We Are Losing the Moon

Summary

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Are We Doomed? – "We Are Losing the Moon" (NPR Network, July 21, 2026)

Main Theme

Episode Overview:
Host Ben Bradford embarks on a quirky, high-stakes exploration of the moon's vital role in Earth's history, its scientific mysteries, and the wild idea of whether humanity should blow it up—or worry more about "losing" it. The episode blends cosmic history, physics, pop culture, and current geopolitics to sort out real existential risks from science fiction and myth, pondering:

• What has the Moon actually done for us?
• What happens as it drifts away?
• Should humanity intervene or even destroy the Moon?
• What's the real danger: the Moon leaving, or humans fighting over it now?

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Moon's Origin and its Crucial Role in Earth's Development

• Cosmic Birth: The Moon was born from a massive collision between early Earth and a Mars-sized planet, resulting in debris that coalesced into our Moon.
  • [02:05] Jim Green (former Chief Scientist, NASA): “The material that was left over from that impact created the moon.”
• Early Effects:
  • Early Earth days lasted only ~5 hours ([03:24])
  • The Moon's gravitational pull slowed Earth's spin, creating longer, more stable days and facilitating conditions for life.
• Tidal Mixing:
  • Early, extreme tides—thanks to a closer, larger-looking Moon—mixed nutrients, possibly spurring the first life in marshes and estuaries ([04:52] Jim Green).
• Magnetic Protection:
  • For nearly a billion years, the Moon's own magnetosphere combined with Earth's to shield against the early Sun’s intense radiation, possibly preserving our atmosphere ([06:21]).

2. Are We Actually "Losing" the Moon?

• Physical Drift:
  • Since the Apollo missions, laser measurements have shown the Moon is moving away at 1.5 inches per year ([09:02]).
  • Long-Term Fate: The Moon will remain with Earth for billions of years, eventually sharing our fate as the Sun expands ([09:22]).
• Consequences of Drift:
  • As the Moon recedes, Earth's rotation slows: days lengthen by one hour every 500 million years.
  • This could have climate consequences, but changes are glacially slow ([10:21] Jim Green).

3. Should We Destroy the Moon? (Or Seriously Consider It?)

• Pop Culture & Myth:
  • Human stories frequently imagine celestial violence, from Filipino folklore dragons (<13:00) to Norse Ragnarok and sci-fi like Space: 1999 ([14:47]).
  • Real Cold War proposals (like Project A119) involved detonation of nuclear bombs on the Moon, but not actual destruction ([15:36]).
• Alexander Abian’s Proposal:
  • Abian, a mathematician, argued the Moon’s influence causes dangerous weather, and advocated for “blow it up”—repeatedly, zealously, if half-joking ([19:39]).
  • [19:39] Alexander Abian: “Blow it up. Totally, totally, totally, completely. Amen.”
• Science Responds:
  • Jim Green: Removing the Moon would drastically harm ecosystems (marine food webs rely on lunar tides), destabilize Earth's axis—leading to catastrophic climate swings—and, if physically “blown up,” bombard Earth with deadly debris ([24:37]).

4. The Real Contemporary Risk: Geopolitics, Not Physics

• “Losing the Moon” in the Modern Sense:
  • The new space race (U.S., China, India) involves not science fiction, but potentially contentious claims over lunar resources ([28:44]).
  • Ownership is murky; international law says no one can own the Moon, but flags, missions, and rhetoric (“America will never give up the Moon again”) inflame nationalist sentiments ([32:12]).
  • The prospect of accidental or deliberate conflict looms as multiple countries target similar lunar landing sites or engage in resource extraction ([34:02] Victoria Sampson).
• Worst-Case Scenario:
  • Accidental deaths, disruptive moon dust, or unintentional interference could spiral into earthly conflict ([34:30]).
• Historical Solutions:
  • The 1967 Outer Space Treaty bans ownership and military uses, but communication between rivals is currently limited—raising red flags for experts ([36:11]).

5. Philosophical and Existential Punchlines

• The Moon’s gradual departure is inevitable, but humanity has far more to fear from itself than from any real cosmic risk posed by our satellite.
• The episode calls for maturity, adaptability, and international cooperation—reminding listeners not to "blow up the Moon," literally or metaphorically.

