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Brought to you by Toyota. Let's

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go places. Welcome

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to Forward Thinking. Hey

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there, and welcome to Forward Thinking,

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the podcast that looks at the future and

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says, I'm taking an aeroplane across

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the world to follow my heart. I'm

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Jonathan Strickland, and I'm Joe McCormick,

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and our other host, Lauren fill Gobamb is not

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with us today. She's not feeling well. But today

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Jonathan and I are going to be talking about a subject

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that we've touched on in the past, and we're

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gonna come back and experience the fulfillment

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of an around the world journey of technology.

0:39

Yeah. So back in April

0:42

in two thousand fourteen, on April twenty three, to

0:44

be precise, we published a podcast

0:47

about solar powered vehicles, and we talked

0:49

a lot about all sorts of different vehicles. Right, we

0:51

talked about solar powered tanks.

0:54

Don't think we got quite around to that, but we got the cars

0:56

and boats and and even airplanes.

0:59

And we're talking about all sorts of different types

1:01

of vehicles, including are different ways

1:04

of using solar power from using solar

1:06

power just as the primary means

1:08

of getting energy to move the

1:10

car to using solar power

1:13

as a recharging

1:15

station for electric vehicles, sort

1:17

of a backup. Yeah,

1:19

but one of the things we chatted about was

1:23

this idea of a solar

1:25

powered aircraft making a journey

1:27

around the world. Yeah, so

1:30

you may have remember the name of

1:32

this project. It was known as Solar Impulse

1:34

back in the day. But we're sort of at the next

1:36

level. It's one better. We've gone to Solar

1:39

Impulse to write. The first Solar

1:41

Impulse aircraft was impressive in

1:43

its own right. We'll touch on that a little bit

1:45

in this podcast, but it was the Solar

1:47

Impulse too, that was the

1:49

vehicle of choice to

1:52

try and get around the world using

1:54

only solar power as the

1:56

source of energy. And they succeeded.

1:58

They did. They've just seated in a

2:00

full circumnavigation of the globe in

2:03

a completely solar powered airplane.

2:05

Now, if if you haven't

2:07

been reading about this and and you're like, wait

2:09

a minute, how long did it take? Did they ever

2:12

land? It wasn't continuous, no,

2:14

no, it was It was over the course of many,

2:16

many, many segments and

2:19

well well even kind of uh

2:22

talk about just a few of those segments in particular,

2:24

when something of real

2:27

interest beyond I mean beyond just the fact

2:29

that they did this incredible feat flying

2:32

an airplane using solar power

2:34

to generate electricity. Yeah, I guess I've read enough

2:36

articles about Solar Impulse that I got kind

2:38

of jaded. I'm like, yeah, another Solar Impulse

2:40

article. I need to remember to be astonished

2:43

that this is a solar powered airplane.

2:46

This is a heavier than air flying

2:49

machine running entirely on photovolta

2:52

excels. I still occasionally, when

2:54

I'm on an airplane, We'll have that

2:56

moment of this is incredible,

2:58

and then I think, well, not only is this incredible,

3:01

but someone has created a solar powered

3:03

one of these. Typically I

3:05

am on a jet, not an airplane airplane,

3:07

so it's not exactly the same thing,

3:10

but it is really interesting. And uh,

3:12

we'll talk about kind of the motivations

3:14

behind doing this in the first place, Well,

3:17

what happens next now that this around

3:20

the world journey has come to an end, and

3:22

some other interesting tidbits about the project

3:25

here and there. But first we should kind of talk

3:27

about where did this idea even come from

3:30

to start with? And and I actually went back and

3:32

listen to that April fourteen

3:35

episode because I want to make sure that

3:37

when we did this episode, we didn't overlap too

3:39

much, right, we didn't repeat ourselves, but really

3:41

we were we were pretty uh,

3:44

we were covering so many different topics in that episode

3:46

that we didn't really dwell too much on

3:49

Solar Impulse. So I feel okay

3:51

about diving into the background a little bit in this

3:53

one. Uh. There were two people

3:55

who were really the the heart behind

3:58

the project, the people who kind of came

4:00

up with this notion and decided

4:02

to um to really move forward with

4:04

it, one as Pinky and the brain.

4:08

It's odd that you put it that way, and I'll

4:10

tell you why, because one of them is sort

4:12

of the technical expert and the other

4:15

one was sort of the adventurer type. But

4:18

they both have taken turns

4:20

flying the Solar Impulse to around the world.

4:22

So the two people were

4:25

Bertrand Picard and Andre

4:27

Borschberg. Bertrand

4:29

Picard was born in Lausanne in Switzerland

4:32

and ninety eight, and on

4:34

the Solar Impulse website if

4:36

you wanted to read up on him, he is referred to

4:38

as quote a medical doctor, explorer

4:41

and lecturer and achieved the first

4:43

ever NonStop round the world balloon

4:45

flight. Oh I didn't even know he was also a balloonist.

4:48

Oh yeah, No, he comes from a family of balloonists.

4:51

That is not even a joke. That sounds like

4:53

it would be a joke, like, yeah, my family's

4:55

into ballooning. It's

4:57

absolutely true in the case Mr

5:00

Picard, So this is this is uh,

5:02

this is not our brain. This is our pinky. Here

5:05

not to say that he's not intelligent, but

5:07

he's he's he's our pinky. He's not the technical

5:09

he wasn't the technical advisor. He's a psychiatrist.

5:12

So clearly is already very intelligent.

5:15

His father was an undersea explorer, his

5:18

grandfather was a balloonist. Other members

5:20

of the Picard family include organic chemists

5:22

and other explorers and balloonists.

5:25

I mean, when you read about the family, you're thinking,

5:27

this sounds like something out

5:29

of a fantasy. And in fact, there

5:32

can't be that many families of balloonists

5:34

in the world, you would, Yeah, probably very

5:37

few and far between. Bertrand's

5:40

grandfather, August Picard,

5:43

was the inspiration for a character in the

5:45

Adventures of ten ten. Yeah,

5:48

there's a professor. There's a professor

5:50

in in the Adventures who's this brainy

5:52

professor type, and he was modeled in part on

5:55

Bertrand Picard's grandfather. Why

5:58

that professor? He makes me think inc of

6:01

Trotsky? Does he look like Trotsky?

