TrueLife - United First Nations Planetary Defense - Dan Hawk

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

Welcome to the first episode of our series on the First Nations planetary Defense. Dan Hawk is the Principal Scientist at United First Nations Planetary Defense. This wide ranging conversation will allow the listener an opportunity not only to see through, but break open the ceramic model of the universe. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-hawk-92b37121b

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear, Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. We are here with an amazing individual that I am excited to talk to, who's got a lot of unbelievable knowledge about where he's been. been where he's at and maybe even where we're going if you consider the final frontier where we're going. Dan Hawk, would you take a few moments to maybe let me tell people that you are the

principal scientist for the first nations? And maybe you could explain a little bit exactly what that means. Well, I had set a placeholder for intertribal space agency for tribal governments and that had moved to United First Nations Planetary Defense when I had found out that we do not have an active ability to mitigate asteroids. And that's how United First Nations Planetary Defense came about. And it's interesting because we are not a typical company because our United First Nations Planetary Defense is born out of the Treaty of 1794. the J Treaty of 1794 Article 3.

So our company is actually from Canada and the United States combined because the treaty was a commerce treaty between Native Americans between Canada and the United States. You know, when I think about the term planetary defense, there's so much in there that could be unpacked, I think, you know, asteroids or climate change or just, you know, you know, sheer greed and selfishness. What exactly are some of the things that,

when you say planetary defense, what are some of the things that your company does? Well, the first thing we did was we went out to seek about how we would be able to mitigate an asteroid. And so that led me to, in working with Dr. Philip Lubin at the University of California, Santa Barbara. And he does what we call laser ablation. And that's basically if you were to put a laser in one side of an asteroid and it ejects particles, then it would move in 180 degrees and in a way.

So if you have to understand that in Earth, in its orbital path around the sun, that if you can slow an asteroid by 10 minutes, the asteroid would miss completely the Earth. So it's important that we have the ability to just slightly move an asteroid if we have if we have the ability to know. know that it's coming at Earth and we have the ability to to mitigate it, that we just need to move it just slightly over a long period of time to miss Earth in its natural orbital path. So laser ablation is one, and the other is impactor. And of course, NASA has the dark mission now, it's a double asteroid redirect target mission that is like $300 million mission, which is crazy. But it's basically used there to slam into.

into a smaller asteroid that's orbiting a larger asteroid to see how it moves after slamming into it. It's an impactor. So if you can slow the asteroid by 10 minutes, it misses entirety of the Earth, and therefore, the asteroid goes by and doesn't hit Earth. So you can either move the asteroid or you can slow it down so it does not hit Earth. And the other thing is what we call, which is really the last line in defense, which I believe is, It's called pulverize it. So we call it the PI.

So think about this. So if you have an asteroid that we have missed, and you think about Shalyibinsk in 2013 in Russia, I think it was a 20-meter asteroid there. But if you look at it in a way that if we miss an asteroid, there's 200,000 asteroids out there that have not been characterized that are less than 300 meters in diameter. So if you think about an asteroid coming at Earth, we didn't see it.

It's too late, just like Shelly Binsk. What are we going to do? So the last line of defense is called pulverize it, and that is basically taking, you know, I would say penetrators. So penetrators that would go and they would penetrate into the asteroid like a missile, right? and it would blow it apart in a way that would peel it away like an onion. And so if you can imagine two things going at each other at, you know, you know, at 15,000 miles an hour, that the impact itself of an impactor would be huge and tremendous.

But if you take an explosive explosives to peel it away. So if you are able to blow it apart in such a way that you have pieces of the debris that are, you know, 10 meters in diameter or less, then they will burn up an atmosphere. And therefore, you would have less of an impact on Earth. So obviously there are litigation issues here because if you were to move an asteroid in some way that, you know, it's going at New York. now it's going at it's going at moscow you have created a liability issue so um you know it's really you know thinking about this is difficult because there's no real right answers because you can say well what if you would have just let it go you know just let it go and it would hit this side of earth not the other side of earth or if you do it in something happens and uh it mitigates it in the wrong way

then you're liable for that. So, but the point here is that if you have an asteroid that's together, and it's coming at, it's coming at Earth, and it's going to hit Earth, and it's going to do a lot of damage, it's going to kill a lot of people. It's going to do a lot of, you know, destruction. You have two choices. You can either try to stop it, mitigate it, you know, to peel it away, to allow it to burn up an atmosphere, or you can just let it go.

And so, you know, when we talk about what planetary defense, is. That's one thing. But we have set aside, we have we have bartered, I guess, with Rocket Lab in New Zealand to set aside a two-stage electron rocket. And it has the capability of having what we would consider a kickstage. So it can actually take a payload out of orbit. And so right now they are setting aside an electron rocket for us to be able to do that. So where we are at is that, if we do find an asteroid, that we have a couple of capabilities. We can put some type of scalp mission on it, send it out there, and we can see what the asteroid is and what it's doing,

and you can see how it's tumbling, see what it's made out of. And then it can send it back, that's the information back to Earth, saying, okay, here, Earth, you got this asteroid is coming at you, it's going to hit you, unless you do these, do these things, whatever it is that we need to do, whether it's laser ablation, or if it's impacting, or, you know, trying to move it in some way, You know, China has long march rockets that they want to try to use to nudge asteroids either way. So if we know what it is, do we have a better chance of mitigate you.

So we can do a scalp mission. The other thing is that we can actually take the kickstage and turn it into an impactor. Or we can put a laser ablation on it. So, you know, we have those abilities to it. But right now, if we had an asteroid coming at us, we'd be in deep trouble. Yeah, because we have to find a way to, you know, to get the electron ready to go and to be able to do it what it needs to do to save us, basically. It's not an easy task. And it seems pretty common to me to all of a sudden just see one.

Like there seems to be a lot that we, maybe because of the way they move or how fast they move or our, perhaps that we're not the best at technology. it's very difficult to understand when they're coming. Like I've subscribed to a few channels that you can see the close approaches. And all of a sudden it seems like there's just one coming here. I believe there's also the torrid field that we cross every October, where we see all these meteor showers that kind of puts us in danger. What is the decision process look like if all of a sudden we are briefed, hey, there is a large asteroid?

Who makes the decision on which particular, system to use, be it laser ablation or the impactor, how would the world come together and make a decision on what to do? Well, I would be calling up, I'd be calling up Phil Lubin and I'd say, hey, we've got an asteroid coming. What do you want to do? And so I'm going to go to the people who know more than I do. You know, I only had the ability to set the rocket aside, you know, so to do the actual decision making, that would most likely come from the White House.

I would have to tell you that, you know, that decision would come from, you know, the Pentagon or someplace really high up. And then I also say that, you know, the Air Force would be involved in, you know, so you're looking at maybe they would have some type of capability of let's let's, let's hit it with some, with some rockets or so forth. So I think there would be a combination of things, both military and civilian to mitigate an asteroid, but there is no guarantee. We've seen that with Shelley Binzkin in 2013. It's like there, boom. And that's just, it just happens to be that

if that happens with a much larger asteroid, oh boy, you know, we'd be, we'd be talking some serious problems here. Yeah. Do you think, I wonder if, depending on the severity or the size of the potential impactor. I'm wondering if the government would even tell us. Like it seems like it would cause such chaos that there would be a discussion about whether you would even tell people. What do you think? No, I think it's going to get out.

