How the Moon Works

Did you know that science still doesn't know the exact origin of the moon? Do you know how the moon creates high and low tides? Do you know the difference between a waxing crescent and a waning gibbous? You will after listening to this riveting episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know?
From house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always as
a very reluctant Charles W. Checkers Bryant not always reluctant.

(00:24):
Always here with me as always sometimes reluctant as a
reluctant Chuck Bryant. How's it going, Josh? It's going fine
for me. I'm great, dude. I'm going to see Bob
Dylman tonight. Are you really living legend with Leon red
Bone or Russell? Yeah? Russell right, Yeah, he's opened up
at me. I don't really care about that. I always

(00:45):
confusing with Acre Winner. Yeah yeah, just they kind of
look alike. Yeah. Well that's all I have to say
about that. Okay, Um, Chuck, you're ready, I'm ready? Okay.
So um back in November nineteen sixty six, are you
ready for this? We should probably say first, let me

(01:07):
tell you, Chuck, we're gonna make it through this. Okay,
I have PTSD from the Sun podcast. We need to
do PTSD. I always forget that. Let me just write
that down alright, PTSD, Yes, and now we're doing the
Moon podcast, which really, aside from the orbital dynamics, has
almost no physics to it whatsoever. This is it'll be

(01:28):
better than the Sun. Okay, So still a little mind
numbing for me. It'll be okay, we'll make it interesting, alright.
So back in November nineteen sixty six, uh, there was
a lunar orbiter called the Orbiter two because it was
the second one UM and it was flying around the
Moon taking pictures of it for the impending moon landing

(01:49):
that the Apollo program was leading up toward, right exciting,
and it had taken its last bit of film, last picture,
and it actually took what's called the picture of the
Sun Tree, or it was at the time. It was
this kind of side shot of the Moon rather than
from above. It was almost like from the side, so
you could see the elevation and everything, and it just

(02:09):
looked like a new view of the Moon. So anyway,
the the NASA controllers tell orbiter to go ahead and
crash land, and it did on the dark side of
the Moon, never to be heard from again until like
a week ago when another lunar orbiter which was taking
pictures for the Moon based program. It's not around anymore.

(02:32):
We got canceled. Um caught this kind of crater, a
butterfly shaped crater that's um characteristic of a low trajectory landing.
Was that it and Um, it's exactly where NASA thought
it would be. So there you go. One of the
mysteries of the Moon, salt, the the the Yeah. This

(02:56):
this thing's been sitting there for you know, forty years,
chimp or anything like a chip. But I mean you
just to think of this like lunar orbiter crashed by itself,
sitting on the dark side of the Moon for forty years.
That's it's lonely. It's chilling, isn't it. It is. Have
you seen the movie Moon? Yes, enjoyed that very much.
You know the guy who directed that, Duncan Jones. That's

(03:18):
Um Bowie. Yeah, Bowie's son. Yeah, imagine David Bowie being
your dad. I want to see him perform live more
than anything else ever, and I don't think he'll ever
do it. Oh, he doesn't perform any longer. No, he
hadn't played. I think his last tour was like ten
years ago or something. And he kind of said this
is it? Huh, come see me. I'll be on my

(03:40):
Hawaiian island with him. On is that he lives in
an island? Well, he has a place in Kauai. I'm
sure he'd spend some time there. Very nice. Sorry, so
can you see where? Like really trying to put this on? Yeah, anyway, Yes,
the Moon is a good movie. And the Moon is
a good um planetary satellite to Earth. It does all

(04:03):
sorts of cool beneficial things for Earth. Did you know
that it has an influence on Earth? So let's talk
about the moon, Chuck. She would go all the way back,
Josh too, at the times of Aristotle. Why not Aristotle? Josh,
as we all know, I believed in the geocentric model
of the universe. Galileo said, no, no, no, you're wrong.