6:04

I don't know that I would describe him as

6:06

Trotsky looking. I guess. I mean, here's

6:10

what I will say. The character

6:12

is partly inspired by August

6:14

Picard. I'm just trying to picture

6:17

him. I might have the wrong character in my mind. There's so many

6:19

intintin to write. But it's it's

6:21

funny that, you know, you talk about, yeah, these

6:23

they sound almost like cartoon characters, and then you realize,

6:25

oh wait, one of them kind of inspired a cartoon

6:27

character. Uh. And. Bertrand himself

6:29

did a lot of flying as a young man. He flew

6:33

in ultralight aircraft, in balloons

6:35

and in hang gliders, and he completed

6:37

his circumnavigation of the globe in a hot air balloon

6:40

in n So

6:42

he had already set a record before

6:45

moving on to the Solar Impulse project. Like

6:47

he had set the record as being part

6:49

of a project to fly around

6:51

the world in a hot air balloon. So he wanted to move

6:53

up to something that was just slightly more high

6:56

tech. Yeah, yeah, and

6:58

and much more challenging in many

7:00

ways from a technical standpoint, at least endurance

7:02

wise. It's probably pretty rough either

7:05

way. But the other member,

7:07

of course, Andre Borschberg, he was a graduate

7:09

of m I T. So he's in his

7:11

training is in an engineering that's

7:14

kind of where his education was focused.

7:16

And he was born in Zurich, Switzerland in nineteen

7:19

fifty two. And he's also

7:21

like I mean, if you read up on him, he

7:23

is an incredible advocate for a lot of

7:26

social causes. Uh. He

7:28

has dedicated a lot of time and

7:30

resources to organizations

7:33

like Rustos Decur which is

7:36

or used to be known as Restaurants decor. This

7:38

is actually a French organization that provides

7:40

food to the needy. Um.

7:43

He's also helped with social

7:45

causes that benefit the sick. He's

7:47

he's someone who is he's very

7:50

outspoken about his desire

7:52

to improve the lot of

7:54

people around the world in as many ways

7:56

as he can, and also has

7:59

a lot of passion about the environment,

8:01

as does Picard as well. Both of them share

8:04

this and obviously that played a large part

8:06

into the decision to try and make

8:08

a solar powered airplane, which you'd

8:11

think was kind of crazy. Um

8:13

he was sort of the technical department head. So yeah,

8:15

he's our he's our brain. So when did

8:17

they get this crazy idea to try to make

8:19

a solar powered airplane that they could

8:21

take around the planet. Well, Picard kind of

8:23

came up with it in two thousand two, and then

8:25

he ended up talking with Boschberg and

8:28

they decided to officially

8:30

create a project called the Solar

8:33

Impulse Project in two thousand three. So

8:36

that was when they really started to say,

8:38

well, what what's going to be necessary? What are we going

8:40

to need in order to make this

8:43

happen? And there were a lot

8:45

of reasons that they were excited about

8:47

doing this. Sorry, the thing that popped into

8:49

my mind is parachute. Yeah

8:52

right, uh yeah, we I didn't put

8:55

it in our notes, but I will touch on something interesting

8:57

because there are certain questions that immediately

8:59

come up of mind when you start hearing about how long

9:01

some of these flights were, and I will I

9:04

will go into some of that when we get bad pans,

9:06

yeah, or the fact that well

9:09

no, let's not let's let's spoil it. I'll get

9:11

there. Uh. So one

9:13

of the reasons that they decided they wanted to do this,

9:16

of course, was just the attractiveness

9:19

of of setting another world record, right, creating

9:21

a world's first. I mean, there could only be one world's

9:24

first in any given category,

9:26

and this was a way of doing that. So there's

9:28

there's definitely that that sort of fame

9:30

and explorer kind of side of the equation.

9:33

Yeah, but this wouldn't be just a personal achievement.

9:35

Like anytime you demonstrate

9:38

what can be done with renewable energy

9:40

in a way that surprises people, I think that helps

9:42

knock down some of the barriers that exist

9:45

in opposition to greater

9:47

investment in renewable energy like

9:49

solar. Right, Yeah, that's precisely

9:52

what they were seeing too. They were saying like, well,

9:54

this is kind of like a a giant

9:57

PR project to promote

9:59

solar energy in particular and renewable

10:01

energy in general. And they also

10:04

said, you know, by setting yourself a challenge, by

10:06

giving yourself a definitive goal that

10:09

we want to be able to achieve X,

10:12

you then have to determine, well, what is necessary

10:14

for you to get to X. It gives

10:16

you something to work toward, which is a

10:18

little bit easier than something that's open

10:21

ended, like I want to improve solar

10:23

cell technology. It's kind of like saying

10:25

we're going to go to the Moon, as opposed to

10:27

we're going to develop our space exploration

10:29

capabilities. Yes, and by giving

10:31

yourself that definitive goal, then you

10:33

have created like a laserlike focus

10:37

on what is necessary to achieve that

10:39

goal. And the nice thing

10:41

is making those advancements ends

10:43

up creating benefits that go

10:45

well beyond just that specific

10:48

project, and we'll talk a little bit about that towards

10:50

the end of this episode. So from

10:53

two thousand three to two thousand and

10:55

ten, they were really

10:57

working on designing the plane that could fly

10:59

not just in the daytime with direct solar

11:01

energy. So it's one thing

11:03

to create an aircraft that has

11:06

enough surface area for solar

11:08

cells to provide the electricity necessary

11:10

to turn electric or to power electric

11:12

motors that then turn propellers. That's

11:15

a challenge all on its own. Yeah, And we'll talk more

11:17

about some of those design considerations in a

11:19

bit, right. So the other

11:21

part of that is how do you create one

11:24

that can continue to fly when

11:26

the sun goes down, because that that's been

11:28

the big criticism.

11:30

One of the big criticisms about solar power

11:33

in general is that, well, you're dependent upon the

11:35

sun. When the sun is not out, you're not

11:37

generating electricity, and so you

11:39

have to figure out, well, how do you solve that problem

11:42

for any application that uses solar

11:44

power and not I mean flying a plane

11:47

across the Pacific Ocean. That's a pretty clear

11:49

engineering challenge, right, Well,

11:51

yeah, electricity generation is a

11:54

use it, lose it, or store it proposition.

11:56

If you don't use it immediately

11:58

or find a way to store it, it's not going to help

12:01

you. Yeah, it's just it's there, it's ephemeral,

12:03

it's gone. Right. So they

12:06

were able to create in

12:08

two thousand ten the Solar

12:10

Impulse one, the first of the aircraft,

12:13

and uh demonstrate that

12:16

it could actually fly through

12:18

an entire day night cycle using

12:21

onboard batteries to store electricity

12:23

and then the batteries kick in once the solar

12:25

cells are no longer able to pull the electricity

12:28

necessary to power the motors. And

12:30

um Picard flew that mission.

12:32

It was a twenty six hour long

12:34

flight, so a day and two

12:36

hours of flying, and it was

12:38

again a proof of concept. They knew at

12:41

the time that the Solar Impulse one was not

12:43

going to be the aircraft to go all

12:45

the way around the world. But it was sort of the prototype

12:48

that allowed them to test the technology and

12:50

make sure that in fact, it would serve

12:53

when they needed to get to UH

12:55

to circumnavigate the globe. UH.

