1
00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:08,800
[thunder crashing]

2
00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:13,040
[rainfall]

3
00:00:13,120 --> 00:00:15,400
-[dog barking]
-[birds calling]

4
00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:18,280
[varied bird calls]

5
00:00:21,640 --> 00:00:23,640
[wings fluttering]

6
00:00:24,440 --> 00:00:28,960
[narrator] The Earth,
home to millions of species.

7
00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:30,320
[man talking on radio]

8
00:00:30,400 --> 00:00:32,400
[woman singing]

9
00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:36,800
But what might live... beyond?

10
00:00:36,880 --> 00:00:38,600
[thunder rumbling]

11
00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:45,680
Astronomers have discovered 
thousands of planets

12
00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:47,880
outside our solar system.

13
00:00:50,680 --> 00:00:53,640
They believe there are trillions more.

14
00:00:56,840 --> 00:01:00,280
If life exists 
on only a fraction of them,

15
00:01:01,440 --> 00:01:06,200
then the universe must be... alive.

16
00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:08,880
[creatures calling]

17
00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:15,800
[squeaking]

18
00:01:15,880 --> 00:01:19,560
All living things have the same needs.

19
00:01:22,320 --> 00:01:23,280
To feed...

20
00:01:30,320 --> 00:01:31,480
reproduce...

21
00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:37,480
and evolve.

22
00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:43,680
By applying the laws of life on Earth

23
00:01:44,240 --> 00:01:46,280
to the rest of the universe...

24
00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:49,840
it's possible to imagine

25
00:01:50,400 --> 00:01:51,800
what could live...

26
00:01:53,120 --> 00:01:55,320
on alien worlds.

27
00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:14,600
[futuristic whirring]

28
00:02:28,640 --> 00:02:32,240
[man] Being an astronomer, it's sort of
like being a human conversation piece.

29
00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:37,280
There's two questions you always get.
The first is "What's inside a black hole?"

30
00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:40,000
And the second, which is the one 
people are really interested in,

31
00:02:40,080 --> 00:02:42,400
is "What about life
elsewhere in the universe?"

32
00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:49,440
And then, you know, almost always, 
we come down to this place.

33
00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:11,680
Area 51 is a secret U.S. Air Force base.

34
00:03:13,320 --> 00:03:19,120
Its existence was only officially
recognized in 2013.

35
00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:20,640
[jet plane flying overhead]

36
00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:26,840
So, what really goes on back there?

37
00:03:26,920 --> 00:03:29,640
[whispers] Well... nobody knows.

38
00:03:29,720 --> 00:03:32,040
Of course, some people think they know.

39
00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:35,440
The believers,
the... the conspiracy theorists,

40
00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:38,840
they think that that's where 
all the alien bodies are.

41
00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:43,280
All the dead aliens in the crashed 
spaceships are taken somewhere back there

42
00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:46,400
and they're held in refrigerators 
or "defructinators,"

43
00:03:46,480 --> 00:03:49,240
or whatever technology 
you need for an alien body.

44
00:03:49,760 --> 00:03:52,680
And, you know, that's essentially
where all the secrets

45
00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:55,480
that we're not allowed 
to know about are being kept.

46
00:03:55,560 --> 00:03:57,000
[jet plane flying overhead]

47
00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:08,200
This is footage
supposedly showing an alien body

48
00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:11,200
being examined at Area 51.

49
00:04:17,040 --> 00:04:18,720
But the video is a hoax...

50
00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:25,440
perpetuating the idea 
that aliens are among us.

51
00:04:35,040 --> 00:04:39,320
[Adam] The reason why most ufology
sounds like a science-fiction story is,

52
00:04:39,400 --> 00:04:41,280
it is a science fiction story.

53
00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:43,920
[whirring]

54
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:46,000
[dramatic music plays]

55
00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:49,240
[UFO beeping]

56
00:04:52,600 --> 00:04:53,800
[UFO weapon buzzing]

57
00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:57,560
But, you know,
in spite of the silliness of ufology,

58
00:04:57,640 --> 00:05:02,000
I do believe
that there is other life in the universe.

59
00:05:02,080 --> 00:05:05,480
And, as a scientist, um,
I-- I-- I'm taken to that belief,

60
00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:09,080
because I really believe that's where 
the numbers now are leading us.

