the children and then he unstrapped and floated around the cabin with all of us as well it was great it was a lot of fun wow uh when do the flights uh begin like for commercial passengers so right now we're in this modification period um we're gonna be done by the sum by the end of the summer um we'll finish our flight test this year and commercial service will start first quarter next year um so that's okay it's 23 january or february yeah yeah 2023 okay um could you describe the ascent a little bit like from the moment it takes off i'm assuming that the the the ship is like vertical is it yeah so we start it's actually um two vehicles it's an aircraft called mothership and a spacecraft called spaceship so really good at naming things so it takes off from a runway and the two vehicles are mated the mother ship is basically carrying the spaceship we go up uh to about 45 000 feet which is the release altitude takes about 40 45 minutes and once


the release altitude takes about 40 45 minutes and once you get to the release altitude they'll do final checks and then you'll hear it which is just amazing release release release and then the spaceship will drop for a few seconds and the rocket motor will light and you're horizontal when the rocket motor lights and uh just a few seconds after that you you take a turn up to space wow so you feel uh the g's both in your chest and in your head just uh for a few seconds i'm assuming commercial travelers will have to go through like a lot of training before yeah it's only five days actually oh okay it's part of their mission of opening space up to a wider swath of the population we want to create a vehicle that people don't have to be training for years to be able to enjoy um you know my personal journey i you know i've wanted to be an astronaut since i was young and i um i'm one of those children that decided to plan out my life very early so i was


to plan out my life very early so i was like okay i'm going to go get my engineering degree then i'm going to work in industry then i'm going to work for nasa and then i'm going to apply to be a nasa astronaut and then i'm going to go to space i was like what could go wrong where did you study um i studied at purdue university because uh neil armstrong first man on the moon went there too so i everything i've done was like to try to get to space wow uh how old were you at the time of the first uh the first the anasazi x prize was 2004 so i was 15 or 16 years old and at the time of the the actual flight which is last year i was 33 last year is that the usual age for astronauts i mean personally i didn't think i was going to go to space so soon but you know and there's a paradigm shift happening you know most people i mean up until now people train and have to


i mean up until now people train and have to do it as a professional career go to um isro issa nasa to to go to space but now you know anybody over the age of 18 i can technically go to space now um through commercial vehicles what's the like kind of road map for someone who actually wants to become an astronaut i was passionate about it i mean this is why this is why it's incredible if you want to go to space now you can buy a ticket to go to space and that wasn't the case before you know up until just you know i think last year we passed about 600 people i think we've set 600 people in space as a as a you know collective humanity i mean that's a very small number of the population of earth so virgin galactic has over 800 people already signed up to fly and it's incredible to think that you know once we've flown all of our customers we'll have doubled the number of people that have gone to space are you


number of people that have gone to space are you allowed to speak of uh how expensive or cheap the tickets are yeah there it's 450 000 for a ticket which is what three and a half crores hopefully i converted that right yeah yeah roughly okay okay yeah so it's you know it's something that we hope to see go down as we start scaling up and we fly more often and technologies continue to advance stupid question but what makes the ticket that expensive is it just the fuel is it like the engineering involved like what is it there must be something that's driving up the cost yeah it's the you know development operations and right now we only have two spaceships um at the moment but as we scale as we get more efficient in manufacturing the vehicles and operating the vehicles we're able to bring that that price down but what i what i think is really exciting though is you know if you look at the number of people who have gone to space you break it down less than 100 have been women of


break it down less than 100 have been women of those 600 people that have gone i mean and of those four were indian single digit four and as we start flying more and more people you're gonna have people from different backgrounds different cultures i mean different geographic regions go to space and each be able to share an experience in a completely different way do you remember the whole kalpana incident i remember happening when i was a kid yeah i remember even before it happened there was a lot of hype in the indian media about it yep uh i mean for especially because we have a lot of teenage listeners college listeners i'd love for you to explain who kalpana chawla was and about that mission as well yeah so i mean dr kupp on your channel actually i had a very special place in in my heart i've actually never met her in person but when i was you know figuring out how to become an astronaut i was looking at everybody i was looking at the apollo astronauts


at everybody i was looking at the apollo astronauts astronauts at nasa who have the you know the ross cosmos astronauts how they got to space but it wasn't until i saw dr chala and her career um that it really resonated with me that that's something i could do and it was simply because i saw somebody i shared an identity with i there were no indian women i could look up to before that doing aerospace engineering and going to space and that really you know took down a mental barrier that turned my you know dream of going to space into an actual plan to go to space so even though i've never met her she's definitely had a really big impact on my life and you know unfortunately um there was the incident with the space shuttle and of course passed way too soon but her legacy lives on and so many young women that looked up to her and she was a pioneer she was an incredible engineer um so that you know her legacy lives on it's


so that you know her legacy lives on it's so many young women i'm not young anymore actually so many women i i mean how does it feel being in that position now where probably you're going to tie the torch forward yeah i mean i i'm honored i mean i think representation is is key it's hard to be something you can't see um so seeing women seeing indians in doing incredible stuff especially in the aerospace industry hopefully will inspire a generation to at least you know think about the opportunities in the stem fields what had happened on that particular mission like what had gone wrong yeah i mean i'm not an expert in the shuttle program but unfortunately uh on there was uh an issue with the heat shield so um during re-entry the the vehicle um did not make it um and assuming a heat shield reflects the sun's rays away or something when you re-enter the atmosphere there's a lot of heat so you have to dissipate the heat effectively to come back the shuttle travels


heat effectively to come back the shuttle travels at a much higher speed because it's an orbital vehicle than our vehicle so we don't have those same issues um but yeah so yeah it dissipates the the enormous amount of heat that you have to get get rid of for lack of a better word when you're re-entering so basically distribute so um the vehicle can safely land like in this case it ended up absorbing a lot of the heat so what happens is that um if any component like any material can only take so much heat i mean you know you you've got you've burnt things i'm sure things are not supposed to be burnt or heated you know it's the same kind of concept any material if if if you don't manage the heat distribution properly if one area heats up too much it will lose its structural integrity you know with those rockets that take off and then they suddenly burst what actually goes wrong like there's a bunch of different things that could go


