1 00:00:02,930 --> 00:00:06,180 Humans are natural born explorers. 2 00:00:06,200 --> 00:00:10,700 We charge into uncharted territory and seek out the unknown. 3 00:00:11,900 --> 00:00:15,900 We've mapped nearly every inch of Mother Earth.. 4 00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:20,500 ..and left tracks on the Moon. But to set foot on another planet, 5 00:00:20,900 --> 00:00:26,700 to travel beyond our solar system, that is a dream for the future. 6 00:00:30,690 --> 00:00:35,490 A dream that comes to life in the feature film Interstellar. 7 00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:41,327 We must think not as individuals, but as a species. 8 00:00:41,352 --> 00:00:46,400 We must confront the reality of interstellar travel. 9 00:00:50,500 --> 00:00:56,000 The film Interstellar deals with the quest for new worlds and the faith of humanity. 10 00:00:56,900 --> 00:01:00,900 Sound like the stuff of science fiction? Maybe. 11 00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:04,900 But the foundations of this film are rooted in real science, 12 00:01:05,650 --> 00:01:10,050 thanks to the involvement of a renowned astrophysicist Kip Thorne. 13 00:01:10,300 --> 00:01:14,312 In Interstellar, one of the most important features is 14 00:01:14,337 --> 00:01:18,300 the way that science is totally embedded in the film. 15 00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:20,800 There is some wild things in here. 16 00:01:21,850 --> 00:01:27,350 Beyond fantasy and fiction, this is the real science of Interstellar. 17 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:38,000 Space travel has been a staple of the movies from the very beginning, 18 00:01:38,250 --> 00:01:41,450 but the feature film Interstellar has a unique pedigree. 19 00:01:41,750 --> 00:01:45,765 It was inspired in part by the work of Kip Thorne, 20 00:01:45,790 --> 00:01:49,750 an authority on astrophysics, gravitational waves 21 00:01:50,550 --> 00:01:55,550 and the warping of spacetime, he is also an executive producer on the film. 22 00:01:56,300 --> 00:02:02,800 In Interstellar, real science was built into the fabric of the film from the outset. 23 00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:08,000 The other major players in this film, they all respected the science 24 00:02:08,200 --> 00:02:12,200 and they worked with me to see if the science was well incorporated. 25 00:02:12,540 --> 00:02:18,740 Can you tell me what the... the easiest definition of what a singularity is? 26 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:23,440 Kip and myself meshed well in terms of trying to use current thinking, 27 00:02:23,750 --> 00:02:27,578 current scientific understanding to drive the narrative 28 00:02:27,603 --> 00:02:31,250 -It lies in between, this is a place where curvature 29 00:02:31,600 --> 00:02:35,700 of space and time gets infinitely high. So we're good, okay. 30 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:37,995 And we just hope that the research that we've done 31 00:02:38,020 --> 00:02:40,000 and the conversations that I'd had over the years 32 00:02:40,100 --> 00:02:42,775 with Kip and that Chris had had with Kip informed the 33 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:45,300 narrative, and that the audience would feel that. 34 00:02:45,520 --> 00:02:48,924 Why simply imagine, fantasize about things that 35 00:02:48,949 --> 00:02:52,520 might happen in space or an interstellar journey? 36 00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:55,900 Why not actually look at the real science there? 37 00:02:57,700 --> 00:03:01,500 -It's an Indian surveillance drone! Interstellar takes place in the future 38 00:03:01,700 --> 00:03:05,600 where living conditions on Earth threaten the survival of humanity. 39 00:03:05,720 --> 00:03:07,999 Now you need to tell me what your plan it is to 40 00:03:08,024 --> 00:03:10,520 save the world. -We're not meant to save the world, 41 00:03:10,600 --> 00:03:12,700 we're meant to leave it. 42 00:03:13,507 --> 00:03:15,957 One of the things that the film explores is do we 43 00:03:15,982 --> 00:03:18,507 belong on Earth and should we be staying on Earth, 44 00:03:18,700 --> 00:03:24,400 and if there is anything else that there should we be exploring there. - Here we go. 45 00:03:24,710 --> 00:03:28,178 In the film the crew seeks a new place to call home. 46 00:03:28,203 --> 00:03:31,102 A planet that can sustain life. Human life. 47 00:03:31,152 --> 00:03:33,152 -We're not gonna to make it! Yes you are. 48 00:03:33,190 --> 00:03:36,415 Sounds like a job for the explorers of tomorrow. But 49 00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:39,690 the search for another Earth is happening right now. 50 00:03:44,550 --> 00:03:48,550 Astrophysicist Natalie Bataglia is a passionate planet hunter. 51 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:50,763 you think the only way that we're really going 52 00:03:50,788 --> 00:03:52,500 to really understand our place in the galaxy 53 00:03:52,600 --> 00:03:57,300 is by looking at this broad picture and understanding the diversity of all planets. 54 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:01,339 20 or 30 years ago we didn't know of any other 55 00:04:01,364 --> 00:04:04,800 planets orbiting normal stars like our own Sun. 56 00:04:05,400 --> 00:04:07,952 Natalie has helped rewrite that story as a misison 57 00:04:07,977 --> 00:04:10,200 scientist for NASA's Kepler space telescope 58 00:04:10,242 --> 00:04:13,594 Kepler's objective is very simple: it's to determine 59 00:04:13,619 --> 00:04:16,742 the fraction of stars in our galaxy that harbour 60 00:04:17,280 --> 00:04:19,220 potentially habitable oversized planets. 61 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:22,000 And what makes a planet potentially habitable? 62 00:04:22,300 --> 00:04:25,081 The one ingredient that we think is common to all 63 00:04:25,106 --> 00:04:27,800 life forms is this requirement of liquid water. 64 00:04:27,900 --> 00:04:30,649 So that's why we look for planets that have rocky 65 00:04:30,674 --> 00:04:33,615 surfaces where water can pool and that are receiving 66 00:04:33,785 --> 00:04:36,785 the right amount of energy from the star where the water wouldn't be locked up in a 67 00:04:36,850 --> 00:04:39,752 frozen state because the planet is so cold, nor would 68 00:04:39,777 --> 00:04:42,650 it be evaporated away because the planet is too hot. 69 00:04:42,750 --> 00:04:46,679 We call it the Goldilocks zone, where liquid water could potentially exist. 70 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:50,762 Launched in 2009, Kepler stared at one small 71 00:04:50,787 --> 00:04:53,759 patch of the Milky Way for four years straight. 