yeah I think um as far as human travel goes and I mean really any space travel I think that we really do need a revolution in propulsion um if we are ever going to to actually become an interplanetary species like thinking further in the future um but even in the near term um we could accomplish so much more if we could revolutionize our propulsion system and a massive transformed purpose is what you’re telling the world it’s like this is who I am this is what I’m going to do this is the dent I’m going to make in the universe now we have uh went out to Twitter uh to the community there to ask for questions we have an incredible uh list of of questions uh some of these are are great and I want to just take a second and uh and share them with you cuz I think they’re worth answering um so uh
[00:01:01] and feel free to say not my area or I’ll answer it in a few years uh but Dan ask I would love Amber’s thoughts on the hypothetical existence of wormholes so yeah you want to go there um it’s again it’s it’s Theory um but it’s I mean it’s good physics right um I think I think theoretically yeah I’ve seen this on Star Trek so it’s got to be to be right um so yeah I think I think um hypothetically theoretically yes um it’s possible from a physics standpoint can we use it as humans to travel across space right that’s the that’s the big question the big underlying question and not right now um maybe later you know I like to take an expansive view of what we’re going to be able to accomplish in the future of humanity because we’ve been
[00:02:00] able to do so much already yeah I would never say I would never say never if it’s within the realm of physics exactly yeah I I agree so someday we’ll be we be able to use wormholes to travel I would say I hope so yeah all right I I’ll I’ll take that um uh thinks Magic Cube 7 says how confident are you or your colleagues that there’ll be boots on the Moon by 2030 by 2030 um well I can’t speak for my colleagues um but for me um I think it’s again it’s so hard to tell um but I I think it’s I think it’s going to happen um obviously we had a really good uh uh Artemis test uh last year so that’s exciting um you know what Starship is doing I think is also super super incredible and exciting so I think the technology is there and by the way it could be Chinese boots on the Moon too it could it it absolutely could you know China’s space program is growing
[00:03:02] faster than anywhere else in the world um so yeah it could be um I think I think it’s I think it’s likely actually yeah I I’d probably give it I would give it 90% chance I mean unless something catastroph catastrophic happens uh I think a a race to the moon Surface by 2030 um is a very realistic uh Target so I I’ll I’ll take bets on that online we’ll go there all right Amber so um another question here uh is what item do you think would be the most interesting thing to send to space um that would Intrigue the world do you have any anything in the back of your mind that H well you know what I think Carl Sean had had a pretty good idea with the golden record right I mean I think that’s great that was that was a stroke of Genius yeah describe what that golden
[00:04:01] record was and where it flew on which flight yeah yeah so this is the um the the I mean it’s a golden record it’s a it’s a it’s an object that contains data about the human species um that was sent up a voyager and it it was a sort of it was almost a last minute kind of like oh there’s this satellite going up to space we should we should do something about Humanity with it and it contains you know um you know like of what human the human body looks like it has I think songs of like whales whale noises it has music it has readings from like every nation on the planet yeah so it’s um yeah it has that famous photo of a a naked man in woman and the nine planets and uh and binary um yeah it’s amazing it’s beautiful and it’s it’s so hopeful I mean that’s what I love about it and again getting to more of the you know the the touchy feely aspects of space
[00:05:02] yeah connection it’s uh it’s hopeful you know it was that was a very hopeful thing to do to send that and to you know to to think there’s someone out there that might see this yeah and it created an entire Star Trek movie episode that’s incredible fure all right so uh surrender uh says I am an Indian and want to enter the domain of planetary science what are the recent research areas is so I can get ahead of the domain I’m doing my engineering undergraduate so someone wants to dive in where would you direct them to focus so planetary science is super interesting um there there’s wow there’s so much going on at NASA in particular with planetary science so we are going to soon bring samples back from Mars so that’s very interesting um so I think there’s there’s a lot of options in planetary science um um sending probes
[00:06:00] to Europa um all the all the planetary missions that we have planned are are super absolutely incredible um I would say in general if you’re if this um listener is is interested uh in planets outside of our solar system that the field of exoplanet science is really it really is one of the the sort of hottest fields in astronomy right now and so um you know if I was 20 years younger I might go into exoplanet science myself well you know the other other convers we have a lot on this on this podcast is around longevity so you’ll have your second third and fourth career coming up soon there we go and honestly uh I agree with you I mean that’s like one of the most exciting ideas I could think about is exoplanet conversation um another question comes up um how fast uh let’s say speed of light being the fastest uh could we safely go is a question and