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Existential Mood:
  • [00:27] Ben Bradford: “We are losing the moon.”
  • [00:35] Chris Kikinos (science writer/poet): “Yeah, it’s physically accurate and emotionally startling and existentially not a problem.”
• Proper Blame:
  • [20:38] Ben Bradford (on Alexander Abian’s weather thesis): “I sought out the most knowledgeable, prestigious voice I could find… I found Jim Green, former chief scientist of NASA.”
  • [22:04] Jim Green (on killing the tides): “That would really be a big problem.”
• On Blowing Up the Moon:
  • [24:37] Jim Green: “That’s the problem. We are a big gravity well for which that stuff will just start coming right at us.”
  • [24:53] Ben Bradford: “So we probably wouldn’t have to worry about the bad weather that would come after it. We wouldn’t be here to experience it. All of which is to say, don’t blow up the moon. Of course, don’t blow up the moon.”
• Doom Meter:
  • [25:47] Ben Bradford (on risk): “The risk to humanity if we blow up the moon: A hippo drenched in the blood of its enemies. Doom. That’s doom. Can’t believe anyone would even suggest such a thing... The risk if we keep the moon drifting slowly away... Almost not a problem at all.”
• Modern Tensions:
  • [29:45] Victoria Sampson (Secure World Foundation, on space conflict): “You could have some sort of tripwire happening in space that could bring conflict right back down to Earth.”
  • [31:44] Victoria Sampson: “My sand, we have not been able to come to agreement in terms of coordination.”
• Cooperation Needed:
  • [36:53] Victoria Sampson: “You know, it’s funny how things repeat themselves. I think it truly is circular right now.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Moon’s Origins & Importance: 01:56 – 06:48
• How We Know the Moon’s Leaving: 07:32 – 09:22
• Potential Consequences of Losing the Moon: 09:52 – 11:29
• Should We Destroy the Moon? Pop Culture & Real Proposals: 12:23 – 19:39
• Alexander Abian’s Campaign & Its Scientific Rebuttal: 19:39 – 24:53
• Modern Geopolitical “Moon Race” Explained: 26:18 – 36:53

Takeaways

• The Moon is inescapably slipping away, but the physical risk to humans is minuscule compared to the risk we pose to ourselves—through conflict, not cosmic misfortune.
• Destroying, removing, or even significantly altering the Moon would devastate Earth's systems and life, and is both unfeasible and unwise.
• The only real "doom" on the horizon comes from geopolitics: competition over lunar resources and prestige could escalate without international cooperation and updated agreements.
• The mature, wise response is to adapt and cooperate, not to cling or lash out.

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Episode in One Sentence:
Don’t blow up the Moon—learn from it, protect it (and us) from ourselves, and prepare for a future where sharing our nearest neighbor is a test of grown-up planetary politics.

Transcript

[Angie]

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[Ben Bradford]

a n g I.com we are losing the Moon.

[Jim Green]

The moon is indeed drifting away.

[Ben Bradford]

We are losing the moon.

[Jim Green]

It's like watching a ballerina spin on the ice.

[Ben Bradford]

We are losing the moon.

[Chris Kikinos]

Yeah, it's physically accurate and emotionally startling and existentially not a problem.

[Ben Bradford]

From Nuanced Tales distributed by the NPR network, this is Are we doomed? I'm Ben Bradford. The moon does a lot for us. Tides, myths, months, werewolves. The moon plays a key role. But has it served its purpose? We are losing the moon. Should we let it drift off into the distance, say goodbye? Or must a great goal of humanity long term become to reign it back in toward us? Or should we hasten it on its way? Should we destroy the moon?

[Alexander Abian]

Destroy it?

[Ben Bradford]

Who would want that?

[Alexander Abian]

Maybe you.

[Ben Bradford]

This episode we going to consider what this great rock circling us has done, still does and will do in the future for us or against us. And what to do about losing the moon. The Earth was molten like hot glass. Just a huge fiery orb slung through space. And it was alone four and a half billion years ago. But then a chance encounter.

[Jim Green]

We think what happened is the proto Earth was hit by another body, another

[Ben Bradford]

early planet, another ball of molten glass

[Jim Green]

which was about the size of Mars.

[Ben Bradford]

This is Jim Green, former chief scientist of NASA. And yeah, I called the former chief scientist of NASA to discuss blowing up the moon. The two bodies, these two balls of glass met violently like a paintball hitting a paintball. They congeal and splatter paint discusing from both. But then something weird. The paint stops flying, starts to retract. Broken bits of planet that had exploded outward, reversed course, flew back in. It was gravity from the center of the two planets catching the smaller debris until all of it continues condensed into one giant rock. Earth, except a few bits dabs of molten glass of planet had reached just far enough to escape our massive gravity well. It spun into its own ball.

[Jim Green]

The material that was left over from that impact created the moon.

[Ben Bradford]

And Jim says we are super lucky

[Chris Kikinos]

it did

[Ben Bradford]

do we need the moon? Here's what it's done for our planet and for us so far. Jim says A post collision Earth spun dizzyingly fast.

[Jim Green]

The Earth was spinning at about five hours a day. That would be one day, five hours

[Ben Bradford]

Left unchecked, that rotation would hardly slow at all.

[Jim Green]

The current estimate is today our day would be about maybe eight hours a day.