12:59

In two thousand, the two men flew

13:01

the Solar Impulse aircraft across the United

13:03

States. UH. They took turns

13:06

piloting the plane, and they traveled

13:08

in several legs, so they would fly

13:10

from one city to another city

13:13

several hundred miles away, and then

13:15

UH. Typically what they would do is actually switch

13:17

off so that one person only one

13:20

persons in the plane because weight is such a

13:22

big consideration, right, So

13:24

you got the pilot and that's it, and

13:26

the other person would either take a commercial flight to

13:28

get to the destination or drive

13:30

to the destination. Really you could probably

13:33

run and yeah, I mean if

13:35

you were yeah, these these plane, this

13:37

plane does not go very fast in the grand

13:39

scheme of things. But then you would

13:41

switch off, you know, you go to whatever the

13:43

next city is, and then the pilots

13:45

would trade. And this was not can

13:48

This wasn't necessarily like one

13:51

flight right after the next either, Right, there was

13:53

a lot of downtime between

13:55

flights because for one thing, they needed to make sure that

13:57

the weather conditions were going to be acceptable.

14:00

Yeah, that's a big thing, because this this plane's even

14:03

though it's made out of some pretty interesting high

14:05

tech material, ultimately you're still talking

14:07

about a fairly delicate machine. And

14:10

so you couldn't just and plus again,

14:12

you need solar power. You need sunlight.

14:14

So flying through like storms

14:17

not a great idea with a solar powered aircraft.

14:19

Usually when the captain says we can't take off

14:22

in this weather, it is a safety consideration.

14:24

In this case, you literally might not be

14:26

able, you might not have the

14:28

energy necessary to achieve light.

14:31

Yeah. So, but that that happened

14:33

in two thousand thirteen, they were able to fly across the

14:35

United States in this in this

14:37

several legs kind of journey. And

14:40

in two thousand and fourteen they officially

14:42

started to work on the second aircraft,

14:44

Solar Impulse too, and they began to incorporate

14:47

lessons that they learned from the first Solar

14:50

Impulse aircraft. And this one would

14:52

be the one that ends up flying around the world.

14:55

That didn't start until two thousand and fifteen,

14:58

and it went until July two

15:00

thousand sixteen. So it's really

15:02

took a year in several months. Yeah, it

15:05

was a long process. This was not again,

15:07

something that was done in one continuous

15:10

trip. Um. So

15:13

let's talk about some of the design considerations

15:15

that come into play when you're talking about

15:18

a solar powered aircraft. Well, the

15:20

most obvious one is the difference in

15:22

the energy that you're using to power

15:24

the vehicle. So in a normal airplane

15:27

you would use to circumnavigate the globe, you're

15:29

going to be running on aviation fuel. There are different

15:31

kinds of aviation fuel, but most often it's

15:33

a kerosene based jet fuel these days,

15:36

and that's going to be a high energy density,

15:39

high quality fuel. Uh. And it's

15:41

important for flight because heavier than air flight

15:43

is not just energy hungry, it's

15:46

energy ravenous. Um.

15:48

You have to generate enough thrust to overcome

15:51

the gravity of the entire planet.

15:53

I mean, just think about it, and the planet is constantly

15:56

trying to pull you down to it and give you a big

15:58

earthy hug. Right. So it

16:01

is rather earthy, isn't it. Yes? I

16:03

guess it could also be briny, Yeah,

16:05

I guess, depending upon what part of the Earth you are over.

16:07

Actually, it's more briny than earthy when you really

16:09

get down to surface area. But go on, quite

16:12

true. But yeah, so these

16:15

are design considerations you'd have to factor

16:17

in. So to lift an airplane off the ground,

16:19

you've got to generate that forward thrust to

16:22

to drive the the air and the way

16:24

you wanted to go across the aerodynamic

16:26

design of the airplane under the wings. Uh,

16:29

so you know there are considerations

16:31

like the wing span. You can make the

16:33

wings longer to generate more lift

16:36

as you're trying to fly, but that also adds ways,

16:38

right, so you have to you have to make that. I mean, there's

16:41

so much delicate math that

16:43

goes into designing something like this

16:45

where you think, all, right, what is the optimal

16:48

arrangement of wingspan

16:50

to weight where we're gonna have

16:52

the large enough wingspan to generate

16:54

the lift we need to get off the ground and

16:58

and hopefully have the best wing span to

17:00

uh improve the efficiency

17:03

of flight so that you're not having to spend

17:06

way too much energy to maintain flight.

17:08

Like you want to have the minimum amount of energy you

17:10

need to continue to be in

17:12

the air, but you don't want you

17:14

can't go you know, you can't make a

17:17

wingspan of indefinite length, because

17:19

eventually you get to a weight that it makes it impossible

17:21

for you to achieve flight in the first place. Structural

17:23

integrity exams and that also is a

17:26

real issue, right, like if you've got too big, then

17:29

the ends of the wings would be so heavy

17:31

that your aircraft would break apart.

17:33

Yeah. So this aircraft

17:36

was powered by photovoltaic sils, as

17:38

we said, so, yes, that's the kind that directly

17:40

converts the sunlight into electricity,

17:43

as opposed to other forms of solar such as

17:45

solar thermal. Right, it's not it's not generating

17:48

electricity through heat. It's changing it's

17:50

when the photons excite electrons,

17:52

and that's what you get with your electricity.

17:55

And it's just the big black mirrors that you see

17:57

yep, yep, the kind that you would see on typically

18:00

like if if if your neighbors, or if you have ever

18:02

installed solar panels on the top of a house,

18:05

that's typically the kind that we're talking about, right.

18:07

So it's got a lot of those. It's got

18:10

seventeen thousand two photovoltaic

18:13

cells that are across the top of the airplane

18:15

for a maximum exposure. Yeah, and and

18:17

those cells provide electricity

18:19

to four thirteen point five kilowatton

18:22

motors, and those motors each turn.

18:24

Each motor turns a propeller and

18:26

also provides charge to onboard

18:29

batteries. So if you look at the Solar

18:31

Impulse too, and you see this this plane

18:34

with really wide wings, you'll see

18:36

that there are the four propellers in these little like

18:38

rectangular casings. Those

18:41

casings hold not just the propeller and the

18:43

electric motor, but also the battery,

18:45

the four big batteries that

18:48

are on board this plane. So that's

18:50

where they're balanced there along the

18:52

wings, so that the weight is distributed

18:54

just the right way, and that the propellers are

18:56

positioned in such a way to provide the optimal

18:58

thrust for the air craft. Now, those

19:01

batteries have to be an interesting design consideration

19:03

because usually batteries are heavy.

