S27E50: Titan Awaits: NASA's Rotorcraft Readies for Alien Shores

[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 50 for broadcast on the 24th of April 2024.

[00:00:07] Coming up on SpaceTime, NASA has confirmed that it will be sending a rotocopter mission

[00:00:12] to the organically-ritz Etonian world of Titan.

[00:00:15] Meanwhile, the space agency has been forced to say goodbye for now to its Mars Ingenuity

[00:00:20] helicopter.

[00:00:22] And as global tensions increase, South Korea launches a new spy satellite to keep an

[00:00:27] eye on Pyongyang.

[00:00:29] All that and more coming up on SpaceTime.

[00:00:33] Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:52] NASA has confirmed that it will be sending a rotocopter mission to the organically-ritz

[00:00:57] Etonian world of Titan.

[00:00:59] The decision allows the mission, called Dragonfly, to progress to the completion of the final

[00:01:04] design, followed by the construction and testing of a spacecraft and science instruments.

[00:01:10] Nicky Fox from NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters says exploring Saturn's

[00:01:15] Moon Titan will be pushing the boundaries of what we can now do with rotocraft beyond

[00:01:20] the Earth.

[00:01:22] In early 2023, the mission successfully passed all the criteria of its preliminary design

[00:01:27] review.

[00:01:28] At that time however, the mission was asked to develop an updated budget and schedule

[00:01:32] in order to fit into the current funding environment.

[00:01:35] This updated plan was presented and conditionally approved in November, pending the outcome

[00:01:40] of the fiscal year 2025 budget process.

[00:01:43] In the meantime, the mission was authorized to proceed with work on final mission

[00:01:47] design and fabrication to ensure that the project stayed on schedule.

[00:01:52] With the release of the President's fiscal year 2025 budget request, Dragonfly is now

[00:01:56] confirmed with a total life cycle cost of $3.35 billion and a launch date of July

[00:02:03] 2028.

[00:02:04] The rotocraft is targeted to arrive at Titan in 2034.

[00:02:10] Titan is the largest Moon of Saturn and the second largest Moon in the Solar System.

[00:02:15] It's the only Moon known to have an atmosphere dense than the Earth's atmosphere.

[00:02:20] Titan's also the only known world other than Earth where clouds rain down under the

[00:02:24] ground, forming streams and rivers which then flow into lakes and seas.

[00:02:30] But unlike the Earth where the rain is liquid water, untightened it so cold it rains liquid

[00:02:35] ethane and methane.

[00:02:37] In fact, Titan's so cold, water on this frigid world is frozen solid, forming

[00:02:42] bedrock.

[00:02:43] The only spacecraft to have visited the surface of Titan was the joint NASA

[00:02:47] ESA Cassini Huygens lander.

[00:02:49] It touched down on the 5,150km wide Moon on January 14th 2005.

[00:02:56] Instruments onboard the land and describe the surface is feeling like cold wet sand.

[00:03:02] Huygens remained operational for less than a day.

[00:03:05] On the other hand, Dragonfly will visit dozens of promising locations on Titan looking for

[00:03:10] pre-biotic chemical processes which will come in on both Titan and the early Earth

[00:03:15] before life developed on this planet.

[00:03:17] The Dragonfly project follows on from the highly successful Mars Ingenuity Helicopter

[00:03:22] which wrapped up its mission to the red planet earlier this year.

[00:03:26] Unlike Ingenuity, which was simply designed as a technology demonstrator, Dragon will

[00:03:30] be a fully-fledged flying science platform.

[00:03:34] The Rotocopter will have eight rotors and fly like a large drone.

[00:03:39] This report from NASA TV.

[00:03:41] NASA is pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and expanding the limits of technology.

[00:03:47] I am proud to announce that our next New Frontiers mission, Dragonfly, will explore Saturn's

[00:03:54] largest Moon, Titan.

[00:03:57] Dragonfly will be the first drone lander with the capability to fly over 100 miles

[00:04:02] through Titan's thick atmosphere.