You know, I think there was some movies like Deep Impact and a few other, a few other movies that are very similar along those lines that, you know, maybe we shouldn't, maybe we should, you know, gather up all our stuff and go to a nearer's cave or something. Yeah. You know, we would have to let people know. Someone's going to know and they're going to let it out. And so, yeah, the idea of chaos, it could happen. But if we have the ability to say, wait a minute now, don't panic, you know, we have some things we can try.

You know, we have some, we could have some rockets on the side. We can impact it. We only need to, we only need to slow it down a little bit. We only need to move it a little bit. So if we can do that, and we know it far enough in advance, that that's okay. But if it's like Shelly Vinsk and it's right on us and we don't have the ability to do anything, it's too late anyways, what difference does it make trying to go to the cave when the estuaries right above you? You know, so yeah, that's kind of how I see it.

Either we know about it in advance, a long ways in advance, or we're going to be surprised. and see, they're going to be one of the two. Can you, I have a faint idea of what the Shelly Vinsk is, but can you explain that to me? Well, in 2013 in Russia, they had an asteroid that came in nearly horizontal that I remember. And when it came in in that direction, I think it air exploded above Shelly Vinsk. And it was 20 meters in diameter. And I think it ended up, most of it ended up in a frozen lake. And then what had happened was that it destroyed a lot of buildings, you know, as far as to, you know, like glass and, you know, doors and door frames and those kinds of things.

And it damaged people's ears, their eardrums, their eyes. They had, you know, cuts from glass. So it was pretty significant, you know, and it was lucky that it was rarely, fairly, fairly remote. remote. So had it been with, you know, like over New York, we would have been in big problem. We had big trouble. So it just happens to be that, you know, when we talk about the Tengaska explosion, I think in the 19908, I believe it was that it was huge. And I think that was a comet impact that was air explosion. So the ender's two, you know, comet in the asteroids. But so. So. Yeah, it depends on where the asteroid ends up. And so in Shelley, Bensk, it happened to be relatively remote, but still a city. And it caused damage, and it hurt people. And I don't know if anyone, I don't know offhand if anyone was killed, but I know that people hurt.

Yeah, so. Yeah, it seems like had it not been a remote area, and even a slightly more, populated place, then the consequences would have been dire for the environment and for the people. And what kind of environmental impacts can something like that have? Well, you know, it depends if it's, let's say, on water, right, if it's into ocean or if it is on land. So if it's on land, you're going to have a lot of debris that's going to go into the air. And it'd be a lot like, you know, a volcanic explosion, I wouldn't say, depending on the, the size. So then what you could do is I think there was a year, I think it was 1835 or something

like that that they had a year without a sun. And it was because of because of volcanic eruption that, you know, a lot of plants didn't grow. Their food didn't grow. And what had happened was that people starve. And so I can't remember what year that was, but it was what they called a year without a sun. And it happened to be with volcanic. activity and basically the sun was able to pierced pierced through it. So that's one issue.

So you have the debris. So now you have the in, and it's and the volcanic one also had sulfur. So people were, you know, ingesting that and it had and it hurt their lungs and killed them that way. And then also sulfured and got on the,

on the, on the plants and also killed them that way too. But from the, from an asteroid explosion, you would see the debris going into the atmosphere, and depending on how far and how widespread and how long that could be of devastation, of course, the physical devastation of the asteroid itself. You know, we're talking a huge explosion, obviously. So, you know, we're talking, well, we would see most likely in a nuclear explosion. So we would see that kind of thing.

And then when you have probably would be shock waves. So you would have a shockwave that would go outward and before you'd even feel the physical effects of the debris. So the shockwave would come first and probably heat. And so that's part of it. And then if it was in the ocean, if it landed in the ocean, that's also devastating because if you have it in the Pacific Ocean and then you have the Pacific limb,

and depending on the size, of course, you know, you're obviously, you could have huge tidal waves and, and, and, and,

and, and, and, and, and, it, it just depends. So I,

I, I think that, that, that where it lands is significant, how large it is, and, of course, the angle that it comes in at. So,

Shelley Vince was relatively shallow and was relatively flat. If it comes in straight at us, we're, okay, be a big hit. Yeah. Sometimes I wonder, with the Earth's shifting magnetic North Pole and just the, you know, the magnetic field of our planet, does that affect, like if it's a giant ball of iron,

does the Earth's magnetic field have some say on where it hits? Does it like attract the meteor in a certain way? Like if the North Pole is migrating one way, would that cause the, the asteroid to move that way or how does the magnetic field play into that particular type of setup? I doubt it has any effect on an asteroid. It's going to go right through it. You know, we're talking significant mass. We're talking, you know, the speed of these asteroids are tremendous, you know, 17,000 miles an hour or more.

So, you know, the magnetic field would be nothing to an asteroid. Just nothing. So it's just on a, it's on a collision course. Wherever it is, it's moving so fast, like a, it's like a bullet pretty much, just fired out of a huge cannon and getting ready to hit you. Right. And, you know, it, again, you know, the sun, the sun is there. You know, you got the earth revolving around the sun.

And it's, you know, it's stable. Our Earth orbit is stable around the sun. And so when an asteroid hits Earth, it has to hit it in its natural orbital path. So it is nothing more than, you know, being able to, you have to realize this. Of all the, of all of the environmental disasters that we have, you know, like hurricanes and tornadoes and, you know, on those kind of things and tsunamis. and an asteroid impact is the only one that we can prevent. It's the only preventable natural disaster. And so it's really significant when you think about it that way.

Yeah. Do you think that we as a planetary entity are doing enough to mitigate that? Well, we have, you know, we're putting up. more satellites and more capability for NIA, Neo, NIA would be near Earth, asteroid, Neo, near Earth objects, capability for detection and, and I know both from the ground and and from space. So one of the things they say what we're doing about planetary defense is that we're monitoring, right? So that's that is so remember I told you before we don't we don't have a rocket on the launch pad to be able to mitigate an asteroid. We don't have one. So what is the defense? What is

that America does? And why do we create United First Nation planetary defense in the first place? It's because we don't have something on the launch pad to be able to do that. So what we do is we monitor. We try to go out and track and see. And so we still have 200,000 of these asteroids. that are less than 300 meters diameter that still need to be characterized that we have not yet characterized. And we know this because of Shelly vanskin in 2013. Had we known it was there, then we could say, oh, Russia, you know, is coming, be prepared,

but it didn't happen. And the reason why it didn't happen is because we didn't see it. You know, it wasn't characterized. That particular asteroid, that 20-meter asteroid was not characterized. So you can imagine 300-meter asteroid, wow, you know, that's, you know, that's, that would be really significant if that had to been a 300 meter asteroid instead of 20 meter asteroid in Shelley, Vince, Guy. Because you'd be, we'd be talking about a lot of, a lot of deaths then, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it seems if people just, I have a really awesome map back here, and it doesn't show all the pock marks that we've been hit by.

But I think most people who are familiar with landmarks, if you just close your eyes and imagine for a little bit, you could probably think, of some craters around the world like crater lake or you know the the so the the the yucatan peninsula or the tuskees how do you pronounce that again and the one in russia the to kuskanga or i forgot what that was called again the uh i think it's tunguska tungaska thank you very much like there's so many actual landmarks where these things have hit and caused devastation it's it's almost a wonder why we haven't been hit recently. Is there like some sort of time frame? Can you look at a scale and be like,

it seems like we get hit by one of these giant things every 20,000 years, or every 7,000 years? Is there some kind of scale we can look at like that? Yeah, actually, we get hit every 50 years about. So, but, you know, Shelley Binsk, 2013, 20 meter. So it's about size, right? Yeah. So we get hit on an average about every 50 years by asteroid strike.