72 00:04:54,900 --> 00:04:58,900 Compared to stars, planets are too tiny for Kepler to spot... 73 00:04:59,450 --> 00:05:01,450 but it can detect their shadows. 74 00:05:01,700 --> 00:05:06,700 Every planet orbiting an illuminous object is casting a shadow out into space 75 00:05:06,724 --> 00:05:10,449 and the Kepler spacecraft makes use of that fact. 76 00:05:10,474 --> 00:05:14,224 Waiting for a planet in it's orbit about the star 77 00:05:14,300 --> 00:05:17,230 to pass directly between the disc of the star and 78 00:05:17,255 --> 00:05:20,150 the spacecraft, and the telescope perceives that 79 00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:22,500 as a dimming of light. 80 00:05:22,900 --> 00:05:26,622 This simple method has revealed 1000's of exoplanets. 81 00:05:26,647 --> 00:05:29,700 Planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy. 82 00:05:30,260 --> 00:05:33,746 What we've learned so far is that literally every 83 00:05:33,771 --> 00:05:36,860 star in our galaxy has at least one planet. 84 00:05:37,370 --> 00:05:43,570 There is an amazing diversity of exoplanets out there and we've found very exotic worlds. 85 00:05:44,200 --> 00:05:51,000 200 lightyears away there is a Saturn sized planet orbiting not one, but two stars. 86 00:05:51,100 --> 00:05:53,534 So if you were living on a world like 87 00:05:53,559 --> 00:05:56,600 Kepler-16b, you would see in the sky two stars 88 00:05:56,700 --> 00:05:59,649 rising in the east setting in the west, continuously 89 00:05:59,674 --> 00:06:02,200 changing position as they orbit one another. 90 00:06:05,750 --> 00:06:09,552 This is an artist rendition of the planet Kepler-10b, 91 00:06:09,577 --> 00:06:13,050 it's orbiting 23 times closer to its parent star 92 00:06:13,150 --> 00:06:16,755 than Mercury is to our own Sun. So this star-facing 93 00:06:16,780 --> 00:06:20,550 side is just being blasted by this stellar radiation. 94 00:06:20,574 --> 00:06:24,574 Creating temperatures in excess of that required to melt iron. 95 00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:30,450 The planet has an entire hemisphere larger than the Pacific Ocean, which is an ocean, 96 00:06:30,550 --> 00:06:34,550 but it's not an ocean of water. It's an ocean of molten lava. 97 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:42,700 Not an attractive destination. But Kepler recently found as a possible second home. 98 00:06:43,970 --> 00:06:47,140 This is an artist concept of the Kepler-186 planetary system. 99 00:06:47,342 --> 00:06:53,842 Five planets orbiting this M-type star and the outermost planet is Kepler-186f. 100 00:06:55,600 --> 00:06:59,600 Our first discovery of an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of a normal star. 101 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:06,500 When I think about Kepler-186f, I try to imagine it as a real place 102 00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:08,200 because it is a real place. 103 00:07:09,150 --> 00:07:14,400 We know that it could be rocky, same size as Earth so I do imagine a rocky surface... 104 00:07:15,500 --> 00:07:19,500 We don't know that it has a liquid ocean, but we can certainly imagine one. 105 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:22,625 And then, all of a sudden in your imagination you 106 00:07:22,650 --> 00:07:25,300 eternalize the existence of this world out there, 107 00:07:25,400 --> 00:07:29,400 that there is a place that could be very, very much like Earth. 108 00:07:29,500 --> 00:07:35,100 So, when do we set sail for these distant shores? Reality check. 109 00:07:36,300 --> 00:07:41,300 Kepler-186f is nearly three quadrillion miles (~4.8 quadrillion km) from Earth. 110 00:07:41,500 --> 00:07:44,554 Otherwise put five hundred light years away. 111 00:07:44,579 --> 00:07:48,000 That's a journey 500 years at the speed of light. 112 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:54,200 But no thing can travel as fast as light. At best, our spacecrafts are 113 00:07:54,350 --> 00:07:58,450 thousands of times slower. Even the spaceships in Insterstellar don't come close. 114 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:03,000 So how do they reach new worlds beyond our solar system? 115 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:07,650 They take a walk on the warp side of space and time. 116 00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:13,600 The science of Interstellar 117 00:08:19,600 --> 00:08:22,000 -You have no idea when you're coming back. 118 00:08:22,450 --> 00:08:25,650 Couldn't you have told her you were going to save the world? -No. 119 00:08:27,900 --> 00:08:29,900 I'm coming back. 120 00:08:30,700 --> 00:08:35,700 When we journey to a far off place we travel not just in space but also in time, 121 00:08:35,900 --> 00:08:37,900 as we move into the future. 122 00:08:40,150 --> 00:08:45,650 Until about a century ago scientists believed that space and time were entirely separate. 123 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:54,000 Theoretical physicist Sean Caroll explains how Albert Einstein overturned that idea. 124 00:08:54,100 --> 00:08:58,100 One of Einsten's great insights was that space and time were related to each other, 125 00:08:58,300 --> 00:09:02,600 where you had space and you had time, Einsten says: "Actually, there's only one thing 126 00:09:02,900 --> 00:09:06,211 which we call spacetime." -And then he says 127 00:09:06,236 --> 00:09:09,800 "this spacetime thing, it's not just the stage 128 00:09:09,850 --> 00:09:13,130 on which all the action plays out. It's an act for itself." 129 00:09:16,500 --> 00:09:20,350 Spacetime can change, it can move, it can bend and it can warp. 130 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:29,000 Einstein's theory of relativity states that spacetime is like a flexible fabric. 131 00:09:29,500 --> 00:09:35,300 The objects embedded in it: the Sun, planets, even us, warp that fabric. 132 00:09:36,700 --> 00:09:40,700 And the consequence of that warping is what we call gravity. 133 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:44,500 The more massive the object, the more spacetime is warped 134 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:46,500 and the greater the gravity. 135 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:58,900 We feel gravity. The flexibility of spacetime is harder to grasp on a gut level 136 00:09:59,256 --> 00:10:01,256 but it's effects are measurable. 137 00:10:04,635 --> 00:10:09,935 As Sean demonstrates, the greater the gravity, the more slowly time flows. 138 00:10:10,150 --> 00:10:15,150 For example, if I were on the ground floor with a clock, a super accurate atomic clock, 139 00:10:15,500 --> 00:10:17,771 and a twin of mine was up on the top floor of the 140 00:10:17,796 --> 00:10:20,000 building with an equally accurate atomic clock, 141 00:10:20,200 --> 00:10:24,700 if we later on compared them, mine would've ticked off fewer seconds. 