61
00:05:18,560 --> 00:05:21,000
A couple of years ago, a colleague and I 

62
00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:24,520
tried to take all the amazing data
that we now have,

63
00:05:24,600 --> 00:05:26,280
and we wrote down an equation

64
00:05:26,360 --> 00:05:29,080
that allowed us to calculate

65
00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:34,640
the total number of planets out there
that might have civilizations on them.

66
00:05:35,160 --> 00:05:40,160
Essentially, what we found 
was that there were ten billion...

67
00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:42,080
trillion...

68
00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:44,120
planets out there...

69
00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:50,040
in the right place where life,
and possibly, civilizations could form.

70
00:05:57,520 --> 00:06:00,600
Every one of those planets
is essentially an experiment.

71
00:06:00,680 --> 00:06:04,480
And for none of them, other than ours, 
to turn out with a civilization...

72
00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:07,120
that's pushing it quite a bit.

73
00:06:14,120 --> 00:06:18,000
If alien civilizations
are statistically so likely,

74
00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:21,280
why haven't astronomers 
found any sign of them?

75
00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:26,440
Where is everyone?

76
00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:30,360
Think about it this way.

77
00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:35,880
Out there in the Pacific Ocean, there's 
187 million billion gallons of water.

78
00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:40,080
Now, if I take this bucket here 
and throw it over...

79
00:06:43,400 --> 00:06:44,680
and then haul up, 

80
00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:46,920
see what's in it...

81
00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:51,400
All righty. What do we see?

82
00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:54,200
Nothing.

83
00:06:55,720 --> 00:06:58,240
Should I take the fact that I don't see
any life in my bucket

84
00:06:58,320 --> 00:07:00,520
to tell me that there's no life
in the Pacific Ocean?

85
00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:03,880
Well, that would be crazy, right?
There's all kinds of life out there.

86
00:07:03,960 --> 00:07:07,360
There are sea otters, and whales, 
and octopuses, and jellyfishes,

87
00:07:07,440 --> 00:07:09,240
and God only knows what's out there.

88
00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:11,640
They're just not in this bucket.

89
00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:16,720
That's why this is a perfect metaphor

90
00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:19,280
for the search 
for extraterrestrial intelligence.

91
00:07:21,280 --> 00:07:24,240
-[radio telescopes whirring]
-Every time we look at an individual star,

92
00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:26,240
that's like dropping a bucket
in the ocean.

93
00:07:27,320 --> 00:07:28,760
[radio signals beeping]

94
00:07:28,840 --> 00:07:31,280
We're going to have to look
at a lot of stars,

95
00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:34,160
and we're gonna have
to search through a lot of data...

96
00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:39,040
until we find the clue that leads us 
to another civilization.

97
00:07:53,400 --> 00:07:59,520
What sort of alien civilizations
might exist in the vastness of space?

98
00:08:05,800 --> 00:08:10,520
Imagine a planet nine billion years old,

99
00:08:10,960 --> 00:08:13,040
twice as old as Earth.

100
00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:18,600
Old enough that a truly advanced
intelligence could evolve.

101
00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:24,600
This is Terra.

102
00:08:31,720 --> 00:08:34,280
It was once a fertile world.

103
00:08:36,320 --> 00:08:38,080
Now, it is barren.

104
00:08:39,640 --> 00:08:42,640
But life can still thrive here...

105
00:08:45,040 --> 00:08:47,280
in artificial domes.

106
00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:54,360
[spaceships whirring]

107
00:08:57,480 --> 00:09:01,080
Plants convert sunlight 
into glucose energy...

108
00:09:03,320 --> 00:09:06,000
which feeds the inhabitants of Terra.

109
00:09:09,680 --> 00:09:12,040
[mechanism buzzes]

110
00:09:16,520 --> 00:09:22,040
Each box contains the brain matter 
of a super-intelligent being.

111
00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:28,000
Over time, they've evolved 
not to need their bodies.

112
00:09:30,440 --> 00:09:33,200
They exist only as neural tissue.

113
00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:41,680
They never age. They never die.

114
00:09:42,440 --> 00:09:45,640
They're monitored 
and maintained by robots.

115
00:09:49,680 --> 00:09:51,440
Each is an individual.

116
00:09:53,240 --> 00:09:56,280
But they're connected to think as one.

117
00:09:57,120 --> 00:09:58,760
A hive mind.