there's a bunch of different things that could go wrong that's what i'm assuming yeah i mean there's actually i think i think movies dramaticize things i mean there isn't that many incidents um there have been a few and we've always taken lessons learned in the past from these government programs and and commercial programs and you know put them into future uh vehicles and programs but i think you know movie you always have to capture someone's imagination so movies like gravity and others have things going wrong all the time but in reality there's so many processes and so many different checks and engineering work and analysis that gets done that you know and of course a flight test program also i mean you have a very lengthy program to create a product um so i think it's you know when we're looking at the movies it's a little dramatized and we're achieving especially with the commercial space industry a new level of safety just from the amount of times we fly the ability to test often so i i know space always


ability to test often so i i know space always has its inherent risks but the safety the safety record you know in itself is pretty good okay simple question what's nasa up to right now because uh when it comes to science uh science is always able to kind of predict exactly what future technologies are going to be and when it comes to science fiction it's possibly what future technologies are going to be like 200 years from now yep so i'm asking you from these two perspectives what's up in the near future and what's up for our grandchildren yeah i mean personally i can't wait till we start uh seeing people living on different different bodies in space i mean that's incredible but you know nasa and also isro is looking at more robust human space flight programs so we mean more robust so right now we have the international space station but we're looking at other destinations commercial stations on orbit um uh having settlements on the moon and having footprints on mars so how far do you think


having footprints on mars so how far do you think this is i think it's i mean i i don't think i will be the person going to mars i think it will be our younger viewers here yeah i do think i i mean i'm an optimist always and you know it's not there's a lot of technology development that still needs to happen especially to go to mars because that is a nine month trip just to get there and there are um not only looking at how you manage effectively the weight of the vehicle because you can't pack everything i mean i'm a big packer like i brought like five pairs of pants for a week in india i don't know why but you can't do that when you go on long duration trips to space you have to be very efficient you don't know what tools you're going to need so you're going to probably want technologies to 3d print items that you may need in emergencies so those are kind of technologies and also psychology i mean if you're in


technologies and also psychology i mean if you're in a small space with your crew baits for nine months i don't think we fully understand the mental effect of not being able to see earth and how that's going to have on our astronauts in the future i mean when you go to the moon you go to low earth orbit you always see earth and you know you're going to be coming back very you can come back very quickly that's when you go to mars that's not the case how long was your flight my flight's only 90 minutes yeah but did you feel any psychological impact no no but i think these are the um i mean trips like mine and trips on orbit trips to the moon we're going to gather data for longer duration trips like to mars and further destinations so we're on our way there um and you know commercial the commercial sector is partnering with nasa and other government agencies to help provide those technologies to get there um so yeah and if one thing i actually thought


um so yeah and if one thing i actually thought of last year so the international space station you know we've had people on board for you know 20 22 years this year and i was thinking last year in the u.s the legal drinking age is 21. so last year you know the the the young people that are now able to legally buy a beer have never known a moment where people weren't in space they've grown up always having somebody in orbit what's the point of the international space station like what does it do who gets selected to be up there why are people up there why does it still exist yeah so the international space station is basically an a laboratory in space so um government astronauts have typically used the vehicle to conduct technology demonstrations uh lots of life science physical life sciences work lots of pharmaceutical research so it's been a great platform for long duration access to the low gravity environment and we've been able to utilize that for lots of different purposes from material science to fluid physics and


of different purposes from material science to fluid physics and now recently with the commercial space sector they're actually also utilizing it for some private tourism so recently um a company called axiom sent uh three people to the international space station for i forgot the duration they stayed because i remember it got delayed their their their trip back got delayed due to weather so they got a few extra days in space um but there's some you can actually um nasa is allowing tourists up in the iss as well um and it's just a great place for science and yeah and technology innovation wow have you met anyone who spent time there yes so one of my mentors and my former boss is um uh commander michael lopez alegria former nasa astronaut i worked for him in the commercial space sector for a few years he actually was the commander of that mission that took the three people to space for tourism purposes through the company axiom what what did he say about life at the space station i mean he he he


life at the space station i mean he he he loves it i mean he's he was born to do this this kind of stuff and he he says it very well i mean he was definitely impacted by the view from space and he's flown multiple times so this is not the first time he's been at the iss but i was um walking my dog on just a sunday random sunday and i i get this phone call and it says u.s government on my phone and i was like that's sketchy that was like scammers are getting very smart so i declined it and i got this voicemail from mike la and he's like hey sirisha this is not me this is not the government trying to collect your taxes it's michael calling from the international space station you didn't answer and i was like dang it i was like mike you think you could have given me a heads up that you were going to call me from space so at least i have the voicemail but yeah i was i he called


have the voicemail but yeah i was i he called me from the international space station i can't like this is the world we're living from i'm getting we're getting phone calls from space like it blows my mind how do they get their power it's the sun solar power yes yep okay and it's always been solar power yes um they have batteries i mean as well but yeah their main source of power is those really cool panels that you see from on the iss so you know you spoke about the missions that possibly the teenagers of now are going to undertake possibly in the year 2050 or so when's the next uh mission to the moon or mission to mars like when is it lined up yeah it's actually um nasa is has a program called artemis where they are trying to get the the first woman on the moon and you know artemis is apollo sister so that's why it's named that that way um so in the next few years they're developing the capabilities to get to get uh


they're developing the capabilities to get to get uh people back on the moon and it's gonna be done in you know through nasa but also with international partners so uh yeah i don't think it's so far off how does one become an astronaut like what's the process like everyone's gonna do aeronautical engineering no so i this is this is why this is such a great time i mean you can be if you want to be an astronaut for an agency like nasa or esa there are requirements there's physical requirements that you have to go through um typically you do need an advanced degree in a stem field um so that's that's the kind of core that you'll see um being selected for nasa astronauts what's a stem field oh sorry science technology engineering math field got it um so that's yeah that's typically the core that makes it up um but with commercial space companies like virgin galactic and others that's not the case anymore it's anybody that wants to go to space hopefully will have that opportunity


to go to space hopefully will have that opportunity to go and i truly believe that you know the more you know people we send to space they're going to be artists musicians poets you know professional communicators politicians having that diverse view and having that diverse group of people have this experience is just going to have a profound effect on our generation and on our next generation because they'll carry the the experience forward yes yeah and you'll have people who come from countries that don't have a national space program they don't have an ezro in their co in their country and you'll have somebody go to space and go back to their country and their community and children will meet their first astronaut they've ever met and that's going to inspire them to hopefully go into the stem field or chase anything that they want to do so i think that is just that is so new we haven't seen that before and i get asked they're like how was the experience and i was like it's incredible because i'm an