[00:07:01] that brings us up into sort of propulsion systems and uh you know traditional propulsion systems where we carry all the fuel from the surface of the Earth and we you know we burn it to get speed and we burn it to slow down is kind of limiting right now um but there’s a lot of conversation that I’ve seen on nuclear propulsion uh and solar cell solar cells uh what are you hearing from your exoplanet friend or your propulsion friends out there about traveling to Mars or you know to the outer moons of Saturn and Jupiter yeah I think um as far as human travel goes and I mean really any space travel I think that we really do need a revolution in propulsion um if we are ever going to to actually become an interplanetary species like thinking further in the future um but even in the near term um we could accomplish so much more if we
[00:08:02] could revolutionize our propulsion system so so yeah I think nuclear propulsion um like you said solar propulsion solar sale kind of Technology still pretty early um I think in technological development but super interesting um so I think I think we need all cards on the table in terms of figuring out the best ways to get you know our spacecraft and ourselves um out into space in the future I’m Still Holding Out for wormholes though we’re going back to that yep that’s the hopeful approach near nearer to Earth um uh space debris um I mean I don’t think people realize what a challenge that could potentially uh you know provide to humans getting off the planet um any conversations that you’re hearing on Space debris I mean we’re seeing more and more of it all right as more satellites get launched and those satellites bump into each other or spent
[00:09:02] fuel tanks explode uh what’s the buzz there yeah so I’m I mean I’m not in a lot of the sort of NASA conversations about um about space debris uh other than when it does impact our satellites which it does right we have to maneuver the International Space Station to avoid big chunks of debris we have to maneuver our satellites um to avoid debris uh so it does like it’s not a future thing like it’s happening now it’s impacting space now um and so I I do think that um we have to get we have to to figure out how to manage it and I certainly don’t don’t have those answers but I know I know very smart people are working on it yeah and I think you know we’re working right now on a space debris xprize I mean there will be a business in terms of of that and you know the solution there is Falls in different categories one
[00:10:01] solution is can you in fact build spacecraft that go and gather the largest piece of of space debris bring them down remember when I was a when I was a kid there was a television show uh uh I forget the name where where uh the basis was it was uh a company that would go in Salvage I think it was like Salvage 1 was the name of it you go in Salvage D breath from the the from orbit um the energy of that’s crazy another idea is using space-based lasers to uh sort of Zap the space debris way that you know slows them slows them down um let’s talk one of my favorite subjects asteroids um uh and you know asteroids are of incredible interest as a future resource based for for uh liquid oxygen principally uh hydrogen potentially uh nickel iron Platinum Group Metals but
[00:11:02] the thing that’s interesting more than that is the concern of near Earth asteroids that get too close we just saw recently uh I guess it was a school bus-sized asteroid that came within the geostationary orbit of Earth it’s pretty large and the thing that was scary about it was it was discovered like 4 days earlier I guess it was it was approaching from the Sun like we can see the asteroids that are coming from the outer Sol system because they’re illuminated from far away but if they’re coming directly from the Sun you can’t see them uh is that a conversation going on inside the halls of NASA oh for sure yeah um and I think you know it’s it’s being taken you know even more seriously now than it was say 10 years ago um and of course we just had the dart Mission um successful Mission yeah describe the dark Mission because that was a super Mission so we slammed a spacecraft into a a little tiny asteroid and it was
[00:12:02] amazing and you know it’s the first time wasn’t just for wasn’t just for fun right right so um the the acronyms basically stands for well I’m going to be honest I don’t remember the first two words but it was a redirect a mission so it was seeing if we could smash um something into an asteroid to alter his trajectory enough um that would be you know sufficient to uh to protect us um in the future from from an asteroid impact and it worked I mean it was incredible and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen you know a crowd full of scientists a room full of scientists like you know react with a joy when their camera stopped working right because it’s smashed in and then it’s like yeah it’s gone you see static it’s no yeah no I mean it was but was amazing was the Precision exact which you know a bullet hitting a bullet type of velocities and smack into the center as predicted uh I didn’t see the final results of it um because of course the