[00:04:04] Titan is unlike any other place in our solar system and the most comparable to early

[00:04:09] Earth.

[00:04:10] Instruments on board will help us investigate organic chemistry and search for chemical

[00:04:15] signatures of past or even present life.

[00:04:20] So we have on Titan the opportunity to observe the processes that were present on early Earth

[00:04:26] when life began to form and possibly even conditions that may be able to harbor life

[00:04:31] today.

[00:04:32] One of the things that is particularly exciting about this mission is that we can do

[00:04:37] the very detailed chemical measurements but be able to put them in the context of Titan

[00:04:42] as a system.

[00:04:43] It's the science that really motivates us to do this exciting and difficult mission.

[00:04:48] Saturn's largest Moon, Titan, has a thick atmosphere and a frozen surface rich in organic

[00:04:54] molecules.

[00:04:55] In 2034 Dragonfly will arrive at Titan and study its chemical makeup.

[00:05:01] Dragonfly is a rotor craft designed to visit multiple sites across the Moon's varied

[00:05:06] terrain.

[00:05:09] At each new landing site on Titan's surface, Dragonfly uses a pulse neutron generator and

[00:05:14] onboard gamma ray sensor to detect key elements such as carbon and hydrogen in organic materials

[00:05:21] or oxygen in water ice.

[00:05:23] Dragonfly determines if there are well-defined layers of these materials just below the

[00:05:28] lander.

[00:05:29] For a closer inspection, Dragonfly uses its drill to generate tannings from Titan's

[00:05:34] hard frozen surface.

[00:05:37] These surface samples can then be ingested through the pneumatic system carried with Titan

[00:05:41] air into the chilled sample lines and to the sample collection carousel.

[00:05:46] One of the carousel sample cups is placed in a pneumatic port.

[00:05:50] The cup captures the surface material from the cold air stream and transfers it to the

[00:05:55] chemical laboratory for measurement.

[00:05:58] Pulsars from a laser release large organic molecules from the surface sample for analysis

[00:06:03] in the mass spectrometer.

[00:06:05] The mass spectrometer sorts molecules by mass and measures diagnostic fragments that tell

[00:06:10] Dragonfly the kinds of chemical components that are present in the surface and whether

[00:06:14] there are molecules of prebiotic interest.

[00:06:17] For those potential prebiotic samples, a new cup is placed into an oven and heated

[00:06:22] to release molecules into a gas chromatograph where they are sorted for size and type

[00:06:27] before entering the mass spectrometer.

[00:06:30] This advanced separation of organic components includes isolating molecules with the same formula

[00:06:36] but different chiral arrangements or handedness.

[00:06:39] Having a preference for one handedness over another is a key biosignature for life on

[00:06:43] Earth.

[00:06:45] When the chemical analysis is complete, Dragonfly may choose to take another surface sample

[00:06:50] or find a new location on Titan to investigate.

[00:06:54] This is space time.

[00:06:56] Still to come, NASA says goodbye for now to its Mars ingenuity helicopter and as the

[00:07:01] world continues to build up for what looks like it could be a major war, South Korea

[00:07:06] launches a new spy satellite to keep an eye on its pesky neighbor to the north.

[00:07:11] All that and more still to come on space time.

[00:07:27] NASA's scientists have said a tearful goodbye for now to their intrepid little Mars

[00:07:34] ingenuity helicopter which was grounded in January following rotor damage while flying

[00:07:40] over the red planet's jet-rope crater.

[00:07:42] The final downlink shift by the ingenuity team was a time to reflect on a highly successful

[00:07:48] mission and to prepare the first aircraft to fly on another world for a new role.

[00:07:53] The scientists and engineers have been working with a tiny 1.8 kilogram tissue box sized rotor

[00:07:58] helicopter assembled for one last time in the control room of the agency's jet propulsion

[00:08:04] laboratory in Pasadena, California in order to monitor a final transmission from the

[00:08:08] history making helicopter.