[Ben Bradford]

But the Moon loomed close, much closer. We're losing the moon. It was 10 times larger in the night sky and a hot, glowing red. It tugged on us hard with its gravity, pulled against the spin, slowed us.

[Jim Green]

And so if the collision had completely eliminated the Moon, that's gonna be hard

[Ben Bradford]

to get good rest.

[Jim Green]

Well, yeah, let alone circadian rhythms. But the life on this planet would be very different.

[Ben Bradford]

Or there might not be life. Do we need the Moon?

[Alexander Abian]

Should we blow it up?

[Ben Bradford]

Half a billion years or so later, Earth had faded to dull gray and brown, cooled, and it sizzled. Vapor released. It turned to water, which turned to rain, which turned to ocean. The Moon, still close, tugged on the new water hard.

[Jim Green]

The tides were much higher.

[Ben Bradford]

Huge waves battered a violent world. You wouldn't want to be a sailor, but Jim says the Moon was helping, mixing our ocean, stirring the first small forms of life.

[Jim Green]

What are the tides doing? Well, they really help circulate nutrients in the ocean.

[Ben Bradford]

Microbes from near hydrothermal vents in the

[Jim Green]

deep ocean spread out, bringing those nutrients into micro marshes or estuaries. And these are just perfect places where life has sprung up all over the place.

[Ben Bradford]

Do we need the Moon?

[Alexander Abian]

Get rid of it?

[Ben Bradford]

We certainly did go back one last time to those early days, that violent Earth with huge waves and molten heat. The entire solar system was pretty darn angry.

[Jim Green]

We had it really rough, the early sun. Magnetically, it was sunspots everywhere, huge coronal mass ejections.

[Ben Bradford]

The sun blasted out radiation. We're going to talk about this in an episode about solar storms. They're scary and used to be worse.

[Jim Green]

We have to be able to survive that.

[Ben Bradford]

Some planets couldn't take it.

[Jim Green]

It has hammered Mars, stripped its atmosphere literally away.

[Ben Bradford]

Earth protects itself with a magnetic field, the magnetosphere. It deflects solar weather. But Jim says it's not clear. Even that would have been strong enough against the worst blasts alone. Enter the Moon, close circling us.

[Jim Green]

Early Moon is orbiting the Earth in about 15 to 20 hours.

[Ben Bradford]

All right, that's fast, you know, now it takes almost a month.

[Jim Green]

And so it's bringing its magnetosphere and it's helping buffer the solar wind.

[Ben Bradford]

The Moon put its own magnetic field in front of ours, and the motion of it circling melded it with ours. Two against one, they pushed away the Sun's worst violence until eventually, after 800 million years or so of this, the Moon's magnetosphere finally succumbed, Sacrificed for us

[Jim Green]

I mean, that really helped us.

[Ben Bradford]

All of which means the cosmic accident that led a small bit of molten planet to make it outside ours was a hinge point for our entire existence, leading to the tides, our cycle of days and nights, maybe even the atmosphere itself sticking around without the sun blowing it away. So why, oh why would we ever destroy the moon?

[Alexander Abian]

Destroy?

[Ben Bradford]

Jim says there is a real side effect that goes with losing the moon.

[Jim Green]

The problem is not so much losing the moon as slowing down the Earth.

[Ben Bradford]

Gritty rock felt the first crunch of silicone US boot sole 57 years ago. The first astronauts so far to step on our lunar friend's face. They intoned the first weighty, if somewhat nonsensical lunar words. That's one small step for man.

[Jim Green]

One,

[Ben Bradford]

he tried to say, one small step for a man. Then they lugged down a black and white box with an evil looking needle sticking out of it. Jim Green says it's a measuring tool. The needle is a sensor.

[Jim Green]

Allows us to launch a laser beam, hit that, and then receive the return signal and then time that we know how fast light moves. Therefore we can calculate a distance.

[Ben Bradford]

The outgoing laser needed to be strong. So back home NASA installed a weapons grade crystal. Airports diverted flights to ensure no planes would get hit by it. Observatories created protocols to prevent anyone looking at the wrong time and burning a hole in their eye. So it's probably good the box worked. We got the distance. The moon resides about a quarter million miles away. For whatever reason, we kept measuring and observatories over time noticed something strange. The distance was growing. It wasn't the giant laser being faulty. It was the Moon.

[Jim Green]

The moon is moving away from the Earth about an inch and a half a year.

[Ben Bradford]

I don't know if that sounds like a lot or a little. Over time it adds up, drifting 10 times the distance from at its birth. What will it mean? Jim says it's slow enough that we will not lose the moon entirely. Ever.

[Jim Green]

The moon will be with us for billions of years and many other things will happen in between.

[Ben Bradford]

Namely, the sun will expand until it gobbles up Earth itself along with the Moon. Our two rocks start together and will end together unless we blow up the moon.

