okay
so what do you think about space flying
uh well uh i was just reading something on it as a matter of fact uh just got uh latest copy of uh Analog magazine and it had an article in it on uh uh a new
oh yeah
a new version of propulsion that they're looking at um are you familiar with uh the solar sail idea
um-hum
yeah i i i have read a couple articles on it yeah
uh well this is apparently what they call a magnetic sail
oh okay
um basically they just uh set up a large uh magnetic field and uh it's works a lot like sailing on the ocean uh and is a lot more flexible than using solar sails
right
hm
so basically would they uh
would they essentially in terms of magnetism magnetism would they go like reverse polarity there so you'd actually get pushed along or would it be actually a draw
um that's the thing about it is you can switch it depending on the circumstance
oh interesting
um and it also works uh you can use it to uh pull yourself out of like a low earth orbit uh by using the earth's magnetic field and moving from there and it also acts like um
um-hum
right
like a uh uh
uh i don't know it's called it's a it's a shield against uh radiation and and flare and that sort of thing because it builds up um
static charger
it builds out a a magnetic barrier around it uh kind of like the earth's magnetoshpere and uh protects the people that way yeah
right
oh that's pretty interesting
yeah yeah personally i think that uh we don't spend enough on space exploration and i think we probably should spend more just because it you know it it not only benefits uh
yeah
space per se but it also benefits technology you know you start to develop things specifically for space use
and you know the offspring technologies can benefit a whole lot of different aspects of society
so that's
it's that and you also have the benefit of the things that you just don't know about yet i mean the biggest the biggest uh thing that comes from
yeah
space exploration i think is not uh those developments we make in order to accomplish it but those things that we discover that we have no idea we're going to discover it's it's all the surprises the problem with that is you can't
sure
yeah it's it
preach that as as a political statement you know in front of congress saying we should fund it because we don't know what we're going to discover
yeah that's kind of that's kind of hard to defend in some ways but
you know also you got to consider that
it's
this space exploration could give us a lot of different view points on on current problems
um primary of which in my mind right now is
uh the whole thing with uh
the depleting ozone ozone layer
you know i was reading an article about that the other day and it's amazing really amazing how much we're losing uh how much of the ozone layer's really disappearing there's an article in Time magazine about it but
you know things like that can be very well uh studied from space you know and using satellites and space technology and things like that
um-hum
uh i think that's real important and if we if we don't look at that closely we could be really screwing ourselves uh
i don't know it's it's it's an it's an interesting thing because it's like you said some of the positions seem untenable at least when you're trying to defend them
in in congress and things like that people tend not to have a very long term view like to look at more uh
more short term problems which you know they're logical and they're
and they're very prevalent you know things like world hunger yeah that's a big uh that's a big problem
um
but you've got to have a long term view as well
yeah the problems with things like world hunger are that throwing money at it doesn't make it go away it just it just it stop gap um
yeah yes exactly
most people will will try to to solve the symptoms without really looking at the uh the problem itself
yeah with space exploration it's a lot like um like trying to jump into a new industry you've got huge start up costs uh lot bigger in this case than in most others but once you're established there
um-hum
i think it would you know i think it's obvious to everyone that it would be highly profitable uh once you've reached a certain level it just takes
right you start
that rather substantial long term commitment you know for a for a number of years or or even several decades in order to to get it up to the standard where you need it uh in order to go from there um
sure
where where do you work
where do i work um i used to be uh an auditor uh for one of the big six accounting firms i'm currently uh
uh-huh
oh okay
uh running uh a game or one of the three principal partners in a game company
oh okay great yeah i was just i was asking because it's interesting to see where we're both coming from i personally am kind of biased because right now i'm working for Honeywell
um
um-hum