[00:08:11] While the mission officially ended on January 25th, ingenuity has remained in communication

[00:08:16] with the agency's perseverance Mars rover which has been serving as a relay base

[00:08:20] for the chopper.

[00:08:21] This final transmission received through the antennas of NASA's deep space network marked

[00:08:26] the last time that mission managers would be working together on ingenuity operations.

[00:08:32] Now the helicopter is ready for its final act to serve as a stationary science platform

[00:08:37] collecting data that could benefit future explorers to the red planet.

[00:08:42] Engineuity arrived on Mars attached to the underbelly of the car-sized six-wheeled

[00:08:46] Mars Perseverance rover on February 18th, 2021.

[00:08:51] It was originally designed simply as a short-lived technology demonstrator mission using a lot

[00:08:56] of off-the-shelf components.

[00:08:58] The idea was to attempt to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days

[00:09:03] in the process proving that a small rotor copter could undertake powered flight in

[00:09:08] the skies of another world.

[00:09:11] Of course, as we all know now, ingenuity far exceeded its mission parameters.

[00:09:16] It lasted for over a thousand Martian days and it took some 72 flights,

[00:09:20] lugging more than two hours of flight time.

[00:09:23] It quickly progressed from being simply a test vehicle to providing support

[00:09:28] for the Perseverance rover, scouting the terrain ahead,

[00:09:31] looking for the best path through and spotting interesting geology.

[00:09:36] However, the mission came to an abrupt end when the helicopter experienced

[00:09:39] a hard landing on its last flight, significantly damaging one rotor blade

[00:09:43] and tearing another off the spindle completely.

[00:09:47] Unable to fly, the rotor copter will remain stationary at Valinor Hills

[00:09:51] while the Perseverance rover continues with its mission driving out of

[00:09:55] communications range as it continues to explore the western limb of Gessro Crater.

[00:10:00] The final communication stream confirmed that a software update previously beamed

[00:10:04] up to ingenuity was operating as expected.

[00:10:08] This new software contains commands that direct the helicopter to continue collecting

[00:10:12] data well after communications with the rover have ceased.

[00:10:15] With the software patch in place,

[00:10:17] ingenuity will wake up daily, activate its flight computers and test

[00:10:21] the performance of its solar panel, its batteries and its electronic equipment.

[00:10:26] It'll then take a picture of the surface with its color camera

[00:10:29] and it will collect temperature data from its sensors placed around the aircraft.

[00:10:33] Ingenuity engineers and scientists believe such long term data collection

[00:10:37] could not only benefit future designers of aircraft and other vehicles

[00:10:40] for the red planet but could also provide a long term perspective

[00:10:44] on Martian weather patterns and dust movements.

[00:10:47] If a critical component in ingenuity were to fail in the future,

[00:10:50] causing data collection to stop or if the helicopter eventually loses

[00:10:53] power because of dust accumulation on its solar panel,

[00:10:56] whatever information ingenuity is collected remains stored on board.

[00:11:01] Mission managers believe ingenuity's memory could potentially

[00:11:03] hold up to 20 years worth of daily data.

[00:11:06] And whenever humanity revisits Valinor Hills either with a rover

[00:11:10] or a new aircraft or when future astronauts walk there,

[00:11:13] ingenuity will be waiting there with her last gift of data.

[00:11:17] A final testament to the reason why humans dare to try mighty things.

[00:11:23] This report from NASA TV.

[00:11:29] And liftoff launching the next generation of robotic explorers to the red planet.

[00:11:34] We've made it through launch crews, EDL, all of that.

[00:11:38] And we were ready now to begin our real mission, our real life on Mars.

[00:11:41] And we were all excited to see what engineering could really do

[00:11:44] through Ready for Flight 1.

[00:11:48] Earlier today, ingenuity should have autonomously performed

[00:11:51] its first flight attempt on Mars.

[00:11:55] We're all holding our breath.

[00:11:57] Ingenuity's reporting.