(04:24):
It's heliocentric. And apparently he came to that conclusion by
studying the moon. Yeah, basically, like the Sun is the
center of the universe, jerk, not the Earth. And uh,
they said, you know what, that's heresy and you're gonna
be under house arrest for the rest of your life.
And he's like, I have a lot of wine and
cheese in my house and that's not so bad, and

(04:44):
I didn't need much anyway, so I don't like the
outside world. But at first, you know, and I guess
he had a better telescope or something, because Galileo saw
a lot more detail, it sounds like than Aristotle did.
I don't think Aristotle had a telescope. Was that the deal?
I think that he was just looking at it. I
think Copernicus was the first one to look through a telescope,
or Galileo was before Copernicus. A Copernicus had a nicer telescope.

(05:08):
I think Galileo came after Copernicus. All right, well, then
that's the way it went. We're gonna get this wrong.
We totally are, but continue, chuck. But the point is
Aristotle thought the Earth was the center in the universe,
and that the Moon had dark spots and light spots
they thought were sees, right, Maria, Yes, I looked up
a bunch of pronunciations on this one, by the way, Maria, Yeah, no,

(05:31):
that sounds right. And uh, the lighter spots were correctly
perceived to be land or terry. Yeah, but it's all land.
As it turns out. It does turn out the moon
is kind of boring place. Yeah, you think, I think
as a as a destination, Yes, I think it's incredibly boring.

(05:53):
It'd be cool to go there. I'm sure it's the
most thrilling thing in the world to do, or beyond
the world to do, to go to the Moon and
be on the Moon. But just you know, being back
here on Earth and in discussing parts of it, like
the moon as the destination's kind of boring. What the
moon does, where the Moon came from. I think it's fascinating.
I do too. And despite the fact that they were

(06:14):
not sees, they still call the Maria sees. Yes, Tranquility, Yeah,
mar Tranquility or mar twin Quillium, etcetera, etcetera. And the
Sea of Tranquility is where the first moon landing took place.
They thought it looks like a nice place to land.
And that was forty three years ago this month when

(06:37):
we're recording, when this comes out, it will be last month.
But um, that that um buzz Aldrin, right, who never
gets mentioned? First? Yeah, Neil Armstrong. Second, how about that
um landed on the moon. Apparently buzz Aldre was the
first person to um urinate on the moon. Yeah, Neil
Armstrong didn't buzz did while they were there, not on

(06:59):
the moon, but while on the moon. While on the moon, okay, yeah, um,
and uh you always have to church it up then, Well,
I mean that's disrespectful. He literally on the surface of
the Moon. I think something probably really bad would happen
to his physiology if he tried to pee on the moon.
Well it would float away anyway, right, yeah, but I
mean he just implode, right, Okay, yeah, vacuum. And since

(07:22):
I was guys, since Buzz Alburing first pete on the
Moon in nineteen nine, um, for the following three years,
twelve other Americans set foot on the Moon. And you
don't hear a lot about that, supposedly, uh. And we're,
as far as we know, the only people to set
foot on the moon so far. Um. And they brought
back about eight hundred and forty two pounds, which is
threems of moon rock moon dust, and it was studied

(07:47):
and then that's about it. That was all they had.
They were like, well, I guess we can bring back
some of these rocks and that's all over. What. Yeah,
I told everybody on Earth, I'd bring him something, but
there is nothing here. I wonder if if they got
a little piece of rock. I'm sure they did. Surely
you should be able to ask for that, right yeah. Okay,
well yeah if you're the guy who went and got it, yeah, exactly. Um.

(08:09):
And so since then, you know, since they brought back
this moon rock, a lot of these questions that have
been around since ancient times. Um, we're settled just really
in the last like forty years or so. Like, I mean,
we now know, okay for sure that there isn't water
on the moontain. Supposedly there could be, um, but we

(08:31):
now have a good idea thanks to the moon rocks
how the moon was formed, which settled a longstanding debate,
that's right. And um, yeah, and just being there, they
found out a lot of stuff, like they're like, hey,
it's just in a sea, it's all land about of
it is uh the dark spots that you see, the Maria, Maria,

(08:53):
the Maria, and it is the is the terra is
that terry terry And uh that's the lighter parts of
the moon that you see. And that's like mountainous, it's
crazy steep mountains, craters, all kinds of things there on
the terrat. Well yeah, because um, the Earth, the Earth