142 00:10:25,800 --> 00:10:28,687 On the gorund floor, Sean experiences slightly 143 00:10:28,712 --> 00:10:31,500 more gravity than his twin on the top floor. 144 00:10:31,900 --> 00:10:36,400 He also experiences slightly less time than his twin. 145 00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:41,600 The difference is tiny, but real. And there are practical applications. 146 00:10:41,700 --> 00:10:46,542 For example, the GPS system is a very, very precise set 147 00:10:46,567 --> 00:10:51,000 of clocks on satellites orbiting around the Earth. 148 00:10:51,050 --> 00:10:55,250 and that orbit is in a slightly different gravitational field than we are in down here 149 00:10:55,350 --> 00:10:58,282 so the fact that time moves differently here on the 150 00:10:58,307 --> 00:11:01,150 surface of the Earth than in the satellite orbit, 151 00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:04,300 is very very important to getting the GPS to work correctly. 152 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:08,190 Time on a GPS satellite clock advances faster 153 00:11:08,215 --> 00:11:11,500 than the clock on Earth by about 38ms per day, 154 00:11:11,700 --> 00:11:14,200 so the system's computers correct for that. 155 00:11:16,900 --> 00:11:19,846 Motion also affects our experience of spacetime. 156 00:11:19,871 --> 00:11:22,600 -The best way to say this just staying still 157 00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:25,570 means that you experience the most time that you can. 158 00:11:25,595 --> 00:11:27,200 Moving around and doing things 159 00:11:27,300 --> 00:11:30,611 means you experience less time. -Let's revisit Sean 160 00:11:30,636 --> 00:11:34,100 at the wheel of his car and his twin on a park bench. 161 00:11:34,150 --> 00:11:37,125 If you move out of your car, and then you come 162 00:11:37,150 --> 00:11:40,150 back, compared to the person who stayed behind 163 00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:42,807 your clock that you took with you on that journey 164 00:11:42,832 --> 00:11:45,200 will have experienced a little bit less time 165 00:11:45,350 --> 00:11:46,850 than the one who stayed behind. 166 00:11:49,200 --> 00:11:52,205 We normally move too slowly to notice the effect. 167 00:11:52,230 --> 00:11:55,200 But if Sean could drive near the speed of light, 168 00:11:57,500 --> 00:12:00,166 he could race across the USA and back again a 169 00:12:00,191 --> 00:12:03,000 million times and experience less than a second 170 00:12:03,050 --> 00:12:09,100 of time, while the twin he left behind would endure hours of waiting for Sean's return. 171 00:12:10,500 --> 00:12:15,500 In other words, Sean would've travelled into the future compared to his twin. 172 00:12:16,500 --> 00:12:21,000 This means things may get tricky in years to come, as we build faster spaceships. 173 00:12:22,500 --> 00:12:25,096 The closer we get to the speed of light, the more out 174 00:12:25,121 --> 00:12:27,500 of sync we'll become with those we leave behind. 175 00:12:28,300 --> 00:12:31,035 But the warping of spacetime may also provide 176 00:12:31,060 --> 00:12:34,300 shortcuts that could make interstellar travel a snap. 177 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:42,800 Wormholes: they're a staple of science fiction, but they're based on real science. 178 00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:47,098 Einstein's relativistic laws govern the warping 179 00:12:47,123 --> 00:12:50,500 of space and time and they say that wormholes 180 00:12:50,550 --> 00:12:57,050 might exist, they could exist. So this dates all the way back to 1916. 181 00:12:58,700 --> 00:13:02,500 The wormhole's a particular way that space and time can be curved. 182 00:13:02,550 --> 00:13:06,050 It's like adding a little tube that connects two parts of space. 183 00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:11,900 The basic idea is that if you're an ant, and you live on the surface of the apple, 184 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:15,200 the surface of the apple is your entire universe. 185 00:13:15,250 --> 00:13:18,983 You can go around the outside through the universe 186 00:13:19,008 --> 00:13:22,250 itself, or you can go through the wormhole. 187 00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:29,000 But Einstein's equations also predict that if wormholes do form in nature, they may be 188 00:13:29,050 --> 00:13:33,150 sub-atomic in size and exist for only fractions of a second before closing off. 189 00:13:35,700 --> 00:13:38,222 Theoretically, what would it take to keep a 190 00:13:38,247 --> 00:13:41,200 wormhole open and make it big enough to acommodate 191 00:13:41,250 --> 00:13:44,262 a spaceship. -It turns out that in order to 192 00:13:44,287 --> 00:13:47,600 pull the wormhole open so it doesn't crunch off 193 00:13:47,650 --> 00:13:52,650 and kill you when you try to go through, then you have to have the wormhole threaded 194 00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:58,300 by a negative mass or negative energy, Einstein says mass and energy are equivalent. 195 00:13:59,500 --> 00:14:05,000 Almost all the forms of matter we know have positive mass and exert gravity. 196 00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:08,042 Negative mass would exert anti-gravity and 197 00:14:08,067 --> 00:14:11,200 repel the walls of a wormhole to keep it open. 198 00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:15,625 Strangely, it is true that negative energy can 199 00:14:15,650 --> 00:14:19,100 exist, and it's been created in the laboratory 200 00:14:19,150 --> 00:14:21,850 but only in very tiny amounts. 201 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:27,500 It would take vast quantities to prop open a wormhole big enough for a spaceship, 202 00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:31,825 But just maybe, in the future, engineers will 203 00:14:31,850 --> 00:14:35,100 devise advanced technologies to do just that. 204 00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:39,228 Today's it's an educated guess, maybe I should say a 205 00:14:39,253 --> 00:14:42,700 half-educated guess, that wormholes can not exist 206 00:14:42,750 --> 00:14:45,485 in our universe, but we're far from sure of that. 207 00:14:45,510 --> 00:14:48,050 - The truth is, we just don't know right now. 208 00:14:48,100 --> 00:14:50,577 We don't understand the laws of physics well enough 209 00:14:50,602 --> 00:14:53,200 to say for sure wether or not wormholes are possible. 