The Infinite Monkey Cage - Space Exploration

Episode Date: November 19, 2012

The Infinite Monkeys are back and in the first of the new series Brian Cox and Robin Ince boldly go where no science programme has been before, as they discuss space exploration with Captain Jean Luc Picard himself, actor Sir Patrick Stewart; former quantum physicist Ben Miller; and Professor of Planetary Sciences, Monica Grady. They'll be discussing whether space really is the final frontier and whether, with the development of ever more sophisticated robotic space missions, do humans need to go to space at all? Are un-manned missions more cost effective and ultimately more efficient in terms of the scientific knowledge they generate, or is the need to explore unknown worlds, on this planet, or any other, the key to driving the progress of science?Producer: Alexandra Feachem Presenters: Robin Ince and Brian Cox.

In our new podcast, Nature Answers, rural stories from a changing planet, we are traveling with you to Uganda and Ghana to meet the people on the front lines of climate change. We will share stories of how they are thriving using lessons learned from nature. And good news, it is working. Learn more by listening to Nature Answers wherever you get your podcasts. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long.

Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. This is a download from the BBC. To find out more, visit bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4. Hello, this is the Infinite Monkey Cage. On my right a man who's... Are you on my right? No, you're not, are you?

That doesn't matter. This is a science show, but it's a very loose science show. Fact, not important. For the radio listeners, they like to imagine he's on my right. Hello, this is the Infinite Monkey Cage. On my right, a man who used to write the songs that made the world go round. Until he found out that this is unnecessary because of the conservation of angular momentum,

which might be seen as a consequence of the isotropy of space and the fact that the Earth is in free fall following a geodesic through space-time curved by the sun. Of course, it's Brian Cox. On my left... A man who, inspired by the Bee Gees, decided to write the jokes that started the whole world crying until he realised that this was to comedy

what astrology is to post-Enlightenment Europe. Robin Ince. Oh, the astrologists love you. You actually were in... I saw his book the other day in an astrology section. I was over the moon. So, um... Which means you're not feeling very well this month. No, just, yeah.

Today we are going to be discussing the human desire to explore the universe. As the great Carl Sagan said, the surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore we've learned most of what we know. Recently we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle deep, and the water seems inviting.

I'll do them all. Oh, look, who's that? Neil's boar. Don't worry, we'll move on. But in an age of austerity, when many bankers have not even received full bonuses this year, should we really be wasting money on exploring our indescribably beautiful universe

filled with stars of diamond and moons of ice, searching for life beyond our tiny pale blue world and aspiring to embark on voyages of discovery to the stars. It's very much a 50-50 thing there. You'll notice the lack of any bias there whatsoever. So should humans risk life and limb at great cost to explore space? Should we leave it to robot explorers?

Or should we not concern ourselves with the universe beyond our planet at all? To help us address these difficult and profound questions, the answers to which will define our future as a species, over the next 26 minutes, we are joined by three guests, only one of whom has ever captained a starship.

Which one could it be? I don't know. So, we have the author of the new book. It is not rocket science and star of the much underrated Australian comedy film, Razzle Dazzle, A Journey Into Dance. I wish you wrote that.

I did indeed. I co-wrote that film. I co-wrote the much underrated Razzle Dazzle A Journey Into Dance. So the star of Razzle Dazzle A Journey Into Dance, Ben Miller. Our next guest is Professor of Planetary Sciences at The Open University and a world expert in the study of meteorites, the perfect specialist field for a person who, by allowing space to come to her,

balances her desire to explore with a natural laziness. Professor Monica Grady. And our final guest is best known for being the Chancellor of Huddersfield University, but also has an illustrious stage career. From Shakespeare to Beckett, many know him for Prospero, his white Othello with an otherwise all-black cast, Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth in Macbeth, Macbeth in Hamlet, which was an absolute disaster, and Didi in Waiting for Godot, and some say has also done some work on American television. Please welcome Sir Patrick Stewart. Patrick, many scientists that I know cite Star Trek

as one of the things that inspired them to go into science. I know that the first spaceship, the prototype spaceship, Lenterprise, was named after your ship. I may spoil it like that. So were you interested in space exploration? No. Are you now? And suddenly the producers are thinking Have we made a terrible mistake?