(09:16):
was about four billion years ago, there were a lot
of meteorites bombarding this neck of the Solar system, right,
and the Earth took as many as the Moon, if
not more. It still happens today every day meteorites at
the Earth, but our atmosphere burns most of them up,
and the ones that made it through the atmosphere and

(09:37):
had made a substantial impact on the Earth um have
been largely covered over by the biogeochemical processes that take
place on Earth. The Moon is utterly devoided these things
these days, and has been for about the last three
billion years. So just about anything that's happened over the
last three billion years, right, is just a few meteorite.

(10:00):
It's some impacts here there, but for the most part,
the Moon's surface was shaped and about four billion to
three billion years ago, and it's remained the same ever
since then. In addition, they think there were volcanoes at
one point on the Moon because they noticed rills like
these channel channel like depressions that they think was from lava.

(10:21):
They found old lava flows and lava tubes. So they said, hey,
looks like there were some volcanoes here at one point. Yes,
and that accounts for a lot of stuff on the Moon,
but also some of its composition as well. No soil, No,
it has something called regules, and regula means basically like
blanket over solid rock. Right. So, um, it's really just

(10:44):
this kind of fine particulate dust moon dust with vault
mixed with volcanic glass and then larger rocks and it's
just covers the surface of the Moon. It doesn't have
soil because it doesn't have any living organisms that are
required make soil. Yeah, nothing organic on the Moon, correct. Yeah. Uh,

(11:07):
So they brought back these rocks. They found out that
the uh Maria, which is what we said was only
the dark spots, was primary. Uh that primarily that one
word that we said over and over on the show,
what basalt, Yeah, buzzled and uh that is igneous rock
from cooled lava. So again with the volcanoes and the

(11:30):
highland regions, the mountain regions we talked about was mainly
in north the site and Breccia. Yeah, did you look
that on it? I did. Because when there's a C
I C a in Italian that makes a chess sound,
but it's c H makes a sound, So it's backwards
from what we might think as Americans, pretty neat but

(11:52):
correct if you're into in Italian that's right. What else, Chuck,
The lunar rocks have very little in volatile compounds, so
they resembled Ers's mantle. They have very little volatile compounds
or water. And then Tracy puts in as if they've
been baked a little bit of like foreshadowing. Um. And

(12:14):
also check they found that the Highland areas are much older.
The rocks in the Highland areas are much older than
the um Maria areas. Right. And so now with all
of this information, we have a pretty good idea of
how the Moon formed. Yeah. Oh, they also had they
they had some size size seismometers and they found that

(12:36):
there's no there's no shifting of the plates going on, right,
tectonic activity in the Moon. There are no moon quakes
and um. They also used magnetometers and they did not
detect any substantial magnetic field at the around the Moon,
which means that it's not it doesn't have a substantial
iron core. Right, so they're basically just trying to figure

(12:59):
out how much is it like the Earth in some ways,
I mean, they one to found out what it was,
but they were kind of comparing because some of the
old previously thought reasons why the Moon was there had
to do with it literally spinning off of the Earth. Well,
it's significant that moon rocks are similar in composition to
mantle rocks found on Earth pretty close, um, which means

(13:22):
to a lot of people that they're the the The
Moon has always been connected to the Earth and a
lot of people's minds, right, So there's different ways that
it formed, but it's always in relation to the Earth
almost except for one. Yes, So previously to the to
the lunar landing, they had a few ideas. They thought
maybe there was the double planet hypothesis, which was the

(13:42):
Earth and Moon formed together. Yeah, because remember in the
Asteroid Mining podcast we talked about the formation of planets.
It's just that starts in this Uh, it starts spinning
and then everything's kind of comes together. It's an easy
way to say it. Uh. The capture hypothesis was the
Earth's gravity captured the own as it was just cruising by.
That's the only one where they weren't related. But the

(14:05):
Earth said hey, we're gonna hold you captive now because
we like your gentle light that you cast upon its
At nighttime. And then the fission hypothesis, which was the
Earth spun so much and so rapidly that a blob
of molten earth spun off and that was the moon. Right.
That sounds a little even in the sixties, I would
have been like, really, well, I mean, think about it.