118
00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:02,160
[radio signals beeping]

119
00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:06,120
This is a hyper-advanced civilization.

120
00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:08,200
[signals continue]

121
00:10:09,680 --> 00:10:11,760
[overlapping garbled voice transmissions]

122
00:10:14,280 --> 00:10:21,080
On Earth, humans are the only species
to have created any form of civilization.

123
00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:22,880
[indistinct human radio transmissions]

124
00:10:25,320 --> 00:10:29,200
Why haven't other intelligent creatures
done the same thing?

125
00:10:38,440 --> 00:10:42,080
The octopus is as close 
to an alien intelligence

126
00:10:42,160 --> 00:10:44,200
as exists on our planet.

127
00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:54,800
[woman] Octopuses belong
to a group called cephalopods.

128
00:10:57,040 --> 00:10:59,960
And they have evolved down 
a completely different pathway.

129
00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:08,520
The octopus has separate nervous systems
in each of its arms.

130
00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:12,640
So, each arm contains
about 14 million neurons.

131
00:11:13,320 --> 00:11:16,120
And each arm 
can make independent decisions.

132
00:11:17,040 --> 00:11:21,320
So the octopus can be said to have,
essentially, nine separate brains.

133
00:11:25,480 --> 00:11:27,640
I kind of wanna reach out and touch him.

134
00:11:27,720 --> 00:11:29,000
[chuckles]

135
00:11:33,480 --> 00:11:35,880
Lego toys are quite hard to get apart.

136
00:11:37,040 --> 00:11:40,160
But we're curious to see
if he's gonna be able to open them.

137
00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:10,200
Octopuses are clearly smart.

138
00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:17,360
But being smart isn't enough 
to form a civilization.

139
00:12:28,040 --> 00:12:30,360
The key is cooperation...

140
00:12:32,200 --> 00:12:34,080
sharing ideas...

141
00:12:35,760 --> 00:12:41,040
passing down knowledge
from one generation to the next.

142
00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:47,640
[Anna] Our culture
is constantly improving.

143
00:12:48,600 --> 00:12:51,680
We keep building 
on each other's inventions.

144
00:12:55,840 --> 00:12:56,880
All right.

145
00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:02,160
Take this taxi, for example.

146
00:13:03,040 --> 00:13:06,400
Wheels were invented more 
than five-and-a-half thousand years ago.

147
00:13:07,080 --> 00:13:10,560
Iron has been smelted more than
four-and-a-half thousand years ago.

148
00:13:12,440 --> 00:13:16,800
Vulcanized rubber has been used for tires
since about 180 years.

149
00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:21,360
So, all of these inventions were necessary

150
00:13:21,440 --> 00:13:24,200
to actually build 
something as complicated as this car.

151
00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:31,760
An octopus, by comparison, has to pretty
much figure out everything for himself.

152
00:13:33,800 --> 00:13:37,280
There is no improving and building 
on previous solutions.

153
00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:40,680
And that's pretty limiting,
even if you have nine brains.

154
00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:48,400
Civilizations are like living organisms...

155
00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:52,480
with millions of connected parts.

156
00:13:55,920 --> 00:13:57,560
It's this connectivity

157
00:13:58,120 --> 00:14:00,240
that allows them to grow.

158
00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:16,080
But the civilization on Terra is in peril.

159
00:14:19,520 --> 00:14:22,800
Its star is double the age
of our own sun.

160
00:14:28,080 --> 00:14:32,760
And as stars get older, 
they burn bigger and brighter.

161
00:14:37,680 --> 00:14:42,040
Eventually, the planet Terra 
will be incinerated.

162
00:14:48,920 --> 00:14:51,680
So an escape plan is underway...

163
00:14:56,440 --> 00:15:00,200
to colonize another planet 
in the same solar system...

164
00:15:03,160 --> 00:15:05,440
further from the star than Terra.

165
00:15:12,920 --> 00:15:16,600
There's ice on this world, 
but no atmosphere.

166
00:15:19,640 --> 00:15:22,280
It needs to be manufactured.

167
00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:37,800
This is engineering on a planetary scale.

168
00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:42,200
[machines hissing]

169
00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:45,280
Giant machines melt the ice caps

170
00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:48,360
to release vapor and gas...

171
00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:52,840
[energy beams roaring]

172
00:15:52,920 --> 00:15:56,600
...generating enough atmosphere
to warm the planet.