So it's a matter of a matter of size and a matter of remoteness. So those are the two things. So as you can imagine, you know, the Tenghiska explosion over New York, what would happen? So it's a matter of remoteness. And so again, you know, you got the earth going around the sun. And it's natural over the path. But the Earth is also turning. And so, you know, and it depends on which direction the asteroid is coming and at what angle.

So there's a lot of, a lot of variables there. So, yeah, it's a matter of luck, really. It is. Yeah. I was listening to a couple guys, Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson. And they were talking about the different cycles that we, we go through. And they spoke about similar how our planet spins around its axis and then our planet spins around the sun and then our solar system spins around the galaxy and our galaxy spins

around the universe. They had made the claim that through certain parts of our travel through the great year, we find ourselves on what's analogous to like a crowded freeway. And there's all these, you know, in these certain times of the great year, we go through spots that are crowded by asteroids. And I'm wondering if maybe there's some sort of research where we could use the stars or the constellations to know where we are like in the great year to know when we're more susceptible to getting hit. Have you ever heard of anything like that? Um, um, no, but what I can say is space is big. Yeah.

So if you look at the distance, you know, like from here to Mars or, you know, to Pluto as an example, space is big. So even right now, we are feeling the effects of the Adramina galaxy approaching our own Milky Way galaxy. We feel the effects of that. But it's so minute that we don't really feel it, but we know what's there. we can measure it. And so we know that the Adramina galaxy is affecting us.

But space is so big. So you could imagine another galaxy intermixing with Milky Way as an example. But space is so big that, you know, that these planets, would planets collide? It's possible. But because space is so big that the chance of even planets colliding are remote. they're very small. It's just because of the fact that the universe is so huge, you know, it's endless. And it's only that reason that, you know, we don't feel the effects of other things that are happening.

Let's say right now, you know, a black hole is an example or, you know, some type of supernova exploding somewhere else. You know, we don't feel the effect because space is so huge. It's so big. You know, we're just a really, really tiny spot. We're just a speck of sand, you know, in Earth, that's all it is. And in the scheme of what universe is. That's so amazing to think about how a different galaxy or approaching galaxy can begin to change everything on Earth. When we first began talking this morning, you were talking about space as an ecosystem.

And I'm wondering if, how can you explain that? little bit to people how the space space as an ecosystem well as i'm native american i'm oneida so from an indigenous point of view and everything is connected and it is so when we talk about maybe perhaps a lifeboat which we are all in that lifeboat is called earth and that we have a biosphere biosphere doesn't end or begin with the biosphere itself it extends in the space we have have the space ecosystem, which is now what we consider, let's say, as an example, our orbital space and our orbital space debris that we have there, that's one ecosystem. The other ecosystems, which we now call X-Geo, which is beyond our geo-capability, which is

our geostationary orbit or geostational Earth orbits. So something beyond that, which would be then we go to our next, you know, our next, you know, ecosystem would be our cis lunar ecosystem. And then beyond that, then our solar system and then our universal system, or Milky Way, and then to our what we would consider then interplanetary space, and then beyond that to other galaxies and the rest of the universe.

So we have to step it out in ways that we consider it to be an ecosystem. Because right now we're, we're, we're, we're in a way we're polluting our ecosystem of the moon, right? We have we have devastated our earth orbital capabilities, you know, because of our Earth orbital debris because when we say space debris, there's two different kinds. There's the orbital space debris that we see. And then, of course, debris that's outside of that, which could be like the debris on the

moon or orbital debris of the lunar of the moon itself. And so, you know, we don't see it that way. We see that, you know, hey, we have lunar orbiters, but if they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, then it's debris. So we have to look at things differently because it's so easy to take our orbital debris mindset of our orbital earth debris and move it to our lunar orbital debris. And so like, oh, well, we polluted Earth. Let's go ahead, plute the moon. And so that's not how we should.

be doing things. And from a Native American point of view, we have to be mindful of those kinds of things. And we have to have to understand that of all the things that are happening on Earth and all the most important things that are here on Earth that we do, one of the most important things is to maintain our sustainability in space. And partly because of things like weather satellites, right? So you can imagine that if we didn't have weather satellites and we had such an orbital space debris problem that we, you know, we had an orbit. We just put up a new weather satellite and it just got slammed by a space debris now that, you know, that one billion satellite is no longer available to us. So the idea there is that if you have, let's say like weather satellites, you can, you can warn people about hurricanes and and design. disasters like that. And so they have the ability to mitigate their property and to save themselves

from, let's say, you know, from the hurricane or, you know, to tsunami or whatever. So the point being is that our space is viable. Our space assets are viable for not just weather, but also for financial transactions, for communications, you know, for national security. So without having a viable space orbital space in earth orbit then we we put ourselves in jeopardy and so we have to be very mindful about what we do so we have a lot of space debris first we have you know we had four nations including the united states blow up our own our own satellites in space in our oral space which is insane which is insane absolutely insane and then of course um beyond that we We have an increased launch cadence.

So what that means is that we are putting more rockets on the launch pad with more satellites on them, and we are sending them into our orbital space. And we're talking about things like, you know, OneWeb and Starlink and those kinds of things. We're going to be putting in thousands, tens of thousands of more satellites are going to be going into our orbital space, probably another 10,000 above the space station and another 30,000 below the space station. So you can imagine we have space debris. And now we're talking about adding more satellites to our orbital space highways that we have because different altitudes have different congestion problems regarding our satellites.

So some orbital space are more crowded, as you would imagine going down the highway, that some highways are more crowded than others. And you'll see that with orbital space too, because some are more needed than others. And some have more capabilities than others. And so it's all a matter of that. But yeah, it's not good. Wow.

I've never thought about it. Like, there would be different levels and different frequencies and different heights for things to orbit depending on what it is they want to do. That's incredible to think about it. And on top of that, it seems to me that now more than ever, the ability of a private company to launch whatever satellite they want seems to be only a matter of money, not so much a matter of law.

Well, okay, so, you know, there's not much law in space. I have to tell you. Oh, I had no idea. Yeah. So, you know, at Outer Space Treaty, that's basically it, right? So, you know, if we have a conjunction problem, we have two satellites going to collide. We know they're going to collide. But one belongs to Russia.

You just can't just go and grab Russian satellite and move it out of the way. You can't do it. You can't do it. You know, because you'll cause a war. And so even though it's dead, you know, it's a piece of junk, you know, and there's a lot of junk up there. But the point is, is that you just can't just go do that. You know, so we have, we have technical problems and what we call ADR, which is active debris removal, right? So it's very difficult.

Imagine imagine, imagine taking a four-tonne satellite that's spinning and tumbling in space that is frictionless. So imagine four tons. Wow. And you have to go and try to move it. So how do you do that? How do you detumble a four-ton satellite that's, how do you do that? Okay, so these are technical questions. And then, of course, you have policy questions.

you know, about, you know, who pays for that. So if you have two satellites that are going to collide, and let's say one is an operating satellite, but doesn't have the ability to move, so there's no auto capability of maneuvering, no auto capability of maneuvering, as an example, or from the ground by command, that you cannot move it, but the dead satellite is there too.

And they're going to collide. So who makes the decision then of paying for moving the dead satellite out of the way? You know, whose responsibility is it? Let's say it's a different country. You know, say, hey, different country, your satellite's dead and it's going to collide with this one that's operating. And that one that's operating is a billion dollar satellite. What do we do? You know, so then you have, so you have, you know, technical problems.

