Humanity's First Megaproject, Will NASA Skip the Moon for Mars, Other Local Groups | Q&A 287

what will be Humanity's first mega project should NASA skip the moon and go straight for Mars are there any other Galaxy groups like The Local group answers to all these questions and more in this question show it's time for the question show your questions my answers as always wherever you are across my channel if a question pops into your brain just write it down I will gather them up and I will answer them here all right let's get into the questions Dan man 6431 lots of us know the local group our own Galactic neighborhood of galaxies do we know of other local groups near us and will we collide with any of them in the future the Milky Way is part of the local group and this is a collection of galaxies and dwarf galaxies and so there's three main members of the local group there's the Milky Way which you know comes is the one that we're in and it's about say 100,000 Lighty years across and then there is Andromeda which is about 2 and a half million light years away from us it's about 220,000 Lighty years across so it's a bigger heavier Galaxy and then the third member of the group is in the triangulum constellation it's called m33 um and so those are the three main galaxies and in the Far Far Future those three Galaxy you know because they are gravitationally bound they are eventually going to merge into one larger elliptical galaxy and then we're surrounded by a couple of dozen dwarf Galaxy I mean the most famous of these is a large and small Mulin of clouds but there are lots of other dwarf galaxies that are surrounding this collection buzzing like bees and So eventually you know have all of these mergers and interactions within you know 10 billion years or so from now all of these galaxies will finally made their merger and turn into this sort of more spherical elliptical galaxy and so what are some other versions of the local group that are relatively near us so probably the closest one is called the antia seon group and that is another group of galaxies and the closest member of that is about 4.3 million Lighty years away and so when you think about it Andromeda is 2 and2 million light years away the closest galaxy is of this other group is 4.3 million light years away and in fact astronomers kind of argue about whether or not this other group is part of the local group and so maybe in the Far Far Future it'll turn yes we are gravitationally bound to this other group and the two will come together and form an even larger elliptical galaxy when you think about sort of the scale of elliptical galaxies out there when say the Milky Way is 100,000 light years across you know when you think about say m87 which is sort of one of the largest known galaxies it's the one where they saw the super massive black hole the heart of of m87 like that is close to a million light years across like it's a very large Galaxy and there are elliptical galaxies out there that are say 5 to six million light years across so you could take like the largest known galaxy in the universe and you could plon it in between us and that other local group and it would just extend that entire distance so so our local group when it finally becomes its version of a elliptical galaxy will be pretty small relatively speaking so there's the Ana sexon group and then the next grouping of galaxies that is clearly distinct and not do to crash into us but is you know gravitationally connected to us is called the sculptor group and the closest member of the sculptor group is about 6 million Lighty years away and it's there's some really cool galaxies in this the kinds of things that you can see in a small telescope because they're you know only about merely 6 million light years away we think about Andromeda 2 and a half million light years away uh you've got NGC 55 get NGC 300 both of these are really cool galaxies and they about 6 million lers away and so you've got a similar collection of four to five large galaxies with a cluster of dwarf galaxies and they're all going to collect together and they are too far away so you know while that first Galaxy group that I mentioned might merge with us that second one the sculptor group it is too far away and it is going to fall over the cosmic Horizon in the vast far future and then the next closest one is called the IC 342 Mafi group and it is about 10 million light years away and what makes that group really interesting is that it's actually directly across the galaxy from us it's partially obscured by the disc of the Milky Way and so we don't fully know what all the members are like sort of like a mini version of the great attractor and uh but it's about 10 million light years away and those are sort of the three closest groups to the local group and yet probably none of them will join the local group in the far future Ian holsworth at some point in the history of the universe the ambient background temperature must have spit a period between 0 and 100° C is it possible that the first life in the universe could have evolved yeah so at the very beginning of the universe the temperature was you know millions of degrees and then eventually it had cooled down by about 380,000 years to about say 3,000 to 4,000 de like the surface of a star and then it cooled down rapidly from there and for about say and I forget the exact number it's about 10 million years I think 12 million years after the big bang uh there was a time when the average temperature of the entire universe was between 0 and 100° C