19:06

Yeah, these batteries are are They

19:08

make up twenty of the

19:10

aircraft's overall weight. More than actually

19:13

it's more more than a quarter of the weight

19:15

of the aircraft goes to those

19:17

four batteries that are in that the wings

19:19

of the Solar Impulse to do. Yeah, so let's

19:22

get into the design here. So, yeah,

19:24

this thing if you've seen a picture of it, and if you

19:26

haven't, you should go look it up. There are some great

19:28

photo galleries online and Solar Impulse,

19:31

either at stations around the world or in

19:33

flight. It's cool looking. It's

19:35

got a massive wingspan, gigantic.

19:38

Yeah, it's huge, a wingspan of seventy

19:40

two ms. And that is

19:43

compared for comparison.

19:45

I looked up the wingspan of a Bowing seven

19:47

eight, which is sixty eight point

19:50

four meters, So this is a one

19:52

passenger aircraft that has

19:54

a wider wingspan than

19:57

a Bowing seven Right. And uh,

19:59

in case you're not up on the

20:01

metrics, for one thing, if you wanted to switch

20:03

it to yards, it's almost seventy

20:05

nine yards wide, which means

20:08

that it's getting pretty close to being

20:10

as wide as a football field is long.

20:12

I mean, you know it would it would if you were to put it

20:14

in the center line of a football field, it would

20:16

span a very good

20:18

portion, pretty much to the two

20:20

ten yard lines. Yeah, it's

20:22

it's pretty impressive. It's about two

20:25

thirty six feet if you prefer feet

20:27

to yards. Uh yeah, so huge

20:29

wingspan, but on, but compare

20:32

that to the fact that the entire airplane.

20:34

According to those public facing material

20:37

Solar Impulse put out, it weighs

20:39

two point three tons. Okay,

20:41

so that's a lot if you're trying to like lift it

20:43

with your arms. Yeah, but that is

20:45

not a lot for an aircraft. Compare

20:47

that again to a Boeing seven actually,

20:50

the weight of which I couldn't find from Boeing

20:52

itself. I'm I guess maybe

20:54

we shouldn't consider it surprising that they don't want

20:56

to share publicly the weight of their aircraft.

20:59

But I did find an online aviation

21:02

encyclopedia that claimed that the

21:04

empty weight of a Boeing seven forty seven

21:07

is about four hundred and seventy thousand

21:09

pounds, which works out to two

21:14

Yeah, that's that's hefty, But

21:16

think about the comparison there.

21:19

So the Solar Impulse has about a hundred

21:21

and five percent of a seven

21:23

forty seven swing span and less than

21:25

one percent of its empty weight. Right,

21:28

So you already are seeing that they

21:30

had to make some pretty uh

21:33

dramatic considerations in order to

21:35

make this a viable aircraft. Beyond

21:37

that, you could say, well, how do they get the weight so

21:40

low? And part of it was the use of

21:42

lightweight materials like various carbon

21:44

fiber composites that are lighter in weight

21:46

than stuff like steel and aluminum.

21:49

But that's not enough. They also

21:52

decided, hey, is

21:54

this particular system necessary

21:56

for the plane to get up and stay up in

21:58

the air, And if it isn't, we're getting

22:01

rid of it. And that's exactly what they did when

22:03

they started designing the Solar Impulse. They

22:05

said, anything that's not specifically

22:07

necessary to get into the air

22:09

or stay in the air, we're not gonna

22:12

put it on the plane. So do they have like

22:14

the pilots weighing their breakfast that

22:16

they before they take off. I'm

22:18

certain that they had very specific

22:20

like, uh, allotments

22:23

for what food could be brought onto

22:25

the plane because you have to eat. Some

22:27

of these flights took more

22:30

than a hundred hours uh

22:32

and that's multiple days obviously. So

22:35

one of the other things they would do is say, like, well, you

22:37

know, it would it would be pretty

22:39

heavy if we had a system

22:41

to pressurize the cockpit, so let's not

22:44

do that. So the cockpit was unpressurized,

22:46

also unheeded, unheeded. Yeah,

22:49

there was no heating, rare conditioning

22:51

in in that cockpit. Yep. You

22:54

you were pretty much gonna need to make

22:57

sure you were bundled up or able to cool

23:00

off um or just endure it

23:02

for the length of the flight. And it also meant

23:05

that they had to have um

23:07

now, like they had to

23:09

carry like a portable oxygen tank

23:12

to occasionally take a good whiff

23:14

because they're flying it. They're

23:16

flying a decent altitudes like twenty nine

23:18

feet. I mean, that's that's pretty

23:21

high up there. So they

23:23

were definitely, uh

23:26

being adventurous in this approach.

23:29

So anyway, these are

23:31

these considerations weren't made lightly. It

23:33

wasn't like they were just being cavalier about it.

23:35

They were making very tough calls on all

23:38

right, what what can we expect

23:41

to do without putting our lives at risk unnecessarily?

23:45

Uh, and what can we what do

23:48

we absolutely have to have

23:50

in order for this to be a successful

23:53

project and not a terrible,

23:55

terrible note in history. And

23:57

that's a that's a tough call because these both

24:00

I mean, clearly Picard had a

24:02

history of adventure in his past,

24:04

and you know, sometimes you might

24:06

make a call that other people

24:08

would say, well that just seems like that's too far

24:11

beyond my threshold for risk. Right.

24:14

But this meant that they

24:16

got a plane that was at

24:18

that two point three tons that wasn't wasn't

24:21

as nearly as heavy as other aircraft.

24:24

And that's one of the reasons

24:26

why it was a success, because they

24:28

were able to keep that weight down, which allowed

24:31

the electric motors to provide

24:33

enough thrust to keep the plane going. So

24:37

it kind of brings us over to the

24:39

fact that we know we mentioned before the flying

24:41

by night, like how do you fly by night? Right? If

24:43

you've got to fly for four days straight in

24:46

order to go across an ocean or something like

24:48

that, and if you can't, you can't just run

24:50

on what's available at the moment, right, And if you're

24:53

determined, if you're absolutely determined

24:55

that solar power is going to be the source

24:57

of your energy and you're not going to fudge

25:00

by having a like a

25:03

fuel based motor, backup

25:05

motors and yes, some sort of engine as

25:07

well as the motors, then

25:09

you've got to figure out, you know, how

25:11

are we going to to continue to fly at

25:14

in you know, the hours of darkness.

25:16

And then of course comes down to those batteries we talked

25:18

about. They have four high voltage

25:20

batteries aboard the solar impulse too, and

25:24

the photovo take cells can actually

25:26

generate enough electricity to both power

25:29

the electric motors and recharge the batteries

25:31

simultaneously, which was absolutely

25:33

necessary on the very long flights,

25:36

right because you

25:38

know, you would get to a point where, sure, you might

25:40

be able to make it through one night, but if you're not able to recharge

25:42

that battery during the next day and then you

25:44

go into a second night, you run into

25:47

some serious problems. So each

25:49

battery is a seventy leader lithium

25:51

polymer battery with an

25:53

energy density of two hundred sixty one

25:56

hours per kilogram, and their total

25:58

mass is six hundred already

26:00

three kilograms, And like I said, that

26:02

means it's more than a quarter of the total

26:04

weight of the aircraft. So,

26:07

uh, that to me is incredible that the batteries

26:10

themselves make up more than a fourth of

26:12

the of the weight of the entire vehicle,

26:16

especially when you think of a vehicle that has a

26:19

wingspan that that huge. Uh.