You have policy questions. And then you have probably international issues, too. Like I mentioned to you, like who's, you know, because the owner of the satellite is the one that is the country that operates. It's the operation state that owns that satellite, and they're responsible for that. And, of course, if you move it out of the way, and it hits another satellite, then they're responsible. So there's a lot of problems. And so what's happening now you'll see in the space industry is that you're creating something called space traffic management. STM. And so that is basically, if you consider the idea of space, air traffic management,

as an example, but you're doing it in a way of space. But also understanding that there are, there's debris up there where you can't, you can't move it. You can't command it to move. And you have debris that's under 10 centimeters. And you have debris that's over 10 centimeters, something we can track, something we can track. So you've got millions of pieces that we can track. and tens of thousands of pieces that we can track. So it's really a really significant problem. But you can imagine two space traffic management where you have launch operators. So you have Japan, you have France, you have Italy, Russia, China, America.

You just talked about New Zealand a little while ago. So we have a lot of launch operators sort of launching satellites. And of course we talked about maybe Elon Musk is an example of private, private operators. So you're having a lot of things going into space. And if you're, you imagine you're an air traffic controller trying to control that. Now you're a space controller trying to control that. Okay, you know, now you're trying to manage different launch operators under different launch conditions and launching multiple satellites in different altitudes.

And so you're talking significant problem. And, of course, again, you know, we have some satellites that can move on their own. We have to auto maneuverability. We have some satellites that can be commanded to move, provided all that they have the fuel to do it, right? They have to have the fuel to be able to do it if they can, right? And so let's make an assumption that they don't run out of fuel, which, of course, they will. So the point is that, you know, space traffic management, is way different than air traffic control.

And so we have a very significant space, orbital space debris problem. I could imagine, too, something small moving at such a rapid pace could put a hole through almost anything. It's like a little bullet up there. Like if we were trying to a spacecraft, a spacesuit, you know, another satellite, something even minuscule could probably puncture. a functioning satellite if it was moving fast enough. Yeah, well, it's common in the space industry

you talk about pain chips. So, yeah, yeah, what's that? What's a pain chip? Yeah, you have a rocket that's painted and the chips,

you know, paint chips like that. Wow. Yeah. Wow, that is, that's amazing to think of. Well,

think of it as a 22. If you were a fighter, a 22 bullet, that's exactly what you would, you'd have if you had a pain. show something similar to that wow it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's like if you think like the great northwestern garbage patch in the ocean it seems like we have a great garbage patch above us now we do we we we do we do okay but you know there's so here's here's

the but of this because because there's you know i i talked to a guy a gentleman you know um and he He always tells me, So Dan, you know what? We will not know a collision until after it happens. And partly because space is so big. So if you have a conjunction warning, right, and saying you have two pieces that are about to collide. And so space is really, really big.

What is the probability of those two pieces actually colliding? It's really, really, really small. Okay, so you have a lot of debris and you have what we would consider then, you know, what is the conjunction risk? What is the probability? And so there's a lot of warnings that go out to space operators and they don't do anything because they, you know, because of the fact that space is so big. and the idea then is that the chances are they will not collide. And so we won't know a collision until after it happens. But then again, you know, I was talking to you earlier about, you know,

what is the liability issue? So let's say you are operating a, you are operating a satellite and you need, and you have a conjunction warning and you move it and you move it in the wrong. way. And you then cause another conjunction of a different, of a different kind, but you move it in the wrong way. So there's a lot to be taken into consideration when moving obviously, it's not taken lightly. There really has to be a very significant, a lot of consensus from many different people, multiple sources in multiple data is like, is this, are they really going to collide? Are they really, really?

You know, so, and of course, it comes down to whose data you're using. Right. So whose data are you using to determine whether you are going to have a conjunction or not? You know, so we even have, we have today, we have several different models that, that, for that, and they may not all be accurate or right. So we have a problem today determining which models to use to determine conjunction risk. And so then once, let's say we get space traffic management, what's also that has norms, we create norms that says that for a space operator, if you have a conjunction risk with this probability that you have to move it, something like that. And so now the question is, well, which way do we move it?

You know, how do we move it? Wow. And so, you know, it's really significant because, you know, if you were under a norm of having to move to prevent a collision, then the norm also has to state, you know, which way to move it. And if it did cause another collision of some sort to cause another liability issue, who would then be responsible for that? Well, there's a lot that goes on with space traffic management. But the point being is that we ought to do. what we can for active debris removal. We ought to do what we need to do for active debris mitigation. In other words, to when, you know, when we put up, when we put up byson sat, as an example, it's at 400,

you know, about 450 kilometers. So it was an educational satellite. But after its mission, and of course, its primary mission, it failed. We were supposed to take a wide camera view of flathead lake. So we weren't able to do that. But, of course, it's, it failed. We were supposed to take a wide camera view of a flathead lake. So we weren't able to do that. But it was still putting on data, but its primary mission fails. But the reality of that is that even though it's putting out data, it's not a valuable data. It's not data that is a required data. So what should have happened is that for our mission, we should have launched low.

We should have launched less than 300 kilometers. At 160 kilometers, you're at the, what we call rapid descent, and then your satellite it then just basically with going to free fall and burn up over hopefully, you know, Pacific Ocean. But the idea there is if you're launching globe, as soon as your mission is done and over with, whatever it is, whether it's qualifying hardware or if it's to do a certain test and your mission is over, if your mission is over and you're still flying and you're still up in the air and you're still, you're still in space, that's debris. And so what we need to do is we need to figure out a way to get those spacecraft out of space and so that they are not in the not in our orbital paths.

So that is debris mitigation and debris removal. And so a lot of companies now are working on, you know, things like, sort of like parachutes as an example, that would drag, to cause orbital space drag and then be able to drag it and be able put it into into deposition over the over the Pacific Ocean burn it up. Yeah. That's fascinating to think about. It makes me want, like, it makes my mind just race a little bit. I love talking about it.

I wonder if there's a, some sort of chemical reaction that you could put in like a satellite that would make it become more. dense and heavier once it reached a certain amount of time, you know, if there's some sort of chemical reaction. But before I go way out in the woods with something like that, let's talk about the different kind of satellites that go up. The Bison satellite that you put up, that was a, was that a cube satellite or a, what are the different kinds of satellites and what are the most common ones we put up there? Well, CubeSats are basically what we call a form factor. So it's a form factor.

factor 10 centimeters on a side of one cube, one kilogram. So it's basically, you know, 10 centimeters on a side, one kilogram. So you can have a 6U as an example, or 3U, 2 U. We have 12 U. And so there's a point in time where that is basically where we are at with, with CubeSats up to a 12 U. So basically, you know, 12 kilogram satellite. Anything above that right now, we do not have a form factor that's in

cube size. So then you're going to things that are, you know, like a blue origin size, or you're talking maybe 100 kilograms. So you're going basically from a 12 kilogram satellite to basically the 100 kilogram satellite form factor. And so basically we're looking at a certain kind of bus and that electrical bus would then be able to perform different things, you know, for as far as like solar panels and, you know, your main mission, which might be, you know, Earth observation or it might be some other type of issue could be, you know, communications, that kind of thing. So, but a lot of these other form factors, too, that I, that I missed that are in between that

are the ones that are like the one web and the starlings and things like that, that they are maybe a little bit more, more of an enhancement. enhanced cubesat, if you want to call them that, but they have their own form factor, which is not typical. So they would have their own kind of launch system for those cubesats. And many of those launchers that do launch, that they have many of those launching at the same time. So you could have like 40, 50 satellites on one rocket, or more. It depends on the primary and secondary payload and then, of course, the smaller payloads.