and i was like it's incredible because i'm an engineer and i have very limited words in my vocabulary and um and that's not to say all engineers are like that i'm i definitely have very limited words in my vocabulary but i can't wait till we have a poet go to space and describe that experience it's going to be so much better than incredible you know when you were flying in the virgin galactic spacecraft could you see any space debris or could you see any satellites no so we're and we're not in low earth orbit so there's um you know suborbital space where we'll be flying which is 80 to 100 kilometers and then there's uh or um higher altitudes where uh satellites orbit so that's much higher than we go um so we wouldn't see any satellites which is interesting because um the part of the atmosphere we're traveling in is of you know we've had a lot of researchers want to study that area because it's an area that high altitude balloons


area because it's an area that high altitude balloons on earth can't reach because it's too high and it's an area that satellites can't sample because it's too low for them to to sample that or because if they get to that altitude they'll likely re-enter um so we've had a lot of atmospheric scientists like very interested in putting sensors on our vehicle testing instruments to get you know data in that area of the atmosphere one scientist in particular i i know he was a he is a planetary scientist he was looking at uh jupiter's moons and was looking at atmospheres of different bodies in space and then he was like okay i want to i have data for these other bodies i want to compare it to the atmosphere of earth and he realized there wasn't that much data at that time especially in the area that we flew so then he started studying earth and now he's uh he's primarily studies earth and he's still planetary science scientist because what's he trying


still planetary science scientist because what's he trying to figure he's i mean he's just looking at different atmospheric makeups of different uh planets and how you know what's their composition compared to earth and realized that there wasn't as much data he had more data on other planets than our own and he actually turned into an earth scientist um you know all these scientists that you meet generally and i'm sure you meet a bunch all the time is there anyone amongst them that doesn't believe in aliens because i've noticed that a lot of scientists also believe in the possibility of uh extraterrestrial life yeah i you know i don't ask that question to every every scientist i meet maybe i should i get a poll and i'll give you some data back no but what's what's your guess because i mean all of us who who are fascinated by space who are choosing professions related to space are all kind of science fiction fanboys and fan girls so what's up yeah do you think about


fan girls so what's up yeah do you think about alien life do you think about what's out there do these people think about what's out there yeah i mean i definitely do and i'm sure a lot of the community does as well not everyone's you know research work is related to it but you know as rare i mean it's pretty rare what we have here i mean yeah i mean the earth like a lot of things had to come together at the right time for us to exist but if you look at the just the expanse of the universe i i find it hard to believe we're the only ones i don't think there's i don't think it's very common but i don't think we're the only ones you know one of the reasons i started this podcast was to have monks on the show especially like indian monks because there's a lot of kind of alternative astrophysics written in indian scriptures as well a lot of them speak about the multiverse about uh extraterrestrial life have you


about the multiverse about uh extraterrestrial life have you ever looked into like indian scriptures and what they say about it i i mean i haven't but i should i mean you've sold me you need to listen to the runway show more regularly i'm subscribed now what what do you think of alien life like is that something that fascinates you yeah it does i mean you know i again i grew up watching star trek and so i lo i you know i would love to see that kind of interactions in the future i don't think it's gonna happen in my lifetime i mean starships are i would love to be a captain of a starship in the future okay you you don't need to drop names or give any details this is a yes or no question okay okay have you heard of any classified information from people you met no no yeah oh but you know it's right now actually just recently in the us congress held um a series of hearings on ufos so on it and they


of hearings on ufos so on it and they have a different name they have a different acronym for it but congress did just recently have hearings on information that was recently declassified of unidentified objects and how we can research and track these more in the future so so you're keeping a track i am i think i love all this stuff why don't you why don't you shed some light on this subject oh i mean i there's not there's nothing that i think is basically what came out of it is yes there's unidentified objects out there we need to figure out how to track them and learn more about them next time they happen so it was a little like you know if you're somebody that was like yeah i wanted a confirmation on if they were aliens you probably were disappointed but that's probably why they didn't use the word ufo yeah they had a different word i can't remember that i wonder why yeah i know i can't remember what the acronym is now but i'll have to look


the acronym is now but i'll have to look it up but yeah i think they called it like man i don't remember so you you had studied aeronautical engineering right briefly could you explain what that subject is yeah so um it's just the study of both air and space vehicles okay um and that includes you know satellites airplanes rockets you name it and i did aeronautical engineering so it's all about you know structures and propulsion systems and electrical systems for building and maintaining those kinds of vehicles so i watched uh this podcast that joe rogan did with an astronaut i can't remember the name but he spoke about how after his career in space he was actually involved in some deep-sea experiments or something but i don't i didn't understand why an astronaut would be chosen to kind of be a part of those experiments does it change your body your mind your capabilities when you spend that much time in space like does it make you eligible for some crazy experiments that happen on earth


eligible for some crazy experiments that happen on earth yeah so i mean it's it's all about the operation in the environment i mean the deep speed deep i think i said p not what you want to go into an ocean full of um the deep sea is just as inhospitable as space it's it's there's high pressure you have to have a very robust vehicle to be able to withstand that it's dark you know there's not much there when you go very deep into the ocean it's an area that there's a lot of exploration still to do and um you know somebody that's operated in an environment where you know you have systems that are very specific very precise they're small too you're i mean the the space the spacecrafts are not especially in orbit aren't you know like a mansion um so somebody with the capabilities of going to space um can translate those into exploring other parts of the world like the deep sea do you think you'd ever do that yeah i would love to yeah i


ever do that yeah i would love to yeah i would love to but have you seen the creatures that live in the deep sea yeah they are freaky i i feel there's a whole world left to be explored and i mean that from a science fiction perspective i think there's there's some crazy down there that we don't know about yeah no absolutely oh yeah there's a lot to explore on our planet and off our planet as well in terms of books that will teach people a lot about space do you have any recommendations yeah um there there is well i've been reading a lot of commercial space uh sure whatever it is yeah so uh one of uh one of my friends uh chris davenport he's a reporter at the washington post um has a book called the space barons so if you want a history of how commercial space came to be uh you know uh elon musk jeff bezos richard branson their companies and how they came into the market totally recommend this book um i am reading a