[Alexander Abian]

Blow it up.

[Ben Bradford]

When I first read we were losing the Moon, I thought it was pretty funny as an episode concept and going to be a total lark. But the former chief scientist of NASA says there is this one complication.

[Jim Green]

So our time for day and night changes. Okay.

[Ben Bradford]

As the moon gets further away, the Earth rotates more slowly.

[Jim Green]

One day becomes a little longer.

[Ben Bradford]

It takes a long time at an inch and a half a year. In 500 million years, our days will add one more hour, great for productivity or sleep. But the problem is even before that, the day changing, even minutely, can create big atmospheric effects.

[Jim Green]

Temperature variations are different, the climates are different.

[Ben Bradford]

Jim says we are not suited for the world that will be.

[Jim Green]

If you were to transport humans today into the future and the days were much longer, we might not easily survive.

[Ben Bradford]

But here's the the days are not growing longer because we are losing the moon. It's because it's still here.

[Jim Green]

Between the two of us. We've got this energy stored.

[Ben Bradford]

That energy is the moon yanking on

[Jim Green]

us still after all this time, pushing the ocean around.

[Ben Bradford]

The reason we're losing the moon is because it keeps pulling on the ocean, creating these tides. It's losing energy as it does so, drifting away. But also, that tug is still slowing our planet, making the days longer towards a future our bodies aren't built for. So we did used to need the moon. Do we need it still? Has it served its purpose to save ourselves? Do we by chance need to get rid of the moon?

[Alexander Abian]

Yes.

[Alexander Abian (voice or repeated lines)]

Blow it up.

[Ben Bradford]

Let's find out.

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[Ben Bradford]

I'm not saying I want to, would never suggest it. But for the sake of argument, people have fantasized about its destruction since our earliest days. In Filipino folklore, the menace is dragon coiled around the entire world, lazing in the oceans. Enormous, it looked up, entranced by not one, not two, but Earth's seven moons. Its curiosity and hunger built until it leaped and snapped. It gobbled the first moon, then the next. Each bite dimmed the once bright night sky until the beast reached the final moon. It sprang, ready to extinguish all light. Then a cacophony erupted. People emerged, banging pots and pans. They scared the poor dragon, drove it away. It released the final moon. But it was close. It explains the explanation. Eclipse. This is just one legend. From around the world, there are all

[Chris Kikinos]

sorts of myths that accrue to the moon.

[Ben Bradford]

Chris Kikinos is a poet and a science writer with a whole book about humanity's relationship with the moon. It's called Still Is Bright.

[Chris Kikinos]

You know, the moon is both so completely obvious and yet also so evocative.

[Ben Bradford]

Before we were able to write, people

[Chris Kikinos]

were notching the phases of the moon in bone.

[Ben Bradford]

Chris loves the moon and says he doesn't want to blow it up. But even he has to admit a lot of the stories are destructive. In the indigenous Nqalumne legend from the Pacific Northwest, the moon is stolen and must be rescued. In Norse mythology, two wolves chase the moon and the sun will catch them during Ragnarok, and it's the end of the world. Those stories capture two recurring themes. The moon is stolen or it's destroyed.

[Chris Kikinos]

It's a really interesting dichotomy that comes

[Ben Bradford]

up to the present in the animated film Despicable Me. Main character Gru's evil plan is to shrink and pocket. I remember the 90s cartoon the Tick, where a supervillain carves his initials onto the moon. He gets a few letters in before he stopped. A 2000s remake of the H.G. wells book the Time Machine unnecessarily added the moon being blown up. Even Chris, who says he loves the moon, has a favorite modern tale of lunar destruction.

[Chris Kikinos]

Kind of. My favorite would be space 1999.

[Ben Bradford]

Chris calls this obscure British sci fi show from the 1970s awful and wonderful.

[Chris Kikinos]

The premise is we've been storing nuclear waste on the moon. It all blows up at once.

[Ben Bradford]

The moon is going out of the Earth's orbit. That explosion, it has pushed us out of the Earth's orbit.

[Chris Kikinos]

It leads to some just totally insane special effects and bad acting.

[Ben Bradford]

You could argue it's rude, even perverse, that we keep coming up with so much violence against this celestial body that's protected us, nourished us, sacrificed its magnetosphere for us, and for what? Bad acting. But the stories from fiction aren't even half of it. So in the 1950s, there was a project A119. Do you know about this?

[Chris Kikinos]

This is the one. To blow up a nuclear bomb on the moon.

[Jim Green]

Yeah,

[Ben Bradford]

1958, the Soviet Union looked like it was winning the space race and to some, even the Cold War. It had new huge hydrogen bombs on par with the United States. It had launched the first satellite into space. The first dog into space. Pour one out for Laika. So, in the us, Senior Air Force officer concocted a plan to regain some ground.