26:21

They could store a maximum capacity of thirty

26:24

eight point five kill what hours of

26:26

energy of electricity, and

26:28

they did did have a second battery, but that battery

26:30

wasn't like a backup system or anything. That second battery

26:33

was a low voltage type

26:35

of battery that specifically provided electricity

26:38

to the cockpit systems, so you would

26:40

have your navigation tools and things like that continued

26:42

to be powered through that battery,

26:44

as opposed to one of the ones that

26:47

was in charge of making sure the propellers didn't stop

26:49

moving. Um And

26:52

if you look again at the picture, you'll see the little

26:54

that they called him gondolas, the

26:57

the kind of rectangular cubic sort

27:00

of containers that the propellers

27:02

extend out of. They are pretty big.

27:04

There was a great picture in one of the

27:07

one of the pages on the Solar Impulse page

27:09

that showed a person, an engineer,

27:12

laying inside a gondola, clearly working

27:15

inside of it on connections, and

27:17

so all you see are the person's legs and

27:20

feet sticking out from the end of it. So it

27:22

was they're big, they're not

27:24

tiny things, and the batteries take up

27:26

a good amount of space in there. And

27:29

they actually partnered with a whole bunch of different companies

27:31

to create this. It wasn't just

27:33

Solar Impulse too. So

27:35

in this way, Solar Impulse is a lot like organizations

27:38

like NASA where

27:40

they partner with other companies

27:42

to provide materials or entire

27:45

systems, depending upon what it is you're

27:47

talking with. Yes, Yes,

27:50

So this was not just two guys who went

27:52

into a backyard and built a solar

27:54

powered airplane. One

27:57

of the companies they worked with quite a bit was sulv

27:59

a UM, they Solve. They did

28:01

a whole bunch of different work on the Solar

28:03

Impulse too, but they, for

28:05

one thing, provided the material, the lightweight,

28:08

sturdy material, mostly carbon fiber

28:10

and carbon fiber fiber composites to

28:13

create the actual body of the airplane. They

28:15

also provided a protective resin to

28:17

coat the solar cell so it was transparent,

28:21

but also provided protection

28:23

in the event of the aircraft

28:25

encountering bad weather or

28:28

you know, any sort of dust or anything like that

28:30

that it may have to move through from

28:33

one region to another. You know, you're going around

28:35

the entire world. That's a lot of different environments

28:37

you're going to pass through. Uh.

28:40

And the solar cells were provided

28:43

by a company called SunPower, and they

28:45

were really high efficiency all

28:47

things considered. They had an efficiency of twenty

28:49

two point seven percent now

28:51

compared to consumer solar

28:54

cells which tend to be around twelve

28:57

to. Maybe

28:59

you might find some as high as twenty,

29:02

but that would really be super high end on the consumer

29:04

side, two seven percent

29:06

is pretty incredible. Now. That

29:08

efficiency means that

29:11

twenty two point seven percent of the energy

29:13

hitting that solar cell can be converted

29:15

into useful electricity. The rest

29:17

of it is bouncing off or

29:20

being absorbed as heat, just sort of the nature

29:22

of solar. Yeah, it's we're never

29:24

going to develop a solar cell that will be

29:26

a percent efficient. It is physically

29:28

impossible. The I think the hypothetical

29:32

limit from like a quantum

29:34

uh level is somewhere

29:37

between I want to say, I

29:39

want to say is the absolute

29:41

limit, but it's closer to like six for

29:46

more realistic limits, and that's

29:48

if everything were perfect, which will never

29:50

do anyway. Um So

29:52

getting to this twenty seven is

29:54

actually pretty incredible, even though it sounds

29:57

low when you're thinking about percentages and you think twenty

29:59

two point seven doesn't sound that impressive,

30:01

but trust me, it is. Uh.

30:04

Then there were other companies. There was a company called Omega that

30:06

provided lightweight l e ed s for the

30:08

lighting for the plane, obviously very

30:10

important when it's coming in for a landing, that kind

30:12

of stuff, and there were

30:14

others as well, So this was a

30:16

group effort. Now let's

30:19

kind of talk about the actual trip

30:22

around the world. Well, yeah,

30:24

so, as we mentioned, the Solar Impulse

30:27

is a one seater. Yeah, so

30:29

you don't get to have a companion on this journey.

30:31

Yeah, and this was the same as what I

30:33

was talking about with the USA trip, where the

30:36

pilots would switch off between

30:38

legs, but it would mean that one person would

30:41

take a normal flight over

30:43

to whatever the destination was and

30:45

await the arrival of the

30:48

the other pilot, and

30:50

then they would switch out and do

30:52

that all the way around the world with

30:55

some pretty significant delays

30:57

in between some of those legs. That's got

30:59

to create a very weird looking

31:02

like commercial flight history.

31:04

Yeah. Well, there's gonna be one

31:06

point in particular where we're gonna talk about

31:09

some kind

31:11

of an unfortunate but sort

31:13

of funny, uh,

31:15

set of circumstances that

31:18

involves the more mundane aspects

31:21

of travel. Well, so the two pilots

31:23

were the same two pilots we talked about before. It's

31:25

the same two guys behind Solar again,

31:29

right. So, Uh, as we

31:31

mentioned before, the flight was not continuous that

31:33

there were seventeen different stages

31:35

of the flight that they spent a

31:37

total of over five hundred hours

31:40

in the air growing around the world, but

31:43

layovers included. It took, as we

31:45

said, over a year to complete the

31:47

entire circumnavigation. Right, so five

31:50

hours is around the twenty one days.

31:52

So you think about your like, think about for

31:56

for three quarters of the month

31:58

of February you are flying.

32:01

Yeah, not, I mean for for

32:03

for twenty four hours a day for

32:05

three weeks you're

32:07

flying. It's a lot of flying.

32:09

I don't want to do that. I mean, you would hit executive

32:12

platinum like no time at all, but that

32:14

would be brutal. But you're not right in

32:16

first class, are you? No? No, this

32:18

isn't even steerage

32:21

if there were such a thing for aircraft. Well,

32:23

let's talk about the different legs of the flight because some

32:25

of them, some of them will just gloss over pretty quick.

32:27

But a couple of them had some interesting stories.