So you always have like more or less a primary mission, unless you're like, like a private operator that carries your own missions. So like BisonSat, for example, when we launched in 2015, the primary mission was for the National Reconnaissance Office. That was a spy satellite that we didn't know anything about. So our satellite was like nothing, right? Everything else goes first. All the primary secondary missions go first.

They launch, they get it out in orbit. They do whatever they need to do. And then they come back down to the tertiary satellites that are like, okay, you guys are extra. And so now we can go ahead and launch you because everything else is all secured and safe and all our main payloads are gone. And so now we can worry about you little guys. And so that's kind of how that works with the launch operators. You've got your primary missions, second and so forth. And it's based on value, most likely, probably into the billions of dollars.

So it goes down from, you know, from real high end to the lower end of satellites. But that doesn't mean that that CubeSats or smaller satellites are not effective. Because with today's technology, you have satellites that are very small, but extremely effective on doing what they do. And that's exactly the case, what you see is the Ukraine-Russian war, let's say with, you know, with MaxR and some of the other satellites that are capability of, of creating high-resolution photographs and very, very small satellites to be able to watch troop movements as an example. So small satellites doesn't mean that they are not good satellites. They can be very, very effective satellites and very useful as we find out that, you know, like for, you know, Wi-Fi and streaming and all those other kinds of things that we're doing with communication systems around the world.

And so that's kind of where we're at. It's so fascinating. Let me ask you this. Let's say that George and Dan wanted to launch a QSAT to look over Antarctica. Like what, could we do that? And how much would something like that cost? Yes, we can do that. As a matter of fact, we have grade schoolers that are doing QBSA.

What? No way. That's so awesome. Yes, it's true. And so, you know, we have, we have, you know, great school kids that are doing kubats. So the, when you, when you're talking about a real satellite that wants to do real work, right, and do real science, we could do that. Let's say we launched over the, we launched, launched over the pole. So we're going to, we're in a polar orbit, right? So let's say we're in a polar orbit.

And a kub set, a one U-cubesat over the polar orbit, probably, you know, I would say, you know, you could probably do it for, you know, $50,000, right? And if you're, if you're with a lot of other satellites launching, you could probably, you know, I think all total, maybe $100,000 you could put up a satellite to be able to do what you wanted to do. So, I mean, it's just really, really cheap for a KubeSat to do that. And you don't even propulsion on a cube set. So Bison's set was paramagnetic. So it flipped over the poles. So it was Nader pointing in the North Pole,

and it was basically then pointing into space in the Southern Pole because it was basically in the lines of magnetic flux and on which way that the satellite was pointing. So it's it. It's amazing to me. What a fascinating time to be alive. I can only imagine being a grade school kid and beginning to learn about something like this. And then seeing a project happen from, imagine being a grade school kid and you start talking about space and you have a teacher.

And then maybe you came in or someone that came in to talk about space. And then in a matter of years, you go from third grade to fourth grade. and all of a sudden you as a kid got to see this satellite in space, I think that it's those kind of programs that would really spark the imagination of the next generation that could probably be the ones that are going to help get rid of some of this junk. Well, exactly. And so a lot of these kubats are actually used by big companies because they want to demonstrate a piece of hardware or demonstrate a capability.

So to do it, they do it cheap. And so that's one of the ways to do it. But also keep in mind that the cube sets, 10 centimeters on a side, just if you're using a 1U cube, that is trackable, but not easy, right? So we have a lot of cube sets now going into space, which is a part of our orbital space debris problem. Right. And Bison set is one of those that is an orbital degree problem because it's at 450 kilometers or so. and it will take a long time for it to come down. So part of the law issue, right, the law issues I talked about earlier was that it's okay to put up a satellite.

And even if it dies, that you can stay up there for 25 years. It's okay. You know, and that's not okay. Yeah. It's not okay to say somebody came up with, and the reason why they came up with a 25 years was they said, well, after 25 years, it's not going to be our problem. It's going to be somebody else's problem. So let them figure out. And so let's go ahead and make 25 years an okay thing for satellites to be up there and not have to worry about what we're going to do with it.

And that's wrong because the idea that since Sputnik in 57, there should have been all along some way to mitigate debris. But in the time that they were doing the space race, they did not care about the directory of their upper stage rockets. And so we had all kinds of debris up there. And no one cared about how to mitigate it or how to deal with it. And it wasn't too long ago. I think it was where, you know, we had a piece of debris, actually an upper stage rocket, I believe, land on the moon. That actually was an unintended consequence that we had debris from orbital space land on the moon as debris as junk. And so, and I think that, and of course, I think there was a China and Elon Musk were fighting about whose debris that was.

Of course. But, you know, the point is, is that it exists. And so all along, we should have been taken care of our orbital space saying, you know, if we put it up, we have to do something with, we have to have an end-of-life procedure or we're done with our mission. we have a procedure. We fire our de-orbit engines, and we take it out of space and we deposit it over the ocean and we're burning up. That again is also a problem, right? So you can imagine that you're having a lot, most of these spacecrafts are made out of aluminum. So now you have aluminum that's being burned up in our orbital space that enters the atmosphere of our Earth.

So those are problematic issues too. So, you know, and as a Native American, our satellites, we're going to be using industrial hemp frames and non-arolium frames. And we'll be using industrial amp rocket fuel and industrial, you know, a printed circuit boards. So we're looking at a way of being more mindful when we go into space about how we are going to deal with these problems. And, of course, we'll have our orbital.

End of life procedures called EOL, end of life procedure to be able to deposit them over the Pacific Ocean, but burn up in a way that it's more sustainable than burning up aluminum. That's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up. You know, there's a saying that says, as above, so below. And when I think about how a lot of us, I know I'm guilty of it too, but a lot of mankind has kind of been guilty of being a pretty big polluter because if you look at some of the rivers or if you look at say nuclear waste in some areas seeps into the river or we have landfills that seep into the environment it seems to me if we know that's happening here on the ground in this ecosystem and we know that there's

weapons and we know some of these satellites are their weapons like isn't it possible that Lord knows if there's some sort of chemical agent in these satellites, or there's even of aluminum or some types of metal, it seems to me that those particular forms of pollution could leak into the atmosphere the same way the pollution in our ground can leak into our aquifers. And it's just so, it's sad, but it's also fascinating to think about the patterns that we have as humans.

Like, why do we do this? Like we, the same pollution has got to work. If there's, if there is weapons in space and there's bio-hational, or aluminum or just even metal, that's got to pollute the atmosphere as well to a degree that we don't even understand yet. Yeah, oh, it's going to be a lot worse than that. Oh, no.

Yeah, so my biggest issue right now is the fact that we have large landers going to be landing on the moon, and they're going to be ejecting, you know, our lunar regolith into space, right? What does that? I don't know what that means, lunar reguleth. What does that mean? Okay, so lunar regolith is, you know, if you go to the moon and you step on the moon, you know, like Neil Armstrong did, you know, you're going to step on lunar regalith, which is basically, you can call it Earth's soil on the moon, but it's not really soil. I see. There's no soil on the moon. It's regular. So it's different. But the point being is that it's extremely fine. And, you know, we're talking down nanometer size, right? So that's where to get the idea of nanophase iron on the moon.

