Cuts To NASA And A Fast-Track For Deep Sea Mining

Proposed budget cuts for NASA would jeopardize space research. And an executive order could change the political tides for deep sea mining.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:02Flora Lichtman?

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• 1:52Ira Flatow?

  This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flito. The Trump administration recently proposed a 24% budget cut for NASA. And if it passes, it will be the largest slash to the agency's budget in a single year ever. Their proposal also includes cutting NASA's science budget almost in half.

• 2:12Ira Flatow?

  And shifting the agency's priorities to sending people to the moon and Mars. So what's at stake here? Sophie Bushwick, senior news editor at New Scientist in New York, is here to break it down and tell us more about this week in science. Sophie, welcome back.

• 2:27Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:28Ira Flatow?

  Now, let's get right into this. What kinds of cuts does this budget include? What's on the chopping block here?

• 2:35Speaker 03

  So this budget would cut major NASA science programs. So for instance, the sending of robots to other planets, like the rovers on Mars, would be in trouble. There is a mission to bring rocks back from Mars. That would be in trouble. There was a proposed space station around the moon that would be at issue. And closer to Earth, the International Space Station would lose funds to send astronauts there and to have research done.

• 3:02Ira Flatow?

  These are like the jewels of the NASA space program, aren't they?

• 3:06Speaker 03

  Yes, and there's also the Nancy Grace Room and Space Telescope, which is sort of considered the next big telescope after the James Webb Space Telescope. And that one is almost complete. It's on track to be done soon, but this budget proposes removing any support to actually get it into space.

• 3:23Ira Flatow?

  So we've spent all this money to send rovers to Mars to collect samples that are waiting there, right? To be picked up?

• 3:30Speaker 03

  That's right. You can learn so much by bringing back rock samples from other bodies in space, you know, from samples from the moon or from an asteroid. And these Mars rocks could be really, really amazing sources of information for scientists here on Earth. And they're just kind of sitting around waiting for us to bring them back.

• 3:48Ira Flatow?

  So let's be clear. If this budget passes, it's going to fundamentally change NASA, right?

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Yes, this would be a major change in NASA's priorities. And like you said, the biggest single year cut to its budget. But I don't think we all need to be panicking quite yet because the budget, proposed budget, has to get through Congress. And in the past, presidents have proposed cutting NASA's budget and Congress has restored it. Because NASA is a really popular agency. A lot of Americans are interested in science and space exploration. And so it's still possible that these proposed cuts won't necessarily go through.

• 4:27Ira Flatow?

  So if these cuts do go through, where does the money go to?

• 4:31Speaker 03

  So right now, the focus is going to be shifting to getting humans to places in space, specifically to the moon and to Mars. That's where it seems like the Trump administration wants NASA to put its priorities.

• 4:44Ira Flatow?

  But it's canceling one of our major space programs to get to the moon, isn't it?

• 4:49Speaker 03

  Yes, it's canceling missions that are aimed at sending, you know, robots to the moon, for example, but the idea is that NASA should be focusing more on getting astronauts there.

• 5:03Ira Flatow?

  Hmm, and I wonder who might be taking those astronauts there?

• 5:07Speaker 03

  Well, Elon Musk has expressed that he's interested in sending humans to Mars, in, you know, having humans colonize space and starting there. And so it's possible that a mission to send humans to Mars would be using a SpaceX rocket. In fact, SpaceX is planning to send an uncrewed mission to Mars in 2026. And that would, if they got budgetary support from NASA, I'm sure they would be very pleased with that.

• 5:38Ira Flatow?

  All right, we'll have to keep our eyes on that, as you say, see what happens in Congress. Onto other news, according to a new study, if you live in a big city, you might be sinking.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  If you live in a big city, you're probably sinking, almost.

• 5:52Ira Flatow?

  You're probably sinking.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, researchers looked at almost every US city with a population of 600,000 or more, and they found 25 out of 28 are sinking by an average of a couple millimeters a year, and sometimes more.

• 6:10Ira Flatow?

  Wow, all the big cities you're talking about. Why are they sinking?