32:29

We came a price about them. So they started

32:32

and finished in Abu Dhabi in the

32:34

United Arab Emirates and uh

32:36

so the first leg of the trip was Abu Dhabi

32:38

too, Muscat, Oman, right, and I wanted

32:41

to give you guys sort of a comparison,

32:43

Like we talked about five hours in the air,

32:45

twenty one day's total, and it took more than

32:47

a year for the whole thing to complete. But it's

32:49

still kind of hard to put into your head, like how

32:52

fast is this thing traveling? The answer is

32:54

not very uh, And so

32:57

I thought one way to do that would be to take

32:59

this first egg from Abu Dhabi to Mascott

33:02

and to look at the amount of time it would take

33:04

on a commercial flight versus the

33:06

time it took the Solar Impulse

33:08

to to complete that trip. So if

33:10

you were to book a commercial flight on

33:13

Oman Air, that particular

33:15

trip would take about an hour and fifteen

33:18

or an hour and twenty minutes. And keep

33:20

in mind, you know, that includes all that whole

33:22

taxiing business, you know, the stuff

33:25

when you're not actually in the air. So

33:27

somewhere around a little hour and twenty minutes

33:30

to get from point A to point b. Uh

33:33

the trip, the distance that the Solar

33:36

Impulse to travel, which by the way, is probably

33:38

not the exact same flight path that you would see in

33:40

the commercial flights, was

33:42

about four eight miles or seven seventy

33:45

two kilometers and it took them to Uh,

33:48

it took the solar Impulse to rather thirteen

33:50

hours one minute to make the trip.

33:52

So thirteen hours and a minute to

33:55

go the same distance that a commercial flight

33:57

would take in an hour and twitter. So

33:59

yeah, that it's incredible. A thirteen hour You

34:02

know. I've been on some flights

34:04

where there's been delays, but I've never had

34:06

an hour and twenty minute flights stretching to a thirteen

34:09

hour one minute flight. Oh man, I

34:13

don't. I don't like sitting on an

34:15

airplane for a long period of time. Um,

34:18

I mean not. It is a wonderful

34:21

modern luxury to be able to travel, yes,

34:23

all around the world, so I shouldn't complain about

34:25

it. But I'm I'm not so made

34:27

as to enjoy long periods of sitting

34:30

still without being able to get get

34:32

up and go do something else. Yeah, especially

34:34

not being able to do it without being a complete

34:37

inconvenience to everyone around you. Yeah,

34:39

because it tends to be the way it is on flights.

34:42

Also, one thing that you do

34:45

have an advantage of over

34:47

the pilots of the solar impulse too.

34:49

This is a good time to talk about it because thirteen hours.

34:51

That's a long time to go, right. If

34:54

you are on a long flight, elaboratory

34:56

you've got elaboratory you can walk to, but

34:59

you better not try to smoke in there

35:01

or disabled the smoke detectors. You

35:03

are in for a for a weapon that you

35:05

couldn't believe, or at least a finger wag. Right,

35:08

it's a Delta Airlines State Safety

35:10

video choke. Uh yeah, so

35:12

on the celar impulse to of course, there's

35:15

single seater. There's no lavatory

35:17

there. The chair, the

35:21

pilot's seat, served multiple

35:23

purposes. This

35:26

was exactly a reaction in the April

35:29

fourteen episode. I said, oh yeah,

35:32

when I got to this part you and Lawrence, So

35:35

yeah, it acted as the pilot

35:37

seat, a cot for sleeping

35:39

in, and a toilet. Yeah,

35:43

which, by the way, I have a chair at home

35:45

that serves those purposes too. It wasn't meant

35:47

to that. I figured, with a little determination,

35:50

you can turn any chair into that kind of thing.

35:53

Wait, so does it stretch out to become

35:55

a cot or do you

35:57

just sleep sitting on That is a question

35:59

I do not. I think I think it may have reclined

36:02

a little bit, because I would think

36:04

just for some kind of strange psychological

36:07

reasons. You need to be in a slightly

36:09

different position for sleeping than the

36:11

position you're in for pooping and

36:13

and possibly also for piloting.

36:15

Yeah, yeah, so yeah,

36:18

that's attractive to think about, right, the idea

36:20

that you've got, you know, you know, but

36:22

but you you couldn't have a lot

36:24

of other stuff there because it

36:26

would add weight. So it

36:28

was it became a matter of necessity.

36:31

Uh, not the most glamorous

36:33

of things to think about, all right. So

36:36

the first trip was Abu Dhabi to Oman,

36:39

and next they went Ohman to uh

36:42

Metabod, India. And here's a funny

36:44

story. This is what I was talking about with the mundane.

36:46

So Picard lands in India

36:50

and when he gets there, there's this

36:52

big welcoming ceremony and

36:54

there are a bunch of local authorities there, they

36:56

are members of the media there, they all

36:58

want to have their picture tag and they all are doing speeches.

37:01

They're talking to him, they're welcoming, welcoming

37:04

him. He's getting this incredible experience.

37:07

And it went on for so long that

37:09

Picard was not actually able to go and get

37:11

his passport stamped to move

37:14

to to legally enter the country.

37:16

They closed down the office

37:18

the essentially the checkpoint where

37:20

he could get his passport stamped, and so he was

37:22

stuck. It was kind of like, you know,

37:25

being stuck in an airport. He could not legally

37:27

go anywhere else. And

37:30

so uh he was delayed,

37:32

and that meant that he was not going to be able

37:35

to catch another flight to go

37:37

further into India and meet up

37:39

with uh the other pilot

37:42

Borshberg in order to do another

37:44

switch, and that was to Varanasi,

37:47

India, And so it

37:50

became clear like he it was gonna make a

37:52

delay, and this was a big deal because

37:54

a delay in one place means delays all

37:57

the way down the line. For It's not like

37:59

they could pick up speed and make up for lost

38:02

time. This plane was not built for that. So

38:05

it was it was legitimately a

38:07

concern to them that they were going

38:09

to have this delay, and there

38:11

was not really anything they could do about it. They were kind

38:13

of stuck in this this legal

38:16

bureaucratic mess. It seems almost a metaphor

38:19

for those times when a bureaucratic limbo

38:21

interferes with the progress of technological

38:23

achievements. Yeah, exactly. It's a great little

38:26

way to point at it. I mean you part

38:28

of you, you're like you understand where

38:30

the issue is it. Well, yeah,

38:33

I mean you've gotta you gotta follow the protocol.