So, but you can imagine that the limb, right, so the Apollo missions, their lunar excursion modules were 3,500 pounds of thrust. Some of these engines that we're talking about, that our landers now going to the moon for the Artemis program are going to be into the millions of pounds of thrust. And so what's going to happen is if you take an understanding that the moon is at one-sixth gravity, right, that and you're in an environment where it's not wet, this is dry, right? and you have the ability to move things relatively quick because you're at one-six gravity that if you have a rocket engine that's coming in and it is at millions of pounds of thrust

that the lunar regalids is going to go off the surface of the moon and into space. Yep. And so that, to me, would cause an environmental disaster. And that's my position as far as I know because there is no credible plan. right now that I see for lunar landing pads. It just don't exist. And so it's going to be very difficult to mitigate any large landers. So my position is that we need to use a precautionary principle and then use smaller landers

and being able to do things like create put monitors, using kubesats actually, put monitors on the surface of the moon to be able to monitor the lunar dust as we have, you know, and our landers landing and ascend vehicles ascending. So to be able to do that. And I also have a lunar orbiter that is able to monitor the lunar dust as it goes into space because I think that's going to be a significant problem where the dust will eventually find its way around the sun. And that's not good from my point of view.

And so I think we have a lot of debris issues. that we're going to have to worry about, some environmental problems that we're going to have to worry about when the Artemis program. Of course, we have, and I mentioned before, you know, our lunar orbital debris that we should be concerned about and debris on the moon itself from, you know, from the Artemis program, but then also take care of our orbital space debris. So we need to look at things in the long run to be able to look at debris as a big picture as compared to the smaller picture. And of course, we have things like we had the idea of outer space cultural heritage, which is, you know, how do we protect, let's say the Apollo 11 landing site is an example.

So I can see as an example, we're having so much dust being blown around in the moon that, you know, the bootprints will no longer exist. It's really significant problem, the lunar dust. I mean, of all the things that going back to the moon is the most important thing to worry about is noon or dust. And you would think so, but it is. It's probably one of the most important things that the Artemis program has to deal with. And just saying that, oh, well, we're just going to land and have this dust going all over the place, that's not a good thing. We have to do better on the moon and dust problem.

Yeah. I remember it seems like a few years ago they crashed a satellite into the moon or they crashed something into the moon. And I'm wondering if you remember that, there had to have been some sort of test to see the debris come from that impact. Or has there been monitoring of impacts of the moon to see the debris field after that? Yes. I think that was a prospector mission.

And yeah, there was an impactor. And I think there was actually some human remains on that impactor too. I think it was Schumacher. Yeah, Schumacher had remains on that impactor. And of course, Native Americans weren't notified of that either. So I recently, you know, as I mentor some. students from MIT and their Space Enable Group, one of their, one of our, one of our meetings had a person come on. She said, hey, you know, we're having this lunar orbiter. And I just

happened to say, you know, what are you doing at end of life at the loop with this lunar orbit? Well, we're going to impact it on the moon. So their, their, their end of life procedure was after we're done with our mission, we're just going to, we're just going to slam it into the moon. So we, well, I mean, okay, so then the other alternative would be just to put it in a trajectory that would take it out of our solar system and not impacted on the moon. So it's a matter of what we can do to mitigate the things that we want to do. So to them, maybe it was normal to impact it on the moon, but I don't feel that that is the right thing to do. Maybe put it into the sun. Yeah, I mean, you can.

Right? Wouldn't that be better? Yeah, you could burn it up in the sun. But that would have been an alternative choice instead of impacting it on the moon. So that would not have been my choice to impact it on the moon. But those are the companies that we deal with in space, we have to work through these kinds of questions because the way that I think is not the way that other people think. Yeah, that's a great point. And I think that is something that can be applied no matter what field you work in.

It's so many different people. You know, it kind of brings me to the idea of worldview. I think as a Native American, the worldview, which you operate under, seems to be much more harmonious than the worldview in which the Western religions work underneath. And I think that that impacts almost everything we do. That does impact. Like, let's just smash this thing in over here. Let's just, great, put this over here.

I'm thankful that you are doing what you're doing. I think it seems to be the voice of reasons sometimes. Have you ever thought about maybe the way in which you were brought up your worldview affects the reality in which you live and the way you interact with people that you're working with now? Absolutely. You know, I'm the only Native American work with the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium. They come, you know, I have to say, when they first started the what we call a value chain on the moon so so first of all lunar

surface innovation consortium is run by john hopkins university and that we have several different focus groups and i'm almost on all of them um so the one one is called value chain and and partly to when you go to the moon as you as you have either product or a service right and so one of the two things that they did two things that they came out of the value chains like um an input and an output. And so you have something going into your product or service, and you have an output of your product and services. So the first thing I said, well, where's your waste?

And so because the product, the output was not the same as waste. And so what we have to do is we have to understand that when we're on the surface of the moon, if we have a product or we have a service, we have some type of waste. But to use that waste in such a way that another company that has, as a product or service to use the waste of someone else's product or service to be an input to the other product of service so that we don't go to the moon and waste things because it's very expensive. First of all, you go to the moon, it costs a lot of money to do that.

It costs a lot of money to get there. And so you just don't want to go there and waste stuff. You don't want to make sure that if you have something that's, let's say, if you have an output of some type of chemical, that maybe some other. company that may need that chemical. They may need that. And so the idea is to create that value change. So where we have our inputs and outputs and our waste streams,

that they're all coordinated in a way that, hey, I need this. You have that. Let's work together. And let's see how we can benefit each other mutually so we don't have waste on the lunar surface. So from a world view point of view, right? Native American. world view. You have to look at, first of all, in Iroquois, you know, from being Oneida's that we, we, we, we originate. Our creation stories are from Skyworld. So we look at it a different way than some other tribes that maybe originate from the earth. And so I always go about the idea of what, how things are connected, right? And so when we go back to the ecosystem, the

ecosystems are connected. And so what we do, what we do to one strand of the web, we do to all of the web. What we do to once, when we do to one strand, we do to all. So we must pay attention so that when we,

we, we, we, we, we, we break one strand as an example. We harm it. It, it hurts the rest of the entire, entirety of the web. So we cannot go, let's say, If we go to follow Artemis, we go to the moon, we go to Mars, and we go there to live in a permanent way, you know, go there to stay, which is the whole purpose of doing what we're doing, that we go there and we do it in a way that we are a community.

We are not, we're not colonizers. We don't go there militarily. Right. We go there as a community of people and we are respectful of each other. And, you know, the Native American astronaut is just as good as the. military astronaut, right? So we have to understand that we go there as a community of people and that we are caretakers. So Native America is caretakers of land, but we are caretakers are airspace, but we also need to be caretakers of space. So being caretakers of space is to help

and support space traffic management, being able to mitigate those things in orbital space, to be able to go to the moon and being able to watch after and look after those people who want to impact their end of life, you know, missions on the surface of the moon. Or, you know, to oversee outer space cultural heritage is an example, to be able to maintain those things that are important to America, like, you know, the, you know, the Apollo 11 landing site is an example. someday that may be our own museum, but we need to take care of it. And it's the same thing with our waste streams. We go to the moon saying, oh, okay, well, it's okay to put a garbage dump on the moon. No, it's not okay to put a garbage dump on the moon. So I had, you know, the ability of somebody saying, well, you know, we have this, we have these tailings,

and we're just going to say that it's, you know, it's of use. Somebody else will use it somewhere along the line. So it's really a value, but it really is garbage, really junk. It's really pollution, but we don't call it that. We call it something else. We'll call it something else so that it's a value. And it could very well be because in the moon, everything is expensive. So it could very well be of value.

