Nuclear Rocket Engine a Pathway into the Future

This week  on Strive Seek Find we dip into science news and NASA's  development of a Nuclear Rocket Engine and how it could impact our future. 

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Hello there friends, both old and new. Welcome to the strive seek fame podcast. I'm your host, Chad Whitmore, home to bite size, lifestyle advice from a fellow traveler on the road to a better life. Brought to you by someone who is a longtime educator, writer, parent, and an outdoor enthusiast, who may just may like a good draft, because our future is set not just through our choices, but by our willingness to explore and find a better way. Welcome back. So my first episode of this podcast, strive seek find if you didn't know it, you're listening to closing on three years ago, is one of two to three episodes that have been completed that have never, ever been released. Yeah. And there's good reason for that. And I'm going to as an aside on this, that doesn't include all of the episodes that I have sit on the computer, half written that I didn't think I should finish that I didn't think worked for hundreds different reasons. So I could probably have 300 episodes if I could ever finish any of those. But this episode was right out of the gate right after I'd done the trailer, which looking back. Obviously, your first few are rough. I would say my first. Well, I'm saying I'm pretty rough for us Still right now. But this episode, which I thought was I was so excited to do so pumped up about wanted to share was on my 10 favorite favorites, the wrong word in this case, because that would have been a different list. But 10 most important or most influential novels I've ever read, not the nonfiction books that I love. But the 10 most influential novels I ever read. And if you've known me for any length of time, and since I didn't script this out, you're gonna get probably 100 ads per sentence. And many of the novels either fit in the heading of science fiction or fantasy because I was dealing with novels. I love good nonfiction. But the fact is, I cut my teeth as a teenager on science fiction that I grabbed off my dad's shelf. And it grew. Side note on the list. I don't know if I I was really thinking as clearly as I'd like in my excitement, because I was telling stories about books that taught me to read that should be an episode of its own looking back. In this case, it brings me to the news because that science fiction piece I'm still a science fiction fan, possibly fanatic to this day for found an article, and it had me excited and I want to share simply this, that 2027 Which ladies and gentlemen, isn't that far away at this point. Even though it still sounds like it's distantly in the future. NASA will be testing a new killer thruster. Now, why is this important? It opens doors for space exploration. And for me, that's, I can't tell you how exciting that makes me because every time you turned around for the last, I don't know, forever. My it seems like the news that came out, made it more and more difficult and dangerous to traverse space. And this doesn't take away the dangerous aspect. But it gives a little bit of hope. Because I honestly will Leave. And I'm going to tag on to Stephen Hawking someone much brighter than myself that the only way that our species survives in the long long term is if we're not completely and totally dependent upon the planet on which we now reside. Because, well, let's face it on one level, we don't always treat it that well. And anytime you have a population 100% of a population in a given place, it's much easier to wipe it out. Hawking would talk about gamma ray bursts being one way, I have read stuff that talked about micro black holes, screwing things up. And of course, there's the old dinosaur killing favorite, the asteroid. All in all, having more of us living someplace else, on some level, as difficult and dangerous as that may sound. And it sounds pretty difficult and dangerous. is a probably a pretty good idea if we want to exist as a species and another millennia. So in this case, this nuclear thruster is supposed to reduce the time to Mars to 45 days. To put that in perspective, the best we can do and get back with humans at this point. In large part because of the fuel for the chemical thrusters, and boosters and whatever else is seven months. So you're talking years on a trip to Mars, and no hope. Unless you had another one on deck and already traveling, so to speak another mission on its way, a rescue missions. 45 days changes things. It makes it attainable. It makes it plausible. It doesn't make it less expensive, especially at first, but it opens that door. Now, why does this matter? Other than the pure time because we've had probes there we've had probes there for you know, as to recently we've had a lander that had a helicopter taking on, on and off of it, little drone on Mars, flying around the Martian landscape, not far behind you. But it was a new tool that scientists could use to take a look at things. In this case, I'll just point to the things that come to my mind. And forgive me, this is me talking about something I care about. And not scripting, or researching, just talking for a few minutes. And now a word from our sponsor. We asked dad how we how I could help his podcast so he said I could make a commercial. Let's help get the word out. share this podcast with your friends. This is so important. We all get busy. Just as simple share helps keep people in the loop. One way you can do this is tagging the show or using the keep seeking hashtag when you are talking about the show. Or leave a review on Apple podcasts or pod chaser reviews help people find the pod and finally, if you want to help keep the lights