market totally recommend this book um i am reading a book right now for the first time and in a few months um one of my mentors lori garver who was the deputy administrator uh nasa um just released her book about again i know i've said this so many times policies that drove how we got to where we are in space flight and it's very interesting to take a step back and look at it from that view because as an engineer i've always looked at the advancement of technologies but it's great to see the advancement of policies that actually allowed these technologies to come to market and allowed them to take people to space that yeah in a whole different way so um yeah so that i would call that book is called escaping gravity by lori garver great um and then since you love aliens so much i would also recommend the three body program it's a degree body problem it's not it's it's it's a science fiction book okay but it it the story itself i don't know spoilers


it it the story itself i don't know spoilers because yeah the story itself is told in a very realistic way on how a first contact might come about so i i don't wanna spoil anything but it's no it's not good the book is good the contact okay not so much do you think if we actually have some sort of a first contact it'll be bad i mean i hope not i mean again i'm a i'm a star trek believer and you know they the first contact there is for you know partnership and mutual progress forward and i hope that is what we have in the future but i mean um i i actually think the first contact will be good like have you seen the movie arrival yes i think it'll be something like that yeah and that's again that's a that's another great example of you know what it what i mean it's a linguist that is the main character in that in that you know uh narrative and it's it's a linguist that is utilizing scientists and


it's a linguist that is utilizing scientists and researchers um it just kind of shows you the meld of not only the sciences but the communicators that are really going to provide success hmm um now here's what i've understood about space travel from you and this particular episode has been eye opening for me um now on one end i have science fiction and aliens and black holes and wormholes and conversations that i've had with astrophysicists yeah and they talk about what's going to happen possibly 200 300 years into the future and that's the job of modern day scientists to kind of be able to create engineering pathways yeah and all that's fascinating but the practical realistic truth is that technology along with policy has to go one step at a time which is why your experiment with the plants you're figuring out how to feed the astronauts which will you know carry out those experiments i mean who'll end up eating that food while they're on their way to mars and once we're on mars then we


way to mars and once we're on mars then we can talk about things like terraforming and other things but my question to you is are there active scientists and engineers who are thinking about wormholes and thinking about how to create actual spacecrafts that can take humans beyond the solar system like is that an active field of research right now yeah there's definitely teams at nasa that are looking at different types of propulsion systems and different vehicles um for future travel that are that need to go faster and to further destinations so that's definitely part of it i think we're you know it's good to go step by step you know we go from suborbital to orbital to the moon to mars and then maybe an asteroid or a few other destinations so because in that process you're create you're iterating on technologies that will continue to get better um and be more efficient that'll take you farther and farther so yeah there's definitely teams looking at it but i i like the step-by-step approach as well


but i i like the step-by-step approach as well i mean i can't i can't wait to go back to well i'm not going to the moon in particular even though i would if i give him the opportunity why why would you i'd love to go to the moon i mean i grew up looking at this picture called earthrise and it was a picture that was taken by one of the apollo astronauts of earth and it's it basically just looks like it's rising out of space and i would love i mean i would just yeah i would love to see that so on the moon does the earth look like what the moon looks like from earth uh i mean it looks like it looks like earth does it look like a moon but just like blue and green yeah yeah it looks like yeah i mean looks like you know a disc of of incredible colors and yeah life life everything we know is on that that that that circular disc that you see well it's a sphere obviously but when you were looking down


a sphere obviously but when you were looking down at the earth um other than north america did you see any other continents so i saw my view was the southwest part of the united states launches in the future from different global space ports will provide different views like if you launch from italy you'll see the boot launch from australia you'll see the incredible pacific ocean while i want to ask you all these crazy wild questions i'm gonna ask you sort of a more practical wild question okay okay uh i do believe that within our lifetimes we're gonna see a lot of missions to the moon where we'll see a lot of humans kind of exploring the moon um there's a whole half the moon is completely dark all the time it's just the way uh yeah physics works so when we talk about the dark side of the moon one side of the moon has been dark forever and you don't know what that's kind of led to because when you compare to the ocean where parts of


because when you compare to the ocean where parts of the ocean have been dark forever yeah now we go down there places where sunlight doesn't reach and you actually see life then you see crazy basically yeah it makes me look weird yeah it makes me wonder what's on the dark side of the moon can there actually be life in hostile conditions like that can there be something else can there be like crazy volcanoes or something i don't know yeah i think we'll know once we have um when we're able to explore more um and i think what's important is making sure there's a communication network that we're able to effectively communicate um when we're on whenever you know wherever we are on the moon um so i did i did electronics and telecommunication engineering oh yeah and this is basically what entc engineering is yeah that's communication yeah and that's really important for space that we have that network uh and the means to communicate effectively back especially if we have humans there um and actually there's a


we have humans there um and actually there's a mission launching monday was i think the last time i checked it was uh june 27th um of course launches if there's any weather it'll get delayed but it's a it's a small that's a small satellite basically um called capstone going to the moon um and they're going to be testing um faster communications um with less lag and delay so that maybe in the future that we'll have a network of small satellites providing effective columns back to earth for satel for humans to use but also for scientific data so you'll have a lot more coverage speaking about entc engineering communication uh is something we take for granted because of our mobile phones like if i want to call you the assumption of the average human being is that i'll dial your number and probably some kind of a wave will go directly to your phone but that's not how it works it goes back to the service provider that you're using and they have their own range of networks


using and they have their own range of networks then there's a transfer from their range of networks to your service providers range of networks etc etc and if you're in different countries it becomes even wilder yes now my question to you is about space and the engineering of it is it like if you if i want to call you while you're in space or that mentor we also called you from the space station yeah so is there some sort of a wave that hits one of the satellites that's orbiting the earth and then that satellite sends it down to some technology built by nasa or by virgin galactic and then that kind of deflects it to your service provider yeah it's all through relays of satellites and to ground stations and a lot of the ground stations there there's some that are government owned and operated there's commercial owned and operated there's a lot of actual commercial companies that are now getting into the communications world i mean they've always been there um but you've seen this advent recently um


there um but you've seen this advent recently um in the last few years of small satellites um and their satellites that are much smaller than traditional satellites that can be the size of a school bus they're like probably this big and can go a little bit it can go bigger as well but um they're they're called cubesats uh small sats so they orbit earth at much lower altitude so their life is actually shorter so they stay on orbit for you know two years two to four years instead of a larger satellite they'll stay on orbit for 30 plus years and these small satellites can cover a lot more of earth because you spent send a lot more up there so they're creating a network that can cover a lot more of earth and they're being they're able to now provide communication services to areas of the world that aren't that aren't as developed and do not have the luxury of cell towers everywhere and the advantage of small satellites is that when you send them up um you know their