But we need to understand that, you know, that's important. So here's the other part of it. You know, so we're Native American. So let's say we create our own lander. our lander on and now hey that's the first Native American lander right there that's culture heritage you can't you can't just you can't just dismantle and take it apart and use the you know the pieces then reuse the aluminum I mean that that's that's cultural heritage and but what about the second lander what about the third lander you know so then is the first one is culture heritage

is the second one debris is the third one debris so we have to understand and think because the the idea of businesses and companies going to the moon and putting different types of landers and, and, and, and, let's say, experiments and those kinds of things on the moon and say,

okay, well, that's cultural heritage. And when it's really debris, that really is not, that's really not a good way of thinking about things. So we have to, we have to go about a way of saying,

we have to have some type of procedure, some type of, some type of framework to go by to say, this is debris. This is something that's important for all of the world to know in the future. This is culture heritage. This is debris. And so we need to make that separation between the two

because we're talking about a lot of money. They're talking about a lot of value here. And so we should be able to go to the moon and say, okay, this is your third lander. The other ones are, you know, the culture heritage. You pull a pin and it comes apart. and now you're able to reuse the aluminum. You're able to reuse things.

We're able to recycle things on the moon. We're able to do those things, but it's no longer culture heritage. Actually, we use it as a value change for something, value change for something else. But that's how we have to think. And it's difficult to get people to think that way. Yeah, I can imagine how even here on Earth it's difficult to get people to think that way. And to see the world as, I think it comes back to worldview too. my personal idea is that you don't come into this world, you come out of it, like you're part of the earth.

And I think that a lot of people, and I don't, I'm not saying one way's right or one way's wrong. And I've thought both of, I've thought from both of these point of views. However, when I believe, when I go down the idea of being someone who comes into this world, I feel that there's a separation between myself and everything else. But when I look at myself as coming out of this world, I feel as a. if I'm part of this world. And I feel like that, then we get back to Indra's Web and the idea that you and I are connected, and then me and my daughter and me and my neighbor, and me and my banana tree and me and my

cat. Like when I, when I have that aspect of I come out of this world, it fundamentally changes the way I interact in this world. And that's why I had asked you the question about worldview and narrative. It seems to me that different cultures have different views. And so when we get to the idea of space and the first lander being cultural heritage and the second one being debris, different cultures see the world differently. So they would see the travel through space different.

And it just makes me wonder if when we, the idea of space travel and all this exploration should be something that unites us. However, it scares me that it could be. something that continues to divide us. What is your aspect on space and exploration as a uniting force? It has to. Space, space is supposed to unite us. So the reality there is that, you know, when we go to the moon, like I was telling you, that we go there as a community of people, not, not, you know, not a military post, you know, not some type of outpost. You know, those Those are colonizing words that hurt Native Americans. Yes.

And so, you know, this is not a fort on the moon. We're talking about a community of people working together to do certain things, to do experiments in science and, you know, and exploration. And as all people are explorers, including Native American people, we go there as a community people as explorers. And it has to unite us. And in our failure to a lot of the people, that to happen would be would be would be a tragedy for for for for us as people so the international

space station showed us that we can work in space together we can do things in space together um you know unfortunately native american people were left out you know it was on and it was unfortunately we were placed in the itar list too but you know we got us off i got us off that list so we're no longer on that list um so we can go into space we can do things and so it's important for tribal people, especially, you know, to be able to monitor our own resources from space, to monitor our own habitat change, our own climate change from space. And that follows on the Torres Strait 8 lawsuit against Australia and United Nations where their island nation is being, you know, inundated by sea level rise.

And they claim that Australia says, hey, you know, you're not doing enough for climate change. what's happening to our island nation. So you need to do better to help support us indigenous people. So we need to have the ability to monitor our own resources from space and our own capabilities for remote communications as an example. The idea of climate change based on notorious straight lawsuit in Australia. And I think it goes more than that too, you know, because, is the federal tribal trust responsibility between Native Americans and our federal government.

We also have some responsibility for, let's say, national security watching our borders. We also have a problem with murdered missing indigenous women, which I'm now raising to the level of the Sustainable Development Goal 8.7, the United Nations, slavery from space. So we have that ability when we take our satellites in the space to be able to monitor slavery from space and as a support of murdered missing indigenous women. And so, you know, we have a lot that we can accomplish in space as native people. But at the same time, we go there as a way for space development and space exploration.

And that is to work together as human beings, as a community. as rather as oppressors and those that are to move away from the colonizing ways of thinking and to decolonize, de-institutionalize, and demilitarize. And that's why I'm so against the idea of militarizing cis-luner space. I just don't, I just disagree with militarizing our cis-luner space. It's just not right. It's wrong. I'm so happy to hear you say that.

And are you doing okay on time? Well, I should go. We have a lot more. I talked to you for a very, very long time over many, many podcasts if you want. Yeah. We've just done many of the things that I have on my website.

This is just one thing. Okay. Awesome. I'm so thankful to talk to you. It's a real pleasure. And I feel like I'm learning a lot. And I've got other questions I read down. And for people listening or watching, Dan and I are going to be meeting the first and third Tuesday of every month.

And I've got some links below. Dan, where can people find you if they want to hear more and get a hold of you? What can they find you? Well, UFNPD, United First Nations Planetary Defense, it's UFNPD. So that would be, let me see, WordPress. WordPress.com, so UFNPD WordPress.com. So that would be,

you'd be able to find me there. A lot of things happening. Fantastic. And is there anything else you want to leave people with before we in today and set up for next one? No, I'm actually looking forward

to the next one. There's a lot going on. You know, we just were recognized by the World Mining Congress for 23. as we start to look for industrial hemp to mitigate mines all around the world to turn it into rocket fuel, industrial hemp rocket fuel. So we're, you know, mining is a big deal, you know, and it's necessary, but yet it's an evil.

And so we're looking at ways to, you know, use industrial hemp to mitigate mines and to create rocket fuel. as a way of supporting the space industry actually to go towards more neutrality, carbon neutrality. So you'll find a lot more of that. We're heading in those directions to be able to do those things. Yeah, it seems like such an exciting. I think there's a real opportunity. And I think times ahead, if we choose to make them and focus on them can be a lot more sustainable and a lot more. and a lot more rewarding for all of us if we work together.

Well, we have to, you know, and, you know, we see this in Ukraine-Russian war right now is that we have to work together. A lot of problems, you know, we, you know, I look at the website once in a while, and I see, you know, things going on, like, you know, our farmers are protesting against nitrogen. And I keep saying, you know, the idea that it's not, we really don't have a nitrogen problem. What we have is a carbon problem. We have, you know, our climate change is carbon-based. And so to suggest that nitrogen is the problem is wrong thinking.

We need to be able to use, like the Amazon Black Earth, Amazon Brown Earth, kind of sustainable agriculture to be able to sink more carbon. You know, so every one ton of carbon we sink, we sink 3.6 tons of carbon dioxide. So it's important that we do the carbon sinking, and as you sink carbon and create the sustainable agriculture, then what you do is you reduce the reactive nitrogen, which is really the necessary part that we need to do. So we're not thinking correctly when we're talking about the way we see farmers protesting

against the reactive nitrogen. So we talk about policies. We need to get the idea of our leadership understanding that, that they need to make better decisions regarding the lens of climate change because the lens of climate change needs to be through the carbon lens and not the nitrogen lens. So I'm hoping that somebody hears this and says, wait a minute, now that's, that's, that's, that's, we need to rethink this. And so, yeah, we do. We definitely need to rethink this because we, when you look at the idea of climate change and the protesting that's going on and the problems that are happening, we are at the beginning of climate change. it's going to get worse.