173
00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:06,120
Such a massive project
requires a massive amount of energy...

174
00:16:08,480 --> 00:16:12,160
delivered directly from the aging star.

175
00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:19,160
[star rumbling]

176
00:16:24,120 --> 00:16:30,080
The ability to harness energy
is the bedrock of civilization itself.

177
00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:38,960
[traditional Far Eastern music playing]

178
00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:47,960
[man] Part of what I do
is to try and predict the future.

179
00:16:48,640 --> 00:16:52,960
And you can look back in history
and get a lot of ideas from there,

180
00:16:54,240 --> 00:16:59,280
but there are underlying trends we can use
to some extent to see what's to come,

181
00:17:00,440 --> 00:17:03,600
like life expectancy, wealth, 
population size.

182
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:08,840
And one of the most revealing is the
amount of energy that civilizations use.

183
00:17:11,280 --> 00:17:14,880
The more energy a civilization can access,

184
00:17:15,440 --> 00:17:17,600
the more powerful it becomes.

185
00:17:20,040 --> 00:17:22,480
That's the secret of progress...

186
00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:26,720
from the Stone Age until today.

187
00:17:39,400 --> 00:17:42,400
So, unleashing the heat and energy 
in charcoal

188
00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:46,080
allowed us to get temperatures
hot enough to smelt metals

189
00:17:46,160 --> 00:17:48,040
to make tools and weapons.

190
00:17:52,040 --> 00:17:56,680
Later on, of course, we harnessed
fossil fuels like coal and gas,

191
00:17:57,200 --> 00:18:00,600
allowing the creation of vehicles 
that could hurtle us across the world

192
00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:03,640
at much higher speed 
than we ever had before.

193
00:18:11,160 --> 00:18:16,080
But the greatest source of energy
is, of course, our star.

194
00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:25,320
[radio waves oscillating]

195
00:18:36,640 --> 00:18:42,880
The Noor Power Station is the largest
solar complex of its kind in the world.

196
00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:52,400
Half a million mirrors 
at the edge of the Sahara Desert.

197
00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:04,120
The ones over here are heliostats,

198
00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:07,040
and they track the sun 
as it moves through the sky

199
00:19:07,120 --> 00:19:11,000
and focus all its energy
down on that tower.

200
00:19:16,320 --> 00:19:18,920
And that energy goes out into the world

201
00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:21,000
and powers modern civilization.

202
00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:26,240
More and more of our transport,

203
00:19:26,680 --> 00:19:28,840
our lighting, our agriculture.

204
00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:31,760
Very relevant for here, air conditioning.

205
00:19:32,360 --> 00:19:34,480
Basically, everything that keeps us safe,

206
00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:38,480
working and entertained
comes from electricity.

207
00:19:38,560 --> 00:19:40,840
And more and more of that electricity

208
00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:44,000
is coming from solar power plants 
like this.

209
00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:56,080
But humans use only a tiny fraction 
of all the energy available from the sun.

210
00:19:58,080 --> 00:20:04,840
So, 430 quintillion joules of the sun's 
energy fall on the Earth every hour.

211
00:20:04,920 --> 00:20:10,040
For comparison, that's very roughly
2,000 Hiroshima bombs every second.

212
00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:12,840
A lot of energy. How much do we use?

213
00:20:12,920 --> 00:20:19,040
Well, humanity uses
410 quintillion joules... in a year.

214
00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:23,000
So, in a year, we fail to use

215
00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:26,920
all the energy that the sun sends us
in a single hour.

216
00:20:28,440 --> 00:20:31,160
Imagine if we could capture 
all that energy

217
00:20:31,240 --> 00:20:33,480
and use it to power our civilization.

218
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:37,400
What miracles could we accomplish?

219
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:40,200
What places
could we explore with all that?

220
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:46,440
According to astrophysicists,

221
00:20:46,520 --> 00:20:51,800
any truly advanced civilization
will be able to harness all its energy...

222
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:55,080
directly from the stars.

223
00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:09,120
By this measure, the civilization on Terra
is supremely advanced.

224
00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:17,400
It has built solar panels in space,

225
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:19,400
near to its star...

226
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:24,280
for maximum effect.

227
00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:29,520
[mechanical beeping]

228
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:38,040
[energy roaring]

229
00:21:38,120 --> 00:21:40,880
But as the star becomes
bigger and brighter...