(14:27):
If it's if it's forming and everything is kind of
loose still, I guess we didn't know as much back then. Um,
So all of these have been kind of shot down, right,
that's right. Um. The fact that the the Moon and
the Earth's compositions are not the same means that they
probably didn't form right alongside one another because they should

(14:48):
be pretty much the same material. Um. The Earth can't
possibly capture something as large as the moon as the
moon and keep it there. Um. And then lastly, chuck,
the Earth has never been known to be able to
spin fast enough to spin any part of it off.
If it were, we would be the first things off

(15:10):
of the Earth if it could spin that fast anybody,
let alone a sizeable chunk. So what they think now
is um. After the seventies they came up with this
thing called the giant impact or theory. Yeah, that's it's
standing up fairly well. Right, so, yeah, it's this idea
that another planet or planetoid or something about the size

(15:31):
of Mars, early in the Earth's formation, came along and
collided with the Earth with such force that it was
absorbed into the Earth. It broke off a chunk, and
then that part filled in the part that was was
chunked off. It's like, um, what are the what are
those twins where one eats the other in the womb called?

(15:54):
Oh yeah, it's kind of like that, I mean twins.
So it's like the Earth has like another planet that
really just looks like a taratoma with fingernails their teeth
inside of it. Yes, and that one, that one is
actually held up. They've done computer simulations and they said
this could have happened. Well, we left out the most

(16:14):
important part from that impact. It's shot out a bunch
of stuff that formed into the Moon. Yes, and that
was very hot obviously, and then and it cooled eventually.
But that's why the rocks appear to have been baked.
That was the foreshadowing, right. Um So the idea behind this,
like you said, it's still it stood up. That's enjoys
the majority opinion, right. Um So, after this impact. As

(16:39):
the as the Moon's spinning and forming itself into a spheroid. Um,
it's covered in this ocean of magma, right, And this
ocean of magma starts too cool and inside the cores
solid outside magma, it starts to cool and everything kind
of switches. The outside becomes solid, the inside magma and

(17:02):
then um. After a while, the there's this period of
um bombardment that I talked about of meteorites in the neighborhood.
It forms all of the highlands, the craters, um. Almost
every feature on the surface of the Moon is formed
during this bombardment period when the lava's eking out through
the cracks from that came after that. So this at

(17:24):
this point, the Moon has a molten core, a solid
exterior um, and it's being bombarded with meteorites. So we're
seeing the stuff that that we see today happen, you know,
three point nine billion years ago. Then after that period,
the there's a period of volcanic activity all over the
So that's when it's leaking up through the cracks, and

(17:45):
it leaks up through the cracks in the Maria areas, right,
which explains why there's more craters on the Highlands than
in the Maria because the craters were covered over by
this basult, which is so so prevalent in these areas. Right,
that makes a lot of sense actually, And and then lastly,
the volcanic activity expelled all of the heat in the moon,

(18:08):
turning it into a dead, lifeless hulk that we know
and love today. Well that sounds sad, but I love
it in its current state, so I'm actually happy about it. Okay,
So let's talk about it and it's current state, Chuck.
Here's so, there's the moon that's right there. That's how
it got there, right, that's kind of cool, Like you
didn't know that before. I didn't until we researched this stuff,

(18:29):
all right. So in its current state, Chuck, it's in
this um orbit around Earth. It doesn't spin on its axis,
and it's basically dragged along like you know a wheel
that's stuck. You can still drag it across the ground.
It's just not spinning. This is much the same way,
but rather than in a in a vertical orientation, this

(18:50):
is horizontal that the moon is not spinning and a
horizontal axis it's being dragged around. And so that's why
we only see the ones of the moon. The same
side of the moon all the time, the happy side
inside with the cheese. Well we wouldn't know if the
other side is happier. Well, that's the dark side. This
is scary side. Asked that crashed lunar rover or not