• 6:14Speaker 03

  So one thing that the researchers pinpointed was groundwater extraction. So when you pull water out of the ground, it doesn't just shift the makeup under the ground, it also shifts what's above it. And in cities where you've got these heavy buildings pressing down, this can create a measurable difference. And then there's also issues with things like, you know, after the last ice age, when the ice retreated and the glaciers pulled back, our Our land is still changing in response to that geologic event. So that's playing a role for cities like New York and Washington DC, which are near where, you know, used to have glacier cover. But the biggest changes seem to be happening in Texas.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  Houston is the fastest sinking city out of all of these. About 42% of its land is sinking by a rate of more than five millimeters a year, and some of it is even twice as fast as that. And one of the issues there is that in Texas, there's a lot of oil and gas extraction from under the ground. So just as groundwater extraction can cause changes, so can that.

• 7:23Ira Flatow?

  Well, they do big things in Texas. I guess they sink bigly there also.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes. Everything's bigger in Texas.

• 7:31Ira Flatow?

  Well, let's switch gears a little bit, Sophie, because scientists are looking, this I found just crazy. They're looking for hydrogen beneath mountains, right?

• 7:40Speaker 03

  That's right. Hydrogen would be an amazing energy source because, you know, it can burn as fuel without releasing greenhouse gas emissions. And rocks naturally create hydrogen, certain minerals when they interact with water do. But the problem is they're under the ground, and many of them are very, very deep. But now researchers are saying, "Look, when mountain ranges form, some rock from deep underneath is brought up closer to the surface where it can have this reaction with water and create hydrogen. So maybe under the mountains is where we should be looking for hydrogen."

• 8:14Ira Flatow?

  Is there enough hydrogen under there that makes it worthwhile to drill?

• 8:18Speaker 03

  We don't know yet. And the other thing is, you know, is there enough there that drilling wouldn't be so bad for the environment that it would be counterproductive? So if the whole point of hydrogen is being clean fuel, we don't want to have this drilling operation that would create enough pollution that it would no longer be clean.

• 8:38Ira Flatow?

  Speaking of atoms, physicists...

• 8:41Ira Flatow?

  Have just snapped the first photos of individual atoms? How do you, how do you do a close up of an atom?

• 8:48Speaker 03

  With great difficulty. So in previous times, they've imaged atoms, but these are the first free range atoms that they've captured. And the way they did it is they had a cloud of atoms kind of interacting with each other, allowed to move freely. And then they kind of froze it briefly by hitting it with lasers. And then they hit it with another laser to take the image of those frozen atoms before releasing them again. So that gave them the ability to capture these images.

• 9:18Ira Flatow?

  And what did they find out about the atoms? Or if anything, when they captured the images?

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Well, the different types of atoms behave differently depending on how they interact with each other. So for a kind of particle called a boson, where all of the different particles have the same quantum mechanical state, they saw them behaving as quantum theory predicts, behaving like a wave and bunching together. And so this is a great example of, you know, quantum theory being illustrated in a real experimental case.

• 9:51Ira Flatow?

  So there's not much practical stuff you can do with this, but it just verifies a theory.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. And it's also, it's just a great way to have experimental confirmation of things that are predicted by quantum theory. Yes.

• 10:05Ira Flatow?

  That's interesting. Sophie, let's move on to a new study that incorporates ancient Chinese poetry to study porpoises. You've got to, you've got to tell me about this.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  This is so cool. So the Yangtze finless porpoise is an endangered species that lives in the Yangtze River. And researchers really want to be able to track its historical distribution. But the problem is, you know, your historical records aren't necessarily talking about the porpoises there, but your poems are. Poems, you know, you can track, you can say the person who wrote this poem lived in this specific area along this specific part of the river. And does their poem mention the porpoises? It turns out more than 700 do. And about half of those poems mentioned where along the river the porpoises were. And that gave the researchers an idea of the porpoises' historical range, which over

• 11:01Speaker 03

  the past 1,400 years, it seems to have shrunk by 65%.

• 11:07Ira Flatow?

  Wow. Wow. Have they, have scientists used poetry like, like this before?

• 11:12Speaker 03

  In, in some cases, yes. You know, poetry can preserve a lot of information about an ancient culture, about the animals that were living in, say, ancient Greece. You know, you can learn about that from reading an ancient epic poem. So this is not the first scientific use of poetry.

• 11:27Ira Flatow?

  Looking at some of those Grecian urns also.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Yes, absolutely.

• 11:32Ira Flatow?