210 00:14:53,700 --> 00:14:58,200 But since they're not impossible, they're fair game for a filmmaker. 211 00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:04,400 I was very excited about the idea of focusing on a family who would be the pioneers, 212 00:15:04,450 --> 00:15:07,146 who would experience some of the extraordinary 213 00:15:07,171 --> 00:15:09,950 features of astrophysics, particularly the idea 214 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:13,500 of a wormhole that would allow us to travel to distant stars. 215 00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:18,062 To create a wormhole based on real science, visual 216 00:15:18,087 --> 00:15:21,200 effects supervisor Paul Franklin turned to Kip Thorne. 217 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:28,500 The topolar image of what a wormhole might look like is literally just a hole in space. 218 00:15:28,550 --> 00:15:32,550 Generally it sits on an invisible surface, you can see stuff sliding down the sides 219 00:15:32,600 --> 00:15:34,950 and disappearing down the drain as it were. And 220 00:15:34,975 --> 00:15:37,300 right in that first conversation Kip showed me 221 00:15:37,650 --> 00:15:40,023 an image of that kind of classical fantasy image 222 00:15:40,048 --> 00:15:42,300 of these things and said "This is all wrong!" 223 00:15:42,350 --> 00:15:44,350 "This is not how it is." 224 00:15:45,500 --> 00:15:48,690 Kip worked out the scientific equations that define the 225 00:15:48,715 --> 00:15:51,700 wormhole and sent it to Paul's animators in London. 226 00:15:51,750 --> 00:15:55,017 And so for the movie I built a mathematical model 227 00:15:55,042 --> 00:15:58,400 wormhole based on Einstein's relativity equations. 228 00:15:59,300 --> 00:16:02,594 Paul, Kip and myself, we discussed "Okay, we'll 229 00:16:02,619 --> 00:16:05,800 visualize the hole, we'll simulate it exactly 230 00:16:05,850 --> 00:16:08,557 as your calculations say." -And Paul Franklin and 231 00:16:08,582 --> 00:16:11,150 his team, they were thrilled to get algorithms 232 00:16:11,200 --> 00:16:14,900 that were the latest, most interesting and up to the minute. -Now we go to the other one. 233 00:16:14,950 --> 00:16:18,200 The wormhole is a three-dimensional hole in space, and what do you get if you take 234 00:16:18,250 --> 00:16:21,600 a circle, sweep it out in three dimensions? You get a sphere. 235 00:16:22,200 --> 00:16:26,200 So the wormhole almost feels like a crystal ball hanging in space. 236 00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:31,101 I don't think anybody ever really done this kind 237 00:16:31,126 --> 00:16:33,600 of visualization before. This is really unique. 238 00:16:33,650 --> 00:16:37,657 First time for me, as well as for you and the audience. 239 00:16:37,682 --> 00:16:39,050 - Absolutely, yes. 240 00:16:41,500 --> 00:16:43,864 In Interstellar, crew members take a giant 241 00:16:43,889 --> 00:16:46,500 leap of faith when they plunge into a wormhole 242 00:16:46,900 --> 00:16:50,000 You can't just think about your family, now you have to think bigger than that. 243 00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:54,000 -I am thinking about my family and millions of other families. 244 00:16:55,064 --> 00:16:57,987 Beyond that wormhole, the crew will enter the realm 245 00:16:58,012 --> 00:17:00,564 of the most extreme objects in the universe: 246 00:17:01,800 --> 00:17:03,500 black holes. 247 00:17:20,300 --> 00:17:25,300 From Earth, the starry sky may seem a realm of timeless calm. 248 00:17:25,950 --> 00:17:29,950 But when we aim our most advanced tools at the universe, they capture displays 249 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:32,100 of monstruous power and violence. 250 00:17:33,800 --> 00:17:44,800 Galaxies collide, cosmic clouds of gas and dust spew radiation. Stars explode and die. 251 00:17:45,500 --> 00:17:53,000 For a filmmaker, space is full of dramatic possibilities. When you venture out into 252 00:17:53,050 --> 00:17:57,200 a story about a man against the elements, when that journey is interstellar, 253 00:17:57,350 --> 00:18:03,200 the possibilities for visualizing the threat against our protagonist 254 00:18:03,350 --> 00:18:09,850 become very much more exotic. Deep, deep space gives you a very fresh approach. 255 00:18:09,900 --> 00:18:11,400 - Exactly. 256 00:18:11,450 --> 00:18:15,250 One of the greatest challenges for a crew on an interstellar voyage 257 00:18:15,300 --> 00:18:18,800 will be to nagivate the dangers of black holes. 258 00:18:22,700 --> 00:18:25,682 Black holes were predicted by Einstein's equations, but 259 00:18:25,707 --> 00:18:28,500 physicists question wether they could really exist. 260 00:18:28,550 --> 00:18:31,607 The black hole is a strange beast. If this were 261 00:18:31,632 --> 00:18:34,650 a black hole, then instead of a rubber surface 262 00:18:34,700 --> 00:18:37,462 it would have a surface that is made of 263 00:18:37,487 --> 00:18:40,900 absolutely nothing except warped space and time. 264 00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:47,500 It's a place where gravity is so strong that if anything falls into the black hole, 265 00:18:47,700 --> 00:18:51,250 it can never get back out. If you fall in, you can't send signals back out, 266 00:18:51,300 --> 00:18:53,500 light can't get out from the interior. 267 00:18:55,300 --> 00:18:57,854 See, you might ask: how did that ever happen? In 268 00:18:57,879 --> 00:19:00,300 outer space you can get so much mass together 269 00:19:00,350 --> 00:19:03,021 like in a super-massive star, that the gravity 270 00:19:03,046 --> 00:19:05,800 does become stronger and stronger and stronger, 271 00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:10,000 and eventually the pressure that matter exerts on itself can't keep up. 272 00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:13,225 And everything collapses, there's a big explosion, some 273 00:19:13,250 --> 00:19:16,300 of the stuff is blown away but the rest of it collapses 274 00:19:16,350 --> 00:19:18,350 into a black hole. 275 00:19:19,510 --> 00:19:24,510 A black hole that spins on its axis drags the very space around it into a whilring motion 276 00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:27,060 that pulls stars and planets into orbit. 277 00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:34,700 Closer in, gravity increases like a riptide. At a boundary called the event horizon 278 00:19:34,750 --> 00:19:37,100 the gravity becomes so extreme that nothing can 279 00:19:37,125 --> 00:19:39,500 escape being pulled into the heart of the beast 280 00:19:40,450 --> 00:19:41,950 and lost forever. 281 00:19:42,500 --> 00:19:45,900 Black holes are simple, and yet they have a lot of character. 