I watched the moon landings And was amazed and thrilled by them But, and this is a sort of an admission really And will make me, I suspect, very unpopular For a long time I was one of those creatures who said we should not be going out into space because every bit of evidence on our own planet proves that whenever we have explored the unknown, we've messed it up. We've left ruin and death and chaos behind us. Let's leave outer space until we fix this world. Well, that was my position.

Let's leave outer space until we've fixed this world. Well, that was my position. And then I was offered this job. And it was no longer exactly proper to say things like that. So, yes, I'm for it. I think it's an excellent thing. And I know you're going to be talking about robots, but if there'd only been robots and man had not gone into space, I would have no career. Now, Ben, your new book, of course, is called It's Not Rocket Science.

As someone of your generation, we're a similar generation, was the journey into space that we were seeing, you know, the Apollo missions of the 70s, was that an inspiration that got you into science? Of course, you studied science at university. Oh, completely, yeah. I mean, it was transforming, you know, the idea that we were... I mean, we went in a rocket.

Well, that's fantastic, isn't it? Essentially, what we did during the Apollo landings was take the biggest intercontinental ballistic missiles we had... ..go, look at that, the moon's quite close, isn't it? Go on, go on, light it. And the only people, sadly, we could find to fly in them were test pilots which is a great shame because when they got back they couldn't tell us what it was like so you know my plan i mean i think it is important to send people into space but it's also really important to send people other than test pilots.

And men? No, just men. You'd said to me that you'd met Buzz Aldrin many times. He was a regular on set. I mean, what was he, a test pilot in demeanour? Buzz was an outrageous, exotic, colourful

and very self-obsessed... Was. Is. Is. Forgive me, Buzz. And he would visit us often, bring guests onto the set. And unlike the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who came on the bridge one day and said to me,

Captain, may I sit in the chair? Buzz would just sit in the chair? Buzz would just sit in it. Someone also, I have something signed by him, I think it was a Star Trek script, what else would it be, in which he has written on the front, warp speed never in anybody's lifetime, and he underlined it. Well, of course, we've already seen that we are beginning to nudge at the possibilities of that,

haven't we? Yeah, there was a report that you could curve space in such a way. I don't believe that. Because I'm worried about causality, which I often... You are always worried. It's a bugbear with you, isn't it? What are you worried about, Brian? If you travel between two points in space faster than the speed of light, even by taking a shortcut, then essentially you've got a time machine.

So you can reverse cause and effect. You can effectively throw a brick and the window will smash before you've thrown the brick. You could also do the paradoxical things like go back and then stop your grandparents meeting, etc. All the nasty paradoxes that come with time travel. Without that particular element, most of science fiction would not exist.

That's true. But I don't think it's any way to build a universe. So, I mean, actually many scientists think... What a cushy thing to say. Now, if I was building a universe, let me tell you. Yeah, it's what I do. So I think that although these things are theoretically possible,

wormholes, et cetera, I think many scientists think that when we fully understand gravity, there will be some reason that you can't do it, some physical reason, which essentially protects causality, cause and effect. Like you think, like, our legs might go there, but the rest of us might not, that kind of thing. No.

That's a good... I like the image, though. That's spaghettification we're talking about, isn't it? Where you get stretched when you fall into a black hole. Can I tell my Buzz Aldrin anecdote? Yes, you may. I sat next to Buzz Aldrin at a dinner, and all the time I was sitting there thinking, what can I talk to him about?