[00:12:00] Ultimator data confirmed that ingenuity has performed

[00:12:04] its first flight of a powered aircraft in the red planet.

[00:12:08] At that point, you just opened the floodgates of what is possible.

[00:12:13] Yeah, it was surreal.

[00:12:15] That was the crowning achievement of the team.

[00:12:18] You know, we really had to hold hands and do it together.

[00:12:23] From that moment forward, really, we were all off to the races

[00:12:25] and saying, OK, great, that's done.

[00:12:27] Let's get back to work.

[00:12:28] Let's get to flight two and then three and then so on and so on.

[00:12:31] How fast can we fly?

[00:12:33] How high up above the surface can we fly?

[00:12:36] We started doing things in parallel with the rover.

[00:12:38] And we've also demonstrated that the helicopter can be a scout

[00:12:41] to help scientists.

[00:12:42] It's been a remarkable journey and I think a highlight of all of our lives

[00:12:46] to have been a part of it.

[00:12:47] Of course, there's a little sadness that, oh, no, it's over.

[00:12:51] It's kind of the end of an era, but it's also the beginning of an era.

[00:12:55] To realize what you're part of here, at least for me,

[00:12:58] I kind of get goosebumps.

[00:13:00] We hope that Ingenuity will inspire teams to build larger,

[00:13:04] more capable vehicles.

[00:13:06] From a science perspective, what is interesting now

[00:13:08] that we've unlocked that aerial dimension?

[00:13:12] You know, you never want to see it end.

[00:13:14] Oh, my God!

[00:13:15] OK. Into the camera.

[00:13:17] I watched the first moon landing and felt privileged.

[00:13:20] And now I get to see a helicopter scanning Mars' landscape.

[00:13:23] Thank you, Ingenuity and team.

[00:13:26] That's such a wonderful thought.

[00:13:28] That's such a wonderful thought.

[00:13:29] Ingenuity, you danced in Martian skies,

[00:13:32] a testament to human brilliance.

[00:13:33] Your legacy inspires us.

[00:13:35] Farewell, dear friend.

[00:13:37] Oh, it's a very beautiful sentiment.

[00:13:39] And as a dancer myself, I couldn't have said it any more perfectly.

[00:13:44] Anything is possible when a group of dedicated people work together.

[00:13:47] Very true.

[00:13:48] Congratulations on a successful mission and for making you serve.

[00:13:52] I have tremendous gratitude to be a part of that.

[00:13:55] That's really sweet.

[00:13:56] It's tapped into many people's imaginations.

[00:14:00] It's inspired all of us.

[00:14:02] That's going to be the legacy of Ingenuity.

[00:14:05] The best way to predict the future is to create it.

[00:14:17] This is space time.

[00:14:19] Still to come, South Korea launches a new spy satellite

[00:14:22] to keep an eye on what Pyongyang's up to.

[00:14:25] And later in the science report,

[00:14:27] the Great Barrier Reef going through yet another bleaching event

[00:14:29] due to climate change.

[00:14:31] All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:14:50] South Korea has launched its second domestically made spy satellite

[00:14:53] into orbit.

[00:14:55] The new bird was flown aboard a Falcon 9 rocket

[00:14:57] from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

[00:15:01] The new military reconnaissance satellite

[00:15:03] will provide sole with independent intelligence surveillance

[00:15:06] focusing on the activities of Pyongyang.

[00:15:09] South Korea launched its first military spy satellite

[00:15:11] last December, also aboard a Falcon 9.

[00:15:15] It's already transmitted its first high resolution images

[00:15:18] of central Pyongyang

[00:15:19] and is expected to commence its full mission in June.

[00:15:22] These latest launches are intensifying

[00:15:24] the growing space race on the Korean Peninsula.

[00:15:27] With North Korea having launched

[00:15:28] its first military spy satellite in November

[00:15:30] with technical aid from Russia in return for weapons

[00:15:33] for use in Moscow's war against Ukraine.