(19:13):
rover but orbiter, orbiter two, orbiter two. So you're talking
about the twenty nine it's the twenty nine point five
days or is it just twenty nine it's my understanding
that it's twenty nine point five. Okay, that's what I thought. Uh.
Sometimes it is between the Earth and the Sun. Sometimes
it's behind us. So what we're talking about here is

(19:34):
the moon phases. That's why you'll see the crescent moon
or the half moon or the full moon. Different parts
of the moon are lit up by the Sun depending
on where it is in relation to the Earth. It's
pretty simple. Yeah, and NTO yeah. Uh. And when it's
lit up and when it's not lit up, there's a huge,
huge difference in temperature. What was that? Was it a

(19:56):
future rama? It was a future rama where they had
to it back to their transport before the horizon line,
the point where the sun was you know, hitting the
moon got to them where also is just gonna vaporize
them because the difference in temperature, the mean temperature in
the shadow of the moon, if I may, I know
you like stats, please, the mean temperature in the shadow

(20:20):
of the moon is negative two hundred ninety two degrees fahrenheight.
Temperature negative a hundred and eighty degrees celsius in the sunlight, Chuck,
the mean, the mean, This is the one that's the average, right,
there's the median average. You could say that the mean
surface temperature in the sunlight is two hundred and sixty
six degrees fahrenheights. That's a hundred and thirty degrees celsius,

(20:43):
so quite a different. So yeah, there's like a six
hundred degree difference. That's the power of the sun, my friend,
which we've gone over in detail. So over these billions
of years, a couple of changes have happened to the Moon. Uh.
It's moved a little further away from the Earth, and
it's rotation has slowed some over the years, which you

(21:05):
know that doesn't mean anything to me right now, but
it's worth pointing out. Okay, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
did you talk about the different phases like the did
the waning and the waxing and all that. Uh, well
I didn't. I didn't govert in that much detail. Now, well,
I've always just enjoyed this, right, So do you know

(21:26):
what they call a moon that's growing toward full moon
and is almost full. Uh, that's waxing give us, yes,
So remember that one it's going on its way toward
a full moon and it's there's more moon present than
there isn't there's a waxing GiB us. And then do
you know what it's called when it's going toward a

(21:47):
new moon and it's a thin little sliver, Uh, the
waning crescent. Yes, if you remember waning crescent and waxing,
give us, you can name any phase of the moon
just by looking at it and impress your friend that's true,
because you also have the waxing crescent, first quarter, a
waning give us last quarter, and everyone's favorite, the full moon. Yeah,

(22:08):
the full moon's that's the money moon. Sure, and you
know people say that things go wacky at full moon's
but I think that we found that that is largely
just stories and it's not necessarily been proven. Like emergency
medical emergency rooms are supposed to be like wacky and
people go crazy and in the full moon and where
wolves coming backed up though by by numbers. Tracy said,

(22:30):
it's not. Um, where did you see that? It was
somewhere in here? I didn't see it. Well, it's in there,
or maybe I saw it somewhere else. Yeah, but they
said it's it's pretty much anecdotal. But I thought I
had seen that too where it was backed up by numbers. Well,
there is, there's another um, there's a I guess if
you're a skeptic, it's a crackpot theory. But there's a
a bunch of people who believe in the concept of

(22:54):
the super moon. Have you heard about that? That sounds familiar.
So the moon travel, it's orbit around the Earth is
not a perfect circle. It's in the lips. So that
means that there are points where it's as far as
it can be away from the Earth and as close
as it can be. So as close as it can
be as called paragy and as far away is called
apog and it hits these once a month each right,

(23:18):
So it's not unusual for the Moon to be impared
your apogee, and normally when it is, it just means
that the tides are higher and lower, and we'll talk
about tides in a minute. It's right, but um, if
it's in a full moon and it's a parady, which
means that there's more exposed right to the sunlight, which
really doesn't mean anything, but it's closer. Okay, Um, Supposedly

(23:41):
what this happens like once every nineteen years. Supposedly that's
linked to all sorts of destructive stuff on Earth, like
earthquakes and floods and things like that. And you can
go back and say, oh, well the moon there is
a super moon in nineteen The last one was March nineteen,
two thousand and eleven. March eleventh, two thou eleven was