282 00:19:45,950 --> 00:19:49,359 It's almost like they can take on personalities, umm, 283 00:19:49,384 --> 00:19:52,500 they can be picky eaters, they can be energetic. 284 00:19:52,550 --> 00:19:55,283 And what you're seeing and describing is really how 285 00:19:55,308 --> 00:19:57,800 the black hole interacts with the environment. 286 00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:04,050 UCLA astronomer Andrea Ghez is an expert on black hole detection. 287 00:20:06,300 --> 00:20:10,050 She played a key role investigating what had long been a scientific hunch. 288 00:20:10,500 --> 00:20:14,750 That a huge black hole lives at the centre of the Milky Way. -It's looking good. 289 00:20:15,500 --> 00:20:18,195 Astronomers knew the heart of our galaxy was 290 00:20:18,220 --> 00:20:21,000 buzzing with gas, dust and millions of stars. 291 00:20:21,800 --> 00:20:25,531 Some powerful force appeared to be driving this hubbub. 292 00:20:25,556 --> 00:20:27,300 Could it be a black hole? 293 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:31,600 Ground telescopes just couldn't produce sharp images of the region, 294 00:20:32,300 --> 00:20:37,550 when the technique called adaptive optics vastly improved the view. 295 00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:42,750 So this is what it looks like before you use the advanced technology, it's a blurry mess 296 00:20:42,800 --> 00:20:46,600 and now you can see the individual stars with the adaptive optics turned on. 297 00:20:46,650 --> 00:20:51,100 So each point of light here is associated with an individual star. 298 00:20:52,400 --> 00:20:56,400 Andrea put that technique to work at the Keck observatory in Hawaii. 299 00:20:58,500 --> 00:20:59,850 This is a roadmap. 300 00:20:59,900 --> 00:21:03,400 - And she and her team began to track the stars at the centre of the Milky way. 301 00:21:03,450 --> 00:21:05,700 And that's the centre of our galaxy. 302 00:21:05,750 --> 00:21:09,735 The very first year that we took the data was in 1995. 303 00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:12,750 Then we go back to the telescope in '96, 304 00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:17,050 and then we take our second image, and you have two pictures. We can compare them, 305 00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:22,300 - Andrea wanted to see if the stars were orbiting a single source of gravity, but 306 00:21:22,450 --> 00:21:25,450 stars can take years to complete an orbit. 307 00:21:25,550 --> 00:21:29,239 So it was really important that we kept going, and 308 00:21:29,264 --> 00:21:33,050 by 2000 we finally started to see the star's curve. 309 00:21:33,300 --> 00:21:39,300 In other words, the gravitational influence of the black hole had made those stars 310 00:21:39,350 --> 00:21:41,600 go from straight lines to starting to bend. 311 00:21:41,650 --> 00:21:45,150 The measurements were precise enough to see that curvature. -Year by year, 312 00:21:45,300 --> 00:21:52,600 Andrea and her team built their case. This animation represents 20 years of work 313 00:21:52,650 --> 00:21:59,400 and it tells you that it is a black hole, and exactly how massive it is. 314 00:21:59,500 --> 00:22:02,515 Andrea's painstaking project revealed a monster 315 00:22:02,540 --> 00:22:05,200 with more than 400 million times the mass 316 00:22:05,250 --> 00:22:09,650 of our Sun at the centre of our Milky Way. 317 00:22:09,700 --> 00:22:13,700 Today, scientists are hunting black holes with new tools. 318 00:22:13,750 --> 00:22:19,350 CalTech astrophysicist Fiona Harrison scans the skies with New Star, 319 00:22:19,500 --> 00:22:23,250 a telescope that looks at the universe in high energy X-rays. 320 00:22:24,500 --> 00:22:29,500 The black hole itself doesn't emit light, but dust and gas falls onto the black holes 321 00:22:29,950 --> 00:22:35,250 and in doing so heats up, and it emits X-rays. 322 00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:40,600 New Star captures black holes in a process of feasting on matter, 323 00:22:40,900 --> 00:22:44,690 and the telescope is spotting it all over the place. 324 00:22:44,715 --> 00:22:47,450 - It's really only 10 or 20 years ago 325 00:22:47,500 --> 00:22:52,600 that we thought black holes were rare. We now know that every galaxy, like our Milky way, 326 00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:55,600 has a massive black hole at its heart. 327 00:22:56,600 --> 00:23:01,400 so rather than being just curiosities they're actually fundamentally important to 328 00:23:01,450 --> 00:23:03,800 why the universe is the way it is. 329 00:23:04,650 --> 00:23:07,950 So, is the Earth at risk of getting swallowed by a black hole? 330 00:23:08,500 --> 00:23:11,235 Even though we have black holes sprinkled throughout 331 00:23:11,260 --> 00:23:13,500 the galaxy, we're at absolutely no danger. 332 00:23:13,550 --> 00:23:16,175 It's a common misconception that black holes might 333 00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:18,850 suck the Earth. Well, there's no sucking going on, 334 00:23:18,900 --> 00:23:23,550 it's just normal gravity. It's just when you get very close to it 335 00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:26,555 that there's a region from which even light can't 336 00:23:26,580 --> 00:23:29,500 even escape, and the Earth is not gonna do that. 337 00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:33,913 But what if a spaceship had a close encounter? 338 00:23:33,938 --> 00:23:36,500 What if an astronaut dove in feet first? 339 00:23:36,650 --> 00:23:39,178 -In the simplest descriptions of this, the 340 00:23:39,203 --> 00:23:42,350 descriptions you'll find in most books that you read 341 00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:47,400 you're simply stretched from head to foot, and squeezed from the sides by tidal forces 342 00:23:47,450 --> 00:23:53,400 'spaghettified' as it's well often said, you're spaghettified if you fall in 343 00:23:53,450 --> 00:23:56,900 and you're destroyed. That's the standard story. 344 00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:03,622 The truth is, all the laws of physics that we 345 00:24:03,647 --> 00:24:06,200 know break down in the heart of the black hole. 346 00:24:07,900 --> 00:24:11,100 Physicists are still working on exactly what happens there. 347 00:24:13,150 --> 00:24:18,150 That's the gravity where there is no... When we talk to a physicist, 348 00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:21,900 we will often say 'it's the gravity' lie. -So you've been lying to us all these years. 