[00:13:01] world just tuned in for that you know that moment of impact but statistically it it deviated the asteroid in a predictable way that would be enough with enough advanced notice to get it out of the path of Earth is that correct in general yes um of course again with these kind of things it’s all about orbital mechanics and math right uh because it all depends on how close it is how you detect it um how fast it’s moving you know and how big it is you know those things come all come into play um this was just a very sort of initial first um proving we could do it um but yeah it’s it’s s it’s it’s incredible it’s incredibly important um important work and um again I I try to stay hopeful so I would think that if we did discover something um we we we would have have the tools and
[00:14:00] this the knowhow um to to be able to deflect a planet destroying asteroid yeah we got to we got to figure it out before Bruce Willis you know departs exactly so um all right let’s go back to space telescopes here what’s on the drawing board next I mean the we have I think they’re called the Great telescopes right these these telescopes that we’ve been producing and so uh James web telescopes conceived of 96 25 years later it gets launched after you said Congressional cancellation and lots of you know budget overruns and time overruns and such but it makes it thank you to you and your fellow scientists and those who support it because it’s I mean it’s like once it’s there it’s like oh my God this is a human treasure um where are we going where are we going next what’s the uh what’s the vision for you know next Generation so um right now uh we are building and are very far far
[00:15:00] along on our next quote unquote Flagship our next big um astronomy telescope at Nasa and that’s the Nancy Grace Roman telescope um that’s going to be launched in 2027 so not too far away um it is smaller in terms of like scale it’s about a Hubble siiz Telescope but the primary just a Hubble siiz Telescope just a Hubble you know um but uh the the the big deal about the Roman telescope is that it has a huge feel of view um so whereas Hubble again and JW sort of stare at one teeny tiny piece of Sky sort of like looking through a straw very deeply the Roman will be able to see large swats of the sky um and that just allows you to do different science so we’ll have to do another podcast on the science of the row and Telescope but it’s awesome so it’s going to focus on um also on exoplanets but also on dark energy this big you know space mystery that we have of what is most of the universe made of so Roman is um again
[00:16:01] it’s doing great technology is there it’s being built it’s being tested launches in 2027 as far as the next big big thing after the Roman telescope bigger is better bigger is better and let me tell you what the next big one is going to be awesome okay so um and just to give a little background context every 10 years astronomers get together and say what are our biggest astronomy questions what do we need to build to answer to them those are the decadal surveys so your listeners have probably heard of these um so for the the last you know 2020 uh decadal surve um we decided that we need to build um basically a fleet uh so we need three new observatories new big bold awesome observatories um and the first of these is going to be called the habitable world’s Observatory so that’s exactly what it sounds like we are going to build a telescope to find
[00:17:01] life so that is the next Big Goal um in astronomy um of NASA so it’s essentially going to search um a 100 nearby star system to search for earthlike planets that’s the goal and to find evidence of Life on those planets so that’s a big goal but I think we can do it so uh going back to sender’s question of what should he study uh it’s going to be perfect for you just you know looking for exop planet with with life with life yeah and and it’s interesting right hopefully fingers crossed um we will expand the the uh envelope of what we can deliver to space uh with the Advent of Starship which is huge absolutely yeah and and our having these big reliable um and in this case reusable Rockets I think is going to be a a complete GameChanger um for astronomy and um and also the the prospect of in in space servicing um super important
[00:18:02] you know we’ve we’ve done that with Hubble but all of our other telescopes have not built been built to be serviceable including jwst um but our next Fleet of observatories that we’re thinking about those have to be serviceable and so that’s something that we’re sort of actively planning for um and you know I think we again J it’s awesome it’s so worth it but it was so hard um and you know this next Fleet of observatories we’re thinking about um is it’s not a whole new you know it’s not a revolution you know it’s going to be building on the Technologies and the Lessons Learned we have from jbst to be able to build these um so this again this habitable worlds Observatory is is the first one we’re prioritizing and then we also want to build a huge x-ray telescope and a huge far infrared telescope which sort of um you know basically help us to get at all of those fundamental questions that we have in
