Moon missions and space junk
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 28 December 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
2021 was another year of firsts in the ever-expanding industry around space, as we moved towards space tourism as a reality. But what about NASA, and its plans to return to the moon? We hear all about it, and the space agency’s ambitious plans for not just the moon, but mars; from NASA’s Carlos Garcia-Galan. We also hear about the increasingly urgent issue of space junk, which is causing serious safety issues in orbit. University of Texas at Austin professor, and chief scientific officer at Privateer, Moriba Jah explains. Plus Katie Miller from Skyrora tells us about the company’s space tug; a nifty idea to clean up unwanted objects in space.
Presenter Jane Wakefield Producer Sarah Treanor
(Picture: Earth from space, Credit: Getty Images).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to an episode of Business Daily with me, Jane Wakefield, where we'll be taking you into orbit. |
| 0:08.0 | Sadly, we are not bringing you the first BBC World Service program from space, but today we're talking missions to the moon and why space is getting dangerously messy. |
| 0:18.0 | I don't think it's going to be too much farther before we have normal people, maybe celebrities, |
| 0:23.7 | going to the moon, the vicinity of the moon, |
| 0:26.2 | just beyond lower orbit. |
| 0:27.9 | Space debris is a real problem. |
| 0:30.3 | In general, we have very limited orbital highways, |
| 0:34.2 | and these highways are becoming more congested. |
| 0:38.6 | Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:44.2 | The desire to explore and to profit from space has been a bit of a theme in the last few years |
| 0:50.0 | and 2021 was no different. |
| 0:53.4 | We have Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Virgins Richard Branson, |
| 0:57.4 | and of course SpaceX and Elon Musk, |
| 0:59.9 | all vying to expand our reach in one way or another, |
| 1:03.1 | from commercialized space flights to colonies on Mars. |
| 1:09.0 | Go, Jeff, go, Mark, go Wally, go Holley, go Holloper, you are going for space. |
| 1:15.1 | Space has long held a fascination, and it's surely still the dream of millions of children to become an astronaut. |
| 1:22.0 | So what makes the job special? |
| 1:24.5 | A couple of years ago, I chatted to Nicole Stott, former astronaut, environmentalist and artist |
| 1:30.6 | at the TED conference in Vancouver. |
| 1:33.8 | Six, five, four. Command engine start. Two, one. |
| 1:42.3 | First, I asked her what it feels like to launch. |
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