230
00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:46,800
it also becomes more volatile.

231
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:52,880
[high-pitched whirring]

232
00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:54,320
A solar flare.

233
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:03,400
[energy roaring]

234
00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:06,680
[energy crackling]

235
00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:15,560
Sooner or later, this will be
the destiny of Terra itself...

236
00:22:18,280 --> 00:22:21,720
to be swept away by the power of its sun.

237
00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:33,680
The solution is to colonize 
the new planet as quickly as possible.

238
00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:38,920
[machines hissing]

239
00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:40,880
There are no life forms here.

240
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:45,040
All the work is done by machines.

241
00:22:45,120 --> 00:22:48,360
[energy beams roaring]

242
00:22:49,120 --> 00:22:51,040
[spaceship whirring]

243
00:22:51,120 --> 00:22:55,920
They're able to think for themselves
and make their own decisions.

244
00:22:58,720 --> 00:22:59,760
[spaceships whirring]

245
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:02,200
They are artificially intelligent.

246
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:11,240
[indistinct vocal transmission]

247
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:14,320
If humans are to form colonies in space,

248
00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:17,440
the groundwork will be done 
in the same way...

249
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:22,000
using robots.

250
00:23:26,120 --> 00:23:28,360
And those robots will be designed

251
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:31,280
by people like Philip Metzger.

252
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:37,680
He has spent his whole life
in and around the space program.

253
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:42,640
[Philip] My father used to work
in this building,

254
00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:45,000
and he helped build the Saturn V rockets

255
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,040
that were large enough 
to take humans to the moon.

256
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:51,520
[man 1] Apollo 11,
this is the launch operations manager.

257
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,080
The launch team wishes you 
good luck and Godspeed.

258
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:57,400
[man 2] Ah, thank you very much.
Know it will be a good one.

259
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:06,160
[Philip] I'll never forget
the Apollo 11 flight.

260
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:11,160
I was seven years old.

261
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:14,720
I was across the river during the launch,
watching it.

262
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:17,960
There were helicopters flying around.

263
00:24:19,120 --> 00:24:20,880
People had come from all over the world,

264
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:24,320
-coming to watch the moon launch.
-[cheering and whistling]

265
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:25,800
It was electric.

266
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:29,920
[man 1] Astronauts report it feels good. 
20 seconds and counting.

267
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:31,200
[radio static crackling]

268
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:34,080
T minus 15 seconds, guidance is internal.

269
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:36,640
Twelve, eleven,

270
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:38,840
ten, nine...

271
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:40,720
Ignition sequence starts.

272
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,320
...six... five... four...

273
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,160
three... two... one...

274
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:47,760
zero.

275
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:50,920
[booster rockets roar]

276
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:51,960
Liftoff!

277
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:53,520
We have a liftoff.

278
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:06,280
As it climbed into the sky, 
you could see that long, beautiful flame

279
00:25:06,360 --> 00:25:08,800
shimmering across the water.

280
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:12,920
[man 2] We got skirts-up?

281
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:15,320
[man 3] Roger, we confirm skirts-up.

282
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:16,480
[radio beeps]

283
00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:22,280
[Philip] So, I grew up wanting to be
a rocket scientist, my entire life.

284
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:39,240
[narrator] Philip became a NASA scientist.

285
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:42,920
But rather than sticking at rocket design,

286
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:46,320
he moved into robotics.

287
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,280
[Philip] If we ever really want to do 
anything fabulous in space,

288
00:25:55,360 --> 00:25:56,880
we need robots.

289
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:09,360
RASSOR is designed to work
in tough planetary environments.

290
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:14,160
-It can climb over rocks.
-[robot whirs]

291
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,480
If it gets stuck,
it can get itself unstuck.

292
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:23,240
If it flips upside down,
it can flip itself over.

293
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:26,920
In any situation, 
it can get itself out of trouble.

294
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:33,240
The simplest thing that we could mine 
on a planet is the regolith,

295
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:36,680
the dirt that covers 
the planetary surface.

296
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:40,960
You can extract metal from the regolith.

297
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:47,480
You can also make ceramics that are used
for insulating electrical systems.

298
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:50,480
And you can make rocket fuel.

299
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,280
But mining does take intelligence.

