are getting close to the people most effective by those in power is often st. louis, but it's absolutely vital with the stories and control we push this fall forward as we can to the front line. now, the smell of that is all of the power and a lot of the stories that we cover a highly complex. so it's very important that we make them as understandable as we can do as many people as possible no matter how much they know about a given chrisy. so issue as long as you say we're correspondence, that's what we strive to do on on the see expedition gone wrong. the titan submersible that went missing last sunday in to combine signs with tourism simulate private trips under the ceo into space of race billions of dollars. they organize a say that helps fund science and industry, but all the ways to hi, this is inside story, the

hello and welcome to the program. i'm for the back people. governments used to be the main fund is a see and space expeditions, but commercial companies offering adventures to the ends of the earth and beyond. attracting billions of dollars every year. some of the dangers and commercial c expiration have been exposed by the pride of the 5 men on board the titan submersible that went missing. so all these multi 1000000000 dollar industries contributing to size and how to such adventures benefit society will put back to our guests in just a moment. but 1st, let's take a closer look at how private companies are pushing the boundaries in space and under the seat. commercially investments in the space race have tripled more than a $110000000000.00 in 2005 to nearly $357000000000.00. in 2020 in may 2020 space x became the 1st private company to send people to the

international space station. in july 2021 blue origin incentives for his commercial service into sub orbital space. and this year, virgin galactic is about to send customers into space. in 2019 and american explore broke a record by descending nearly 11 kilometers to the deepest place in the pacific ocean. what did he find? sea creatures anaplastic back and some sweet rapids and the company ocean gates has sought to further expand see tories in taking people deeper into the ocean than ever before. now away from commercial ventures, scientists, the shining lights deep into space and the oceans and july 2020 to the james web cap to this 1st images and from deeper into space and any telescope. before and june, scientists found phosphorus on one of satins moons and essential elements needed for life. and looking down,

scientists recently found more than 5000 new species of marine life on a sea bed between hawaii and mexico. but the deeply concerned too, as the areas a box for deep sea mining from transparent east to still legged, spite of fish, scientists are continuing to discover strange lie forms at great a debt. well that spring and i guess now for today's inside story in keel gemini, sylvia sander who's chair of the european marine board working group on deep sea and ocean health in bristol, as the piece and an astrophysicist and space trend list and in christian sign in no way, victor loan shaft was head of sociology and social work at the university of actor . thank you to all 3 of you for joining us on inside story today. sylvia in keel. let me start with you. as we've said in the past few years, commercial space,

torres and companies owned, by billing as jeff bezos, richard branson and eat on mosque has been making headlines, was sending paying customers into space. how developed is commercial, deep ocean exploration, and why do people go into these extreme expeditions? well, that's a good question. i think it's an adventure, right? people have done adventures since the humans are on inhabiting the earth or so i think that's one of the main reasons that people just, i am for the venture. um, i'm not i think i'm quite certain that this kind of tourism that has led now to this tragic loss of, of the titan is not helping um you know, learning more about the deep sea for example. um, but i think we also um,

from the marine board from this working group i'm leaving, we are looking into the, the impact of research even we are doing. and we are doing this in principle to, to learn and understand the ocean and the, it consist of and not just to have a glimpse of, of some sea creatures down there. i mean, the, the deep echo system is very french island, very slow. it's very cold and very deep, so everything is growing very, very slowly. and it can easily be biggest or um, so noise is an issue on but also look like welling up the settlement and so on. so, i mean it's, it's very sad for those people. definitely, right, but i don't see how this kind of adventure is helping the research in general for the deep thing. sylvia. how, how developed is commercial. deep ocean exploration. when you compare it to,

to space commercial expiration. i do know that there are, there are really some adventures i think, which are rich enough to follow their own vessels like the person you you've mentioned before. and that are, you know, sponsoring themselves to, to go down there with a little or and, um, but then there are these really torres of organizations like with a title. now i think that the different thing is again, we kind of just say um, commercial organizations going down into the deep sea. right? i think it's, it's, you know, you have to differentiate. and of course there are also, um, organizations like the smiths, ocean organization that are non governmental that are really funding research like through research. so i think it's like always it's a political wise and there's no way of friendship. yeah,