in other words the entire Universe was in the habitable zone but when did the first heavier elements form it probably came later than that probably within the first 100 to 200 million years and so even though the entire universe would have been cool enough for liquid water to just be present in giant blobs which would be so weird that the actual oxygen molecules that make up water hadn't formed yet in the hearts of stars probably but maybe uh you know maybe these stars formed more quickly than we think maybe they enriched the areas around it and maybe you did get that there was starting to be oxygen atoms formed that there was heavier elements that were starting to form and maybe some kind of primitive life could have formed you know and if you think of like the entire universe you would have a lot of chances at it you know when you think about how life formed on Earth We Are One Planet in one Galaxy that on planet Earth most of planet Earth is uninhabitable but there's this sort of thin sheen on the outside of the planet where liquid water can form and life could form but what if the entire universe every cubic meter of it uh were places where life could form and maybe those first stars formed earlier than we think and so maybe you got these heavier elements that were being injected into the uh into the universe this habitable universe and so this is a this is a theory there are papers on this uh that sort of think about this time in the early Universe when it was habitable and what are the kind of ways that that these heavier elements could have been produced and could you have life forming back then and then the universe cooled down um and then they would all freeze to death or maybe would be preserved and then they would land on the planets that were forming around these new stars and they seated the life for you know they seated life into the universe and that maybe um you know we think about panspermia here in the solar system where you've got life that's going from planet to planet maybe right possibly uh maybe you could have Galactic panspermia where you've got or Interstellar PL paneria where you've got bacteria going from planet to planet around the the Galaxy and maybe even going from between galaxies and so like wouldn't it be weird wouldn't it be interesting if if all life in the universe formed at this time when the universe was habitable and you had sort of Maximum chances of of life and that we're all just descendants from that time or maybe that's just ridiculous and life formed here on Earth four billion years ago uh which is what we have evidence for Tommy C what do you think will be the first mega project in space space Rings space elevators huge rotating hotels solar Shields lenses Etc we don't know what's going to be the first mega project sometimes you don't notice Mega projects until after they've been built you're like wow that Dam in China is pretty bag I guess that's a mega project or you know Great Wall in China or the pyramids or uh the Hoover down like like there are various projects when that will show up when the need is there uh when we need a certain amount of power that's when these kinds of Mega projects will will arrive and so right now there is no incentive there's no reason for us to Embark upon any of these challenges the the one that I sort of you know people are always excited about this idea of Dyson spheres of Dyson swarms that you're going to surround the sun in uh a collection of you know solar collecting satellites that will then use that power for some purpose for Humanity 3D assemblers compute clusters who knows what they're going to use that that power for and that feels like that's like the final stage like Humanity will have uh colonized the entire solar system will start to dismantle the solar system to build these collecting satellites are going to orbit around the Sun and collect all of the energy coming from the Sun and that is like the most that we could accomplish here in the in the solar system and that would be Mega project but what's interesting is that we've already begun that process that we have launched satellites from Earth made you know we have we have torn apart pieces of planet Earth we have turned them into satellites and we've launched them to space and now they are collecting power from the Sun and they're doing some kind of activity they are doing science or they're doing Communications or they are doing navigation or things like that and so the the Dyson Sphere has already begun and it won't be like like when you think about the the kind of infrastructure that we have on Earth cities highways uh Port systems uh the internet those are Mega projects and yet at no point did somebody go well I'm going to build the the mega project it's that bit by bit piece by piece people see value and they build these things and they add them together and eventually you have something significant and so we are we have already begun building our Dyson storm and it may take us a few hundred years a thousand years to build our Dyson SW uh but we've already begun and so I think that is going to be the mega project that we will look back and go ha we actually built that thing if you want to support the work we do at Universe today consider joining our patreon club your support lets us have a minimum of ads and no sponsorship messages patrons get no ads on universe.com for Life want the extra parts of the live stream that aren't in this edited version you can sign up for a special Patron only podcast feed and get the overtime segments