[Chris Kikinos]

We wanted to show up the Soviet Union.

[Ben Bradford]

They contracted a Manhattan Project physicist who'd worked on the first atomic bombs. Over the following year, this physicist calculated how one could launch a hydrogen bomb into the Moon. The Air Force fast tracked the project. The physicist wrote multiple papers. He hired a young scientist to help the later revered Carl Sagan. Carl's job was to calculate how to make the dust cloud from the explosion big enough on the moon that the Soviets could see it from Earth. Chris doesn't think much of this idea.

[Chris Kikinos]

The only reason I think the moon was attractive for that terrible idea was because it was close and because we had a bomb.

[Ben Bradford]

Or is it because secretly you, me, and everyone else wants to attack the moon?

[Alexander Abian]

Not me.

[Ben Bradford]

After all, it turns out the Soviet Union had exactly this same Nuke the moon at the exact same time. Both countries ultimately scrapped the proposals for unclear reasons. They were bad ideas. They would have irradiated the moon, polluted future discovery on the Moon, made Neil Armstrong's job pronouncing words even harder. And neither plan would have come close to destroying the Moon. It's pretty big and tough. One estimate puts its destruction as requiring the largest nuclear bombs ever built, 500 billion of them. Or like the sun's entire energy applied against it for six seconds. One, two. But let me suggest another, less cynical reason. These countries might have both developed plans to nuke the moon. Have you considered the moon might be evil?

[Alexander Abian]

We need to take out the moon.

[Ben Bradford]

And they knew it.

[Chris Kikinos]

We do have this trope of the moon harboring or being a harbinger of bad things.

[Ben Bradford]

In Aztec legend, the moon goddess was a traitor and attempted sister killer. That's not all.

[Chris Kikinos]

If you were a witch in medieval Europe and you met another witch at a crossroads, you were like a happy person under a bad moon.

[Ben Bradford]

In Japanese folklore, the moon God does a murder because he doesn't like how a meal was prepared. That's not all.

[Chris Kikinos]

Like, you know, bad moon rising.

[Ben Bradford]

Sure, you could argue the opposite. The moon has also been the goddess of good, of agriculture, of fertility, of calm. But if the moon is evil, that would add yet another reason to take it out. We have to strike first, along with the fact that it's slowing down our days. As compelling as these arguments are, neither is the strongest justification for moon violence. For that, we have to turn to a late 20th century mathematics professor. Galileo was not appreciated in his own time. Several hundred years later, Alexander Abian felt it was the same for him. Abian was a scholar, a mathematician, an immigrant who arrived from Iran as a young academic in the middle of last century. From there, he lived in Chicago, New York, Tennessee, before he settled in as a professor at Iowa State, where He taught for 25 years. He played piano. He believed in the power of education, and he believed in blowing up the moon. As he explained more than once on a university talk show, you need to

[Alexander Abian (voice or repeated lines)]

get rid of the moon. Blow it up. Blow it up. Totally, totally, totally, completely.

[Alexander Abian]

Amen.

[Alexander Abian (voice or repeated lines)]

Amen. That's beautiful.

[Ben Bradford]

Abian argued. The moon, its tides, its pull on us, leads to some of our most erratic and dangerous weather. Hurricanes, snowstorms, heat waves. If we get rid of the moon, Abian said, we could rid ourselves of constant disasters that have bedeviled the Earth for years. Abian pushed this.

[Alexander Abian (voice or repeated lines)]

Blow it up.

[Ben Bradford]

Look, if Abian is right, he should have been zealous. The Moon causes incalculable suffering around the world. The urgency in his voice should be mirrored in all of ours. We must get rid of the moon if he's right. And so we come to it. The question should we destroy the Moon? Should we fulfill the destiny outlined in ancient myth? In the stories of our forebears and our innermost thoughts?

[Alexander Abian]

Yes.

[Ben Bradford]

I sought out the most knowledgeable, prestigious voice I could find to answer this burning question. I found Jim Green, former chief scientist of NASA. I told him about Ebion. He felt really strongly we should blow up the moon.

[Alexander Abian]

Mm.

[Ben Bradford]

He thought that would solve a lot of problems. I'm wondering if you think that would be a good idea.

[Jim Green]

Well, let's talk about what happens if the moon just suddenly disappears.

[Ben Bradford]

If we dissolved the moon, disappeared it from the sky, shrank it down and pocketed it, like Gru. It's fine. Initially.

[Jim Green]

Rotationally, we're going to stay at about 24 hours. There won't be a huge change.

[Ben Bradford]

Jim says the tides pulled by lunar gravity would die down, but not completely.

[Jim Green]

Will still have some tides because there'll be tidal interactions between the sun and the Earth.

