relative term if you think about it it
can refer to this space but we myself
and my wonderfully seated audience which
is you guys right in front of me or it
can mean the vast expanse made up of
vacuumed and dissipated particles in
between galaxies as you can can see in
this picture back here now when taking
into consideration that you guys the
audience isn’t going to be as interested
and let’s say the seats or the stage or
the speakers that separate you from me
we’re gonna be taking into account the
more astronomical version of space for
this talk the universe around us now the
space industry – like other industries
right here on earth has some overarching
objectives that it hopes to accomplish
two of the most common ones that it has
been implementing for a long time and
will continue to do so in the future as
well are as follows number one is to
deploy space missions to directly help
and benefit the people back here on
earth
number two is to colonize another planet
in the near vicinity of the earth in
case some sort of impending doom is
coming towards the earth that we just
can’t avoid okay so some of you guys
some of you eagle-eyed guys in the
audience might have noticed that I never
explicitly mentioned space exploration I
mean you guys might be wondering if this
kid’s gonna be talking about space he’s
probably gonna be talking about
something related to exploration like
planets or like the traces of life in
the solar system or something like that
but no I have an exploit I have a
definition for exploration that I carry
around and talk about it to everybody
who I’m talking about talking to about
this topic according to me exploration
is basically when when someone goes into
unchartered territory to find out or
discover something for the greater good
of a larger community and according to
me that is what the space industry is
doing taking forward with these two
objectives that I just mentioned plus if
you gave me the chance to talk about all
the scientific and technical
advancements of the last 50 years we’ll
be here all evening so we don’t want
that so before we venture into the
future let us take a step back
and understand what are some real-life
applications of the current day
spaceflight industry so has everybody
heard of Hurricane Emma Wow no Wow you
guys might be living under a rock or
something anyway so yeah well there’s a
lot of hurricanes happening in the
Caribbean island section but for this
example that is just consider hurricane
Irma
so we predicted it we predicted it its
severity had time to evacuate the good
people of Florida and also had time to
give it a fancy name
Irma how some of you guys might ask well
it’s because of the hundreds of weather
satellites that operate approximately
36,000 kilometers above the surface of
the earth giving us stunning aerial
images of the planet using these images
the meteorologists or the ecologists or
the boys back in lab as some people like
to call them analyze these images and
understand the different weather
patterns or natural calamities or other
events that might occur to us even the
most simplest of tasks such as finding a
good day to go to Universal Studios also
has I don’t spaceflight playing an
important role in it another aspect
another application that directly stems
from the current day spaceflight
industry is GPS or the Global
Positioning Systems which gives the
layman access to complex navigation
services and route planning services so
this diagram behind me may look kind of
complicated but what it’s actually
trying to say is that all these
satellites are connected to all the
vehicles like cars ships planes and all
of that and are constantly giving them
real-time data GPS itself has provided
us with so much of data and applications
that we’re currently using in today
today’s current life so one of them is
the uber taxi service if you think about
it uber taxi service wouldn’t even be
possible without the GPS systems another
application that might sound far-fetched
but is actually in progress right the
second is the driverless cars made by
Tesla Motors these cars can take this
real-time traffic and navigational data
and transfer it into a software and
drive themselves best part is they can
even parallel park which is pretty cool
if you think if you think about it now
the next part is the most interesting
part okay it’s it’s it’s about 400
kilometers above the surface of the
earth orbiting Earth once every 19
minutes it’s the size of two football
fields and is is the most expensive
man-made object ever built the
International Space Station or the ISS
now the International Space Station
itself is a fantastic mega structure
which is a piece of human engineering
and ingenuity that is unmatched by any
other if you think about it there’s
about six laboratories on that thing and
that it helps us to understand how
real-life space travel will be possible
in the future now to implications or to
applications directly stem from the
international space station itself both
of them concerning in the medical
industry right here on earth
number one is this thing laser eye
surgery now I’m pretty sure everybody
here has heard of a laser eye surgery
but just a little bit of background is
that laser eye surgery is when your
vision sort of gets distorted and you do
this laser eye surgery thing and you get
your HD vision back which is pretty cool
now laser eye surgery wasn’t a
technology that was originally adopted
across the earth but it was a technology
that was first sent up to the
International Space Station to test the
astronauts reference frame eye movement
and their balance in the weightless
environment of space after assessing
these things were these factors the the
the space industry decided that it would