as well as other special behind the scenes episodes including our monthly Patron only question show thanks to everyone who has already subscribed and Welcome to our recent newcomers Caster soyou James Diono Steph one Michael Sanders Chad Patterson and Katie malele join the club at patreon.com Universe today hands mailling we could move all our dirty industry to the Moon there are no ecosystems or life to destroy absolutely one of the main reasons that Jeff Bezos says that he started blue origin was to to build Humanity's future in space to actually create uh like move our polluting Industries off of planet Earth and to put them into space but again where are we on the technology curve today do we have the technology to be able to move the kinds of polluting facilities that we have down here on Earth up into space like what are the kinds of things that we do for that cause pollution will we drive cars so could we move our cars to space well then we wouldn't be able to drive our car so that wouldn't help we fly in airplanes well if we put our airplanes in space that wouldn't help us because in our planes would be in space and we need them down here on Earth uh we could move our shipping transportation to space again right uh heating our homes problem um like it goes on and on and on and on and on about all of the kinds of things that we could potentially move out into space you are left with a small group of things that you could produce in space like we could move a uh microchip facility out into space and then we acquire the resources for the microchips and then we deliver them to Earth where are we going to get the resources from well we bring them from Earth to space that is incredibly polluting for us to launch rockets to take things to space okay we bring material from asteroids to the factories and then we create the microchips and then we deliver the microchips to Earth okay now we're on the right track but uh just think about the amount of technology that would be required to get us to a place where we could build chip Fabs in space fed by material coming from asteroids like that is a there's a lot of Technology needs to be built before we can get to that place so the problem is that there just isn't a lot of the kinds of things that we could be uh producing in space yet uh I think Computing is a good example of a thing that we could and should be doing let's take our chat gbt llm clusters and fire them off into space and let them compute without having to you know they've got direct access to sunlight they can radiate their temperature off into space they don't need to use our lakes and oceans to cool themselves down that seems like a pretty feasible idea and I've seen some interesting proposals but even that I mean to launch a Nvidia chip to space uh you know and and have them all Network together and have them all functioning is is complicated what if you want to do upgrades and and you know what if you need to reboot the thing you got to fly to space and turn it off turn it back on again so um that's joke they know how to do that um but anyway so I think that unfortunately there's just not a lot of things right now today that that that makes sense for but again if we follow our inevitable technological curve there will be a time when various things will start to make sense and they'll they'll start because space is the best place to make them when you think about say Fiber Optic Cables you can make the most Pure Glass fiber optic cables in space where there's no impurities because there's no gravity uh that makes a lot of sense and there will be this demand for this optically pure fiber optic cable so there will eventually be a factory in space that is producing the best certain kinds of drugs could be made in space into zero gravity there so there's there's a very small list of things where there's actually an advantage where you can only get them from by making them in space and eventually that will grow and eventually those will require resources and eventually you'll have asteroid mining that will be supplying them and eventually we're going to get there but to sort of always artificially try to push this ahead it just costs too much money in the in the short term and doesn't give us the benefits over the long term we have to wait as our natural technology growth moves us up the chain into more and more space-based manufacturing but we'll get there and we'll get there inevitably we'll get there to a scale that will Boggle your imagination when we get there inevitably we're just not there today Adam musk said we are skipping the Moon last week do you think isaacman will be confirmed do you think he would stand up to musk on some issues so I'm recording this episode January 6th 2025 and uh this is before of the new Administration takes over in the United States and that means that all of the various cabinet positions all of the leaders of various agencies will be replaced with new leaders of various agencies and Jared isman the CEO of Polaris uh has been uh pitched proposed to be the candidate for the new NASA administrator uh and so that's going to await a senate confirmation where people are going to decide whether or not they're going to look at his history look at his capabilities and decide whether or not he is the appropriate person and you know we don't know what's going to happen we don't know if he's going to be confirmed um you know when I think about all of the potential new candidate positions that have been proposed by the new Administration that is one of the