on he's got a buy me a coffee setup, keep him and research materials so he can keep putting out more strive seek fine. The link is in the show notes. Thanks for listening to strive seek site. And thanks to Katrina for doing the hat for this week. Really appreciate it sweetheart. In addition, let me add that my current since I did some Christmas money upgrades on on my setup. My next goal is to get three more of these mics I'm using so I can do more roundtable stuff, and I'm looking forward to it. But for now, let's get back to Oh ters pay In the things that can come out of a Martian trip. First off, there's the obvious. When we use technology, we tend to improve it. So we get these thrusters going, these nucular thrusters going, we're going to learn a lot about it. And we're going to learn a lot about how to set up a. And they're going to improve. Let's be honest, these have been a big part of science fiction for decades. Recent recently, you probably saw a variation on fusion drives on the expanse on television. You've seen them in hundreds of other shows and books dating back to the 60s, this they, they knew that this was the way to move between planets, based on the technology they had. Let's face it, the moon is a wonderful goal. But looking back historically, Wernher von Braun, you know, the German who was a member of the Nazi Party, who played a huge role in us getting our rocket program off the ground with his fellows that we got out of Germany. Grateful for that part. He's a problematic historical individual, obviously. He had an idea, he did not want to go to the moon, he was thought that the moon was someplace to take pictures and drop flags. Even in the in the 50s, he was thinking, the goal should be Mars, he had this idea of big arc, like spaceships taking the long journey. The Dream we're closer to the dream than we ever have been before. And those nuclear boosters could be a big part of it, and could open up the entire solar system as we get better at them. And who knows, in another millennia, may be open up the farther star systems we also have to consider what we can learn from trying to get very inhospitable soil into working order to grow crops. If you've seen the Martian, or Reddit, you know that that was a big part of the challenges for the survivor there on his Martian mission. Let's face it, if you live like in an urban area, or a place that is moving rapidly from farmland, a lot more urban, you know how fastly we're burning turning arable farmland, into houses, apartment complexes, strip malls, eventually, we're going to need to figure out how to grow more food than we have land. For. On top of that, you have to look at things like environmental sciences. If we can learn something from this trip by studying the atmosphere of Mars, and trying to figure out how to terraform it, let's say, maybe we can figure out how to undo the some of the damage we've done here. We don't know all the benefits, but we know that they will be there. And that's exciting. Outside of the survival impacts, I think I've already I know I've talked about that at nauseam already. There's another piece of this beyond just purely survival, because ultimately, survival is not enough for a species. And this may be me being a dreamer. And I'm okay with that. I'd like to believe that we all have a little bit of explorer in our soul, whether it's the small scale of trying new foods or hiking in new places, to what our ancestors did, crossing the world on foot on horseback, on sail driven ships, to see what's over the next horizon and discover what's out there. And that's powerful. The problem is, if that drive isn't taken up by exploration, it rapidly becomes something else. And whether that's conquest or whether that's apathy, I'm not sure which is worse. They both end up in a bad place and My mind right now I'm feeling like it struck me as I started talking about this. And if you've ever seen the Disney film, Big Hero Six, they have the character that's the science enthusiast. Kind of a science fanboy rather than a scientist. I am absolutely that character right now. Other than wanting to dress up like in monster movie attire. But this stuff does excite me because it gives me hope for the future. Because that's really going to be what drives us forward. We need new goals. We need new focus. And it's probably going to end up being a rant someplace else along the way. idealizing someone who is traveling the stars, beyond science fiction, I mean, it's not going to be Star Trek. It's not going to be the expanse, it's probably going to be closer to the expanse than the Star Trek, mind you. But someone who's out there doing it. It's so much more powerful than idolizing an individual who can do a tick tock dance who's making bank off of YouTube it's important to drive us forward. And you don't do that by being an influencer. And preachy moment. In other words, to summarize here, spaces cool spaces dangerous. We have a lot to learn. But there's a discovery that has the potential to drive us forward in ways that what wasn't even truly possible, even five years ago. And folks, that's incredible. Agree with me disagree with me. Please reach out. Let me know. I'd love to have a conversation. Until next time, friends. Well, friends, that's it for this week's edition of strife seek find. Thank you again for listening. If you'd like to join the discussion, or have ideas for future episodes, hop on over to the strife seek find podcast group on Facebook. Alternatively, if Facebook's not your thing, you can find me on Instagram at strife seek find podcast on Twitter, as at chance Whitmore five, or even on email. Links for all those are in the show notes below. Until next time, my friends, keep seeking your own brilliant future