  Before we go, I hear you've got a musical quiz for me. What's up with this?

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I want you to try to identify the musical instrument that is playing this song.

• 11:56Ira Flatow?

  Whoa. Sounds like an ear, hearing test.

• 12:02Ira Flatow?

  No. What's playing that song? I, I give up.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  That song is being played on the bodies of cicadas.

• 12:12Ira Flatow?

  You mean the cic, they're getting, they're teaching the cicadas how to play that song?

• 12:18Speaker 03

  No, researchers have transformed cicadas into cyborgs and they're playing them the way you would play a musical instrument. They basically found a way to control the organs that cicadas use to make noise called timbals. And they, they, you know, you've probably heard them during the summer making a racket outside.

• 12:38Ira Flatow?

  Right.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  Apparently the frequency or the pitch of the sound that the cicada is making, it can be tuned by the frequency with which it's flexing this organ called the timble. And researchers basically plugged electrodes into cicadas and controlled the timbals and used them to play music.

• 12:56Ira Flatow?

  Are we looking for the first cicada insect band here, you think?

• 13:01Speaker 03

  This might be, but I think the researchers have suggested that, you know, you could use these cyborg loudspeakers to send warning messages during an emergency. But I think the researchers were just listening to some cicadas and thought, huh, I'd like to do that.

• 13:16Ira Flatow?

  I think you're right. I'm going to go with that, Sophie.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, in the past, there's been research to, you know, remote control cockroaches. You can also, you know, turn those into these living cyborgs. So that was also an influence on this research.

• 13:31Ira Flatow?

  I see the movie. I can see the movie now, Sophie. Thank you for joining us with all this great stuff you bring all the time.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  My pleasure. I'm always happy to play some cyborg music for you.

• 13:41Ira Flatow?

  Sophie Bushwick, senior news editor at New Scientist in New York.

• 13:49Ira Flatow?

  Coming up after the break, the Trump administration is pushing for deep sea mining. An ocean geologist tells us what's at stake.

• 13:56Speaker 04

  If they're going to ravage the bottom of the sea in this area of the Tlare and Cliperton zone, we are talking about an area equivalent to the size of Mongolia.

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• 16:32Ira Flatow?

  President Trump recently signed an executive order to fast-track deep-sea mining. That would mean companies could dredge the seafloor to collect the nodules of cobalt, copper, rare earth elements, and other minerals down there, which can be used to make things like electronics, solar panels, and wind turbines. After the executive order dropped, a Canadian mining firm called The Metals Company submitted the very first application to mine in international waters, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, is now considering. This move has sparked a backlash from scientists and environmental groups and raised geopolitical concerns. Here to explain is Dr. Sandar Mulsow,

• 17:17Ira Flatow?

  marine geologist at the Australian University of Chile. Welcome to Science Friday.

• 17:22Speaker 04

  Thank you very much, Ira, and good evening or good morning, I don't know what time this will be on the air, to all the people who are listening to Science Friday.

• 17:30Ira Flatow?

  Tell me, tell me why there's such pushback against this? What is the danger about collecting these nodules in the deep sea?

• 17:37Speaker 04

  The major danger, first of all, is they're not renewable. So once you take them out, that's it. Because every single nodule, it grows very slowly, a few millimeter per million years. So right now, the size of the nodules that we collect, in average, they have maybe 10 to 20 million years old. So if you collect them, they are gone. Right now, if you collect a few centimeters, let's say 10 centimeters of the seafloor with the nodules, you are collecting sediments as old as 10,000 years old. Because sedimentation rates in that part of the world, after five kilometers of water depth, is very slow. It's one centimeter every thousand years. So when you remove sediments as old as 10,000 to 20,000 years,

• 18:21Speaker 04

  you are going to put on the surface of the water, in the water column, all the CO2 who has been stored for 10,000 to 20,000 years old. So that's the major impact. The size of a mine on the deep sea to make some kind of profit, it has to be at least 3,000 square kilometers of dredging. And if we do a comparison with land miners, which are not clean neither, the biggest open copper pit mine is in Chile, which is Chucica Mata, where I'm coming from. But that mine is only 15 square kilometers, 200 smaller. And you can see this hole from satellites. Can you imagine what will happen on the deep sea? And that is one miner.