[00:15:36] It was Pyongyang's third launch attempt

[00:15:38] after two early rockets failed one last May

[00:15:41] and the other in August last year.

[00:15:44] Seoul's currently planning to launch a total

[00:15:45] of five military spy satellites by 2025

[00:15:49] to better monitor the North in all parameters.

[00:15:52] Once all five enter orbit,

[00:15:53] the South Korean military will have the capability

[00:15:56] to monitor key facilities in North Korea

[00:15:58] using data updated every two hours.

[00:16:02] This is space time.

[00:16:03] ["Monday's Space Time"]

[00:16:19] And time now to take another brief look

[00:16:21] at some of the other stories making use in science this week

[00:16:24] with a science report.

[00:16:26] America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,

[00:16:29] NOAA, together with the International Coral Reef Initiative

[00:16:32] have confirmed that a fifth coral bleaching event

[00:16:34] is now underway on the Great Barrier Reef.

[00:16:38] The new findings show that the reefs

[00:16:39] experiencing the highest level of heat stress

[00:16:41] ever recorded including bleaching

[00:16:43] and mortality at previously unaffected locations.

[00:16:47] The data shows that 90% of atmospheric heat

[00:16:50] being absorbed by the oceans

[00:16:52] has been causing average global sea surface temperatures

[00:16:54] to break records every day for more than a year.

[00:16:58] The Great Barrier Reef has now experienced

[00:17:00] five mass coral bleaching events over the past nine years.

[00:17:04] Tropical reefs take years to recover

[00:17:06] from a mass bleaching event

[00:17:08] and species simply don't have enough time

[00:17:10] to recover in that time period.

[00:17:13] That means what's happening now

[00:17:14] will fundamentally change the reef at its biodiversity.

[00:17:18] As well as hitting the Great Barrier Reef for a fifth time,

[00:17:20] the latest bleaching event has caused

[00:17:22] four planet-wide mass bleaching events.

[00:17:25] Last month was Earth's warmest March

[00:17:27] in NOAA's 175-year global climate record.

[00:17:31] So far, record-warm temperatures

[00:17:33] have covered 10.8% of the world's surface this month

[00:17:36] and there were no areas of record cold temperatures.

[00:17:40] Paleontologists have described

[00:17:42] three unusually new species

[00:17:43] of giant fossilized kangaroos from Australia and New Guinea.

[00:17:48] The findings reported in the journal Megataxa

[00:17:50] suggest they're more diverse in shape, range,

[00:17:53] and hopping method than previously thought.

[00:17:56] The three new species

[00:17:57] are of the extinct genus protemnodon

[00:17:59] which lived from around 5 million to 40,000 years ago

[00:18:03] with one about double the size

[00:18:04] of the largest red kangaroos living today.

[00:18:08] Modable-complete fossilized kangaroo skeletons

[00:18:10] of the creatures were found at Lake Calabona

[00:18:12] in Arid, South Australia in 2013, 2018, and 2019.

[00:18:19] Following three years of intensive research,

[00:18:21] scientists have compiled the first ever World Cybercrime Index.

[00:18:26] The index identifies the globe's key cybercrime hotspots

[00:18:29] by ranking the most significant sources of cybercrime

[00:18:32] at a national level.

[00:18:34] The findings reported in the journal PLOS ONE

[00:18:36] shows that a relatively small number of countries

[00:18:39] house the greatest cybercriminal threats.

[00:18:42] Russia tops the list of cybercriminals

[00:18:45] followed closely by the Ukraine, China,

[00:18:47] the United States, Nigeria, and Romania.

[00:18:51] Australia ranks at number 34.

[00:18:55] Chipmaker AMD has just launched its new AI enhanced chips

[00:18:59] for business laptops and desktop computers

[00:19:01] with nearly 50% faster performance

[00:19:03] than Intel's best chips.

[00:19:05] With the details, we're joined by technology editor

[00:19:07] Alex Haravroyd from TechAdvice.live.

