Do we need more space stations?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 August 2019
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Satellites have transformed our lives, giving us digital communications, navigation and observations of Earth, and even an artificial place to live above the atmosphere: The International Space Station. CrowdScience listener Dana wants to know: would more of these satellites and stations help us get back to the Moon, as well as further into the solar system?
As we discovered in a previous episode, being able to mine resources such as fuel and water in space could be handy for extra-terrestrial exploration. Asteroids could perhaps one day become self-fuelling gas stations for spaceships, as many contain ice which you could turn rocket fuel (hydrogen and oxygen). But what else would astronauts need for living beyond Earth?
Marnie Chesterton asks the engineers working on the possibilities – from communications satellites that could transform lunar missions to a brand new moon-orbiting space station: The Lunar Gateway. These technologies could help humans get back to the Moon, and perhaps one day to Mars, for hopefully reduced costs – but funding missions beyond our planet still isn’t going to be cheap. Why might we need deep space-based infrastructure, and how could it help humanity back here on Earth?
Presented by Marnie Chesterton Produced by Jennifer Whyntie for the BBC World Service
(Photo: International Space Station, orbiting Earth. Credit: The Science Photo Library)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and maybe it's when I had a hand in. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm Tammy Walker and I produce podcasts for the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | My role is to give new and diverse creators a voice with the opportunity to build a career. |
| 0:12.0 | That's the thing I love about podcasts. |
| 0:14.4 | You start with just a good idea, but then you have the space to see where it goes. |
| 0:18.4 | And doing that at the BBC means we can really run with the best stories |
| 0:21.9 | while developing the most unique audio talent. |
| 0:24.3 | So if you like what you hear, why not check out the huge range of podcast we've got on BBC |
| 0:29.1 | Sounds. Imagine being in a tiny spacecraft, a tiny spacecraft, |
| 0:35.0 | imagine being in a tiny spacecraft, |
| 0:41.0 | 250,000 miles away from home, hurtling towards the surface of another world. |
| 0:47.0 | In order to land safely, a matter of life or death, you need vital instructions. |
| 0:57.0 | But communications just aren't reaching you. We're going to go back. Eagle Houston, you call. |
| 1:05.0 | Welcome to Crowd Science from the BBC World Service, |
| 1:11.0 | the show that takes your questions to the |
| 1:13.3 | metaphorical corners of this world and beyond in order to find answers. |
| 1:17.8 | I'm Man Yvester, how do you read now? |
| 1:21.8 | I'm Marnie Chesterton and that was the nail biting recording of the first human |
| 1:27.5 | mission that eventually saw people walking on the moon Apollo, recorded back in 1969 as the lunar lander eagle headed for |
| 1:37.0 | the moon's surface. |
| 1:38.0 | Tranquility base here. |
| 1:41.0 | The eagle has landed. Roger Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. |
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