ANDY WEIR: Well,
we're here celebrating
the 50th anniversary of humanity
setting foot on the moon.
But also it's been 47 years
since humanity last set foot
on the moon, and so it
seems like we haven't really
done much since.
But what has happened since
is tremendous advances
in technology that are inspiring
a private commercial space
industry, and I honestly
think that's the way forward.
We're at the cusp--
we're very, very
close to a space boom.
Hi.
I'm Andy Weir, author
of "The Martian," which
features a man who
gets stranded on Mars,
and also the author
of "Artemis,"
which features a
smart-alecky criminal
in the first city on the moon.
I think within 10 to
20 years, the price
of getting mass
into low Earth orbit
is going to be driven
down the low enough
that it will start to become
possible for middle class
people to afford
a space vacation.
And when that
happens, it's going
to become a trillion
dollar industry.
So I think this is actually
a pretty exciting time.
We're at the very beginning.
It's kind of like if you
were looking at the airline
manufacturers-- the very first
ones to come up in the 1930s--
and go like, hm,
this is interesting.
I wonder where this
is going to go.
The moon has just been
humanity's companion
since before we even understood
that the world was round.
And it's universal
to all cultures.
There's nobody who
can't see the moon.
So everybody's got their
own stories about it.
It has this mystical
quality to it.
So we have, deep
down, all the way
in our lizard brains, a
strong desire to just fan out
and colonise everything we
can get our grubby paws on.
And we can't help but
look up at the moon
and kind of want to
colonise that as well.
So I think we just want to
at some core level be there.
The thing about the moon is
it's almost like cheating.
The moon is so
conveniently placed.
It is in orbit around
Earth, so it's always
this fairly constant
distance from us.
We don't have to
do any special work
with super duper
complicated launch
windows like going to Mars.
Not only that,
but it's basically
made out of aluminium and
oxygen, which gives you
the metal to build
your Moon City
and then the air to fill it.
Within my book, "Artemis,"
there is an established city--
a small city of
about 2,000 people--
permanent residents-- that can
service about 2,000 tourists.
Every city on earth, no matter
which one it is, at some point,
it exists because it had
a financial reason to.
People don't uproot their lives
and their entire situation
and move to a new place
just for the heck of it.
They need a financial
reason to do it.
They need to have a job.
And so in order for
a city to exist,
there has to be a financial
reason for it to exist.
And I said, what is
the financial reason?
Mining?
Well, you could send
robots to do your mining.
Research?
Well, that's not enough
to support an entire city.
And so, finally,
I decided tourism.
The answer is tourism.
And so the conceit
in the book is
that the price to
low Earth orbit,
the price of
commercial spacecraft,
has been driven down by
competition far enough
that middle class people
can afford to go into space.
I definitely believe the
Apollo 11 landing site
will be a historical
site of significance
on the moon-- probably one
of the most important ones
until the moon starts
developing its own historically
important moments within the
culture that develops there.
To know the exact location
where a human first touched
an entire celestial object--
that's pretty neat, and I've
got to assume that people
will flock to go look at it.
I sure would.
If I was going to go to the
moon as a tourist, that would be
the first place I'd want to go.
I don't think that "Artemis"
is a depressing view
of the future at all.
In fact, it's a firm
economic foundation
of a city with growth potential.
I think there's nothing
wrong with a resort town.
It's all about economic systems.
Most people think
"Artemis" is just,
like-- what did I base it on?
Like, oh, stories of
cities out in space,
or great adventure novels,
or things like that.
Really, one of my greatest
influences for "Artemis"
was the movie "Chinatown."
"Chinatown" is, really, at
its core, an economic movie.
It's the story of the
ugly, nasty machinations
that have to happen in
order for a city to grow.
If I wrote a book--
if there was no
such thing as a moon
and I wrote a book about
some weird alien species
and they all evolved on a planet
that had a moon and their moon
with as convenient
as our moon-- if this
was all fiction I wrote,
people would just say,
this is not entertaining.
This is just not realistic.
The world you've
created for these people
is making it too easy.
The moon is just right
there, full of resources,
in a low gravity
well, which means
it's our gateway to the
rest of the solar system,
and it's just sitting
there waiting for us to go.
Neil Armstrong: Houston,
Tranquillity Base here.
The eagle has landed.
Charles Duke:
Roger, Tranquillity.
We copy you on the ground.
We've got a bunch of
guys about to turn blue.
We're breathing again.