(24:03):
the Japan quake. So people who believe in the Superman
say they're see that, like, we can go back and
find this all the time. And then people who who
poo poo it's say if yeah, you're linking to unrelated phenomena. Yeah,
that's very interesting, but that's the supermoon. At the very least,
it sounds very cool. Super anything sounds cool. Um, So Chuck,

(24:23):
I said that we were going to talk about tides,
and I deliver around my promises. Well, you can't talk
about the Moon without talking about tides. It's true, and Riley,
we mentioned him right. The Moon has a gravitational force.
We all know that. And it it pulls on water
and the oceans. It stretches this water out and forms

(24:44):
what's called the title bulge on the sides of the
planet that are in line with the Moon. That's the
first part. The moon. Water obviously pulls on the side
closest to it, which causes the bulge toward the Moon
pulls on the Earth a little bit and drags the
Earth away from the water from the opposite side. And
there's another another tidal bulge. And uh, the area under

(25:06):
the bulge. The areas of the Earth under the bulge
are high tide. The areas on the thin sides are
low tide. It's mind boggling. Six hours, twelve hours. The
moon pulls tugs on the ocean. It does, tugs on
the ocean toward it, right, and it even moves the

(25:26):
Earth a little bit. It does into the ocean a
little more. Another way, the Moon actually pulls water. Yeah,
it's a pretty impressive it is. Yeah. And then on
the other side it pulls it away from the water.
It pulls the Earth away from where the water is,
so that's low tide. And yeah, like you said, that
happens every six hours, right, Yeah. And the other cool
thing is it also the moon stabilizes the Earth's rotation.

(25:49):
If it wasn't for the moon, we might end up
looking like wobbly top. That's it's starting to slow down, yes,
like Inception. Yeah, your favorite movie. So, um, you know
that that top wobbling. Tracy talks about precession. Um where
because of that that skew to its axis. The angle

(26:12):
of its axis. The polar star changes every like fourteen
thousand years, I think twenty six thousand years. So right now,
Polaris is the north star. Um. The north star in
three thousand BC was called Theuban. Did you know that? No,
So we're gonna get another one and a D fourteen
thousand Vega will be the pole star. Huh Are they cool?

(26:38):
That is pretty cool? I hope I'm around to see it.
I don't. I don't know. They're gonna have to be
some significant advances in longevity really in the next years. Um,
so what else do we have a chuck? Well, we've
got eclipses. If you want to dive into that. What's
it's worthy take it? Think? Uh, when the Moon passes

(27:00):
between the Sun and the Earth, right, occasionally, you're gonna
get that exact alignment of the Sun, Moon and Earth,
and that's a solar eclipse. And I don't know if
a lot of people know this. When you have a
solar eclipse that same month, you're gonna have a lunar
eclipse as well. Yeah, it's like in the bag. In
the bag, but the moon has to be full, correct, Yeah,
when the moon is full, a lunar eclipse will occur

(27:23):
in the same month as a solar eclips Yes, you're right, okay,
but for the solar eclipse, it's got to be a
new moon, yes, Josh, new new phase only. So when
you have a lunar eclipse, the moon is new and
it's in line between the Sun and the Earth. And
then when it's full fifteen days later, fourteen days later,
it's on the other side of the Earth, you're gonna

(27:44):
have a lunar And depending on where it goes into
the Earth's shadow, either the pin umbra, which is like
an angled part of the shadow it's not the full
shadow um or the umbro, which is the full on shadow.
It'll either be a partial or of full eclipse. That's right.
And kids, remember never staring too a solar eclipse. Right,

(28:04):
you can stare at a lunar eclipse all night long
if you want to. So we talked about will the
Moon saved humanity? We talked about lunar bases, and we
talked about um mining, asteroids and fake moon landing. This
is like our fourth Mooney. But I think that there
should be required listening because you know, there's there's this
there's an idea that there's possibly ice that was missed

(28:27):
on the Moon. There's a couple been a couple of
the Clementine probe found evidence of it, and then a
more recent one said yeah, that's probably ice right there,
which probably a good deal. Well, yeah, it probably got
different like comets or something else. But there's ice on
the Moon, and if there is, then that means that
we have water and fuel on the Moon for a

(28:49):
moon base, which is very exciting news. It's a lot
cheaper apparently too. If you had a moon base to
send off a rocket from the Moon, then it would
be from the Earth. Plus you can be like, I
got a moon base and that's just cool. Yeah, it
sounds so sixties unless you see the movie Moon and
that wasn't very cool at all. Alright, good moon movies.