[00:19:10] AMD was the first to launch a chip

[00:19:12] with AI brains inside of it.

[00:19:14] That was the 7040 last year,

[00:19:16] and then late last year they announced their successes.

[00:19:19] Now they've launched those

[00:19:20] and they now have the first business AI PC.

[00:19:23] So there's the 8000G series for desktops

[00:19:26] and the 8040 series for laptops.

[00:19:28] And this has a dedicated AI engine inside,

[00:19:32] which is the first PC chip to do that.

[00:19:33] Now Intel has also launched their Intel Core Ultra processors

[00:19:36] which have an AI brain inside as well.

[00:19:38] So if you're going to buy a new PC,

[00:19:39] make sure you get one

[00:19:40] that has one of these AI engines inside

[00:19:43] because what you'll be able to do

[00:19:44] is do a lot of the stuff you do with ChatGPT

[00:19:46] but locally on your own device.

[00:19:49] So whether that's asking various questions,

[00:19:50] getting it to help you write emails,

[00:19:52] do presentations, do Word documents,

[00:19:54] summarize documents, transcribe things for you,

[00:19:57] be able to do that on device

[00:19:58] as opposed to sending it to ChatGPT,

[00:20:00] having it travel across the internet

[00:20:02] be worked on on somebody else's server,

[00:20:04] be training that AI system

[00:20:07] which it could then use that information

[00:20:08] in responses it gives to other people

[00:20:10] even if they promise not to do that

[00:20:12] and then send it back to you.

[00:20:13] So being able to do that locally is a huge thing

[00:20:15] and AMD is meeting Intel

[00:20:17] at being able to offer this to consumers

[00:20:19] although Intel has caught up.

[00:20:21] If you want to know more,

[00:20:22] you can read about it at my website,

[00:20:24] techadvice.life.

[00:20:25] I've got an article about those new processors

[00:20:27] and again, don't buy a new PC

[00:20:29] without the AI component inside it.

[00:20:32] Now while we're mentioning ChatGPT

[00:20:34] there's another article out about how work it's become.

[00:20:37] It seems to be supporting one side of politics

[00:20:40] and not the other

[00:20:41] and you can't get much more work than that.

[00:20:43] Yes, well there was a post on X

[00:20:45] about how if you ask the ChatGPT about Biden

[00:20:48] it doesn't mention any of the scandals

[00:20:50] that Biden's been involved in

[00:20:51] but if you ask it about Trump

[00:20:53] it lists all sorts of scandals

[00:20:55] which of course have been mostly

[00:20:56] all thoroughly debunked.

[00:20:57] Now if you ask Rock

[00:20:58] it does list all of the different scandals

[00:21:00] that Biden has been involved in

[00:21:02] and which you know,

[00:21:03] still hasn't placed any charges

[00:21:04] or electoral wrath for.

[00:21:06] Now the problem is here

[00:21:08] that it's garbage in garbage out.

[00:21:10] I mean the programming that the AIs have received

[00:21:13] dictates what it delivers as a result

[00:21:16] and this is where open source

[00:21:17] large language models

[00:21:19] that you can determine

[00:21:20] what is being programmed into it

[00:21:22] are going to be crucial for the future

[00:21:24] for privacy, for security

[00:21:25] and also being able to run these locally

[00:21:27] on your own device.

[00:21:28] But at the moment

[00:21:29] you still need to have a big data center

[00:21:31] with multiple of these AI accelerated chips

[00:21:33] within to be able to generate things quickly

[00:21:35] and do the job very fast

[00:21:36] but your phones, your tablets and your PCs

[00:21:39] are now coming with AI chips built in.

[00:21:41] They're still obviously not as powerful

[00:21:42] as the Nvidia H100

[00:21:44] or the AMD Instict MI300X chip

[00:21:47] which those are used in configurations

[00:21:49] of multiple chips and service and data centers

[00:21:52] but it's catching up.