exactly. yeah. interesting as he let me come to you it and we talk about space now because that's what you specialize in in terms of scientific explorations. of course, we've come, leap at leaps and bounds. in the past 10 years, we've collected data from one of saturn's loans. we've spent telescopes into deep, deep space. how have private companies like space ex, blue origin disrupted this traditional model of government led space explorations and, and what do you see as the benefits and drawbacks to them? one of the big changes that's happened is that it's led to a lot more small emissions happening. um, so for instance, a couple of weeks ago that was the ac seem to mission which allowed the saudi nation to put the 1st 2 extra notes into space on a board space x rocket. and so it allows people who might not have been able to go into space before because they couldn't afford to do an entire space program and built their own rockets. but they can now pay for one to send that,

that their experience and that astronauts into space. and we're seeing that. uh, that's gonna happen a lot at noon specifically over the next couple of years. um, there's a whole bunch of private land is the all planning on being able to go to the moon and take experiments that won't leave. that's to fuel masters, ultimate mission. but also there's lots of people who from everybody from universities to private individuals are going to be able to use those. but the problem that comes with that is, this is a very new industry that is not a lot of regulation that's going on at the moment. which means basically if your you get the okay to, to launch your vehicle, you can pretty much, once you're in space, but there's not a lot of people who can control and say what you're doing throughout that. um, so that's kind of one of the problems that's coming in from that. right. and it's interesting that you bring up the question of regulation because that's a relation when it comes to, to deep sea exploration. and i'll come back to sylvia in a moment. but i want to get your thoughts for as victor,

it seems that the question today is into whether you can actually get fed to space or the deep ocean. it's whether you can afford to get fed. what are your thoughts about these commercial expeditions into space and in the deep sea how, how do you see them benefiting society as well? there's no doubt that space exploration in of itself could be easily beneficial to humanity and certainly under the interest of the state or private enterprise. so we've seen technology, everything from light bulbs to certain types of running shoes, cat scans, uh, wireless headsets and so, and balls been said to benefit in some way from, from the space raise during the cold war. and that might very well continue, or the umbrella of these private entrepreneurs. and space exploration satisfies a kind of in a human desire to explore the venture forth into the unknown. and there seems to be a kind of common human impulse to, to explore and figure out what lies beyond an expense, so to speak. but there are significant risks and costs i would argue associated with transferring power to these private enterprises in the domain of space

exploration. so it's in a way, it's usually ironic said people like you on must speak of turning us into a multi plan terry species of a form of risk mitigation, i guess potentially catastrophic climate change. when the does, it ends and hundreds of rocket launches. we see taking place now around the world, threatened to accelerate climate change in the united nations environment program speaks the creation of temporary focus on ozone, holes around a launch site. so there are potentially significant environmental harms from these cost rock launches. but that's such as one issue, there's also the political, regulatory side of things as the previous speaker mentioned, controls are what goes on in our space. so risk front costs, especially when it comes to the environment. but what about uh, victor, ethical concerns. what ethical concerns should be considered? yes, and so what are the benefits of what is called old space to the meaning of the kind of cold war model where the state government is in control of what goes on in terms

of our spaces that then you have a certain element of democratic control of so, so the question is really, who controls it goes on an outer space in the future will be governments. and by extension, the people, the public won't be big, private corporations, and individual super wealthy billionaires, perhaps even truly an errors. we may, might come into a situation where, where the 1st truly knows this kind of space entrepreneur. so, so there's that issue and there's also the issue of course, of the middle of the reservation of space which is connected to 10 centrally to this issue. we have satellite technologies, of course heavily involved in the building of a kind of cloak spanning military industrial complex. there is a test ban. treaty of 1963 of bands you colorado and the testing outer space, but we're seeing the establishment of the us space for us as an element of, of middle transition out you clear i station a showed up motorized ation of outer space and more will probably happen on that front into years to come. yeah. so what are your thoughts about this?