349 00:24:22,500 --> 00:24:27,000 -You know how these things go: there are lies and there are 'lies'. - I know, but now... 350 00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:30,870 The movie Interstellar deals with physics that is well 351 00:24:30,895 --> 00:24:34,200 understood, well established, it deals with physics 352 00:24:34,250 --> 00:24:36,625 where we make educated guesses and we're almost 353 00:24:36,650 --> 00:24:38,700 sure but not a 100% sure of our guesses. 354 00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:41,893 And it deals with physics at the frontiers of 355 00:24:41,918 --> 00:24:44,900 human understanding where we have to speculate 356 00:24:45,700 --> 00:24:50,950 and when you get beyond those frontiers, Interstellar works hard to align itself with 357 00:24:51,500 --> 00:24:54,500 the best speculations our scientists can imagine. 358 00:24:54,550 --> 00:24:58,200 Interstellar mines that gray area where new ideas percolate 359 00:24:59,500 --> 00:25:03,800 and taps deep into questions about the nature of the universe. 360 00:25:17,500 --> 00:25:22,750 In Interstellar, telescopes on Earth first detect the presence of a wormhole 361 00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:28,000 it shows up as a gravitational anomaly that distorts the view of space. 362 00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:33,700 We made the wormholes have all that strong gravity. -But what then? 363 00:25:33,750 --> 00:25:35,985 Cuz then you have a reason for your... 364 00:25:36,010 --> 00:25:38,850 - I just, I feel uncomfortable with the wormhole 365 00:25:38,900 --> 00:25:40,000 having that much gravity. 366 00:25:40,100 --> 00:25:42,749 -When I first began working with Christopher Nolan, he 367 00:25:42,774 --> 00:25:45,350 wanted the wormhole to have a rather gentle gravity, 368 00:25:45,500 --> 00:25:48,425 so we discussed how big the wormhole should be and 369 00:25:48,450 --> 00:25:51,400 we agreed that it should be just barely big enough 370 00:25:51,450 --> 00:25:54,788 that it could be seen from Earth through the bending 371 00:25:54,813 --> 00:25:58,050 of light around the wormhole by it's warped space. 372 00:25:58,250 --> 00:26:02,650 -Kip Thorne worked out just the right gravity for Interstellar's wormhole. 373 00:26:02,700 --> 00:26:06,750 Using equations based on Einstein's theory of general relativity. 374 00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:09,355 -As we've learned, that theory states that 375 00:26:09,380 --> 00:26:12,200 objects warp space and time, creating gravity. 376 00:26:14,450 --> 00:26:16,769 It also predicts that when objects move they 377 00:26:16,794 --> 00:26:19,450 generate a pulse that propagates through spacetime 378 00:26:19,500 --> 00:26:21,100 a bit like waves through the water. 379 00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,745 These gravitational waves have never been directly 380 00:26:28,770 --> 00:26:32,200 observed. They would be small and hard to detect 381 00:26:32,250 --> 00:26:36,750 unless they were generated by a massively violent motion. 382 00:26:38,500 --> 00:26:41,500 Like the birth of the universe. 383 00:26:44,500 --> 00:26:49,400 Physicists developed their Big Bang theory in part by observing that today 384 00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:52,150 the universe is expanding. 385 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:58,000 Galaxies are moving away from each other like raisins in a rising loaf of bread 386 00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:04,500 which suggests that in the distant past, the universe must've been much smaller. 387 00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:08,850 -If you wind the movie backwards, in the past everything was closer together 388 00:27:08,900 --> 00:27:13,400 and you plug that idea into the equations that Einstein gives us. 389 00:27:14,650 --> 00:27:18,300 And there's a moment which we now know was about 14 billion years ago, 390 00:27:18,350 --> 00:27:20,550 when everything was on top of everything else, 391 00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:24,600 when the density of stuff in the universe was apparently infinitely big. 392 00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:32,000 Then a powerful force triggered an expansion of space itself. 393 00:27:32,050 --> 00:27:37,050 Faster than the speed of light, a theory called Cosmic Inflation. 394 00:27:37,100 --> 00:27:40,254 And the theory said that this Inflation should've 395 00:27:40,279 --> 00:27:42,950 taken fluctuation from the shape of space 396 00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:46,500 and amplify them, so they got much stronger. 397 00:27:48,100 --> 00:27:51,336 And they've become gravitational waves, producing 398 00:27:51,361 --> 00:27:54,100 ripple from the fabric of space and time. 399 00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:58,212 If we could detect those ripples today, it would 400 00:27:58,237 --> 00:28:00,900 help us understand how the Big Bang - banged. 401 00:28:00,950 --> 00:28:03,550 -The trick was always how were we going to measure such a thing. 402 00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:08,600 And that led us to propose and develop this very specialized experiment 403 00:28:08,650 --> 00:28:13,350 which one of my colleagues refered to gleefully as a wild goose chase. 404 00:28:14,500 --> 00:28:18,700 CalTech physicist Jamie Bock works in experimental cosmology. 405 00:28:18,750 --> 00:28:21,725 Experimental cosmology is building experiments, 406 00:28:21,750 --> 00:28:24,250 trying to get back to the dawn of time. 407 00:28:24,300 --> 00:28:27,263 -You need a hand with that? -The focus of his latest 408 00:28:27,288 --> 00:28:30,050 experiment was the oldest light in the universe. 409 00:28:30,100 --> 00:28:33,026 The faint afterglow of the Big Bang. 410 00:28:34,150 --> 00:28:39,550 Physicists have mapped this cosmic microwave bacground across the universe. 411 00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,132 If the birth of the universe produced gravitational 412 00:28:44,157 --> 00:28:47,000 waves, they would've warped this primordial light 413 00:28:47,050 --> 00:28:51,306 and cause it to be polarized or curled in a specific direction. 414 00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:54,001 -If one could measure the polarization and then 415 00:28:54,026 --> 00:28:56,200 not only measure, but look at its pattern, 416 00:28:56,250 --> 00:28:58,895 there might be kind of a swirly pattern that 417 00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:01,650 would be an indicator of gravitational waves. 418 00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:07,600 Jamie and his team designed a series of small super-sensitive telescopes 419 00:29:07,650 --> 00:29:13,350 that they installed where the skies are crystal clear. At the South Pole. 420 00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:19,000 The South Pole is the closest that we can get to outer space to make our measurements. 