that when you send them up um you know their life spanish is so short when you know when you send up you know they'll burn up in two to four years you'll send up another set of satellites and they'll have the latest technology because as you know we went from just in the last you know two decades having no cell phone like brick phones to basically super computers in our in our pockets technology especially the electronic side especially the miniaturization of electronics is advancing quickly so if you have more opportunities to send up the latest technology into space i mean it's always an advantage rather than sending up one payload for 30 years that whose technology will age quickly in our you know in the current environment to sending up satellites much quicker with the latest technologies on board and you're seeing that industry you know flourish do you get internet in space because internet is basically a collection of wires on the earth's surface that's what people don't understand about the engineering side of the internet because people associate


about the engineering side of the internet because people associate the internet with wi-fi so i'm assuming that the internet in space is some sort of a super wi-fi router that's sending out yeah it's all through satellites still it's all through satellite relays for us uh we hope that people spend their journey since not tweeting you'll have plenty of time for that on on earth but for us we will not have wi-fi on board yeah what about the international space station yeah they have the means of internet as well as um uh calls and communication have you spoken to any of them about spacewalks nasa always live streams there's their spacewalks so it's always great to like honestly just go on youtube and see an astronaut out you know out in the space environment doing it doing work it's very cool to see crazy oh again while i want to ask you so many more questions there's one wild question uh that's kind of been sitting in my mind since almost the beginning of this episode so if uh hypothetically


the beginning of this episode so if uh hypothetically speaking if all the world's governments come together and they come to you and say sirisha uh we know you've wanted to be an astronaut all your life we're gonna give you this one mission where we're gonna put you in like a spaceship and then send you right into a black hole would you do it i you know i i would think about right now yes you should do it you should know right now i would definitely do it but i mean in like five years when i have like if i had you know have a family i think it will be a harder choice my dog will not forgive me if i leave him right now but i i probably wouldn't be able to take on you know resist to to explore the unknown if they put your entire family on that spaceship with you i don't think my family would if they agreed yeah that'd be awesome what do you think is on the other side of a black hole because


is on the other side of a black hole because i'm dead sure you've read stuff about this the the forces of the black hole is something that just crushes i mean it's something that is not from my perspective and what i when i know black holes is not survivable in with our current technology um i mean you will just be pulverized going into a black hole so um yeah so that i'm just going from what i'm reading from what's been released on black holes i mean recently the the very first image of the black hole we captured that um so i don't think we have right now we're not there where we can survive a black hole um okay or we don't know enough to survive a black but to develop the technology technologies in my i mean with my limited knowledge of it to survive a black hole okay so when's your next space trip i would love to go as soon as possible but we're about to start commercial services and you know we're going to start flying


services and you know we're going to start flying customers and i this experience is something i can't wait to share with so many more people so i would i would not want to take a seat away from somebody that hasn't had that experience but i'll go and get again i would volunteer as ballast we're rooting for you sirisha thank you and when i say we i mean both india and the human race in general thank you they rarely do you meet humans who are able to kind of take up their childhood passions during their adulthood and do it so successfully uh you're an idol for a lot of not just brown girls but brown people in general and i wouldn't even say brown people i'd just say people in general so thank you keep doing your thing thank you so much and i hope you had fun on the episode i had so much fun no but thank you for sharing all your knowledge and we're rooting for you thank you i'm rooting for everybody i'm rooting for


you i'm rooting for everybody i'm rooting for humanity thank you sarisha bamba i want to see you on the ranvi show once again yes absolutely i love it beautiful all right so that was the episode for today india on an international stage now is known for isro but it's also known for stories like this people of indian origin conquering their own domains that's what every indian loves about being indian in the modern day so this was my first ever conversation with an astronaut i'm hoping that i get to speak to a lot more i'd love for you guys to drop in your recommendations be it indian guest be it international guests it's all about bringing the best experiences and perspectives in the form of casual relaxed conversation make sure you follow trs on spotify every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world this was a space special with sirisha bendla on the runway show if you want to learn more about space and science i'm gonna


to learn more about space and science i'm gonna link some fantastic episodes down below we will see you soon [Music] you


this one's another geopolitics and world history special especially made for international listeners and international viewers of the ranveer show we have abhijit chavda again speaking about the cold war this time the world's history post world war two up till about 1990 this is the second part of our three-part special on modern world history part one was about the world wars part three is about the modern day but part two is possibly the most crucial because it was the nearest historical patterns that we can study as human beings and that we can expect will repeat themselves very soon so without further ado this is abhijit chavra on the show remember to follow us on spotify every episode's available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world trs is a spotify exclusive and this is another apigee chapter special along with team beer biceps this is the ranveer show [Music] mr ac welcome back to trs the original plan was to do a two part episode about the world war and what it led to


episode about the world war and what it led to in the modern day but as we began to unpack we did a long episode on the world wars i think this episode is just going to be about the cold war because again there's a lot to unpack and then we'll do a third one called dear america but i've always wanted to do these kind of world history episodes and we're finally doing it in a few lines what do you think of the cold war and what it did for the world uh post the 90s according to you well the cold war was the uh reorganization of the world order post the second world war it was the decline of the old european powers and the emergence of two new powers the united states a different continent and russia the ussr which was always at the periphery of affairs in europe so it was the reorganization of the world it was the emergence of two superpowers and the division of the world into a bipolar system what was happening after world war


bipolar system what was happening after world war ii when it came to russia and america so at the end of the second world war the world became very rapidly polarized divided the old powers the european powers were no longer in at the peak of the powers the the peak of the the strength they were quickly relegated to second class status on the geopolitical uh podium so to say and the two major vectors that emerged at the end of 1945 were the united states and the ussr money was concentrated in these two countries in the u.s there was a lot of money massive amounts of money the entirety of western europe was indebted to the us in the ussr there were these massive industries that they were building up so the usr was not that rich yet but they had this massive industries that was a massively industrializing and already industrialized nation and they had enormous amounts of territory enormous amounts of resources and the manpower the human uh