[Ben Bradford]

The sun still pulls on our waters at maybe half or a quarter the strength. A rough day at the ocean gets calmer. So far, so good, unless you're a surfer. But, Jim says quickly, other sea life start to notice the calmer waters. They don't like it.

[Jim Green]

Their food source now is not being delivered to them, which would come on tides.

[Ben Bradford]

Plants wither, insects die. Fish that eat both go hungry. The creatures that eat them starve too. Destruction ripples through ecosystems and we don't know where it would end.

[Jim Green]

That would really be a big problem.

[Ben Bradford]

But we are doing all of this to prevent weather related disasters. Tsunamis, floods, heat. That's what Abian wanted. Have we at least accomplished. Accomplished his goal? Jim says without the moon, the sun's gravity pulls the heaviest part of the Earth toward it. And it's not the middle, a bulge

[Jim Green]

in the southern hemisphere. The sun's going to be pulling on that. The sun's going to want that part pointing to the sun all the time. The pole swings the Earth and so that's going to be pushing us. That's what helps change our axis in huge ways.

[Ben Bradford]

That's the wobble.

[Jim Green]

Yeah, that would cause the wobble over

[Ben Bradford]

tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. How fast it's debated. The Earth bobs back and forth.

[Jim Green]

Well imagine taking the poles and putting them at the equators.

[Ben Bradford]

The sun cooks them.

[Jim Green]

The old ice caps that we have now will be completely eliminated. All that water, fresh water will be dumped into the ocean and then the

[Ben Bradford]

Earth begins to it tilt back, wobbling still.

[Jim Green]

Climate change on steroids.

[Ben Bradford]

This does not reduce problematic weather as Alexander Abrian hoped. More the opposite. Sea levels spike. Different parts of the world freeze.

[Jim Green]

As a population of people, we're going to have to migrate to different areas. You'll have to forget about state boundaries.

[Ben Bradford]

Alexander Abian was wrong. The weather is not better unless you like it hazardous.

[Jim Green]

It'll just be just turmoil for sure.

[Ben Bradford]

Oh, and as for the other problem caused by the moon, increasingly long days and nights, Jim says that's probably fine.

[Jim Green]

Yeah, I think we're good. It's moving so slowly and the changes are so slow.

[Ben Bradford]

Jim thinks if we can survive the millions of years it will take for a drastically different climate, humans will literally evolve as creatures always have on a changing world. Blowing up the moon, he thinks, not a proportionate response.

[Jim Green]

I'm not sure it solves our problem

[Ben Bradford]

in another way. It might. All the havoc we just explored comes from the moon simply winking out of existence as if plucked by a mythical dragon. But realistically, we'd have to make the moon disappear, blow it up. That would have another effect. And my understanding is with blowing up the moon entirely, we almost certainly would see a large amount of debris and maybe very big debris sucked right back into Earth because of course our gravity is the biggest gravity in the area.

[Jim Green]

That's the problem. That's the problem. We are a big gravity well for which that stuff will just start coming right at us.

[Ben Bradford]

The remnants of our destroyed moon could plunge back into our planet, creating worse destruction than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

[Jim Green]

It's just huge.

[Ben Bradford]

So we probably wouldn't have to worry about the bad weather that would come after it. We wouldn't be here to experience it. All of which is to say, don't blow up the moon. Of course, don't blow up the moon. No matter if our myths and legends or film or Alexander Abian or military are curious about it. No matter how much an inner voice that definitely only you can hear tells you to do nothing. Destroy the moon. We need it. In fact, let's run the doom meter. The risk to humanity if we blow up the moon. A hippo drenched in the blood of its enemies. Doom. That's doom. Can't believe anyone would even suggest such a thing. The risk if we keep the moon drifting slowly away, our days and nights growing slightly longer. A fork with two slightly bent tines. Almost not a problem at all. Almost. Because the lengthening days and nights aren't nothing. But more importantly, there's one much more current pressing issue involving the moon right now. Not the moon's fault. The problem is not geologic, it's geopolitical.

[Victoria Sampson]

So it kind of is a matter of who gets there first.

[Ben Bradford]

The United States may be losing the moon, and no one's quite sure what that's going to mean.

[Chris Kikinos]

How are we going to behave ourselves up there?

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[Ben Bradford]

America and the Moon. First boots on moon rock first flag planted. First somewhat nonsensical words spoken. Small step for man aman. But sometimes when you use something for a long time, you can start thinking of it as yours. You have a spot at the beach you like, and when you find someone else's towel there, some part of you is like, excuse me, that is my sand.

[Alexander Abian]

My sand.

[Ben Bradford]

Science writer Chris Kikinos suggests that's what's happening right now with the US and the moon.