uh, victor problem pulls that important questionnaire about who controls and who benefits from this when it comes to dfcs duration. this is an issue like especially in terms of the regulation, what kind of challenges are you see and how do you address them? any of you? i mean, i think in that sense, we're a little ahead of space in the marine reaction because we do have jurisdiction and legislation in place. we've got the united nation to uh, um, cause the convention on the lowest to see young cloths. and um was also just yesterday actually signed the b, b a j, a test bar to, to the beyond the national jurisdiction. so we do have legal instruments in place and it's not because the was down there. and of course, there is also, uh, this is the, the area, the open ocean um,

outside of the national jurisdiction. of course, people can do what the national jurisdiction is allowing within the that so that's different or um and that's accounts for, you know, i guess private operations but also things like the mining and so on. but i think some people have realized that it's really necessary to set up organizations that are taking care of the auction for human content and, and for, for the benefit of 2 years. and probably it's the only time that before we destroyed we, as the humans destroyed and that co system that we are thinking about hits right now. i try to at least put the regulations in place, i guess how good they would work in the end. that will be what we seen, but there is an effort to do so. okay, interesting it as a, you know,

we talked about some of the significant achievements in a space, exploration, and also commercial space exploration to some extent. but there are a lot of people asking today why is the money being spent, you know, by companies, by these private companies and commercial companies. why is this not being spent on, on, you know, mans expiration and, and given to governments for example, would that make a difference to think of a well, with a lot of these, the private base companies obviously fail. they all businesses, they are trying to make money, but it's people using money to make more money. so that's, that's of primary go. they have logic goals of being able to be able to, to perhaps go into malls and do things like that. but that is sort of the primary concern, but what, what is the reward reward in terms of a financial gain and scientific exploration?

so in terms of, of scientific expiration, is it really is kind of, it's more what's best buy is more of, of a tool and it's giving access to people to be able to then go in and do what they want with it. so it is these purpose based quite companies all still open to the governments. in fact about, that's one of the reasons why blue origin is by sex exist is because not so high it them that you feel the spacecraft to, to operate full them. and that's, in fact one of nest has big goals is to support us companies in the space industry . so it's, it's giving a different way to be able to conduct, to be scientific experiments, but is out of the hands of just this one government agency is, is, is the general idea is obviously it's still cost a lot of money, but it is a lot cheaper to, to hire a company to a central spacecraft into space than it is to build a rocket to send it out. fit yourself. right, victor, you your thoughts about this and, and you know, looking at the future,

how might technology and scientific advancements change our approach to space expiration and even deep cx ration you well i, i think it's important to bear in mind that there is a certain kind of false self understanding, amongst the libertarian silicon valley, billionaires, this kind of heroes a free enterprise. and i, i agree with the previous speaker that there was, in fact, the kind of number cation with government funding and contracting restructure. so this kind of ayn rand idea that many of these space entrepreneurs have about themselves as belie, but they're almost complete dependency and reliance on, on government funding. so, so it's important to, to not necessarily takes the industry at their own. um the accept their phone premises as it were, and to what the co authors, thomas holden, myself developed this concept, which we call capitalist kind this, the idea that certain private business and entrepreneurs like to present themselves as if they are bad acting on behalf of humanity but in reality, reality, of course,

they are acting on behalf of their own pocket books, so to speak, on behalf of the bottom line of their companies. and so that the carries with a certain risks of the outer space domain. we also have this outer space treaty of 1967 as a very progressive and i'm sense why does piece of legislation on international treaty which states that the exploration and use of our spain, she'll be carried up for the benefit. and then the interest of all of mankind all of humankind. so there isn't this kind of legal ideal uh, from, from the cold war era that, uh, the resources on offer out, an outer space should be made available to all of humanity. but whether that will actually become reality or not, seems somewhat dubious, given the, the way things are going and politically and economically. and it's as field. yeah . it'll be a speaking about a, you know, the comics of all of it. i was curious to, to know whether the, these companies that are engaging in dfcs ration today or the property accounting