What can I talk to him? I can't ask him what it's like to walk on the moon. He must get asked that all the time. I can't ask him. Anyway, by the time we were sort of halfway through Pudding, I thought, I cracked. And I said, so what's it like to walk on the moon then? And he just went crunchy and went back to his seat. Monica, I was going to say, going back to actually what one of the things that you particularly deal with, which is looking at meteors. Now, before we even go... No, meteorites.

Well, that's what I was going to ask you to do. My first thing is, Brian didn't know this either. Er... Yes, a level of shock across the audience, but we thought he was the hive mind on his own. But he's a particle physicist. So, as Brian doesn't know it either, can you first of all just get that out of the way?

Meteors, meteorites. All right, well, meteors are stuff that burns up in the atmosphere. Shooting stars is another name for them. Nothing lands. Meteorites are solid chunks of rock or metal, and they land. Holding up a meteorite for the radio listeners. Oh, yes. Here I have in my hand a meteorite, a stony one.

It's actually a spaceship. You are investigating. Hang on a minute. Again, for the radio listeners, it is a small black piece of rock. Oh, yeah. It is not a spaceship because they would know that because they can't see it. Oh, yeah, forgot.

So they might have thought it was. I prefer it when we just do things like that. Wow, look at my great big teleporter. Isn't it amazing, Brian? Oh, just pop over there. He is over there. Anyway, come back now. Hello.

Now, you've brought two meteorites to show us, so could you describe them and tell us what they are? All right, well, I've got one which is the size of a large tangerine. It just looks like a rock, actually. It's dark brown. It's covered in a matte black surface, which is where it burns as it came through the atmosphere. And this is a primitive meteorite. I called it a starship because it has traveled about 150 million kilometers. It's come from the asteroid belt and it is 4567.53 million years old okay approximately so that's the age of the solar system it's come from the time at which the sun was born this one

which is much smaller has got a very black shiny crust again where it heated up as it came through the atmosphere and it's a funny greenish color and And this is a piece of Mars. This was blasted from the surface of Mars a few million years ago, but this is only 1,300 million years old. Actually, Monica, you gave a very precise date indeed, because that will be no surprise to the Monkey Cage viewers that this thing is around 4.6 billion years old, give or take, but some of our listeners on the web in the Midwest may be rather surprised. LAUGHTER APPLAUSE

So how are you able to date these things with such accuracy? You can do it with such precision by using isotopes. So we use lead isotopes. So uranium decays to lead. And what you can do is you can look at the lead that's left behind. All the uranium has decayed away. It's not radioactive. And using instruments called mass spectrometers,

you can make very, very, very precise measurements with very small errors on them. This raises the question, I suppose, Patrick, doesn't it, that we touched on earlier about the value of manned space exploration. Because we learn a lot here. We have a piece of Mars, so we don't need to go

and bring back rocks from Mars in a sense, although I suppose we could bring back different ones, and we have a meteorite here. So we've learnt a lot. What's your feeling on the value of humans getting out there into space? Well, let's look at it historically. If Christopher Columbus had been a robot,

would the idea of Christopher Columbus have been as exciting? Vasco de Gama. It would have been incredible. Don't you imagine? I don't think he means an actual robot Christopher Columbus. I think he means something more like the Curiosity rover. Instead of a human being. Yeah.

Or, you know, Captain Cook. It is the person, the personality, the nature, the adventure that surrounds them that excites us towards exploration in the past. I don't see why that should change in the way we regard it in the future. And anyway, I need a job. So, in a sense, it's cultural value as much as scientific value,

which is one of the real questions that we have to ask in terms of how we spend our budgets on space exploration. Yeah, I believe so. That is an interesting thing, where we... You know, with Neil Armstrong dying earlier this year, and I start so. That is an interesting thing where we, you know, with Neil Armstrong dying earlier this year, and I start to think this is an incredible thing where possibly within a decade or so, we

will again live on a planet where no one has stood on the moon, where no one has looked back down on the planet Earth, and the enormity of that achievement, and the fact that then we seem to have been stagnant for a while. I mean, Ben, why do you think that is? Well, I think it's for a number of reasons. I think, first of all, I do think it's because of the technology

we used to get there. We didn't create a particularly sustainable way of getting to the moon. There was the fact that we had to build a ruddy great rocket every time and basically just throw it away afterwards. You know, if we had a more sustainable sort of space programme, you might start with something like a stationary space station that we have at the moment, build a station on the moon, use that to then, as a base, to move out into other nearby planets.

