Summary
What are the obstacles are for a permanent base on the Red Planet? Ed Butler puts that question to Dennis Bushnell, the chief scientist at Nasa's Langley Research facility. He also hears from Ariel Ekblaw, the founder and lead of the Space Exploration Initiative at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chris Lewicki, President and CEO of the firm Planetary Resources and Therese Griebel, the deputy associate administrator for programs within Nasa's Space Technology Mission Directorate.
(Photo: Nasa InSight spacecraft launches onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas-V rocket on May 5, 2018, from Vandenberg Air Force base in California. Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:05.7 | Today, as we remember the heroics of the Apollo moon landings 50 years ago, |
| 0:10.5 | we're asking, is it time to make real that next long-held dream, a permanent space colony? |
| 0:16.6 | We can colonize Mars fairly inexpensively, fairly rapidly, and because they will be getting used to gravity and so on, they will become Martians. |
| 0:27.5 | And what are the commercial possibilities of extending our presence in space? |
| 0:32.0 | They are multi-billion dollar projects, decades in length, but they have the opportunity for hundreds of billions, if not |
| 0:39.2 | trillions, in revenue and value creation. Putting life on Mars, that's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:49.6 | Roger Twink. Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. Fifty years on from the first moon landings, it does still feel like we are teetering, doesn't it, on the brink of what life beyond our planet really means? Some of us are still grappling with the question of why it's worth even going there. But on the back of this week's anniversary, space agencies around the world are talking up the value of new space ventures, |
| 1:14.0 | including the schedule for another manned trip onto the surface of our nearest neighbor, the moon. |
| 1:19.8 | 2024 is NASA's declared date for the next moon landing. |
| 1:24.4 | Torres Grebel is Deputy Associate Administrator for programs within NASA's space |
| 1:29.2 | technology mission directorate. The 2024 timeframe is to get humans to the surface and to demonstrate |
| 1:37.3 | all the technologies that we need in order to show that we can transport and retrieve humans safely. |
| 1:46.4 | A moon base is going to definitely be a little bit longer into the future. For a moon base or for more of a sustained presence on the |
| 1:52.5 | moon, we're looking more towards the 2028 timeframe. That is just the start, though, of course, |
| 1:57.8 | armed with cheaper rocket technology supplied by the likes of Elon Musk and others, |
| 2:02.6 | future Mars missions and a Mars base are also being talked up. |
| 2:06.6 | A few months back, I spoke about this with a man who really understands the challenges. |
| 2:11.4 | He's the chief scientist at NASA's Langley Research Facility, his name's Dennis Bushnell, |
| 2:16.2 | and he isn't afraid to dream a little. |
| 2:25.6 | We have looked at the resources on Mars, and it's perfectly feasible for the autonomous robots to go and access the resources and to fashion them into |
| 2:38.1 | things that people need. And if the people are willing to live under four or five meters |
... |
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