300
00:26:58,120 --> 00:27:00,800
You have to know where to drive, 
where to cut.

301
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,360
You've gotta keep from getting lost, 
get yourself unstuck.

302
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:07,360
So it's going to take a clever machine
like RASSOR

303
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:09,960
to be able to start industry in space.

304
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:15,880
The Holy Grail of robotics
is self-replication...

305
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,280
a machine that can make copies of itself.

306
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,480
This is a spare wheel for RASSOR.

307
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:33,600
A robot part made by a robot 
for another robot, using space materials. 

308
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:37,600
But this is an early example 
of how we're evolving the robots

309
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:44,400
toward a fully closed ecology of robots
that can self-reproduce in space.

310
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:54,840
Once you've got self-reproducing robots,
everywhere is a place you can go.

311
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:58,000
I don't think there are any limits.

312
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,520
[spaceship whirring]

313
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:14,600
Without input from any life form,

314
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,560
the robots are re-engineering a planet...

315
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:23,720
making it ready for colonization.

316
00:28:26,360 --> 00:28:28,360
[spaceships whirring]

317
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:37,400
Now, it's time to abandon Terra.

318
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,240
Each of the domes has been designed 
for this moment...

319
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:49,080
to get into orbit.

320
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:57,080
From here, they will travel 
to their new home.

321
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,040
[mechanical whooshing]

322
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:15,720
The domes have their own 
life-support systems.

323
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:19,520
But they're helpless

324
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:23,400
against a high-energy burst 
of solar radiation.

325
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:25,480
[star rumbling, hissing]

326
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:31,080
[mechanical systems powering down]

327
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:32,600
[rapid beeping]

328
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:34,280
[object crashing]

329
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:53,400
Nothing is evolved to survive
in the vacuum of space.

330
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:58,960
[insects chirping]

331
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:03,080
This is as true for aliens 
as it is for humans.

332
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:15,520
Michael Foale knows all about
the dangers of space travel.

333
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:26,640
In 1997, he was a guest American astronaut
on the Russian Mir space station...

334
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,680
during the first collision in space.

335
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:40,960
[Michael] There was, uh, an attempt 
by the Russian commander, Vasily,

336
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:44,760
and his crewmate to control
a cargo ship that weighed seven tons,

337
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:46,760
and dock it without the radar,

338
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,840
without speed,
without distance measurements...

339
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:51,760
Dock it to our space station.

340
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:58,880
[indistinct Russian radio transmissions]

341
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:08,200
[Michael] I felt the station--

342
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:12,840
I didn't "felt" it, I saw the station 
move all around me and I heard a thud.

343
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:14,680
[beeping]

344
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:23,920
And at that point I thought, "Mm...
This could be it, you know, where I die."

345
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,280
Uh, 'cause I'm looking at all these bolts

346
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:28,560
and I was just waiting
for those bolts to part,

347
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,440
and to, kind of, rip open 
and just see the vacuum of space.

348
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,840
And then, all the fans, all the lights,

349
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,240
all the computers failed and went silent.

350
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:52,480
And now we're in 
a completely silent station

351
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:54,600
that's getting cold.

352
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:02,080
[radio transmissions in Russian]
We've lost power.

353
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,880
Pressure is at 602.

354
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:09,440
[breathing]

355
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:11,680
And then my ears started to pop.

356
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:15,120
I knew we were depressurizing,

357
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,240
and that basically,
air was leaving the space station,

358
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:22,920
and we only had 23 minutes left to live,

359
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,520
if we stayed there
and we didn't stop the leak.

360
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:29,480
I started helping Sasha 
pull these cables out.

361
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:33,640
Huge cables I thought would have taken 
us hours to undo,

362
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:35,080
we did them in six minutes.

363
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:39,960
And we'd take this cap and we'd put it in
and it sucks in, and it goes... "pew."

364
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:41,960
And at that point, we've stopped the leak.

365
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:50,320
And it was there in front of the window,
looking at the galaxy...

366
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:52,680
I said...

367
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:58,360
"Well, I know it's been a really bad day,
but this is an amazingly beautiful view."

368
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:04,200
You're kind of sensing, trying to sense
all of the, uh...

369
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:06,360
The presence in the... in the universe.

370
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:19,200
In total, Michael Foale went into space
on six missions.

371
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:21,440
Oops, more hair going away.