• 19:05Speaker 04

  So if they're going to ravage the bottom of the sea, in this area of the Clarion Cliperton Zone, we are talking about an area equivalent to the size of Mongolia. So what are we solving? We are not solving anything. The only thing that we are solving is to may rich a few people, like the metal company.

• 19:23Ira Flatow?

  Who is supposed to be in charge of deep sea mining regulations?

• 19:27Speaker 04

  It should be in charge the International Seabed Authority. This is an independent organization where 169 member states are represented there. And they are supposed to govern and deal with the licenses for exploration and exploitation in the international waters.

• 19:46Speaker 04

  Since they are not a UN body, they are not bound to respond to the Secretary General in New York, Guterres. They have their own Secretary General. So they are like an independent, they're like, it's a very murky water. So unfortunately, the United States, they never ratify this UN clause, so they can do whatever they want in international waters, and they have their own agency to provide and govern this mining international waters, as you just mentioned, it was NOAA. Right now, we are in a conundrum, because we are eroding the floor of the International Civil Authority and the international law in general with this unilateral decision of the United States.

• 20:30Ira Flatow?

  So why would a Canadian company ask NOAA's permission to drill in international waters, then?

• 20:36Speaker 04

  Because the Canadians, they saw the loophole, you know, if they do through the Americans, and you have a president right now, who seems to be going with their own will, and the Americans, they sign the Convention of the Law of the Sea, but they not ratify. What does the difference between these two things? If you sign and you don't ratify, that's mean that the executive power can take any decision on whatever it's sign. But if they ratify the Convention of the Law of the Sea, it's a different day, it's a different signature, you need to ask your Congress for any activity that you want to do in that particular area that is governed by this international organization. So unfortunately, for the whole international community, we have nothing we can do.

• 21:21Ira Flatow?

  Is there great pushback amongst your scientific colleagues?

• 21:25Speaker 04

  Of course, most of the scientists that we know, I had, and they said, you know, this is nonsense, we cannot go do deep sea mining. We don't even know the bathymetry of the place, how the seafloor looks like.

• 21:38Ira Flatow?

  Yeah. I want to talk about climate change for a minute, because as you've hinted, one of the reasons behind deep sea mining is we need materials for solar panels and wind turbines and EVs to take some pressure off the planet's surface. That's what they're, that's what they're saying we need to do, that's why we need to mine these nodules. What's your response to that?

• 22:01Speaker 04

  It's very simple, there is no need. The reason is because when you look at the grade of the element that you, they are so-called strategic and critical. The only one on the manganese nodules, which is more or less equivalent in quantity for the old Clariant Clifton zone compared to land, is nickel. All the other ones are below whatever we have on land. We need to scrap huge amount of the ocean, not only the Clariant Clifton zone, to reach those level. But copper, iron and manganese, they are very high in grade compared to land. They are not rare earth. The rare earth mineral, we need them more because we need the magnets, to build the magnets.

• 22:44Speaker 04

  Without magnets, there is no turban, there is no anything, no electric car. But one thing that we never pay attention is, when you do mine, one thing is to take the mineral from the rock, because you need the element. This little pass from the rock to the element is called metallurgy. And the metallurgy, it produces huge amount of CO2. So what are we solving? Nothing. To get one kilo of pure copper, right? Which is simple. Many countries are producing copper worldwide. You generate between eight and 12 kilos of CO2. This is gas. Just imagine the volume. And for one kilo,

• 23:28Speaker 04

  one kilo of one of these rare earth metals, we are talking about 15 to 20 kilograms of CO2. One of the question is, why is China kind of looking like they control rare earth mineral? Because nobody in the world wanted to do the metallurgy. It was so contaminated processes. So everybody send the material to China, and you China, you kill your people and just give us the rare earth mineral. Right now, the Chinese, they can do their own technology, right? So they don't need to sell you the rare earth mineral back. That's when the Americans, the rest of the world realized, wow, we need to do the dirty job in our backyard now. You see, so the narrative is more complex.

• 24:13Ira Flatow?

  Yeah, yeah, that's why it's called rare earth, right? Not that the element's rare, it's tough to get it out of the ore, right?

• 24:23Speaker 04

  Exactly, they are tiny little elements in a huge formula of one mineral.

• 24:29Ira Flatow?