421 00:29:20,700 --> 00:29:23,325 For eight years the team's telescope scanned a 422 00:29:23,350 --> 00:29:26,000 patch in the sky, measuring minute differences 423 00:29:26,050 --> 00:29:30,950 in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background, and a pattern emerged. 424 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,858 -Our results reported that we see this swirly 425 00:29:34,883 --> 00:29:38,850 pattern of polarization that's consistent with 426 00:29:38,900 --> 00:29:41,650 what you expect from gravitational waves. 427 00:29:41,700 --> 00:29:45,609 So they didn't really see the gravitational waves from the early universe, 428 00:29:45,659 --> 00:29:49,409 they saw this polarization pattern that was precisely what was predicted, 429 00:29:49,459 --> 00:29:51,459 except they were stronger than expected. 430 00:29:52,451 --> 00:29:56,701 Ok, this is like, going on immediately after the Big Bang when the universe was a 431 00:29:56,751 --> 00:29:59,651 trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old. 432 00:29:59,701 --> 00:30:03,701 So it's seeing almost the creation of the universe. 433 00:30:04,500 --> 00:30:08,300 -The finding must be confirmed by other experiments. 434 00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:11,191 If it holds up, this will be the first evidence 435 00:30:11,216 --> 00:30:13,450 for detection of the gravitational waves 436 00:30:13,500 --> 00:30:16,000 predicted by Einstein. 437 00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:20,900 To contemplate the mysteries of space, time and the universe 438 00:30:20,950 --> 00:30:23,250 can make a person feel mighty small. 439 00:30:23,300 --> 00:30:29,000 Maybe it's best to lower our sights, hunger down and focus on planet Earth. 440 00:30:29,050 --> 00:30:33,550 But that's not really an option for you, namely in the long run. 441 00:30:35,450 --> 00:30:39,650 Interstellar depicts a future where living conditions on Earth are grim. 442 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:43,000 There's only one solution. 443 00:30:44,500 --> 00:30:46,998 -Now you need to tell me what your plan it is to 444 00:30:47,023 --> 00:30:49,700 save the world. -We're not meant to save the world, 445 00:30:49,750 --> 00:30:51,750 we're meant to leave it. 446 00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:13,000 This blue oasis is the only place we know that supports life. 447 00:31:20,500 --> 00:31:23,000 But that could change in a flash. 448 00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:29,400 February 15th, 2013 449 00:31:31,100 --> 00:31:35,600 A meteor shining brighter than the Sun shrieks across Siberia. 450 00:31:35,650 --> 00:31:40,500 It's a rock 65 feet in diameter, and when it explodes in mid-air 451 00:31:40,550 --> 00:31:46,550 it releases more than 20 times the energy of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. 452 00:31:51,500 --> 00:31:55,500 No one was killed, but more than a thousand people were injured. 453 00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:02,500 Asteroids have struck Earth before. Some 65 million years ago, 454 00:32:02,550 --> 00:32:07,300 a monster 6 miles wide may have wiped out half the species on Earth. 455 00:32:07,350 --> 00:32:13,350 Remember the dinosaurs? A similar impact, or worse, could happen anytime 456 00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:18,041 and turn our Blue Marble into a lifeless rock. In the 457 00:32:18,066 --> 00:32:22,300 meantime, perhaps a greater threat to the planet 458 00:32:22,350 --> 00:32:24,350 is us. 459 00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:31,000 And the bottom line? Earth can not sustain us forever. 460 00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:37,000 In a few billion years, our Sun will expand as it begins to die. 461 00:32:38,300 --> 00:32:40,800 And our planet will be toast. 462 00:32:44,150 --> 00:32:50,500 But there's good news. Unlike the dinosaurs, we can leave Earth. 463 00:32:51,150 --> 00:33:02,150 T minus 10, 9... Ignition sequence start! 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... Zero! 464 00:33:07,350 --> 00:33:10,752 Zero left. lift off of space shuttle Atlantis. 465 00:33:10,777 --> 00:33:14,350 -Today nearly 600 people have traveled to space. 466 00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:20,400 During the shuttle era, Marsha Ivins made the trip five times. 467 00:33:20,450 --> 00:33:26,100 -In order to record all of this, we have created this wiring nightmare here. 468 00:33:26,150 --> 00:33:31,150 -At Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex she checks in on an old friend. 469 00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:37,400 Looking at Atlantis hanging here, it's a surreal kind of experience to think... 470 00:33:37,450 --> 00:33:42,450 I flew that into outer space. It's still something that I have a hard time believing. 471 00:33:45,500 --> 00:33:53,250 And it makes me feel good that people still have a wonder and an amazement and a pure joy 472 00:33:53,300 --> 00:33:57,300 for the fact that we did fly this vehicle into space. 473 00:33:57,350 --> 00:34:01,850 -For Marsha, each mission was as breathtaking as her first. 474 00:34:02,500 --> 00:34:08,100 -I looked up overhead, and here was this black sky 475 00:34:08,150 --> 00:34:15,150 and this blue Earth. It all hits you at that point: "I am not on the planet anymore." 476 00:34:15,700 --> 00:34:19,700 And every astronaut who has flewn has come back and said the same thing. 477 00:34:19,750 --> 00:34:23,325 As you circle the Earth, you do not see natural 478 00:34:23,350 --> 00:34:27,250 borders and boundaries that separate the countries. 479 00:34:27,300 --> 00:34:31,950 And all of the wars, and the angst and the strife that tear this planet apart 480 00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:35,500 seem so insignificant from that view. 481 00:34:36,700 --> 00:34:44,200 -To me space travel, space exploration has always represented the ultimate frontier. 482 00:34:44,250 --> 00:34:48,900 It's of the absolute extremities of what human experience is, and it's all about 483 00:34:48,950 --> 00:34:52,200 trying to in some way define our place in the universe. 484 00:34:52,250 --> 00:34:57,400 -40 sec away from the Apollo 11 lift off. -I remember growing up as a kid 485 00:34:57,450 --> 00:35:00,900 and we were both fascinated by this impulse to fly. 486 00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:08,100 This impulse to build unimaginable machines and use them to blast off into.. into space. 