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The Future of Manned Space Exploration

2012-03-09 · Hank · watch on YouTube · Science & nature · explainer learning

Hank presents NASA's new Space Launch System and Orion crew vehicle as the return of deep-space human spaceflight, tours the destinations on his 'bucket list for humanity' (the Moon, Ceres in the asteroid belt, Mars), and says he now expects to see humans set foot on another planet.

What is said

00:00:00 — Hank's two bucket lists: his own (Grand Canyon, Iceland, Natalie Portman and Emma Stone) and one for his species; NASA's September 2011 SLS announcement

  • ★★★ Hank says that besides his personal bucket list he keeps a second one for his species, since personal goals miss the big picture. — 00:00:00
  • ★ Hank's personal bucket list: visit the Grand Canyon, soak in a geothermal hot spring in Iceland, and be kissed on the cheek by Natalie Portman and Emma Stone at once. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says NASA announced the new Space Launch System in September 2011, a next step whose crews will travel beyond the space station's routine trips. — 00:00:00 · NASA
  • ★ In the description Hank says he also made a video about the Invisible Children / Kony 2012 campaign, on his second channel. — 00:00:00 · hankschannel

00:00:38 — The Space Launch System (size, lift) and the Orion crew vehicle (mass, no wings, re-entry speed, size versus Apollo)

  • ★★ Hank says SLS crews, instead of humdrum trips to and from the space station, will again push the boundaries of what humanity can accomplish together. — 00:00:38
  • ★★★ Hank says the SLS is the most powerful rocket ever designed: taller than the Statue of Liberty, big enough to hold nine school buses, with 286,000 pounds of cargo lift. — 00:00:38
  • ★ Hank converts the SLS lift capacity into more than 23,000 puppy-sized elephants. (joke) — 00:01:08 · puppy sized elephant
  • ★★★ Hank says the SLS is the launcher, not the spaceship; the spaceship is the new 20,000-pound four-seat Orion crew vehicle, wingless because returning from deep space it will move 9,000 mph faster than the shuttle ever did. — 00:01:08
  • ★★ Hank says Orion has four times the mass and more than twice the interior volume of the Apollo capsule. — 00:01:08

00:01:37 — First deep-space crew craft in 40 years; bucket-list destination one: the Moon and its mysteries

  • ★★★ Hank says it has been 40 years since humanity had a spacecraft able to carry humans beyond near-Earth orbit, and now it will have one again. — 00:01:37
  • ★★ Hank says the Moon's mysteries have grown since Apollo: it is seismically active, almost certainly holds frozen water, and its airless surface preserves its whole history, including meteorites. (hedged) — 00:01:37

00:02:23 — Destination two: the asteroid belt and the dwarf planet Ceres; probes are not enough without people

  • ★★ Hank says Ceres, a spherical dwarf planet 600 miles wide in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, may contain a subterranean ocean, and an unmanned probe will reach it in 2015. (hedged) — 00:02:23
  • ★★★ Hank says probes are not enough: we will never know as much as we could unless we get people onto those rocks. — 00:02:23

00:02:52 — Destination three: Mars; travel times; missions are difficult, dangerous and expensive

  • ★★ Hank calls Mars the juiciest scientific fruit in the solar system: a third the size of Earth, with an atmosphere and a day of 24-point-something hours. — 00:02:52
    • number check: a third the size of Earth — doubtful
  • ★★ Hank says astronauts took about three days to reach the Moon while Mars takes about seven months; such missions are difficult, dangerous and expensive, so we proceed with caution. — 00:02:52

00:03:22 — Hank now expects to see humans set foot on another planet; the first could be a young nerd watching; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank says before the SLS and Orion announcement he had begun to think he would never see humanity set foot on another planet; now he expects, given a normal lifespan, to see it. (hedged) — 00:03:22
  • ★★ Hank says the person taking that first step might be a young nerd watching now, and asks them to remember him and wave hi. (hedged) — 00:03:22

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