372
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:26,480
But every second spent off-world

373
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:30,000
-increased his dose of radiation.
-[radio chatter]

374
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:35,520
[Michael] We're exposed
to radiation on Earth,

375
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:38,400
but once you go into orbit,

376
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:41,480
now you're exposed
to thousands of times more radiation.

377
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,880
And that radiation now is damaging
our DNA much faster,

378
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:52,320
and the repair mechanisms 
that we evolved to have

379
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:54,280
are not able to cope with it.

380
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:16,920
When I came back from my space flights,

381
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:22,720
they found I had, like, four percent
of my white blood cells had DNA mutations.

382
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:32,320
Most of those mutated cells get killed 
by other white blood cells in your body,

383
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:36,440
but, some of them,
unfortunately, don't die.

384
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:41,320
They reproduce and mutate 
and become cancers.

385
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,600
That is a fundamental risk for astronauts.

386
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:55,880
And if we imagine going out to stars,

387
00:34:55,960 --> 00:35:00,000
it could be that, out of a hundred ships,
only one of them makes it.

388
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:08,960
[loud whooshing]

389
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:15,880
Long-distance space travel 
will always be risky...

390
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:20,080
even for intelligent aliens.

391
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:26,360
There's no protection against 
a sudden blast of stellar radiation.

392
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:38,280
But for those that make it 
to the end of the journey,

393
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:41,320
this is their reward...

394
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:45,520
a new Terra.

395
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,320
Rather than adapting to a different world,

396
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:03,800
they have created a copy 
of their old world.

397
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:11,560
Such are the benefits 
of an advanced civilization.

398
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:20,320
[radio signals beeping]

399
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:24,640
But how long will the good times last?

400
00:36:28,720 --> 00:36:33,000
The star keeps growing,
bigger and brighter...

401
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:36,280
spitting out more radiation.

402
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:40,440
[star roaring]

403
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:47,200
Eventually, it will render the new planet
as lifeless as Terra.

404
00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,840
And then they'll need to relocate again,

405
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,000
to another planet, further from the star.

406
00:37:15,240 --> 00:37:18,200
This is the advantage of being mobile.

407
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:23,880
It's possible to transit 
from world to world,

408
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:27,200
making and remaking home.

409
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:44,640
Perhaps there's an alien civilization
already headed for Earth.

410
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:50,600
If so, should we hide from them,

411
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:53,240
or make ourselves known?

412
00:37:57,560 --> 00:37:58,840
Okay. Um...

413
00:37:59,720 --> 00:38:01,880
Let me-- Let me end by saying...

414
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:07,200
Let me close by telling you 
why we should begin transmitting

415
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:09,920
and why we should begin right now.

416
00:38:12,240 --> 00:38:13,720
[exhales]

417
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:21,800
Doug Vakoch wants to open up a dialogue
with potential aliens

418
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:25,000
by sending them radio messages.

419
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:31,840
[elevator dings]

420
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,720
But first, he needs to persuade
astronomers on Earth

421
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:43,480
that it's a good idea.

422
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:45,560
[crowd applauding]

423
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:53,480
[Doug] This is where it all started.

424
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:59,400
The biggest radio telescope
Earth had ever seen.

425
00:39:13,240 --> 00:39:15,280
There's something about being here,

426
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:18,920
the awesomeness, the scale of the place.

427
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:32,080
This is where, in 1974, we sent 
humanity's first message into space.

428
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:39,200
[long beep]

429
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:45,880
It starts by these pulses that count out
the numbers from one through ten.

430
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:48,200
[bleeping]

431
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:51,280
Then after we've shown extraterrestrials
how we count,

432
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:53,280
we use those numbers to describe

433
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:56,280
some of the chemical elements
essential to life on Earth.

434
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:58,440
[beeping continues]

435
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:00,080
And then after that...

436
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:02,720
what we look like,

437
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:05,480
how many humans there are,

438
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:07,240
how tall we are.

439
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:12,000
Then after that,
a representation of our solar system.

440
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:17,000
And then it ends with a representation 
of this telescope itself,

441
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:18,600
where the message came from.

442
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:20,280
[rapid bleeping]

443
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:24,040
The pulses of the Arecibo message

444
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:26,400
could be arranged into a pictogram

445
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:31,240
to inform intelligent aliens
about life on Earth.