38:36

But couldn't we have maybe had him get

38:38

his passport stamped first and then have the big

38:40

welcoming ceremony. Clearly

38:43

no, so they were able

38:45

to continue obviously. So the

38:47

next leg was to Varanasi,

38:49

India, and then there was a switch then um

38:52

Mandalay in Myanmar, and

38:54

then Cheong King or Chong

38:56

Hing I should say, in China, uh

38:59

non Jing, China, Nagoya,

39:02

Japan, and then we hit the longest

39:05

leg of their

39:07

journey around the world. Because what's after

39:09

Japan. Well, if you're playing risk, you might

39:11

go to come chat up

39:14

across through Alaska. But they were crossing

39:16

the Pacific Ocean. Yeah, and Pacific, by

39:18

the way, is pretty big. It's

39:21

a big ocean. So they were going from

39:23

a Nagoya, Japan to Hawaii

39:26

and this was the

39:28

the longest expanse

39:31

that they were going to have to travel in

39:33

this solar powered aircraft. Barshberg

39:35

was the one who piloted this leg, so I guess he got

39:37

the short straw and

39:40

Um This was a record breaking flight. It

39:42

spanned five thousand, five miles

39:45

or eight thousand, nine hundred twenty four

39:47

kilometers. Their maximum altitude

39:49

was around twenty eight thousand, three hundred feet

39:52

or eight thousand, six hundred thirty four meters,

39:54

so pretty high up there. And

39:56

the whole thing took them four days,

39:58

twenty one hours, and fifty

40:01

two minutes to fly to Hawaii. So they

40:04

just shying five days flying.

40:08

Yep, that's a lot of poop napp

40:10

And that's

40:13

I mean, that's an endurance test, right, and

40:16

that that also shows you have to have a lot of

40:18

of confidence in your aircraft's

40:20

ability to stay on course. And you

40:22

know, I'm sure they developed strategies

40:25

for how long they should sleep at

40:27

a time and then wake up probably

40:30

regular intervals, to make certain that they're still

40:32

on course and haven't drifted, or

40:34

that the weather conditions hadn't changed in

40:36

a way that was going to put them at risk. There

40:39

are a lot of considerations you have to make when

40:41

you're in that position. It is almost

40:43

unthinkable to me, like how complicated

40:46

that had to be. I have trouble sleeping on a

40:48

regular passenger airliner. Yeah,

40:51

yeah, I understand entirely, and

40:53

once they once they landed in Hawaii, they needed

40:55

repairs. And this is also terrifying. They had

40:57

to repair because the batteries had sustained dammit,

41:01

they had been overheating. And so

41:03

you know, anytime you're talking about a

41:06

chemical battery, temperature

41:08

can play a big role in how

41:11

that battery performs. If you cool a battery

41:13

down too much, then it is very

41:15

sluggish. It's not going to generate

41:17

electricity at the rate that you would normally

41:20

expect. Uh So

41:23

that's a problem. But if it overheats, then

41:26

the chemical reactions can start

41:28

going, uh getting too

41:30

fast. You end up losing

41:32

capacity, so that even once the battery

41:35

cools down, you can never charge it as

41:37

fully as you did before. So then's

41:39

a good reason not to leave your laptop in a

41:41

hot car. Yeah yeah, because

41:43

then you're like, hey, you know, it's weird because charge

41:46

the other day lasted me like six hours and now

41:48

it's like two. Uh So,

41:50

they obviously had to do repairs and replacement

41:53

of a lot of of parts

41:55

to make sure that they would be

41:57

safe for the next leg. Because while the next

41:59

leg was as long, you're still talking

42:01

about multiple days over the Pacific

42:04

Ocean, right, so

42:07

they get to Hawaii, they have to do repairs. That slows

42:09

them down a little bit. Then

42:11

their next leg was from Hawaii to San

42:13

Francisco. This was a

42:15

two thousand, five thirty nine mile

42:17

or four thousand eighty six kilometer journey,

42:20

which took two days, fourteen hours,

42:22

and twenty nine minutes to make the trip, so not

42:24

nearly as long, but still two days

42:27

of flying two and a half

42:29

more than two and a half.

42:31

From San Francisco, they flew to Phoenix, Arizona,

42:34

then to Tulsa, Oklahoma, then

42:37

to Dayton, Ohio, and this is when

42:39

they hit another snag. So

42:42

one of the things they had for this project

42:44

was they had a portable hangar, like an

42:46

airplane hangar to store the airplane

42:49

when it wasn't in flight or when

42:51

there wasn't a hangar that they could use

42:54

in the location they had gone to. And

42:56

this portable hangar was kind of an

42:58

inflatable um

43:01

UH building, So they

43:03

inflated it had a semi rigid structure

43:06

and they could park the airplane in there.

43:09

In Dayton, Ohio, there was some

43:11

problem where

43:13

the hangar started to deflate. Yeah,

43:16

it was collapsing in on its plane with

43:19

the plane inside it. So you've

43:21

got this plane with this massive wingspan

43:24

and this lightweight strong material. But

43:26

it is very lightweight material. If

43:29

you were to put too much weight on the end of those wings

43:31

and they could snap or at least

43:34

weaken the structure, which obviously would

43:36

be devastating if that were

43:38

to fail in the middle of a flight. So

43:40

this was a moment of high

43:43

anxiety and stress for the entire

43:45

team. They didn't know at

43:47

first if the plane had sustained

43:49

any damage, and so they had to take some time

43:51

to make sure that, in fact

43:54

it was still in good working order. Fortunately

43:57

it was, but it did end up causing a

44:00

bit of a delay and and set

44:02

them back a little further than what they had intended.

44:05

Uh. Their next trip was from

44:08

Ohio to le High Valley, Pennsylvania,

44:10

which is near Allentown. I've

44:12

never heard of that before. You never heard of Allentown

44:15

or le High Valley. As I say,

44:17

if you've never heard of Allentown, I got a Billy Joel

44:20

song you Gotta Here, which

44:22

is really depressing, but it's a song about

44:24

Allentown, Pennsylvania. From

44:26

there, they took off and landed in New

44:28

York and then we hit the next pretty

44:31

long leg. So

44:33

they had already gone across the Pacific. That was

44:35

the that was always going to be the longest

44:38

of their trips. But now they

44:40

had another long stretch over ocean, this

44:42

time the Atlantic Ocean, and they were

44:44

flying from New York across the Atlantic

44:47

to Seville, Spain. Now this

44:49

took a lot less time than crossing the Pacific. The

44:51

Atlantic is not as wide, or at least the distance

44:53

between North America and Europe is not as

44:55

great. But they didn't have a

44:58

stop along the way here. Now this was straight

45:00

flight from New York to Saville. So this

45:02

was the second longest leg. The third

45:04

longest would have been the second part of the Pacific

45:07

trip. The first was Japan

45:09

to Hawaii. This would be the second one.

45:11

The third was Hawaii to San Francisco.

45:14

So this trip lasted two days,

45:16

twenty three hours and eight minutes, so

45:18

almost three days, and

45:20

the distance traveled was four thousand, two hundred

45:22

four miles or about six thousand, seven hundred

45:25

sixty kilometers uh.