So what you see is going to get worse. And so what I'm saying to the world, if you're listening, is that we need to start looking at things a little differently. And so, but I can talk more about that. Maybe the next one is on climate change. But it's really serious stuff. And it's not right. So we have to work in a different way.

And I really don't know how to come. convey that other than the policy, but you know, but maybe we could, we could pull those pieces out and then try to look at them one at a time. Because I'm really concerned about the way that, you know, what's happening in the Netherlands and Sri Lanka as an example. Yeah. So we need to come together and do things differently because the reason why we need to, is because if we're having these problems now, when we talk about climate change in a little way, in a little way, little climate change issues, that when we start to really start feeling the impact of climate change, we are really going to be hurting. So we really need to start the layer, to create the foundation of how we set about policy now. because as we go through the years coming that are coming quickly,

that we're going to find us in a much worse position. And so it's that important. And I'll leave it there. Yeah, I think that I'm looking forward to that conversation. One of the biggest problems I see with climate change is that when people talk about it, it's such a polarizing topic, but people don't define what they mean when they say. say climate change because climate change can mean something to this person, but something totally different to this person, and they're just talking past each other. And I wanted to bring, I have a really

good question that I want to ask you. I was reading this book called Black Elk Speaks. And it's a phenomenal story about an indigenous, a Native American, in the traditions that he lived through and some of the horrific things that he lived through, but some of the cultural aspects. of his life. And one of the stories he tells in that book is he says, you know, when the white man came to us and said he wanted to buy our land, we laughed at him because we said, you can't buy the land. The land belongs to everybody. But they did buy it and they did horrific things. And so I take that story. And I recently talked to an economist and I asked him, you know, if we take this idea that these people came and they colonized and they told the Native American

we're going to buy your land. And they say, you can't buy the land. It belongs to everybody. I'm worried now that what's happening is that people are trying to buy the air. You know, when you look at some taxes that people are trying to put in order, it's not a whole lot different than if a group of people that said, we're going to buy your land. And we say, that's silly.

You can't buy the land. Sometimes people are coming to us now and say, we're going to buy this air. And we're like, you can't buy the air. But it seems to me people are trying to buy the air from all of us and force us to pay for that. The same way they took the land and bound it up in chains, they're trying to take the air we breathe and bind it up and change and make it a commodity. I think that's a dangerous situation. What do you think about that?

It is, it is dangerous. And so, first of all, carbon is ubiquitous. It's everywhere. It's in the deepest depths of the ocean to the deepest parts of any ice core that you can drill out. And so carbon is everywhere. carbon is the issue of climate change. And we've seen that in the dust bowl. And the dust bowl was actually a carbon climate change problem because the farmers had plowed so much that they only had 10% of the soil organic carbon left in the soil.

They pleaded 90% of it. And that's the reason why it's the reason why you had the dust bowl, right? I can go on all the kinds of things that happened with that and before that. And that's that's that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a. right there. Awesome. But what point is is that the air that we breathe, right, is, if you look at Boyle's Law, it takes the shape of our biosphere.

Everyone breathes, everybody else's air. That is the way it is. But when it comes to the greenhouse gases, when you talk about this green, this warming effect, this blanketing effect, it is what happens because of science. is, is what you put a blanket on at night and you get warm. It's the way it is. You can't change it. But so what we can do is we can mitigate some of it. Right. So how do we do that? So you take carbon as let's say as an example. We have 10 million trees and Black Hills right now we're trying to get, right? So they're just rotting. They're rotting. They're rotting. They're CO2, emitting CO2,

emitting methane. And so if you were to take the tree and you were to carbonize it, in other words, you burn it. You're going to get a certain amount of carbon on it. Let's say it's 10%. You take the 10% of that, the actual carbon, the physical carbon, and you put it in the ground. And now you sink that carbon and you sink it in a way that the Amundsons did hundreds of years ago and that carbon will remain in the ground for hundreds of years hundreds of years and so and that's what creates the sustainability of the amazon black earth amazon brown earth is basically it's like slash and burn but it's a technology of just putting it into the ground and then and making the land fertile because if you take water and carbon you have sugar you got you got c6 h 1206 right you got sugar rich sugar is what

plants need to grow. Plants are cellulosic. They're cellulose. So you need, you need the carbon in order for the plant to grow. And so when a plant grows, then it uptakes CO2 from the atmosphere, but it also takes carbon from the nutrients in the ground, as well as NPK, which is nitrogen, which is the problem that they're having in the Netherlands in San Lanka. So, but the reality, though, is that the Amazon Black Earth, Brown Earth is a sustainable agriculture. And so as you, as you increase the carbon in the ground, you increase the carbon sink, you're not only supporting the climate change,

but you're also supporting the yield of the plant itself, because now you can double and triple the yield. But in addition to that, you've sunk the carbon and you've reduced the ability to use reactive nitrogen. So you're reducing the nitrogen as you're increasing the carbon, and so that's really the solution to the problem. It's not the fact that you create like Sierra Lancidid and ban nitrogen because that's not the way to do things.

You would have to do it in a way that it makes sense. So you make sense by saying, let's increase our carbon. Let's create the sustainable carbon count. And now let's start to reduce our nitrogen. And because you'll be able to do that and being able to do that and being also at the same time increasing your yields. So it's important that we look at it in a different way. But if the policymakers don't know what I just said,

they're not going to do it because they just don't know it. Right. Dan, I had an absolute blast talking to you, and I'm really looking forward to our further conversations. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's been awesome. I could talk for a long time and a lot of different subjects. Okay, great. We're going to get into it.

We've got a new series coming up, and everybody go and check out Dan. I'll put all his links below in the show notes and prepare for some awesome conversations coming our way. Dan, I really appreciate your outlook on life and your ability to the, listen and I am thankful for your time. So let's do it again in a week from next Tuesday. Yes, sure. Looking forward to it. Maybe people will call it and give you questions or something.

Yeah. I got us live right now. And I think that we're going to get a lot of questions coming up soon. I've been really fortunate, Dan. Like I've, can I share a quick story with you? Sure, go ahead. I've been working really hard in, and trying to read a lot and learn a lot.

And there's this saying that I used to hear all the time. It says slow at first and then all at once. And when you think about that particular statement, it can mean a lot of things. But for me, it means that exact thing. I've been working on the podcast and my channel for about three and a half years. And it was just, I was just ticking along like a graph like this. And I'd get like a couple people here subscribing and a couple here.

And over the last seven days, I've got 400 subscribers. I've got 120,000 views. And it's just this, it's just this pattern of life that like you start off just doing, doing, doing. And you ask yourself like, what am I, am I even doing anything? What's going on here? And then all of a sudden, you work hard, you work through your comfort zone. And you keep getting up every day and pounding and pounding and working and working and networking and talking and learning. And then all of a sudden, it's like a plant.

Like you put a seed in the ground. If you go out the next day, there's not going to be any plant there. But if you water it, you take care of it, you go out and you talk to it and you give it all the nutrients. One day, a green shoot comes up. And so I've been noticing these green shoots and I'm super excited about it. And thank you for letting me share that story. Yeah, that's a great story. So, yeah, George is great.

So we'll have to sign off here and catch down the next to know. Okay. Thank you so much. Have a great afternoon. And I'll talk to you again shortly. Yes, thanks, Georgia. Yep. Okay. Aloha.