[Chris Kikinos]

Yeah, yeah. I'm reminded of one of my favorite moments in the Simpsons where, you know, kids are watching filmstrips.

[Alexander Abian]

The moon belongs to America and anxiously awaits the arrival of our astroman.

[Chris Kikinos]

That sort of becomes part of the larger conversation of like, how are we going to behave ourselves up there?

[Ben Bradford]

This is the real current danger. Not the moon leaving us, but humans arriving there again with flags, political anxieties and very little agreement about what happens when everyone reaches the same patch of dust. For the first time since the Cold War, we are in the middle of a new space race. China and India have landed vehicles on the moon. China is planning to get astronauts to the surface by the end of the decade, only the second country to do so behind the US in 1969. And there are some indications that all of this has current political leaders worrying this country is losing the Moon.

[Victoria Sampson]

It's frustrating because we don't have the Moon. It's not ours to give up.

[Ben Bradford]

Victoria Sampson studies the international politics of space at the nonprofit the Secure World Foundation. I called her because I'd seen worries that US beach towel possessiveness mixed with other countries ambitions to use the Moon create an explosive cocktail.

[Victoria Sampson]

You could have some sort of tripwire happening in space that could bring conflict right back down to Earth.

[Ben Bradford]

That may sound hyperventilating. For all the moon's done for us, it's still basically a big dead gray rock a quarter million miles from the nearest Wendy's. There's a reason we haven't gone back since dropping that laser reflector down more than 50 years ago. So why the race? What's the rush? It's not just pride. Victorious says, you know, the Moon is

[Victoria Sampson]

actually a source of resources.

[Ben Bradford]

It's made of untapped metals and rare earths. And most importantly, there's water.

[Victoria Sampson]

Ice crystals on the moon are thought to exist in the craters closer to the south pole.

[Ben Bradford]

If extracted, it can be separated into hydrogen and oxygen, which is how you make rocket fuel.

[Victoria Sampson]

The Moon is also seen as a stopping off point for further exploration.

[Ben Bradford]

As we eye further destinations such as Mars, the ability to land and refuel outside the Earth's thick atmosphere and massive gravity has grown attractive. So China and the US first want boots on the moon again. That's what the current US Artemis missions are about. With plans to land again targeted for 2028ish. China wants to be there in 2030. But then both countries want more.

[Victoria Sampson]

I won't say long term habitation, but having people actually living and working on

[Ben Bradford]

the moon and then they want more.

[Victoria Sampson]

Eventually even going to put a nuclear reactor for power on the moon as well.

[Ben Bradford]

And then more.

[Victoria Sampson]

In theory, there's going to be even a lunar economy with commercial actors that

[Ben Bradford]

the US already has a law saying anything a private company mines in space, it owns.

[Victoria Sampson]

I think a lot of countries are very interested in being involved in using those resources for their kind of products.

[Ben Bradford]

The moon is big, so it might seem like there's enough for everyone to share. But just like here on Earth, these resources may exist only at certain regions. And like on Earth, sharing may not come naturally.

[Victoria Sampson]

My sand, we have not been able to come to agreement in terms of coordination.

[Ben Bradford]

Unlike on Earth, there is no existing recognized ownership. The international law that does exist specifically forbids it.

[Victoria Sampson]

Our flag on the moon, that's ours. You know, I would be sad if someone were to go and destroy it. You know, where we landed the original lunar missions, but we don't even own that either. That territory that's on.

[Ben Bradford]

Do you think that we.

[Alexander Abian]

We know that?

[Ben Bradford]

I asked because at the same time as other countries are looking to put their own flags on the moon, the US has been conspicuously saber rattling. You must have seen the White House put out a post on social media that has a picture of the moon and says America will never give up the moon again. Which is basically the moon belongs to America.

[Victoria Sampson]

Yeah, big sign that one.

[Ben Bradford]

Does it worry you?

[Victoria Sampson]

Well, I think it's, you know, establishing a tone for our interactions in space. It's possibly establishing a precedent for how actors will behave. It's not really putting a cooperative approach together.

[Ben Bradford]

At the same time, military officials and especially weapons makers have added pressure that we cannot lose the Moon for defense reasons. An industry group, the National Security Space association, has argued to the Pentagon that strategic control of the Moon is the next frontier that will determine who will win on Earth and also who will have control of the Earth moon system, which is pretty sci fi. You were shaking Your head.

[Victoria Sampson]

Yeah, I think that's overkill.

[Ben Bradford]

Victoria thinks the Moon, no offense, is just not that important. It's really far away and getting further a few inches at a time. So Victoria sees the suspicion and rivalry and the perceived riches and insecurity barreling the countries toward the potential for very avoidable disaster. Something like the US Artemis missions proceed with only slight normal delays. China's missions continue on their present pace. And once again, silicone boot soles crunch.