45:27

From Seville, Spain, they flew to Cairo,

45:30

Egypt, and then from Cairo back

45:32

to Abu Dhabi, where they started and

45:34

that would conclude this globe

45:37

trotting trip and um. But

45:39

they were facing challenges right up to

45:42

the very end. I read in the Solar Impulse

45:44

blog where they were talking about

45:46

the very last leg of the journey, and there

45:48

were a lot of concerns. They were related to

45:51

both, you know, the politics and the climate

45:54

of of trying to cross the Middle Eastern

45:56

terrain. So they wrote, quote, crossing

45:58

the Middle East is not as easy as you may imagine,

46:01

which I already think of as not being easy. Yeah,

46:04

there are a number of factors such as no fly

46:06

zones, heat, thermal's

46:09

talking about the thermal patterns

46:11

right, like like updrafts of air

46:14

from where, you know, the same sort of things that that

46:16

large birds of prey would use to remain

46:18

aloft. Yeah,

46:21

take off and landing conditions

46:23

and wind, making this flight the most

46:25

complex we have yet encountered. I

46:28

would imagine, like just when you start

46:30

looking at the different countries that they had

46:32

to either pass over or stop end,

46:35

it must have been a real effort

46:38

to get the kind of permissions necessary

46:40

to make this journey. I mean,

46:43

just even the beyond the technical

46:45

challenges, just the political negotiation

46:48

you would have to do yeah, I don't

46:51

even know. I mean, I can't. Is

46:53

it difficult to land a plane in Myanmar?

46:55

I do, I don't know, But I'm sure that when

46:57

you're passing through some of the countries

47:00

they were talking about, there's you

47:02

want to be real specific with your permission

47:04

request to enter their airspace. And

47:07

I guess it probably doesn't hurt that they're both

47:09

Swiss. That

47:11

probably helps a little bit. But uh,

47:14

and also you know that this was a a

47:16

an endeavor to push

47:19

solar power, and you know it's an

47:21

environmental and scientific

47:23

value to the project,

47:26

which I think helps a lot of countries say yeah, we're

47:28

all right with that. But still, I mean,

47:30

I wouldn't want to be the person who's,

47:32

hey, we hired you. Your job is to get permission

47:35

for us to enter the airspace of all

47:37

of these countries, like

47:40

and keep in mind that some of them don't like the

47:42

countries. You have already been in peace

47:45

on Earth and goodwill towards he who

47:48

sits in the poop Cut. Poop

47:50

Cut that it's gonna be the name of my band,

47:53

poop Cut. Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome

47:55

to the stage, poop Cut. So

47:58

the total journey as we mentioned. Began

48:00

in March, finished in July

48:04

on July, so, uh

48:06

took a long time. It was more than twenty

48:08

six thousand, seven hundred miles or forty

48:11

three thousand kilometers in total.

48:13

That's a long journey. It's a very long journey.

48:16

Yeah, and you actually I like that you have a note

48:18

here about what the average flight speed

48:21

was on that final leg of the dree You think

48:23

that you're thinking trying to cross the finish line

48:25

right there, they're almost there, so they

48:27

gotta be putting it a pedal to the metal. How fast

48:29

were they going? It's thirty four point five

48:31

miles per hour or fifty five

48:33

point four kilometers per hour, and

48:36

that you wouldn't think

48:38

that you could stay up in the air at that speed. Right.

48:40

Well, it's those huge wings, you know, it's

48:43

being lights having the design

48:45

giant wingspan and

48:47

uh man, that's uh that's impressive.

48:50

Yeah, and uh you might wonder,

48:52

well what comes next? I mean, we now

48:54

that they've completed this this thing, they've

48:57

been working on it for more than a decade, Well

49:00

what are they gonna do now? Bertram Picard has said,

49:02

quote I'm sure that within ten years

49:04

we'll see electric airplanes transporting

49:07

fifty passengers on short to medium

49:09

hall flights. That

49:11

that sounds great to me, but I

49:14

somehow have a hard time believing that

49:16

that will be the case. Yeah, I mean it

49:18

would be awesome if it was. I don't

49:20

know how you could. You would have

49:22

to design it so that the speed

49:25

of travel is much greater to

49:27

to make it worthwhile worth

49:29

the time, Like, why why is

49:31

this commercially appealing? Yeah,

49:34

because if you could drive to the location

49:36

faster or as fast as

49:39

the process of getting on a plane and flying,

49:41

then why would you bother with the flying part?

49:43

Right? I guess you could say for crossing

49:46

water or something, it might be an alternative to

49:48

taking a boat. Um,

49:51

so that's possibility. And man,

49:53

you could also argue that if you were to design

49:55

like a luxury version of this, it could become

49:58

kind of, uh, status

50:00

sort of thing. But that's not

50:03

exactly commercial demand. That's talking

50:05

about Hey, one per centers,

50:07

how would you like to very slowly

50:09

pass over the land that you rule

50:12

with iron fist? You

50:14

know? I would also think that fifty passengers,

50:17

Okay, that's adding a lot of weight. Commercial

50:20

passengers are probably gonna want lavatories,

50:22

and yeah, They're probably are not so happy

50:24

with the poop cut the drink carts

50:27

and stuff like that. They will probably want

50:29

heating and air conditioning. Um.

50:32

So, I don't know. It's a little hard

50:34

to imagine. But one thing that I'm not trying to

50:36

discourage it. I mean, I think it would be great

50:39

if somebody could figure out a way to make this

50:41

work commercially. I'm just trying to put the pieces

50:43

together in my head. It's hard for me to

50:45

imagine it being practical. I I

50:48

think it would also be awesome if we could make

50:50

it practical, because getting

50:52

off a reliance for fuel would be great.

50:54

I mean, we've talked about the environmental

50:57

impact of stuff like air flight and

50:59

other shows. So um

51:01

yeah, I would love to see it too. I don't know

51:03

how practical it is, but one thing that is practical

51:05

again is the fact that by

51:07

making this engineering challenge and by completing

51:09

it, they've shown what solar power is

51:11

capable of doing, and with

51:15

any luck, they've inspired more

51:17

people to really take a serious look

51:19

at solar power as a way

51:21

of supplementing or perhaps

51:24

supplying all of

51:26

their electrical power. And that

51:28

would be amazing. Um. And we we've

51:30

talked about that in other shows as well,

51:32

so ultimately, you

51:34

know, again it was get your names in

51:36

the history books and also let's promote

51:39

the heck out of solar energy and renewable

51:41

energy. And I think they succeeded

51:43

on both counts, so really

51:46

impressive, and it was interesting

51:48

to look at another kind of engineering

51:50

challenge. Uh. We talked about

51:52

that in like all the DARPA episodes too,

51:54

it's very similar. So this

51:56

was pretty cool. I'm glad that

51:59

we had a chance to follow up on it because when we recorded

52:01

this back in two fourteen, I wasn't sure if it was ever

52:03

going to actually happen. There were some times with

52:05

weather delays and some of the mechanical

52:08

problems where I was wondering if they were going to be able

52:10

to complete it, but they were, so

52:12

congratulations to them. It's pretty cool.

52:15

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52:17

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