for, for the potential costs and, and the risks and potential costs of rescue missions. for example, with the example of the recent case and, you know, are they, uh, also accounting for the environmental damage that comes with it. i doubt that they will do, i mean this will cost a huge amount of money on this risk you um activity and but i mean that's, that's always in the see if something gets lost, everybody is helping to find it. right. right. but um, of course people are putting themselves at risk of their own choice. um, so i'm not entirely sure if they are insured for to cover the cost or not. um i i it actually, sec doubted. yeah. the victor do take, do you, do you know about this? i mean, do they take into account that the risks and costs associated with, you know, failing and emission like this?

i think all those priced into the contracts. i don't want to speak to the detail day to day operations and kind of business affairs of these corporations which are not by large public. we listen to corporate, right. so some, some of those details are probably not, not available to the public or to researchers. um, i would reiterate the, the importance of, of maintaining the validity of the outer space tree of 1967 despite these developments. right? so, so then the question becomes sylvia, and i'm going to come to as in a 2nd, but just wanted to get your thoughts sylvia, on how to balance the risk to the individuals to the environment. and, and, you know, for the organization is eating these traits against the potential value for society as a whole, how do we balance it all i mean, to be fair, i don't see a benefit to the society an attempt to see if we see here so sadly every

news we are watching, i really don't see any benefit to it. it's really an adventure. people are taking end up paying money for that. right. um and the, the, the research that is done in the deep sea which is very expensive, is funded by a national organizations like governments, right? to do research. they have still more like international and they're open to, to all nations. right. but um, are they are not funded by these kinds of organizations? so tell us about some of the recent successes in, in which are not funded by these private companies. tell us about some of the recent successes in deep cx ration. and what we've learned as a result. well, i mean in the 1st place we, we know very little about the deep sea right. then every time, so a head count or something like that is done. we find that over 50 percent of the

species we are bringing up and we can specify our unknown so far. so there is a vast amount of organisms in species, in the deep sea, we have got no idea about and every time an expedition is going down, they find new species. and in some cases we, they find that they're actually in large numbers down there, right? that they're really having a big impact on the system down there and was still in by now. haven't known about them. so i'm more than 90 percent really of the deep sea is completely unknown because of its vastness because of its steps because it is very deep really. and we, we, it's, it's difficult to get down there. right. but i mean, successes at the moment is really that we do find these organisms and that we, we have got the possibility of collecting samples in

a very good way, mostly using um, remote oper, agent vehicles, because they are much cheaper than main supp. most of us and they do have exactly the same capability is meant to both of those. so there are very few minutes of, most of both actually in inaction for to research at the moment as the assessing, you know, the risks associated with these types of missions, whether in space or in the deep sea. how do you think nations, organizations, and, or companies prepare for the possibility of accidents or emergencies? and in other words, how do we balance the desire for expiration with the potential risks and dangers associated with it? well, certainly when it comes to national agencies, the united nations and is the european space agency, is this sort of the big example. there is a, a lot of concern put on safety. there's a lot of measures that have been put into place and also looking back historically

throughout the space age that have been tragedies, people have died and they've taken a lot of responsibility folder when it happens. there's always been a huge inc quest, human space flight. what stopped the off the challenger, it's stopped that for about 2 years. well, stay investigated exactly what was going on to make sure that the stakes wouldn't happen again. so certainly there is a precedent of, of what to do in the space industry to make sure or minimize risks. ok, probably because if, when your, if you want to protect human lives and also, you know, it's, you, they don't want to lose the emissions either. so it's, it's safety is always a very big concern, whether that's human or a robotic mission name. and whether that will filter onto these private companies. remains to be say, it is worth saying that there is a lot of sticking in the us. there's a lot of regulations about what you can launch. so the s i wouldn't let you launch