(29:10):
What you got? Uh? Well Moon? Okay, what else is there?
Moon raker? Yeah, um paper Moon Moon River it's a song. Yeah, sure,
I bet there's been a movie called Moon Rivers. I'm

(29:30):
gonna do you think you remember the film Breakfast at Tiffany's.
I love that movie. Well that's one thing we've got. Okay, wow,
Well the song is that Breakfast that Tiffany's? Is that
the name of it? By that awful band who I
hope doesn't listen to this show. Uh sorry, that was

(29:51):
a sidetrack. So um. The reason we mentioned that they
found what they think might be ice is because that's
pretty important because um, President Bush was GungHo to go,
uh find out and potentially get on the moon again.
And Obama came in and in two thousand ten, in
February and canceled the constellation program, which I looked into

(30:15):
because my first thought was, you know, I'm a big
fan of our president, and I thought, well that stinks.
I wanted to go back to the Moon, and I
think there's there's it's worthy to do so, Oh we will.
It'll just be private companies that get there. Exactly. That's
what he says, at least as he ordered a review
and found it to be behind schedule and over budget

(30:35):
and just not a very lean program. And so hey,
let's extend the International Space Station for about five years,
give NAS about six billion bucks, and then see if
we can get some private companies to start shuttling astronauts
up there. Into the private sector. Yeah, so we'll see
what happens. Neil Armstrong is against that, but Paul's buzz

(30:56):
altern is for it. Yeah. I don't know if they're
duking it out or it, But well, how do you
feel about it? I don't know. I mean I think
if the private sector could get involved, and that's that's good.
That's companies making money. It is. But like I tend
to think of like the Moon is a part of
the commonwealth of humanity, you know, like that, it just

(31:17):
seems like you shouldn't you shouldn't apply capitalism to the Moon. Yeah,
maybe not, but what you know, China might get there
and set up camp and be like no, no, no,
China will get there. They are spending a significant amount
of money, They're building their own international space station. Actually
it's just a National Space station because it's just theirs.
So yeah, they'll be on the Moon for the National

(31:39):
Space Station. Yeah, that's uh. I mean, do we have
an article on who owns space? I know we have
who owns the oceans? We did that, but I mean
that's a valid thing. Well, let's find out. What if
Trya got up there and they're like, this is ours.
Now you can gotta you can see the moon base?
All right, we gotta do that. Alright, let's the moon

(32:01):
if you want to learn more about the Moon. And seriously,
there's some really handy graphs and illustrations in this type
in Moon in the search bar at how stuff works
dot com and that brings up listener mail hold on
their partner. We are going to plug our new audio
book that is available on iTunes, The super Stuff. It's

(32:23):
called The super Stuff Guide to Happiness. Features interviews and
Josh's niece, very cute niece, and um what else, great
sound design. We talked to Eric Wilson, who wrote the
book Against Happiness. Awesome Wake Forest professor. Great interviews in
this one. Yeah, um, and we we talked to a

(32:43):
bunch of great people, uh, and just really got into
what is happiness? What makes us happy? How how can
we possibly study happiness and just came up with some
pretty good answers. It's worth it. It's worth the three
or more in Australia, or if it makes you feel better,
divide that three ninety nine over the three hundred and
forty something shows nothing. That's almost just like a penny

(33:08):
of show. Yeah, not even except in Australia, where it's
gonna be more like a tough pence of show. Yeah.
We're gonna work that off over the next couple of
years to our AlSi friends. So it's on iTunes, the
Stuff You Should Know, super Stuff Guide to Happiness, and
when you search that on iTunes, it will probably bring
up the super Stuff Guide to uh the Economy, which
is pretty good listen to if you ask me. Agreed. Um.