[00:21:53] Sam Soe has just taken the top spot

[00:21:55] in smartphone sales

[00:21:56] for the first three months of 2024.

[00:21:58] Apple is off the top of the charts.

[00:21:59] Yes, well Apple actually was at the top of the charts

[00:22:02] last year in the last quarter of 2023

[00:22:04] and that's because Apple

[00:22:05] launched a new iPhone at the time

[00:22:07] and of course there's a big rush

[00:22:08] for people who are upgrading either

[00:22:10] from the last year's model

[00:22:11] or normally from several models before it.

[00:22:14] But Samsung is back at the top

[00:22:15] and the issue here though

[00:22:17] is that Samsung whilst they do sell

[00:22:19] more of their flagship S series

[00:22:21] and the folding series smartphones

[00:22:23] every year than the year before

[00:22:24] the bulk of their sales come from their mid-range.

[00:22:27] Now, they have this A series of smartphones

[00:22:29] headlined at the moment by the A35

[00:22:31] they don't have the AI smarts

[00:22:33] with the Galaxy S flagship series

[00:22:35] but they're well under $1,000

[00:22:37] and they don't make as much money

[00:22:39] as an iPhone makes.

[00:22:40] Even the cheapest iPhone makes

[00:22:41] Apple a good amount of profit

[00:22:43] which it uses to remain the world's top tech company

[00:22:45] and have all those incredible stores

[00:22:47] and come out with AI enhancements

[00:22:49] to their chips on a very regular basis.

[00:22:51] We're phasing out 3G

[00:22:53] it'll be gone by the end of this year I believe.

[00:22:56] 4G is going to be with us for a little while longer

[00:22:58] 5G is all the rage now

[00:22:59] but 6G is already starting to make its presence filled.

[00:23:03] Yes, we're about halfway through the 5G era

[00:23:05] we did see early versions of 5G in 2018

[00:23:08] and the Koreans had the Olympics at the time

[00:23:10] and even Telstra in Australia had initial work on 5G

[00:23:14] but really it kicked off around 2020

[00:23:16] that's when the smartphone started offering 5G in mass as well

[00:23:19] and we're about halfway there.

[00:23:20] Now 6G is probably not going to really emerge

[00:23:24] until 2028, 2029

[00:23:25] but again it'll be about 2030

[00:23:27] when we really see it taking off and being installed

[00:23:29] and they're talking about a 100 gigabit speed

[00:23:33] 100 gigabits is 100,000 megabits

[00:23:36] or 1,000 times faster than the 100 megabits connections

[00:23:39] that many people have

[00:23:40] and 100 times faster than the gigabit connections

[00:23:43] that some people around the world have too.

[00:23:45] Now that's a theoretical maximum

[00:23:46] the theoretical max for 5G is about 4.9 gigabits per second

[00:23:50] but most people are getting anywhere from 50 to around 600 megabits

[00:23:54] depending on how close they are to a tower.

[00:23:56] So again we're playing the game of theoretical maximums

[00:23:59] but look if we can start getting reliably

[00:24:01] 1 gigabit plus on our phones

[00:24:03] I mean that is super fast

[00:24:05] and you'll download an entire movie

[00:24:06] and it'll be a few seconds

[00:24:07] but not the several minutes that it can take now.

[00:24:10] So 6G is still at least half a decade away

[00:24:13] but a few companies in Japan have made a prototype device

[00:24:16] it's operating only at about 100 meters of distance

[00:24:19] so there's a long way to go before

[00:24:21] it can go for kilometers like 3G, 4G and 5G can

[00:24:24] and until they fix that

[00:24:25] they're either going to have to put up a lot more towers

[00:24:27] and people are not big fans of towers near them

[00:24:29] but look again we're 5 years away at least

[00:24:31] from our phones having 6G

[00:24:33] but they're definitely working on it

[00:24:35] and 7G, 8G, 9G

[00:24:37] all coming after that.

[00:24:38] That's Alex Zaharov-Royd from TechAdvice. Start life.

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