487 00:35:08,750 --> 00:35:11,877 -Having fired the imagination of a generation, 488 00:35:11,902 --> 00:35:14,250 pulls into port for the last time. 489 00:35:14,300 --> 00:35:17,444 -The space shuttles were retired in 2011 after 490 00:35:17,469 --> 00:35:20,300 traveling more than a half billion miles. 491 00:35:23,500 --> 00:35:26,300 Space exploration demands enormous resources. 492 00:35:26,350 --> 00:35:30,850 The kind that government agencies like NASA can marshal. 493 00:35:30,900 --> 00:35:34,400 Recently, some new players entered the fray 494 00:35:34,450 --> 00:35:38,550 I really think we're at a dawn of a new space era, and it's one where 495 00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,000 commercial companies play a much stronger role. 496 00:35:41,050 --> 00:35:44,875 NASA's not out of the picture, they're very much in 497 00:35:44,900 --> 00:35:48,750 the picture, but it's not all a NASA design system. 498 00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:53,592 In 2002, Elon Musk started his own rocket company. 499 00:35:53,617 --> 00:35:57,300 A decade later, under contract of NASA 500 00:35:57,350 --> 00:36:00,669 SpaceX became the first private company in 501 00:36:00,694 --> 00:36:04,350 history to carry supplies to and from the ISS. 502 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:11,100 Now SpaceX is tackling an even greater challenge. 503 00:36:11,150 --> 00:36:16,150 -I started SpaceX with the idea of trying to revolutionize space transport. 504 00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:20,000 And critical to that is full and rapid reusability 505 00:36:20,025 --> 00:36:23,700 of the rocket. The big issue with rocketry today 506 00:36:23,750 --> 00:36:27,450 is that you get one use out of the rocket, and then it smashes down into the ocean 507 00:36:27,500 --> 00:36:32,500 or warms the plains of Siberia, and you can't use it again. 508 00:36:33,500 --> 00:36:36,325 If you can, in fact, land a rocket safely and 509 00:36:36,350 --> 00:36:39,200 then reuse it with a minimal amount of effort 510 00:36:39,500 --> 00:36:44,500 then you can dramatically reduce the cost of both for space transport. 511 00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:49,800 SpaceX is currently developing a fully and rapidly reusable launch system. 512 00:36:49,850 --> 00:36:53,200 And that will take Elon closer to a more ambitious goal: 513 00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:58,500 to help send crews to establish a colony on Mars. 514 00:36:59,500 --> 00:37:01,800 Not an issue for the faint-hearted. 515 00:37:01,850 --> 00:37:06,600 If anybody wants to go to Mars, their desire for adventure 516 00:37:06,700 --> 00:37:10,700 would have to overcome the desire for comfort and safety. 517 00:37:10,750 --> 00:37:15,350 -The colony on Mars could be the next giant leap for human kind. 518 00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:18,300 -It's such a fundamental idea when you think about it, 519 00:37:18,350 --> 00:37:22,250 it's just the decision that has to be made in terms of how you view the... 520 00:37:23,850 --> 00:37:26,850 the human race's place in the universe. We are to stay here on Earth, 521 00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:30,500 or we leave and we journey through the galaxy? 522 00:37:34,500 --> 00:37:38,500 -We'll find a way, we always have. 523 00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,995 To create the look and the space technology of 524 00:37:52,020 --> 00:37:55,200 Interstellar, Christopher Nolan took a clean design. 525 00:37:55,250 --> 00:37:59,750 -We didn't want to have anything that felt purely decorative. 526 00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:03,300 We wanted to approach it from a much, much more functional point of view, 527 00:38:03,350 --> 00:38:08,450 just be as convincing as possible, looking at NASA technology that already exists today 528 00:38:08,500 --> 00:38:11,500 and the ISS, these kind of things were our influences. 529 00:38:12,500 --> 00:38:16,000 -There's no telling how space technology will evolve in the years to come, 530 00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:23,000 we may be decades away or longer from establishing a colony on Mars. 531 00:38:23,750 --> 00:38:26,550 or a permanent habitat in orbit around the Earth. 532 00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:30,000 But people around the world are dreaming of that next step. 533 00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:37,700 At a recent space conference, NASA and the International Space Society 534 00:38:37,750 --> 00:38:41,750 hands out awards to dozens of forward-looking designs. 535 00:38:43,900 --> 00:38:47,900 So, a sustaining settlement for 20,000 people. 536 00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:52,850 A moon base that mines minerals from lunar soil. 537 00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,600 A fleet of robots that clean up space junk. 538 00:38:56,650 --> 00:38:59,050 -But of course this is really hard, because we're burning fuel... 539 00:38:59,100 --> 00:39:02,900 -There's not a single PhD among the prize-winning designers. 540 00:39:06,415 --> 00:39:10,115 These are middle and high school students from around the world. 541 00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:14,225 One of these kids may stand on Mars some day, 542 00:39:14,250 --> 00:39:17,300 or make a breakthrough in propulsion systems. 543 00:39:17,350 --> 00:39:20,350 Or start a revolution in astrophysics. 544 00:39:20,700 --> 00:39:25,700 To inspire their kind of enthusiasm is the hope of the Interstellar team. 545 00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:29,575 -I would love the kids to watch and get excited about 546 00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,000 the possibilities of space travel and exploration. 547 00:39:33,050 --> 00:39:37,700 -I would hope that this film introduces many people 548 00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:40,166 to science that might have not have gotten curious 549 00:39:40,191 --> 00:39:42,300 about this kind of science in any other way. 550 00:39:42,350 --> 00:39:46,850 -I think it would be really thrilling if people got some sense from this film, 551 00:39:46,950 --> 00:39:50,950 these ideas are worth thinking about. 552 00:39:51,700 --> 00:39:57,700 -The interplay between science and sci-fi springs from a deep-seeded creative drive. 553 00:40:00,500 --> 00:40:04,300 To make sense of the unknown... 554 00:40:10,300 --> 00:40:14,800 to engineer new worlds... 555 00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:22,400 to dream up a better future... we'll find answers where we always have. 556 00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:26,300 Just beyond the next horizon.