[00:19:02] Asom right um yeah so it’s uh it’s super exciting and if we can do it I say if we can do it we just need the will to do it um and we you know we need we need people to get to get behind it to decide to do it it’s going to be hard um but I think the faster we can get these observatories in space uh the better it it’s going to be overall so I I I can’t I can’t imagine what could be more exciting and you know luckily you know a few of the wealthiest people on the planet are Space Cadets along with you and me and so if you know if government has difficulty maybe we’ll get some privately funded uh you know Mega space telescopes out there as well I mean you know what’s $10 billion between friends that’s not not too bad I’m going to close this out with a question I asked my guests um so Amber you know about the X prize you know that um we run these
[00:20:01] large-scale Global competitions and I’m always looking for great moonshots great xprize ideas so if I were to say to you Amber we’re going to fund uh the Amber strong xprize it’s fully funded I just need you to tell me what do you want scientists and Engineers around the world focusing on is there a Grand Challenge that you think would be a great X prize I know I’m putting you on the spot here but I know you’re brilliant too as well so um we’ve covered a lot of different subjects what are your thoughts what what do you think you know unleashing Global creativity on uh might give us uh some interesting breakthroughs well when I think about problems facing us humans um I my mind goes to climate change of course I think that’s a huge one and I know X prises funding uh things to to
[00:21:00] address that um yeah so I think I think climate change is the thing that comes to mind I think it is um not only in the future but now it’s a big problem now it’s affecting people now you know in the climate change and the space area an idea I’ve kicked back and forth and I’m curious of your view on this is the idea of a sun shade can we put up a large scale structure that would titrate would maybe block you know a fraction of 1% of the Sun in a way that would fail safe and allow you to put like a thermostat on the solar flux hitting the Earth that’s super interesting yeah I don’t know I need to think about that a little bit that’s interesting I well you’ve heard me say a couple of times now I try to take a hopeful outlook on things and I really do I I A lot of times when I think about these big problems I feel like a lot of our problems are to to address the problems it’s social
[00:22:01] or political problems rather than technological so um so that’s that’s that’s a tough side of of of these sorts of things X prises work more when you’re building a technology um you know I’ve I’ve thought about uh just to enter this sort of conversation with you uh would there would an xprize to look for Earth approaching asteroids uh from within the orbit of Venus potentially you know could we create small telescopes that would be launched and funded to look for those asteroids uh and give us a little more advanced warning um maybe something like that uh I wonder if data prizes looking at all of the uh James web telescope like competitions to discover the most interesting Breakthrough by citizen scientists does something like that exist um as far as prizes I’m not sure sure um but but yeah there there
[00:23:01] are huge platforms um for citizen science and they’re fairly active um but you know competition always Spurs on human beings so having a competition for diving into that data and does sound sound really interesting so um and and we have tons of data it’s great but once we do bring on the Roman telescope um and also a groundbased telescope called the Reuben telescope uh these two TN that one going to be um that uh that one oh no I’m forgetting off the top of my head where it’s being built I should know that so uh but it’s um a huge and it’s the same idea as Roman um in terms of science Widefield and what that means is so much data that we actually don’t really know how to handle it yet in terms of in terms of analysis um that’s one of the reasons there’s a lot of effort on machine learning um algorithms
[00:24:01] in astronomy right now um so once we get in the era of Roman and Ruben data we are definitely going to need um help uh from humans from competitions from machines to be able to analyze this massive amount of data amazing ladies and gentlemen Dr Amber strong uh this was probably one of my favorite conversations you sort of tickled the young 9-year-old than me who got you know sort of turned on with Star Trek and Apollo and uh uh it just it’s extraordinary that the human race using these tools can discover the everything that’s going on in this in this universe it’s literally uh awe striking to our souls um Amber I I thank you uh you’re going to be joining us at uh abundance 360 this year on stage I hope you’ll bring with you uh some of your favorite
[00:25:02] images and tell some of your favorite stories because uh this very much is a visual story um and uh anyway thank you for painting the pictures with your words and taking the time today uh folks who want to dive in deeper see some of these images learn about more where would where would you direct them what website so to learn more about JIS T and find all the images and all the great stuff it would be jwst . nasa.gov nice well thank you to NASA to to Congress for putting the money back up to all the astronomers who have been working around the clock for this and thank you to you Amber uh it’s uh it’s uh just amazing to call you a friend and thanks thank you so much for having [Music] me