amounts of resources and the manpower the human uh power needed to man these industries and quickly become a major force in the world so that's what happened and the the continent of europe was divided into these two blocks the eastern bloc and the western bloc the iron curtain was very visible in berlin itself berlin itself was cut in according to two portions and that was the cold war so it was a battle for supremacy it was a battle of ideological supremacy and geopolitical supremacy ideologically which is the better side is it capitalism on the the which the u.s always followed or was it socialism marxism leninism stalinism on the uss side on the ussr side so that was the ideological clash and the geopolitical clash to control the world you know it's a simple question but i actually want to hear an answer from you uh what is communism or socialism and also maybe kind of begin by giving us a little input into capitalism so capitalism is all


a little input into capitalism so capitalism is all about making money exploiting the world making quarter upon quarter profits let's say you have a company a corporation you are in the business of making money for your sale of shareholders basically for shareholders so it's all about the pursuit of quarter upon quarter profit your only aim is to be profitable and to profit your shareholders and the entire country the entire nation of the us was a capitalist nation it's all about making money competition free market and expansion globally hopefully the british empire also was that sort of thing but it was more of an extractive kind of enterprise so the us took over the entire the geopolitical framework of the british empire by the 1950s and then they expanded in various dimensions in various countries and various continents the ussr also wanted to have their own sphere of influence massive sphere of influence so their sphere of influence was eastern europe primarily in the beginning of the cold war 45 onwards the entire


beginning of the cold war 45 onwards the entire eastern bloc which was the eastern part of germany czechoslovakia um uh and and the hungary romania all these eastern bloc nations they were part of the soviet bloc and also later there was this uh competition in iran who would take over iran whether iran will become a western power western dominated power or a russian satellite state because at the time there was a u.s backed coup mohammed bosa was overthrown and the shah of iran came into power it was all about oil obviously it was controlled it was about control of resources about the oil control of oil control of the seas so much more so there's this massive thing going on those the chinese angle as well china was another socialist marxist mao west country communist country so the question you ask is about communism what is communism so we understood what capitalism is in very brief communism is all about collectivist collectivizing society it's the idea that nobody


collectivizing society it's the idea that nobody should own any property the property should be the uh should belong to the state which represents the people so in a communist country in a marxist country you have a dictatorship of the proletariat the proletariat is the workers in in in any society they say that there are multiple classes of people it's about classes you have the proliterate which is the workers the people who do the hard labor they are the sons of the soil the daughters of the soil you have the bourgeoisie which is the people who exploit the producer yet and then you have the upper class which is the royalty or whatever the traditional feudal class and uh power holding class and all that right so you have these classes so in a community society what to transition from a capitalist to community society you need a communist revolution a people's revolution in which there is violence the the bourgeoisie is overthrown the evil capitalists are overthrown then you have the establishment of a


are overthrown then you have the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat a small number of people who will rule the country in the name of the people right and then you will have a collectivized society in which nobody really owns any property but everybody has access to everything right so in the daytime you work hard you produce goods and do all that in the evening you can have your whiskey and have your debates about communism and all that it's an ideal utopian communist society and the track record shows us that it likely doesn't work well there's a reason for that because marx never said what sort of what did he mean by the dictatorship of the proletariat who is supposed to lead the country after your revolution has succeeded is it supposed to be a democratic election to elect the dictatorship of the prelate or is that is it that the thugs who were at the forefront of the revolution will conservative power it's typically that way so he never quite explained or prescribed


typically that way so he never quite explained or prescribed what sort of society actually should exist once the revolution has succeeded right in in a violent revolution with a violent overthrow it's typically the you know the thuggish elements of society that rise to the forefront because that's the people who are the most adept at violence and then you have thugs who rule the country police bullies and thugs and goons you know stalin was a big goon i mean every communist revolution has thrown up such bullies dictators tyrants so that's how it goes so that is what a communist society is collectivized society nobody owns anything property there is no property you don't own anything but you own everything in name and actually what happens in every community society is that a very small number of people end up having all the power and owning everything which is the politburo of the communist party what is socialism socialism is you could say soft soft communism soft marxism india is defined as a what


soft marxism india is defined as a what a socialist something socialist and spirit or something like that uh secular socialist republic or something yeah so socialism means the people the downtrodden masses uh actually are the representatives of the people and there is a kind of collectivization of the society which means that all these schemes and everything are for the benefit of the poor that sort of thing so in in a way there is a an element of collectivism in socialism as well i think in india the constitution does not recognize the right to property as a fundamental right as far as i am as i recall it's that way what does that mean it means that the state can take away your property and it is not unconstitutional even like till today till today so that is the day that's what happens in a socialist uh society all property is technically not owned by anybody you may actually own it but the state can take it away if required for whatever larger purpose larger good of


if required for whatever larger purpose larger good of the society or whatever so socialism is like soft marxism soft communism it's it's more than the same thing the ussr is the union of soviet socialist republics right china also defines it itself as a socialist country in in socialist nation in some ways in truth what is it because there is no in truth there is no real definition there is no clear-cut unambiguous definition of what marxism is what socialism is at the end of the day all of this is a toolkit marxism is a toolkit that is designed to bring to power a very small number of people who then use the same toolkit to stay in power and expand their power that's typically what it is the first time i ever studied about the cold war in school i used to find this topic extremely boring there was no actual wars there was i mean you know the things that fascinate you as a kid it wasn't a part of this topic over time as i


a part of this topic over time as i got more educated as i grew up i realized that oh basically when there are two major powers they are going to fight it out for deciding who will be the champion power uh and when you talk about geopolitics you either attack or you defend there is no staying neutral you expand in one way or the other or you prevent yourself from being eaten by a larger power that is human nature and human nature actually defines all forms of human conflict the layer that you paint on top of that is this intelligent uh layer oh i stand for this ideology and i stand for that ideology and socialism and communism and capitalism but democracy yeah human rights yeah liberalism in truth the different teams are just chasing money who whoever gets access to land whoever gets access to people whoever gets access to resources will become richer the richer person is the champion of the world which is why i think in that book 21 lessons from the 21st century by


