Next:Space | Dr. Bruce Damer | TEDxSantaCruz

Designer and scientist Bruce Damer shares his thoughts - and the bold SHEPHERD spacecraft design - for sustainable space exploration (and settlement). He argues that we CAN go to Mars, but it doesn't need to be a one way trip.
This TEDxSantaCruz talk is one of 24 surrounding our theme of "Radical Collaboration" at the fourth full-day TEDxSantaCruz event held April 24, 2015 at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz, CA. www.tedxsantacr...
Dr. Bruce Damer, a research associate in the UC Santa Cruz Department of Biomolecular Engineering, has 30 years of experience in the design of complex systems from software to virtual worlds, spacecraft missions, and the origin of life chemical models. He’s also CEO of DigitalSpace Research, founder of the Contact Consortium, and curator of DigiBarn Computer Museum.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx

[@MNKorsak]

Bruce, the salt of Earth: the kindest, the most generous, and most adventurous spirit. Thank you that you are.

[@cathymarshall5631]

CONGRATS Bruce!! Awesome idea and TED Presentation.... The outer frontier awaits, and now it is closer to reality.

[@avedic]

An eternal _thank you_ to Duncan Trussell, easily my favorite human being currently living, for introducing me to the wonderful Dr. Bruce Damer on his latest podcast. Can't wait to hit play. :)

[@alex1020]

One of the best DTFH episodes ever!

[@MenteoraGames]

How awesome is that :D

[@cherrytreepermaculture756]

This should have 1,000,000 views.

[@SynthoidSounds]

My only sadness with all of this . . . For the cost of a single week of war in the middle east, this entire concept could have already been done, years ago . . . which makes me ponder, just a bit. Perhaps we should be mindful of infesting yet another planet with our presence. But, having said that, if I were younger, even if only for a one way trip, I'd still sign up for Mars One.

[@pinkponyofprey1965]

wwwhooo! I need a helmet! :D no, really! go get 'em Bruce! never give up!

[@CharlesCarlsonC3]

Cool dream!

[@avedic]

Dreams _always_ become reality. That's the entirety of the history of human civilization. No one knows quite when...but anything that can be dreamed of...*_eventually_* comes to exist.

[@symbologee]

@@avedic Sure...uh huh.

[@lawrencejohnson8311]

If price were no object

[@CarFreeSegnitz]

Space: the biggest game conceivable. But it doesn't come for free. It needs a business case. So far the super-majority of value humanity extracts from space comes riding in on radio waves. Communications, GPS, imaging, data from interplanetary probes. Apollo mission Moon rocks and some asteroid and comet dust are the exception. The next value-extraction, I propose, should be space-based solar energy. Energy from space can be sent via microwave transmission. Receiving stations on Earth can be anywhere except perhaps the polar regions. Our current energy system is in dire need of disruption. We must divorce ourselves of fossil fuel. The energy market is worth $trillions each and every year so any scheme should be able to pay for itself in just a few years. Initial steps would come from launching fully fabricated solar farms. Research should be done into fabricating solar farms from asteroid or Moon materials. While we're busy building solar farms it wouldn't hurt anyone to try to extract ices or build habitats from the same asteroid or Moon materials.

[@CarFreeSegnitz]

ISRU, in-situ resource utilization. The only way humanity will be in space in any significant way. Not doing so would be as strange as early European explorers to North America bringing over all their own air, food, water, clothing and shelter. The case for ISRU in space is even more stark when you consider the $2000 per kg shipping cost. Mars: why haul in water from beyond the snow-line when there's plenty of water on-site? A fairly modest operation on the surface of Mars could extract plenty of water from the Martian soil. The Sabatier process pumped by solar or nuclear energy could produce all the fuel any Martian mission could want. Phobos and Deimos await our exploitation. They may or may not contain ices. But we can be certain they contain plenty of silicates and some metals. Deimos orbits almost exactly right where a space elevator counter-weight needs to be. Let's fabricate a tether at Deimos and lower it to the surface. No more contending with Mars' ambivalent atmosphere (too thin to be useful, too thick to ignore). An elevator to ship bulk materials off of Mars without expending a bunch of hard-won rocket fuel.

[@omni5129]

Pity comets are not made or water.

[@houzmix]

Where do you think water on earth comes on?

[@thertsman8233]

they are packed full of ice..

[@omni5129]

Obviously you have not been following Rosetta and Philae of the latest comet landing back in what, 2014 now. They found rock, not "dirty snowmen" The ice screws bounced right off .... There may or may not be some water/ice on them, but the are certainly not made of it. This idiot above in the video should know this by now if he read any of the data sent back. So to talk of "harvesting water" like they are icebergs is so 1960's.

[@mikedavino2400]

i don'rt do tedx. too much censoring. later

[@kevincampbell4757]

what a loss