But I think there was a very large cultural reason why we didn't progress, and that's essentially it was presented as a race, and the race was won. It was a clever thing to present it as a race because it got us all very focused on winning it. And I mean, it was absolutely extraordinary what we managed to achieve. But I think because it was presented as a race, and then subsequently, it felt very much like the USSR had been vanquished, there was kind of no sort of driving impulse to continue that exploration. And I think it was

really the abandon, you know, abandoning our programme to Mars was really the, that's where I felt so disappointed as a schoolboy. You know, we were told oh, the next mission is Mars. We all got very excited, didn't we, Brian? Yeah, I had a little book with tea cards in it that I collected from, I was going to say, PG Tips, but other brands of

tea are available. But yes, it said the plan was to go to Mars by 1985 using Saturn Vs and that technology. I usually go on a rant at this point, but since I'm the presenter of the programme, I probably shouldn't, but I'm going to anyway. Actually, I mean, one of the things,

the common misconceptions about Apollo is it was expensive and it was unaffordable and we couldn't afford to do it again. When you look at the figures, so many studies have been done that suggested, as we've spoken about, the inspirational value of spaceflight, of human spaceflight, can be costed, and I happen to have the figures here. I mean, there's a very famous study. I usually quote the...

There's a chase study that said that for every dollar spent on Apollo 14 came back into the US economy as a result. And then when you look at the figures here, that said that for every dollar spent on Apollo 14 came back into the US economy as a result. And then when you look at the figures here, it's estimated that $180 billion came into the US economy by 1987 as a result of the technologies and the generation of engineers and scientists that were inspired to go into engineering and science by Apollo. So I think there's no argument that's rational

that says that we shouldn't explore space. Patrick, at the beginning of the show you were saying that you used to have a certain amount of doubt about the idea of us actually going further into space. About the ethics of it, yes. And I wonder though, in of course Star Trek The Next Generation and indeed the other shows, there's this wonderful thing where a ship

just goes, oh look, here's another planet full of life, here's another planet full of life. And of course it actually turns out that the universe is of incredible size, and to get anywhere, certainly with the technology that we're currently talking about, that actually the likelihood of being... You know, we'll get to another planet and go, no, that's just a kind of gas giant, that's got nothing in it...

Yeah, but, of course, we didn't film those episodes. I mean... APPLAUSE There were lots and lots and lots of weeks That we didn't find any aliens at all Oh well Warp 9 But you know I'm not sure if this is the place and time

For a revelation, but you mentioned a date just now, Brian, 1987. Now, there is a connection between the arrival of Star Trek The Next Generation and the underfunding of the space race, and particularly of NASA. Very few people know this, but Star Trek The Next Generation was actually financed by the American government and the CIA. Why? To distract

the United States' attention away from the fact that we were no longer spending any money on space. Now, that is a conspiracy theory, isn't it? If you say so, Brian. Can I just... I know this is kind of show and tell

with what Monica has brought along. I brought a little something too, which is also from outer space. I'd just like you to pass it around you. This was from the last year of the series. Oh! Security! Isn't it... Actually, there is something sad about the fact that I tried to run it.

I had a piece of Mars in my hand. I can't believe you've got this. I should say what it is. It is a Star Trek... It's a communicator. It is. So I can tap it and say... An original. Not a... That I wore all the way through the last season. So it's been around a bit.