that book 21 lessons from the 21st century by yuan no harari he's spoken about this clash of ideologies and you know trailing away a little bit from the linear nature of this podcast ussr lost the cold war and america came out on top they thought that democracy and capitalism had won and now we have big daddy china which is not a democratic or capitalist country in his purest sense so the truth is depending on the time whoever's got the best strategy to get the bag of money that person or that power wins but coming back to the nature of the cold war so uh am i right in singapore that it's effectively a chase for money and power it's all about control of resources control of uh territory control of people control of power control of money if you're a capitalist nation or a socialist nation at the end of the day you need territory you need money you need resources in order to come up on top so at the end of the day is always about the same things


end of the day is always about the same things it's about territory it's about control it's about power it's about resources which translates itself to money that's what it is it's always a clash of these things but you will put slogans on top of that i believe in this i stand for this or i stand for that but at the end of the day it's the same thing it's like wwe wrestlers one guy has one kind of giving i'm the dead man one guy has um i'm a badass or whatever but it's branding basically it's branding okay so what happened what's the branding story so they both told their own audiences which are their own populations or the populations of the countries allied with themselves that listen we stand for capitalism these guys said listen we stand for socialism this is the way of life these guys said this is the way of life they tried controlling other countries basically indirectly again in a way it was economic colonization we


again in a way it was economic colonization we think imperialism stopped after world war ii but in some ways it just evolved into something else well if you take the case of africa for instance africa is still colonized in a different way in the past the european powers the colonial powers would have direct physical presence the boots on the ground in africa today they do it indirectly but the resources are still flowing into the western developed nations there are countries with enormous amounts of gold cobalt lithium uranium whatever but the people are so poor even though they have so much gold so what happens to all that gold what happens to all that oil that these countries have why do these countries which are so resource rich why are they still so dirt poor because they are still colonized indirectly in a different way you have despotic powers that are put in place through coups through revolutions and then they serve their colonial masters that's what continues so colonization has never stopped in some cases


continues so colonization has never stopped in some cases you have puppet states or or satellite states or client states which is something both sides played in the cold war the ussr had the entire soviet bloc the warsaw pact countries the us are the nato countries they had the various colonies in let's say australia or new zealand they had their vassal states like the uk like japan and it was a geopolitical chessboard it was all about influence in the us the americans said that we are anti-communism communism is a threat to the world so that's why they went into vietnam to stop the threat of communism expanding but actually they wanted what it was actually to stop the expansion of chinese influence and russian influence further in asia right it's all about controlling various parts of the world you don't want the other side to gain more influence in this this territory which is still up for grabs so you go and fight a war there that's that's what


go and fight a war there that's that's what that's what happened so in vietnam there was this conflict which happened between north vietnam and south vietnam the south was controlled was pro-us the north was pro was was communist ussr so it was a class of ideologies but it was a clash of the superpowers over there as well also the same thing happened in the korean war in various other conflicts that played out india was a big big country that was up for grabs the americans courted india multiple times they offered india and the soviets also offered india at the same time a permanent seat on the u.n security council india's great prime minister mr nehru refused multiple times he repeatedly refused it india doesn't want to play a big role in the world and the americans even offered india nuclear weapons technology john f kennedy offered that to mr nero it is on the record and he offered that before the india china war in 62


offered that before the india china war in 62 so had india acquired the nuclear weapons technology maybe we would have gone into the u.s camp but we would have been able to prevent china from ever raising their eyes i mean trying to attack us so um mr nehru decided to become a soviet to to turn india into a soviet satellite state essentially because he was enamored with socialism fabian socialism and he was in awe of the industrialization that russia had achieved under mr stalin and later christian and so on so he wanted to replicate that in india and what he ended up doing was he ended up doing nothing he uh his period of rule and the later period also was called the neherubian rate of growth two percent one percent per year a country as broken as india could have developed at 15 20 per year if the right steps had been taken so that's a that's an aside to the cold war but india was also part of this so india became a soviet


also part of this so india became a soviet satellite state de facto whether indians would like it or not that's what happened otherwise india could have become become a u.s satellite state what would have happened if that had happened so ahead india had a different leader with a different mindset that leader could have taken india perhaps into the western bloc but depending on the leadership you could remain reasonably independent have a reasonably independent foreign policy while accruing some benefits from the west as long as you stay nominally or to some extent physically also materially on their side because uh so so that's what would have happened there are many states like egypt for instance which became essentially western satellite states after certain wars and all that egypt was for the longest time a british protectorate the british had boots on the ground in the suez region so this was canal was the umbilical cord of the of the british empire later after 1956 essentially it


the british empire later after 1956 essentially it became the egypt became after that conflict a pro-us kind of country the u.s tolerated the us the various regimes that were in power in egypt so lots of things could have happened india could have become a u.s satellite state pro-us or like it became a pro-soviet satellite state but if you look at the trajectory economic trajectory india took it was terrible it had a very very bad effect on the indian economy and the people of india so maybe india could have taken a different direction depending on the leadership you could remain reasonably independent as well without allowing us both on the ground in india as long as you don't have foreign military occupation as long as you have your own army your own independent foreign policy you can align yourself in whichever way is best for you based on mutual benefits and respect so that could have happened perhaps apparently what was happening in america and russia they were


was happening in america and russia they were economically growing rapidly both and i think there was this whole arms race that was going on there was a scientific exploration race in some ways what was happening there so there were multiple technological races happening the americans were the first to detonate a nuclear weapon and they used it in war in 1945 the soviets then started pursuing the technology and the soviets were the second nation i believe to test a nuclear weapon and what also happened was operation paper clip so i have mentioned this in the past that the germans were the pioneers of missile technology cruise missiles and ballistic missiles too at the end of the world war ii when the germans surrendered the americans were able to acquire physically most the cream of the german scientists who were involved in these programs people like werner von braun etc who were all moved physically to the us and various missiles actual missiles were also moved to the u.s


missiles actual missiles were also moved to the u.s so the american space program has a german origin the entire space program was built by german scientists in what is called operation paper clip so the so the v2 missile was tested from the us and then it was improved and further new um rocket designs were created from that the soviets also acquired what was left of the german uh scientific manpower and that was taken to the ussr and that's how the russian the soviet uh rocket program space program began so they had the r2 rocket and other the rockets that they iteratively improved upon and then the soviets transferred the technology to china so the chinese rocket program also began as an offshoot of the russian or of the german rocket program so the u.s space program the russia the ussr space program and the chinese space program all were born in germany it was all german technology that was then further improved upon so there was a space race there was a nuclear race