least controversial uh it's fairly controversial in that isaacman has no direct experience as part of NASA as part of the government in in leading large bureaucracies you know to accomplish various tasks over time but then what is the experience of running a company what is the experience of being on entrepreneur what his experience of flying to space um and sort of all of the logistical issues that were involved I mean I think he has onand experience in planning a mission in figuring out knowing what the limits are knowing what's possible knowing what's not possible and then he put his life on the line he actually hopped in the spacecraft and completed the missions twice and did a spacewalk first private astronaut to do a spacewalk so I think there's you know when I think about all of the possible appointments that are about to happen uh this is one that I am uh I have I kind of have I I am ambivalent which is that I can see lots of really interesting good reasons why someone like isaacman might be a lot of fun to help you know maybe inject some new ideas and maybe to provide some new enthusiasm for NASA um and then at the same time I know that there's a lot of sort of institutional knowledge that could be lost if you make too many changes to NASA too quickly that you lose this experience the people who built the Voyages the people who built the various missions that are on moon and Mars today and across all of the various centers in NASA so will it be confirmed we don't know like probably but we don't know um would he stand up to musk um I I again I don't know um you know I mean right now we're seeing that musk is starting to have some issues having some challenges in the interaction with other people as part of the upcoming Administration and it could very well be that that'll all get settled and smoothed out and and musk will will have a very serious effect on it uh or it's possible that he will be sidelined that you know thanks for donating hundreds of millions of dollars to help us get in power and now we don't need you anymore um and what will be his response to that so so you know right now there it is such a complicated such a time of flux that that we just have no answers and all we can do is kick back and be journalists uh which is to like seek the truth try to speak to the people who are actually doing the work who are involved in it and report on the things that happen as they happen and not get too sort of upset or uh agitated or anxious in advance for the things that are now happen so I think that it's going to be from a space flight side if it actually does happen you know it's going to be interesting and it's going to be Chen there's a ton of challenges that that anybody who takes on NASA is going to have to deal with all of the existing stakeholders all of the existing laws all of the funding all of the employment for all of these people across the United States all of the international uh alliances that the United States is part of all of the commitments that the United States has made to other countries with the International Space Station with various Rovers and missions like all of these have to be considered and navigated and it requires uh a both a light touch to to not lose institutional knowledge and it requires like a certain level of enthusiasm and creativity and out of the-box thinking and we're going to see how these come and play together and it could be a disaster and it could be sort of a business as usual and it could be revolutionary and we don't know which one of those it's going to be and I don't have any plans to think about it too much all all I'm going to do is watch as actual things happen as missions are proposed as missions are cancelled as people Shuffle around we will see what happens thanks to everyone who put your questions into the YouTube comments as well as everybody who joined the live show uh it's two hours long we have many more questions that you didn't see here so if you want that there should be an event for when the next one is going to be happening now I'm going to chat a bit about one of the other big shows that I work on but first I'd like to thank our patrons thanks to Abe Kingston Adam Schaefer andr gross Bar Lake Roofing David Gilton and David matz Dennis elberty Dustin cable James Clark Jeremy M Jim Burke Jordan young Josh Schultz Paul robok Sean Sergeant spider.io stepen fer Munley and Vlad chiplin who support us at the master of the universe level and all our patrons all your support means the universe to us so I am the publisher of the universe today website which I've been doing for 25 years but I am also the long-standing co-host of a podcast called astronomy and this is a show that I do with Dr Pamela gay and I've literally lost track of how many seasons we're doing I think we're into season 16 maybe season 17 uh there's 740 episodes in the podcast and it is this conversation with me and a PhD astronomer where we talk about a different subject every week we may talk about black holes then we'll talk about gravitational waves then we'll talk about various observatories and various missions we keep it specific to that one topic and just cover that Soup To Nuts and give give you a really good overview of the subject people enjoy Pamela's melodious voice uh tolerate my voice but still uh if you want a really interesting podcast that has been around for a long time you will never run out of episodes definitely go and do a search for astronomy cast on any pod catching application that you use all right we'll see you next time