Oh. I've never... That's the biggest reaction. We have talked about some of the... In seven series, some of the most incredible, mind-blowing ideas of evolution, of particle physics. We have had people talking about CERN, about the Large Hadron Collider and the incredible real things, something made

by a prop manufacturer in a suburb of LA. Can you believe such a thing exists? Get the Turing Shroud out of the way. Put that in a bin. Well, that's a bad example. That's what I'm saying. What I'm comparing this to is the Turing... Well, no, that's what I'm saying. What I'm comparing this to is the Turing trap.

Oh, exactly. Let us now pass this relic, this nail of the cross that has been brought here. Oh, I have stigmata too. Ben, you may well be too distracted now, but I was going to ask, we were talking there about the idea of those people who believe that human beings landing on the moon is a hoax. And you talk about this in your book.

And it is one of those incredible things. We were talking about conspiracy theories, the lovely idea of the CIA funding Star Trek The Next Generation, which now officially will have its own website and it will build from there. So how do you combat that kind of thing? It's extraordinary. As soon as you mention any interest in science, I find, you know, at a sort of dinner party or something,

it always seems to me that the person sitting next to me believes that the moon landings didn't take place. You know, the flags were fluttering, so there must have been wind. And there was a cross over the camera picture and everything. That's right, there's a cross over the camera picture, so you can see that the pictures were manipulated. I'm reading your book.

You can't remember your book, can you? The astronauts have never survived the Van Allen belts. NASA made the moon rocks. I mean, sadly for me, I think the funniest exposition of this there has ever been was actually on Mitchell and Webb where they wrote this most fantastic sketch, where they basically work out the difference in cost

between faking the moon landings... LAUGHTER Because you'd still have to build a rocket, obviously, because everybody saw the rocket go up in the air. So you'd have to build a rocket, the rocket just doesn't go to the moon. So the difference in cost between faking the moon landings and actually doing the moon landings and actually doing the moon landings

was just the catering. Can I say as well, what a wonderful moment of largesse. Having done the successful series Armstrong and Miller, you said, I think the best version is on Mitchell and Webb. It's not often you see... I did say sadly. Sorry, because I know we are running out of time, and there were lots of things we wanted to talk about,

and one of them was when we talked about going into space, and we've talked a lot about manned space activity, but, of course, this year is the year where Voyager, which has been now travelling in space for 35 years, and it's got to the edge of the solar system. We're slightly uncertain exactly where it is now. And that, to me, is an incredible... We've sent up, and on it, it has this kind of, you know,

this sampler tape almost, this golden record, which is a sampler of humanity, and it's gone in space. And that, how do we again get across the excitement of that idea to send something... It's taken 35 years, though, just to get, you know, across our solar system. Would it seem more extraordinary if there were a human being on board it, that we found some way that they could stay alive

during all that time? Isn't there actually something magical about the fact that it's a piece of machinery that is still alive, still ticking over, and will do for an unknown amount of time? Well, yeah, and actually, I suppose the Mars rovers have really captured the imagination, so Curiosity's on the surface of Mars now, Monica.

So what, in the next few years, if you were to look ahead and make an informed guess about the great discoveries, I suppose it's Mars. And so what may we find out? It's a golden scenario. Well, a golden scenario is that if curiosity picks up a rock and there's a bloody great fossil underneath it a dinosaur bone or something like that but it's very very unlikely that's only unlikely it's very very unlikely and curiosity doesn't have a mission to go and look for life it's it's looking for water. And with any luck, we'll find some interesting chemistry going on so that we can understand how the rocks have been weathered on Mars. But from the missions