446
00:40:35,240 --> 00:40:37,760
[oscillating frequency hums]

447
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:40,080
But it was a one-time event,

448
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:45,880
aimed at a star cluster
25,000 light-years away.

449
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:52,600
[Doug] If we'd been sending messages 
to nearby stars

450
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:54,840
at the same time
we sent out the Arecibo message,

451
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:59,400
we could be getting responses today 
from any of thousands of stars.

452
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:03,480
But we haven't, and so we're in the dark.

453
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:10,560
The biggest reason we haven't sent 
more messages is because we're afraid.

454
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:15,040
Because the blockbuster 
science-fiction films

455
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:17,880
show aliens coming to Earth 
and annihilating us...

456
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,280
and so that's what we think
would really happen.

457
00:41:27,240 --> 00:41:31,960
I think the-- the most prominent challenge
is the concern that some people have

458
00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:37,520
that transmitting intentional messages,
uh, will lead to an alien invasion.

459
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:40,000
And I think the easiest
response to that is,

460
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:44,280
our planet has been giving off evidence 
of life for two billion years.

461
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:47,240
So, if there are any really paranoid 
aliens out there

462
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:49,560
who want to annihilate any competition,

463
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,200
they've had a long time to come here,
and I haven't seen 'em.

464
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:59,280
Rather than sending an occasional message 
into space,

465
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:03,400
Doug's plan is to transmit 
thousands of them...

466
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:08,600
when the Arecibo telescope 
is on downtime.

467
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:15,600
[Doug] With radio astronomy,
you can do it any time of the day.

468
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:18,600
But... I like to do it at night.

469
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:23,920
Caffeine is essential for astronomers.
Um...

470
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:28,120
A lot of late nights in the observations 
and we have to stay sharp.

471
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:36,360
[radio signals beeping]

472
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:41,440
Once a month, Arecibo does a survey 
of recently discovered asteroids.

473
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:46,800
Quite often there's a gap, maybe an hour,

474
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:50,640
where the transmitter is transmitting
off into space at no particular place.

475
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:56,560
-[cicadas chirping]
-[bleeping continues]

476
00:42:56,640 --> 00:43:01,560
What I'm proposing is that Arecibo
should use those gaps in the schedule

477
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:05,320
to target nearby stars with a message,

478
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,880
in case there are any extraterrestrials 
in orbit around that star.

479
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:17,240
Each month, we could be targeting 
about 50 stars

480
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:20,080
that may support intelligent life.

481
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:23,040
And for me, it's a no-brainer.
I think we should be doing it.

482
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:29,320
I think of this in terms 
of what's sometimes called

483
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:31,040
"joining the galactic club."

484
00:43:31,720 --> 00:43:36,760
And what I find so strange about that
analogy is that no one ever talks about,

485
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,280
um, paying our dues
or even submitting an application.

486
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:43,680
And that's what messaging
extraterrestrial intelligence does.

487
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:46,520
It may just be our way 
of making first contact.

488
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:47,800
Thanks.

489
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:51,040
[woman] Thank you very much to Doug
for this interesting presentation.

490
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:55,400
[cicadas chirping]

491
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:04,080
[Doug] When we reach out to other stars,
when we send them our messages,

492
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:10,600
in the best-case scenario,
we get a reply back in 10 or 20 years.

493
00:44:12,720 --> 00:44:16,560
But realistically, it could take 
thousands of years.

494
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,360
So this is something that we're doing,

495
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:28,480
not for ourselves, but for our children,
for our grandchildren.

496
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:31,080
And even for the aliens.

497
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,160
[woman] Eight, seven, six,

498
00:44:37,240 --> 00:44:40,200
five, four, three,

499
00:44:40,720 --> 00:44:42,360
two, one.

500
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:45,320
Mission liftoff.

501
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:47,440
[engines hiss]

502
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:52,440
[man] Switching down range.

503
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:58,760
[narrator] In 2018, the latest
planet-hunting telescope went into orbit.

504
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:07,160
[clicking, whirring]

505
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:10,680
It is finding evidence of new worlds

506
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:13,760
across the night sky.

507
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:26,520
Astronomers think it's only 
a matter of time

508
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:30,000
before some alien life forms 
are discovered.

509
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:39,360
Among them, perhaps, intelligent beings.

510
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:47,680
One day, we will know for sure.

511
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:57,800
Until then, we can only guess 
at who or what is out there.