[Victoria Sampson]

The US gets there in 2029, China gets there in 2030.

[Ben Bradford]

The countries have not spoken, haven't coordinated. The Moon is big, but for logistical reasons, they choose similar orbits for their spacecraft.

[Victoria Sampson]

Maybe accidentally one country's orbiter hits another orbiter.

[Ben Bradford]

Or avoiding that, the nations land near each other, operate surface vehicles near each other.

[Victoria Sampson]

Lunar dust is incredibly rough and corrosive. Plumes of dust, they travel differently.

[Ben Bradford]

The dust carries from one country's campsite to another.

[Victoria Sampson]

You kick up dirt and you gum up a machine that's responsible for providing oxygen for the people inside, you know, and you have death on the Moon.

[Ben Bradford]

It's something both countries generally go to great lengths to prevent on Earth because of what a high profile death, even accidental, could be.

[Victoria Sampson]

You could take something that's not meant to be a deliberate threat as an openly hostile action and respond accordingly.

[Ben Bradford]

The danger is not that we blow up the moon, but that in fear of losing it, we blow up ourselves. That is of course, absolutely worst case. Going from moon accident to war, turning nuclear, a lot of leaps, not the most likely. That's why on the doom meter, we're still in bent fork territory. It does seem avoidable. I am confident we can avoid it. We can solve war on the moon. For a model, go back to when the Soviet Union was dominating the space race and Cold War rivals pondered nuking the moon. Launches were frequent. Competition for satellites, for spacewalks, for the moon, multiplied the wrong interaction. A misunderstanding could finally turn the Cold War hot. There needed to be some basic rules. Through the United nations, the rivals finally found some. They agreed to the first space laws, the Outer Space Treaty. The one that says no one owns the moon. The one that says space is for all.

[Victoria Sampson]

So basically it sets out all these principles.

[Ben Bradford]

It banned outer space nuclear weapons, said the Moon can't be used for military purposes. It's still operating and every space faring country today has signed onto it, even

[Victoria Sampson]

though it was from 1967. It has really good bones, you know, those principles are still very valid to this day.

[Ben Bradford]

Victoria says there have been other international agreements since to register what countries are launching into space to return astronauts if they land somewhere unexpected on re entry from space. Beyond the specifics, it was countries often at loggerheads figuring out a way to talk to each other. And Victoria says more than anything, that's what would help now.

[Victoria Sampson]

You know, it's funny how things repeat themselves. I think it truly is circular right now.

[Ben Bradford]

There is no communication path actually by law. Lawmakers were worried, maybe not unreasonably, that China would try to steal or hack or bug our space tech if they got close to it.

[Victoria Sampson]

So NASA is not allowed to do a bilateral thing with the Chinese national space Agency unless they meet a whole series of requirements.

[Ben Bradford]

She says that paradigm probably cannot stand because one thing's for certain, we are losing the moon.

[Jim Green]

The moon is indeed drifting away slowly

[Ben Bradford]

on a physical level, much more quickly on a geopolitical one, like watching a

[Jim Green]

ballerina spin on the ice.

[Ben Bradford]

We will not always be the only country on the moon. But in a way, for both problems, the mature response sounds the same. It's when we lose something to not lash out in anger.

[Alexander Abian (voice or repeated lines)]

Blow it up.

[Ben Bradford]

It is to say goodbye to the old paradigm, to accept the world is changing, to figure out how to evolve with it. So the moon remains for everyone as long as it's still around and we're still around. And then we can turn our attention to doing something about that pesky sun.

[Alexander Abian]

Blow it up.

[Ben Bradford]

Next time on Are we Doomed? An episode I thought was going to be whimsical cyborgs. I don't like where this is headed. Military investment, an industry race for brain tech and the consumer devices on the market. Soon that could creep up on us. You can also check out all of our past episodes on YouTube. We're sign are wedoomedpod and the animated likeness of me is perfect. Finally an ask. The show is labor intensive, from the reporting to the interviewing to the sound and storytelling. And if you value it, I'd ask that you one help us continue to grow our audience very simply by sending this episode to your most moon violence inclined friends. You can do it right now and it just helps a lot. And if you really want to get involved, you can hear bonus episodes. Join discussion with me on our discord. You can do that by going to doompod.com support. That's doompod.com support and thank you again. Are we Doomed Is a production of Nuance Tales. It is created by me, Ben Bradford. Our producer is Lindsay Kilbride. This episode edited by Tracy Samuelson and Annie Russell. Our sound designer and engineer is Jay Sebold. Our video animation is by Alboris Kamalazad, theme music by Dylan Dagenet. The show is distributed by the NPR Network. Huge thanks to Dan McCoy, Kalia Ali and the rest of the team at NPR. And the biggest thanks to you for listening and supporting us.

[Alexander Abian]

SA.