  Let's talk about the current state of the sea mining. How many contracts has the International Seabed Authority granted? And what countries are really pushing for it?

• 24:39Speaker 04

  Well, there are 19 countries, right? And there are 31 contract licenses for exploration, and they are everywhere. North, South Atlantic, North Pacific, Indian Ocean. And the one who is really pushing behind are entrepreneurs.

• 24:57Ira Flatow?

  Is this for exploitation or exploration?

• 25:00Speaker 04

  All of them are exploration.

• 25:02Ira Flatow?

  Right, but the metals company that we talked about is for exploitation. They want to go down.

• 25:08Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 25:10Ira Flatow?

  With all of this said, or we're talking about this, why would a country or a company wait for the ISA to green light a mining permit if the US could be willing to do it for you?

• 25:20Speaker 04

  Because nobody thought that anyone would go through Americans.

• 25:26Speaker 04

  As simple as that. So they all went through the common sense and consensus to do a very, any process of exploitation of the deep sea in international waters should follow international law. But with the president you have, he can step on the international law and he's doing it, you know, since day one. So there is no miracle in that. But here, we have a real loophole because the NOAA can really issue licenses for mining in international water. Let's say, what if there are 169 countries saying, no, no, we're not going to do. Well, we're going to be in a confrontation because the American will go to do the work

• 26:09Speaker 04

  in the Claret and Clifton zone. What the other country has to do? Send warships to the place. They're not going to.

• 26:16Ira Flatow?

  Do you think other countries are going to follow suit and take advantage of this loophole?

• 26:20Speaker 04

  They're all looking around, you know, they're all looking what's going to happen now in July, August, which is the annual meeting of the International Superior Authority. I hope that I will be there because this is going to be historical. It will be laid out the future of international law. As simple as that.

• 26:38Ira Flatow?

  Right. Sander, it seems like issues with deep sea mining have really stalled for years as countries wait for the rules to set. But you're saying the Trump administration bypassing those rules?

• 26:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:52Ira Flatow?

  Right?

• 26:52Speaker 04

  Doesn't need any rules.

• 26:54Ira Flatow?

  And your greatest concern is that everyone else will take advantage?

• 26:57Speaker 04

  Exactly. Yeah. You're listening to the people who follow you that you think not only in today's and in how we are going to do the next 10 days or 10 years, but just think, just think in the future generation, what war are we going to leave to our kids? The last boundary, there are nine boundaries who makes our planet the planet we have and to keep the life that we know. And we are, we are screwing up already with six of them. The number seven is called ocean acidification. And with this thing, it will be exacerbated. Remember that I mentioned before, we will release CO2 sequestered for thousands of years back to the water again.

• 27:37Ira Flatow?

  Right. Carbonic acid, you're going to acidify.

• 27:40Speaker 04

  That's right. Can you imagine two or three generations ahead?

• 27:44Ira Flatow?

  Sander, when, when money is involved, who cares?

• 27:47Speaker 04

  You care and I, and I care. I think there are many people who cares and we should care.

• 27:51Ira Flatow?

  We should care, and that's why we're talking about it. And that's why I'm so happy you've come on to talk about it, Dr. Mulsul. So, thank you for your work you're doing and for taking the time to talk with us.

• 28:01Speaker 04

  Thank you very much, Ira.

• 28:03Ira Flatow?

  Dr. Sander Mulsul is a marine geologist at the Australian University of Chile.

• 28:12Ira Flatow?

  And heads up, that Monday, we've got something special on the feed. A brand new audio documentary series Flora has worked on with the Hypothesis Fund called The Leap. In the first episode, Flora talks to Nobel Prize winner Kati Kerikow about going all in on mRNA when the field was convinced it was a dead end.

• 28:35Speaker 07

  I have to say that when I mentioned to somebody that I make mRNA and I've worked with it, they usually felt sorry if they were sympathetic or if they're less sympathetic, they thought that I am crazy.

• 28:49Ira Flatow?

  That's Monday on the podcast.

• 28:55Ira Flatow?

  That's about all the time we have for now. A lot of people helped make this show happen.

• 29:00Speaker 08

  Shoshana Buxbaum. Beth Ramey. Danielle Johnson. Jackie Hirschfeld.

• 29:06Ira Flatow?

  I'm Ira Flatow. Thanks for listening.