff. I am most excited to talk to you guys about Project Hail Mary, which I actually got to watch for work. So let's start with that. I am both very excited to see it.
And I don't know when I'm going to see it, because here's my plan. I want to read the book. The book has just been sitting there on the nightstand. I feel like I need to read the book first and see the movie.
No. No. No. No. Put the book down.
Go see the movie.
“I've actually heard people that that's actually the best way to do it.”
Okay. Let me explain the plot like real quick. Please do not spoil anything. I won't. I promise.
So in the near future, scientists notice that there are these alien microbes breeding on Venus, then going to eat the sun. Eat the sun. Yeah. Like, diminute to a point that in 30 years.
Crops will die. Animals will die. Humans will die. So world leaders send a mission to a nearby star that's not being eaten, because these microbes are eating all these other stars too,
not just our sun. And they want to figure out how to save the sun. So one of the astronauts is scientists turn middle school teacher, Rylan Grace, and he's played by Ryan Gosling. I put the knot and astronaut.
I've never done anything.
I've never done a space. Well, I can't even moonwalk. And Scott, as I'm sure you already know this movie is based on a book by Andy Weir, the same guy who wrote the Martian. And he does have a track record of writing really scientifically cool books that
Turn into Hollywood hits.
And Genon, that note, I have to ask it's the movie actually any good.
Well, first off, Jeff.
“I mean, it's a blockbuster for a reason.”
Like, I went in completely blind. I didn't read the book Scott. I didn't even watch the trailer. I loved it. I loved the jokes.
I loved the puppetry, the visuals. It was all stunning. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Did you just say puppets? Yeah, yeah.
You said no spoilers. I know. So that's literally the opposite. Okay. Okay.
But Jeff was nodding at this.
And I'm curious, like, how good is the science? Because the Martian, like, you got the potato growing. You got all the science up. Yeah, a lot was pretty accurate. Like, they did hint to special activity,
where, like, if you're traveling near the speed of light, you're going to experience time dilation. So, like, Ryan Gosling's character aged differently than people on earth. They did take some creative licenses with, like, the fundamentals of biology, though. So, like, these alien microbes, like, they existed in space.
They were, like, on the surface of the sun, and they were water-based. Yeah, I don't know about that. But that didn't seem to bother Astrobiologist Michael Wong from Carnegie Science. He loved the movie. He read the book.
But did point out that there's one, like, accidental scientific mistake in the movie. It's kind of fun to note that the two exoplanets in the movie were exoplanets that we thought existed at the time that projectile marios being written. But in just the past few years between the book, the book's release, and the movie, we've actually discovered that these planets may not actually exist.
Yes, Scott. So, in the grand scheme of things, it's not really a mistake. It's just that, like, science has gotten more advanced since the book was written.
All right, Jeff, second topic, launching artificial intelligence into space.
Is this a thing? Yeah, I mean, it's something that some folks are taking seriously, including Elon Musk. He's actually making this the central mission of SpaceX's space launch company, which just merged actually with his AI company, XAI. Here he is on Saturday, unveiling new plans for a massive new microchip factory
that would make chips used for data centers in space. I actually think that the cost of deploying AI in space will drop below the cost of terrestrial AI much sooner than most people expect.
“I think it may be only two or three years.”
Okay, Jeff, at Shoreway, we've done a bunch of stories about data centers and how they use a lot of water. A lot of water, they use a lot of electricity, like, is this the solution? Like, just saying them off in a space? Ejecting them from the Earth. Yes, actually, according to people who support this idea, it is, right?
Okay. It sounds really electricity. You know, there is a lot of problems around generating enough electricity for all these data centers on the ground. And if you go up into space, you know, you got the sun. Yeah, we were just talking about it.
We were just talking about it. Great source of power. Yeah. It's all free. It's plentiful.
And the napkin mat looks pretty good, right? You can get as much as you want. But I've got to say why I started speaking to independent experts. I heard a lot of skepticism. Walk me through some of these specifics, skepticism, then.
Right. Well, let's start by talking about the biggest, sort of, computer-y thing we have in space right now, which is the international space station. It's the largest facility in orbit. And it's solar panels generated around 100 kilowatts of power. Okay.
Well, that may sound like a lot. But XAI's colossus computing facility in Memphis, Tennessee, consumes around 150 megawatts. So you can do the math. Wow. One, two. Yeah, you don't want to.
Well, that's all right. I actually got MIT Aerospace Professor Olivier Deweck to do the math for us. You would have to build just for the power in photovoltaicly. A facility that's 1,000 times the size of the ISS. That seems hard to do.
It's so big. There's an even bigger problem right on the back end. It's heat. Right. Space is cold.
That's true. But like, it's a vacuum.
“So there's no way to transfer like heat away from these computer chips, right?”
Right. Right. And so you need these massive radiators that actually use some sort of fluid together the heat from the chips. And then conducted out into space. And those end up being almost as big as the solar race.
Okay. So we start this conversation with Elon Musk saying two or three years away. Then we have an expert saying a thousand times the size of the international space day one. What do we think our real talk estimate is like on those two extreme ends of the spectrum? Is this a thing that one way or another even happens down the line?
I think there's a way to sort of parse this, which is there will be more computing in space for sure. And it'll probably at least for now be on smaller satellites, smaller amounts of computing that can be distributed. Whether we end up with giant data centers, with kilometer long solar race, I think that's going to be a lot more than two or three years off. But we'll see, you know, Elon loves to give a tight deadline. We'll just have to see where we land.
One more thing I want to ask about, and this is something that I think is a lot closer than whatever Musk is talking about.
I think so at least, and that is the Artemis two launch.
What's going on there?
“Yes, Scott. So the U.S. has set to launch humans back to the moon for an orbit, something that hasn't happened since the early 70s.”
And the launch window for Artemis opens a pretty soon on April 1st.
But there have been some technical problems with this mission's rocket. There was a hydrogen leak which forced NASA to push back this launch. So at this point Scott, anything good happened. We'll be watching. All right. All right.
Well, and I hope we can do this again.
“Well, we can hang out and talk about space again. Jeff Scott, thank you so much.”
We can talk about whether Artemis two happened or whether it didn't happen. Yeah. We can talk about as we said at the beginning, literally an infinite amount of other topics. At the end of all of our spacing out.
“So it'll just be like, what's happening to Artemis right now?”
It could go for years, right? Already yes. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much. If you like this episode, share it with a friend.
It really helps our show. And hey, give us a follow on the MPR app or wherever else you're listening from,
so that you'll never miss a new episode.
This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson and Kai McNamie. It was edited by Christopher Anteliotta, Amanakon, and our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez. I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to "Short Wave," the science podcast from NPR. See you tomorrow.
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