a spacecraft if they think it's dangerous. you need to be able to approve, but it can support human safely before they'll even that you launch it. so certainly in, in the us there is, there is a lot of safety checks that go on when it comes to a space like okay, victor, i'll ask you the same question. we've heard about the risks and the challenges, the risk to the environment, the risk to the individuals as well. what role do you think government and non governmental organizations can, can play in better regulating all this? well, i think a good we can play a significant and, and expanded role in terms of particularly implementing and id like a space tax to that particular tax on space resources. asteroid mining, for instance. uh, also satellite launches and satellite forbes. that's right. my name is kind of a science fiction idea of store ways in the future, but we need to start thinking about the political, economic, regulatory environment around those,

potentially significant resources out there. and one model for inspiration might be the case of more ways. i'm based in, in norway, scandinavian society, which is the discovery and significant oil resources in the sixties and seventies and taxed those resources very heavily. indeed, in order to fund a generous welfare state was like free public health care and on higher education and so on. and so it's really allowed to reach a government so to fund of it's day to day activities and, and them and lou upstate ownership of a se selectivity is there needs to be, at least in the middle of the kind of space tank, some place to capture windfall profits and sure the ordinary people taxpayers are for you to read in some fashion for those a significant investments they've made and establishing. and i called the broad the ecosystem so that has allowed private enterprise to blossom around outer space activities today. hm. and very interesting it as either benefits. so what,

what are your thoughts on this? how does everyone benefit from this and what exciting developments on the, on rise and that you think might have a impact on society. space industry is very much a part of our daily lives. dpi, systems are use one every day. it's how food gets around the world and communications. all of these kinds of things there is, there is a very big benefits that come from being able to get into space. um, there's also quite a lot of research that can be done with humans in space, flight and it might be much more on time, but getting out there and explore. i mean of us, i personally think would be a good thing. the question is, is when we're, when is those benefits going to show? um i think in terms of things that we've got coming up is going to be really interesting. i mentioned earlier, people are going to be going back to the moon that says ultimate mission. and

there's going to be a lot more robust technicians going to go ahead of that. the are going to take a lots of small emissions towards them. there's, there's lots of small companies that are sending rovers and things to the surface of the moon. so i think it's going to be a big opportunity for some of the smaller industries out there to start benefiting from that space exploration. all right is sylvia. you have the last word. what does the future look like for deep sea exploration? what does it look like? well, i think it's really robotics um, uh, autonomous instrumentations that use only little energy and can cover long distance the so i mean there is even come from no impact to the core for, for research. and i'm not sure if i'm, if i'm for that, but there is thought, you know, of, of sending out remote operated instrumentation to do the research for us. i guess it can be done in, in the lot of the fields, you know, where you're like,

where you meant or where you, you can measure remotely, but not everything can be done remotely. so i think the, the research expeditions on board of a ship will, will remain and, and i think they're very necessary to really discover more of the ocean and to see the connectivity of everything. because we, we haven't for the, on the, on the, on the stuff that and i think it's very important to know the baseline. we are at this very moment without the ocean before. something like climate change takes in a change in the drive. yeah. um and there is yeah i, i think but i think the way the remote operator vehicles are the future for us to go. okay, thank you. oh, very much for

a very interesting conversation. i learned to lots that me. thank you. sylvia sand as e p. s. and n victor learn some us, thank you and thank you to for watching. you can always watches program again any time by visiting our site that i, which is the or dot com for further discussion. go to our facebook page at facebook dot com forward slash 8 inside story. of course you can join the conversation on twitter handle is that a j inside story for me for the back to the whole team? hearing doha, thanks for watching bye. from the the

we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. so no matter why you call out you 0 will bring you the news and current affairs that much out of the hello i'm down. jordan doha, with a quick reminder of the top stories here on al jazeera india and the united states have announced a flurry of deals. in fact, as ranging from defense to somebody, conduct us as prime minister under, under moody, told congress the times will be of defining partnership of this century. modi's and the washington state visit with the us looking to deepen his bones with india to account of china is growing in for a long while. i've had jean c.