Episode Transcript
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This is Advertiser
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content from Microsoft.
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We
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are decarbonizing this building. It's a single-family
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home. If you can see, it's a Brooklyn townhouse, right?
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It's three stories. I am Joe,
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Combs, and i direct impact Investments
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at Microsoft. We
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invest in companies, like block power to drive
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an impact in their community in the country or
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across the world. And
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that was to know, Baird. I'm
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the CEO of of lock Power power block,
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power is a climate startup that
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be carbon. is buildings we remove
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all the fossil fuels and replace
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it with one hundred percent hundred in
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a building like problem is you're burning
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fossil fuels to provide heat and hot water
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and cooking in our home it's incredibly
0:42
unhealthy it makes our kids sick and
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then worse than the short
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term unhealthiness of fossil fuels
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in your home is it's terrible for
0:51
the planet and thirty percent of us greenhouse
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gas emissions come from buildings
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burning fossil fuels
0:57
there is no easier perfect solution for
1:00
climate change i'm and we hope that block
1:02
power really you know they really provide a win win
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solution we are proud
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of work that we are doing decarbonising buildings
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decarbonising york city with the investment from
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microsoft we're going be able to green buildings
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across america
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Go to vox.com. Greenovation
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to learn more.
1:20
Hey everyone. It's Adam. As
1:22
recode daily is winding down. We're
1:25
running a of our favorite episodes
1:27
from The Archives.
1:29
today we're going to hear about this strange
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history of some very famous moon
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dust it was collected by neil
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armstrong on first trip to the moon and
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nineteen sixty nine and it went on
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sale and april two one day after
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he erred this episode though
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we've added quick update the final sale
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price and you say
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or guess is back in the spring were
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way off
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it's rico daily i'm ronnie mola
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daily
2:00
coming down the ladder now daily
2:04
show will take you back to nineteen sixty
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nineteen astronauts neil armstrong
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is about be the first man on moon harper
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a promoter the ladder
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there's just a few things to do before making
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history like look down
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american a very
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, fine graders are two
2:25
hundred dollars by the standards and himself
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as and
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find place for his foot airport
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acorn
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bioware
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they of course we know much more about the surface
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the moon than armstrong or nasa dead at time
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like that powder he mentioned the
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actually really sharp it's like tiny pieces
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glass so it's not particularly pleasant
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that's rico's rebecca hi while the
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and moon dust rap hasn't gotten
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much better we actually do know why it
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it tastes like it tastes
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like done powder and it's also
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really sticky so it gets
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on everything
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i'm lawyer or white
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powder charcoal and your
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own guys the bible
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so to sum it up moon dust is
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painful sticky and basically
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the glitter of the galaxy and
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tomorrow the first time in history
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it's going on sale to the public or
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amazon that's
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yours twenty thousand five hundred weldon
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you want to get how much is gonna
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cost man people will pay
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money for anything some enough the
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am pretty high one
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million dollars that
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basically right so bonum saying
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that it's going to exit it's
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gonna go between eight hundred thousand and
4:06
one point two million won't
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will have to see obviously that is very
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pricey okay
4:13
so real quick the predator
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out of here with your official sales price
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the
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moon dust ultimately sold for five hundred
4:20
thousand dollars and even though
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that's less than it was expected to get i
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think this next comment from broady
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still applies
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not too shabby for a bag dirt so why is nasa
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selling this extraordinary
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moon dust the thing is is nasa actually
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not the one who's selling at nasa
4:38
has actually been trying to get it's hands on this very
4:41
historic moon dust for years
4:43
and years and years but nasa basically
4:45
lost it and legally haven't been able to
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get their hands back on it how did not have
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managed lose this moon dust
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it's
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a really long story so
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everyone knows that neil armstrong