be good to use this in the form of laser
eye surgery in large proportions back
here on earth another factor is this the
Canada arm which was sent up to the
International Space Station by let me
see Canada it’s in the name so Canada
arm was sent up to the International
Space Station to assemble the space
station in space this is because
although our Rockets are pretty cool at
the moment we can’t send such big things
up to space ok we need to go assemble
them in space through through the course
of different various different rocket
launches well this Canada arm helped us
do that now a smaller version of this
Canada arm is currently helping us
to operate on malignant and benign
tumors here on earth now agreed that
organics and actual trained surgeons can
do this but they can never achieve the
actual precision or accuracy that a
machine can offer so there we have now
established how current-day Space Flight
is inevitably helping the people back
here on earth so if there’s one thing I
want every single person in the audience
right now to take away from this talk or
the from the babbling that I’ve been
doing for the last eight seconds is to
have an amazing appreciation for that
phone in your pocket because that phone
think about it is what connects you to
the vast array of the applications that
I just mentioned such as GPS or weather
or even those amazing pictures of space
that keep floating around on the
Internet so there you go so now we’ve
talked enough about the past and let’s
transition into the future because I
said so cool okay we are now in the
future so in the future well we the
future the second part that I wanted to
talk about is the second objective of
the spaceflight industry which is to
colonize a nearby planet the obvious
candidate is Mars Mars how do we get
there
good question better question is what do
we do before we even think about going
there you see before we go to Mars
there’s some factors that we need to
consider why Mars what is so special
about Mars that every person or every
major industry or space agency is trying
to colonize it what’s so special about
the red planet that everybody wants to
go there well it’s because of the
striking similarities between the earth
and the Mars that make it so desirable
so let’s get some hard facts to the
table here and discuss them first
Mars is diameter is approximately six
thousand kilometers whereas the Earth’s
diameter is approximately twelve
thousand kilometers now you guys might
be wondering bro you just talked about
similarities and now you’re introducing
a difference that is literally about
double the size of Mars that can be
possible well if you think about it
Earth’s oceans make up most of its
diameter as well because we have vast
oceans on the planet you take out the
oceans and you’re left with a landmass
or the land die
of the planet which is also only about
6000 kilometers exactly equivalent to
Mars how is this beneficial for us and
how does that make Mars an ideal
colonization location is because if you
take in in the distant future this isn’t
happening now but if you take all the
population of the earth and transport it
to Mars
we’ll be able to we will be able to live
there because well we if we can fit all
the population in 6000 kilometer
diameter here on earth we’ll be able to
do the same on Mars itself another
factor is the tilt or the axis on which
Mars and Mars and Earth are well Mars
well if I have to give you a visual
representation of how this works it’s
not that both all these planets orbit
around the Sun like this it’s more like
the orbit like this there’s a slight
tilt in their axis which makes them have
seasons so earth is tilted on a 23
degree axis and Mars is tilted on a 25
degree axis very small shift doesn’t
really matter that much in terms of the
seasons this gives us seasons such as
summer winter fall autumn all of this
and if Earth is tilted on its axis and
has seasons then Mars if it is tilted
will also have seasons which is pretty
cool which makes it more adaptable for
human life to exist there now the only
factor that prevents us from actually
going to Mars and having be a Sunday
Drive location where you just go land
and Mars take off your helmet and run
across the Red Planet like like Alex the
lion from Madagascar is the fact that
Earth and Mars have very very different
atmospheres or very differing
atmospheres in a lot of ways Earth’s
diameter just for reference has about 1%
carbon dioxide about 79% nitrogen and
about 20% of oxygen or the stuff of life
or the stuff that we need to survive or
thrive on a planet you flip those
percentages around and you get Mars’s
atmosphere you get approximately 96
percent carbon dioxide and 4 percent of
other miscellaneous gases
this makes Mars an uninhabitable
location if you just want to go there
without your spacesuit it makes the
atmosphere of Mars nearly unbreathable
therefore before we even send people to
Mars and before we even land
people on Mars what space industries or
space agencies such as NASA ISA and
SpaceX want to do is establish these
things called planetary habitats now
these things are huge enclosed spaces
which are completely oxygenated and have
provisions such as food and water and
are basically these huge outposts on
Mars so that when when the actual people
are launched from here on Mars and they
land on Mars they can disembark their
vessel and head into this where they can
carry out their astronautical
astronomical duties and scientific
experiments and everything and they’re
not just confined to their four by four
space of the capsule so now let’s get
back to the original question that we
had in the beginning how do we get there
right that was the original question we