that I know that are planned by NASA, European Space Agency, the Japanese agency, we've got missions planned to go to Europa. There's other missions planned to go to Mars to look for different things, to go to the moon. There's a huge, big set of international space missions. And it's just a really exciting time with all these different things that are going on. And actually, a question occurred to me there. I mean, in your view, what is the chance that we could discover life now on Mars or on Europa or that life had existed at one time on Mars? I think there's a very good chance. I mean I don't think Curiosity will find it because it hasn't got the right equipment there. Whatever it is, if there's life on Mars it's going to be microbial, it's going to be very very difficult to find so you've got to have quite sophisticated

instruments to do it. But the more we know about Mars and Europa, then the better the picture that we can build up of the type of life that's there. And it's the same looking more and more at the different habitats that life lives in on Earth. That informs us more about what's going on. So the more we learn, you know, the more we know, obviously, and the more that we can then design space missions.

I must just ask, Patrick, finally, what was your favourite alien? You've met a lot of aliens. LAUGHTER I had a long conversation once with a grain of rice. LAUGHTER Which was memorable, because it changed the whole episode and actually shortened it. And a long conversation with an oil slick.

But this was a very aggressive oil slick. It actually took the life of Tasha Yar, our security officer. And Captain Kirk had more than conversation. I'm sorry, who was that again? He had more than conversation. He had all sorts of... They did a prequel thing. All sorts of relations with green ladies and things like that. Did you ever go there as Captain Picard?

Into species... There in the sense of... In Captain Kirk with the green lady. Doing the deed with the green lady. No, I did not. I did encounter one lady on a planet called Rysa, and I recommend it to you. It was a kind of holiday planet,

and the captain was allowed to... I was about to say let his hair down, but that would have seemed... You had a family in my favourite episode, didn't you? In a light, yes. In a light, yes. Sorry, I know I've got to stop. That's all right.

I'm just talking when you start. How can we sum this up? What's your favourite alien? Is that what Brian got? What was it like standing on the moon? It's up there with it. We'll go on to the audience questions. Audience question. We asked our audience, of course, space exploration encompasses the hope that we might find life on other planets, but are we ready

to meet extraterrestrials? To test this, we asked our audience, what is the first thing you would say if you met an alien life form? And these are the answers. What have you got? First of all, I want to ask Patrick what the first thing he said to an alien life form was in his career on the Enterprise. I think it was, what do you mean, sir? A good one.

What have you got then? It says, our leaders are morons. Allow me to introduce you to our scientists. We've got, why only abduct idiots when you could get some sense out of people like Brian Cox? Who is that? Cordelia, thank you. Simon Belcher just went with, Get off my land!

Is that a hypervalent carbon in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me? I'm a chemist. Mine would be, Please let me introduce Buzz Aldrin. Mine would be, live long and prosper. I was never able to do that, you know. I mean, even before my arthritis, I couldn't do that. I quite like this, well, most can't

understand me, even with speaking the same language, so I'd attempt to communicate via the medium of dance. So, that is all that we have time for. And thank you to our guests, Professor Monica Grady, Sir Patrick Stewart and Brigadier Ben Miller.

Now, finally, at the Monkey Cage, we're always careful to respect other people's deeply held opinions, however anti-scientific and irrational they may seem. So in the interest of balance, we've been asked to read out the following statement by the BBC. Though the majority of listeners believe that there is overwhelming evidence that human beings landed on the moon,

we accept that there exists a minority of listeners whose deeply held beliefs are wrong. LAUGHTER Goodbye. Goodbye. APPLAUSE If you've enjoyed this programme, you might like to try other Radio 4 podcasts, including Start the Week, lively discussions chaired by Andrew Marr, and a weekly highlight from Radio 4's evening arts programme, Front Row. To find out more, visit bbc.co.uk slash radio4. This is the first radio ad you can smell.

The new Cinnabon Pull Apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. In our new podcast, Nature Answers, rural stories from a changing planet, we are traveling with you to Uganda and Ghana to meet the people on the front lines of climate change. We will share stories of how they are thriving using lessons learned from nature. And good news, it is working. Learn more by listening to Nature Answers wherever you get your podcasts.