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landed on moon nineteen sixty nine
5:00
and you know while he was there he scooped up
5:03
some wound us moon rocks put them in bag
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and went back to his rocket put them in another
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bag that was used for decontamination
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and everything came back to planet earth
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the thing about moon dust is that it's really
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sticky and adhesive so even
5:16
after the contents of that bag
5:18
were used to study some of
5:20
that moon does actually stuck to
5:22
these bags only nasa didn't
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keep very good track of it so
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somehow somewhere at nasa lost
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track of this decontamination bag
5:31
and it ended up leaving masses premises
5:34
where did it go
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the bag of eventually
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rediscovered in a species the
5:42
i'm in kansas called the causes
5:44
the are normally that would not be so weird
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it's pretty common for artifacts to
5:49
end up at museum throughout the country but
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it turned out that a curator at
5:53
this space museum was taking
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some of the artifacts at the museum and
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then trying to sell them off oh
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so he ended getting convicted of fraud
6:03
and money laundering and when that happened
6:05
the us marshals service which is completely
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different branch of the government from nasa
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took custody of his stuff and
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this inevitably included that bag
6:13
that was covered in moon dust you
6:15
know at one point it valued at just in dollars
6:18
why was it only valued at sixteen dollars
6:21
the time no one really realized
6:23
what this dog was even for it
6:25
was a bags heads the us marshals
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service was auctioning off so completely
6:30
different branch of the government that nasa it
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it's just like bag of dirt like fifty dollars
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yeah so the bag changes hands and
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it eventually ends up with a woman name's
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nancy li carlson the nancy
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as geology enthusiast and
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she have hunch that this bag is actually
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worth way more than she paid for it so
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in twenty fifteenth she sends
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off to nasa where it gets tested
6:52
and verified by nasa but
6:54
nasa tries to keep the bag instead
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returning it to nancy witnesses
6:59
steals the bag yes they think
7:01
it belongs to nasa they realize that in fact
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it is very valuable and the even
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clean out the bag and take
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out the moon dust that is traced the side
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of it so nancy
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have to sue to get everything back
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eventually nasa loses and she gets
7:17
bad back and a separate samples
7:20
of moon dust and ever since
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nasa has to have been you know dealing with the fact
7:24
that isn't as big legal battle trying to get
7:26
the moon best back into his possession
7:29
never trust
7:31
nasa with and who come here
7:33
the dust they lose it's a steal
7:35
at all sorts of stuff okay so
7:38
is there anything stopping nasa from to spying
7:40
the moon dust back at auction tomorrow
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though i asked the agency for comment
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on it so latest approach to moon dust
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didn't get response to her by
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maybe that will show up to the bidding
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i don't think that's something that they would do but
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who knows and ah you know have
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to say and what happens
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if someone else hi is this very
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in demand moon dust
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so on the one hand it's not the
8:06
end of the world for nasa you know turns
8:08
out that the agency aren't a lot of lunar samples
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from the apollo missions and masses
8:13
rt racing to launch the arguments program
8:15
which is supposed to pick up where
8:17
this apollo program laptop
8:20
and you know all of those samples that
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nasa collects on those missions could probably
8:24
end up being super important too
8:26
but the same time it there reasons why
8:28
nasa wanted this moon dust
8:30
back
8:34
how about airport
8:41
all birds
8:45
or
8:50
a piece of history it's very special
8:52
you know it's from the moment that humanity first step
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foot on moon for the first time i
8:57
look around at ,
8:59
dot out your phone and like
9:02
what by to the high desert of for for
9:05
states government it's
9:07
pretty either
9:13
there's something i've been wondering about throughout
9:15
this whole side
9:16
the who owns the mood
9:18
who owns moon dust
9:20
as as the astronaut he picks it up the agency
9:23
who sent him the people
9:25
who pay the taxes to fund that agency the skills
9:27
really the already and complicated
9:30
it is barry is not a
9:32
clear answer here astronauts
9:34
who participated in the us as early
9:37
space program of actually like legally
9:39
fought for the right to maintain and
9:41
so artifacts they held onto
9:43
from their missions and with the exception
9:45
of moon dust which nasa has maintained
9:47
it's the only legal owner of moon
9:50
dust but nasa really believe
9:52
that it's generally should have the
9:54
right to these artifacts and it has gotten
9:56
stricter about keeping the stuff
9:58
that it uses or in faith
10:01
and that's especially important because
10:03
now there's this growing debate about
10:05
whether it's right for any one person or
10:07
government to possess something that you know
10:09
to pass significance to all humanity
10:11
or you know is arguably part of
10:13
the moon natural environment or
10:16
whether it's just a bag of dust
10:18
rebecca thank you so much for to any me things
10:21
are happening
10:23
today's episode
10:24
the trees by taylor megan and
10:26
engineered by john errands i'm
10:28
ronnie mola thanks for listening
10:39
this is advertiser content from microsoft
10:43
we
10:45
are decarbonising this building is a single
10:47
family home but can see it the brooklyn townhouse
10:49
right it's three stories i'm
10:51
sean combs i direct impact investments
10:53
microsoft
10:54
we invest in companies like blocked our to drive
10:57
an impact in their community in country
10:59
or across the world
11:01
that was dunno bears and
11:03
, sea of lock power power block
11:05
power is a climate tech start up dot
11:08
c harmonizes buildings we remove
11:10
all of fossil fuels and replace
11:12
it with a hundred plenty hundred in
11:14
building like that the problem as you're burning
11:16
fossil fuels the provide heat and hot water
11:18
and cooking in our home is incredibly
11:20
unhealthy and make our kids sick and
11:23
then worse than the short
11:25
term on healthiness of fossil fuels
11:27
in your home is it's terrible for
11:29
the planet and thirty percent of us greenhouse
11:31
gas emissions come from building
11:33
burning fossil fuel there
11:35
is know easy are perfect solution for climate
11:38
change a and we hope the block power
11:40
really you know they really provide win win solution
11:43
we , proud of the work that we are during the carbonized
11:45
buildings new york city with the investment
11:47
from microsoft we are going be able to
11:49
green buildings across america go
11:52
to vox dot com slash green innovation
11:55
to learn more
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