had and before I cut you off saying what
do we do before we even think about
going there but the original question
was how do we get there well if I had to
give you a very simple answer if I had
to take about I take out all the orbital
mechanics or physics or mathematics I
would just say stuff a bunch of
astronauts in a capsule and propel it to
Mars when the time is right but we all
know that’s not how it works
or is it well if you think about it
vacuum is very it doesn’t have any
resistance if you put anything in a
vacuum and accelerate it towards a
target it’s gonna keep going there’s
nothing to stop it
so the propulsion power or the power
required to accelerate this object from
one place to another isn’t the problem
the problem is how are we going to make
the people who are going to Mars survive
the journey to Mars because although
space might look like this twinkly
paradise that everybody loves we all
know that is one of the most hostile and
volatile environments known to man all
right it is there’s so many things that
are so harmful to the humans that are
going on certain trips of long distance
trips from Earth to different planets
there’s cosmic radiation there’s micro
meteorites there’s solar flares there’s
all sorts of problems and the distance
between Earth and Mars is approximately
225 million kilometres and unprecedented
distance that our astronauts would have
to travel and to get there an average
spacecraft would take about seven months
or about 200 days and that is a long
time to be battle
the obstacles that are thrown at you by
space so before we even go there there’s
two more factors that we need to
consider out of the many that other
scientists are considering but there’s
two more factors that we need to
consider about how do we make the people
who are going to Mars
stay alive on their journey to Mars so
number one is cosmic radiation so cosmic
radiation is radiation that is being
spewed across the universe through
different mediums such as black holes
pulsars and even our Sun itself our Sun
is throwing radiation and this sort of
radiation often comes in hits earth as
well this radiation is possible and it
has the capability to rip through your
DNA and cause cancer so how do we not
get affected by it here on earth well
it’s because of our amazing
magnetosphere or a magnetic field well
what this does is when the actual
radiation waves comes towards the earth
it redirects these waves and pushes them
outward which never even comes into the
atmosphere and affects us so let’s just
imagine a situation where we have our
astronauts heading up to the atmospheres
and and actually making orbit they’re
going through the atmosphere their mug
you’re going through the magnetosphere
and as soon as they escape the
magnetosphere no more protection they
are being bombarded by these radiation
waves which are not good for their
health good thing is scientists are
actually working on this as a problem
that they’re trying to tackle so that we
can actually go on long-duration
missions the solution that they have is
not permanent as it is not viable but
they’re currently saying that enriched
titanium is the proper material that
they can use to protect us from these
radiation waves although this is not the
most cost effective neither it is the
most light material that we can use the
second factor that is going to greatly
influence are going to Mars is going to
be micro meteorites micro meaning small
and meteorites meaning those pesky
little things littered across the solar
system that travel at whopping speeds
and by whopping speeds I don’t just mean
speeds that are like the average truck
that you see outside these things travel
at 25 to 32 kilometers per second which
is extremely fast and it can rip through
your spacecraft to shreds it can rip to
you it can rip your spacecraft to shreds
about a fraction of a second which is
extremely fast so good thing is
scientists have already figured out ways
to eliminate this possibility as they’re
saying we’re gonna use two sheets of
aluminum at a particular distance the
first sheet of aluminum is going to
absorb the damage and the second sheet
of aluminum is actually going to protect
the hull of the ship however this isn’t
the most proper kind of method we have
developed yet and scientists are still
rigorously working on better ways to
actually improve our life so after doing
all of this after figuring out all after
understanding all the unprecedented
discoveries that our predecessors have
given us after understanding all the
real-life applications of the space
industry after understanding why Mars is
one of the most habitable places that we
can go to and what makes Mars and Earth
so similar after understanding and
actually rectifying the fact that we can
actually go to Mars and how to make
people survive on the journey to Mars we
get to Mars we look at Mars from about
4000 kilometers away its atmosphere
glistening in the sunlight
we enter the a gentle atmosphere of Mars
and we land on Mars the first human
steps foot on Mars this human would have
gone further and faster than any human
in history and as soon as he steps foot
on Mars he’s gonna start a cold war
however don’t get me wrong this cold war
isn’t gonna be a war of Russia trying to
fight the u.s. or vice-versa this is
going to be a war of humans trying to
wrestle space in a cosmic ballet that is
going to result in unprecedented
scientific discoveries and advancements
that ladies and gentlemen is what I call
space exploration when somebody puts
themselves into unchartered territory to
find out or discover something good for
the greater good of a larger community
which is the entire human race itself
that is what space exploration is thank
you [Applause]