(33:31):
And now that we've done this and we did it shamelessly,
that's right, it's time for listener mail again. Josh, we
called for a karma off. Send us your karma stories.
I'm gonna read one and uh, this is from a
dude in a band that I'm actually a fan of. Okay,
their name is Fang Island and they're awesome and they're

(33:54):
based in Brooklyn, New York now, although they're originally from
Rhode Island. And Jason Bartel, a Fang Island, wrote in
and said this, I've been joining the podcast for a while.
I'm in a touring band. It's been way too much
time in the van, so I welcome the opportunity to
keep my brain occupied. So thanks. And if people wrote
in with lots of karma stories, and if you think
I'm just reading this because I'm a fan of this

(34:15):
guy's band, then you're right. So I apologize if you
think your story was better. Uh. He went to college
in Providence, Rhode Island. Was driving home to New Hampshire
one holiday weekend and nearing the end of the trip,
there's a toll there and I had zero money in
my wallet and I was stuck in line. It was
too late. In hindsight, I was probably overly panicked, because
the penalty for not having enough money at a toll

(34:38):
in New Hampshire is probably pretty minuscule. Like they probably
would have said, don't worry about it. They're really nice
up there, you know, Yeah, you've ever been there. I
have not been in New Hampshire. But day yea Evermont,
They're all just like super nice holes. Uh. Nevertheless, I
started sweating, my heart was racing. I began scrounging for
loose change to no avail. Uh. One long shot scenario

(34:59):
that crossed my mind was maybe the car in front
of me would pay for me for some reason. But
I dismissed it, so I barely knew that I had
even thought it. But when it came time for me
to face the music, it turns out this is exactly
what happened. The operator said the car in front of
me covered my fare and said to have a nice day.
I was stunned. I have no idea still why they

(35:20):
paid for me, even sped up alongside them to give
him a thank you and wave my gun in and
tell him pull over. They want to ask them, but
they never acknowledged me. Normally, it would be stone cold
case of luck, except that I've actually done this before
for other people in the past. When I felt randomly charitable,
I realized this is probably the very definition of the
simplified New Age interpretation of karma that you were talking about.

(35:43):
But I was destruck by the almost cute one to
one ratio of this particular karmic transaction, and that is
Jason Bartel of Fang Island, who is a great band.
They got a eight point three review on their debut
album on Pitchfork, which is really Pitchfork. They're not kind
the bands usually, well that's not true. They they review
how they review, but at eight point three is good.

(36:06):
They're not sick of fans. They are not. They will
they will trash your record if they don't like it.
So they're they're awesome, and go see them. They're on tour.
I think said they might be come through Atlanta as
false maybe if you want to say saying them again
Bang Island. Okay. They opened up for Flaming Lips a
lot on this last tour, so that should tell you
something about their Their sound very cool, but they sound

(36:27):
like the Flaming Lips there, No, I mean a lot
of it's instrumental. I mean they're just insanely talented and uh,
their self described sound is quote everyone high fiving everyone,
and he's kind of right. It sounds like how I
would describe the Go Team. Uh. Yeah, they have been
compared to them, although this is like a three guitar onslaught,

(36:50):
but it's like happy music. It's not like Explosions in
the Sky. Got type of instrumental stuff, and they got
words too. It's just not like the first course type
of songs. They clients and scissors very unique. Goodness me,
that was a plug and a half. Well, if you
have a band that you think Chuck likes, he wants
to hear about it. I really do. Actually I don't like, Like,

(37:13):
what if one of my heroes listens to the show
and I'll never know? Or what if it's a new
band that you've never heard of yet? Well, that too, Okay,
you should contact Chuck like David Bowie. What if he
listens David Bowie does not listen. You're right. You can
contact Chuck and me. We're both on the same email address.
You just need to direct it toward us at Stuff

(37:36):
Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by

(37:56):
the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you