there was a space race there was a nuclear race even the chinese then in the 1960s i believe tested their own nuclear weapons so there was an arms race which is the nuclear weapons race there was a space race about who would first put satellites in the sky these soviets won that race with sputnik they were also the first to put a human being in space yuri gagarin the first woman in space valentina tereshkova in the beginning the soviets were at the forefront of the space race the americans were catching up but eventually by the 1960s late 1960s the americans overtook the russians they were the first to put human beings on the moon and they thus far have been the only nation to do that so there are multiple things going on here you know with the cold war i get the geopolitical angles where you basically economically colonize another nation and become richer but what's the logic of dominating space is it kind of like a my dick is


space is it kind of like a my dick is bigger than your thing like is it an ego thing is it um is there geopolitics involved well there are multiple layers to this as well let's say that a us president is able to overtake the ussr in terms of the space race that guy's gonna get re-elected there's national pride involved but when the sputnik satellite went into space the americans were frightened because then you would have nuclear weapons coming in from space nukes in space raining down on you from space so they had to do something about that so they also had to put up their own satellites in space then as rockets got better they wanted to also keep up with the ussr in building more powerful rockets in order in in case it's needed somewhere right i mean rockets like the saturn rocket etc etc it's a dual use technology the better rockets you have the better missiles you have ballistic missiles icbms intercontinental ballistic missiles then you have


icbms intercontinental ballistic missiles then you have rockets or missiles you can launch from submarines from under the sea that takes a lot of research so both nations were pursuing these different angles space has a very clear military dimension the space race is actually about keeping up in them from a military perspective if the soviets could colonize the moon the u.s would be left behind there was a very big fear about that happening so that's why there was the moon race going on and the americans want that so it was always the fear that the other side will overtake us a miniaturization of weapons so that you can put them inside on top of a nuclear on top of a ballistic missile for instance wow wait what like what what is this so typically when you make a nuclear the first nuclear weapons that are made by the americans thought massive massive things if you see the photographs of fat boy and little little little man little boy fatman whatever whatever it's called the two


little boy fatman whatever whatever it's called the two the nuclear uh the hiroshima bomb and the nagasaki bomb these are enormous devices very heavy devices how big was it uh it could easily fit this room you know big devices uh but these were small explosions they would today be be classified as tactical nuclear weapons or kilo tons a few kilo tons 20 10-20 kilotons of output of tnt equivalent that's the way we measure nuclear output the output of a nuclear weapon the equivalent amount of kilo tons of tnt that you can explode so um eventually what happened is that more bigger and bigger more powerful nuclear weapons were created but they were miniaturized so you could put them on top of a rocket or a missile that could be delivered anywhere in the world if initially you had inter small short-range ballistic missiles then intermediate range by ballistic missiles and eventually you had intercontinental range ballistic missiles of this technology also developed so there was a massive arms race


also developed so there was a massive arms race going on and the world world soon came to the brink of nuclear disaster one wrong one mistake one wrong press of the button and both sides are at war nuclear war so that's the what the world was on br was at the brink of for a very long time there were a couple of very close not available uh nazi germany were very fresh in people's heads and nazi germany had focused on technology science advancements probably classified scientific experiments that aren't released from public even today that's the urban legends you know about einstein's philadelphia experiment et cetera et cetera so the way i look at it they were trying to show each other listen i am ahead of you in this scientific race and if i am a head in science i probably have stronger weapons than you that's why i can win the war so don't go to war then it became this constant sort of half ego battle half battle of science to keep up with the other person


battle of science to keep up with the other person which for mankind one it created a dangerous scenario but two it also helped progress science heavily what do you agree being a scientist yes it did progress the limits of technology significantly tremendously but it also brought the world on the brink of disaster which it stayed at for a very long time even now we have a massive amount of nuclear weapons it's called mutually assured destruction once you have so many nuclear weapons and missiles on each side it's mutually assured destruction nobody wants to use them ever because if one is launched there's going to be a volley of missiles coming from the other side then you're going to launch 10 more then 10 more then very soon it's gonna be destruction complete let's break away from geopolitics for a second let's talk to the scientists in you if we actually have nuclear war can you paint a picture of what will happen in case of a nuclear war somebody is gonna launch


case of a nuclear war somebody is gonna launch a missile that's how it begins whether it's from a submarine whether it's from a ground-based silo whether it's from the air somebody's going to launch a missile that missile is going to be detected by the by the place by the country where it's going to come where it's going to land so in retaliation that country will be left with no choice if there's a nuclear missile coming its way or if it explodes you have to pay back in the same coin so you're gonna launch one more then the other side will launch one more there could be multiple launches and they'll bomb each other's cities yes and then once you have multiple launches there it's all it's all going to happen it's it's like an unstoppable chain reaction like what happened in world war one once the first declaration of what happened it was a instantaneous chain reaction everybody was at war similarly this could happen right now also if somebody makes the


could happen right now also if somebody makes the mistake of launching a nuclear weapon my goodness the whole pack of cards could crumble very rapidly um say if usa and russia were to go to war what would happen to a country like australia which is geographically far away from these two countries could they also face the consequences of a nuclear war happening on the other side of the world uh australia is a nation whose security is essentially guaranteed by the us you could say that australia is a us run corporation all right so if the us and russia were to go to war it would annihilate both countries right there would be a tremendous amount of nuclear fallout maybe it could destroy the whole world possibly but in case there is not total destruction in this hypothetical scenario these two nations the us and the russians would be destroyed more or less that would leave australia a fair game for the chinese that's what would happen i asked the question from an


what would happen i asked the question from an environmental perspective in terms of like when you say nuclear fallout what would happen to the other countries uh if there's only one or two nuclear weapons that are exploded that are that are detonated it would not have much of a nuclear fallout because in the in the 1950s 60s 70s there were lots of atmospheric nuclear tests the russians exploded the tsar bomba which has which had an output of about 50 megatons massive the biggest explosion ever a nuclear explosion ever these would release radioactivity radioactive fallout into the atmosphere but the atmosphere is so big it will absorb it eventually it's like a small chernobyl right so when when the chernobyl thing happened in 1986 when the reactor when the reactor went to meltdown it exploded it spewed all kinds of nuclear fallout into the atmosphere for a few months europe was on alert because there was this big cloud of radioactive debris in the


was this big cloud of radioactive debris in the atmosphere it would eventually fall in the form of rain on grass and all that i was there in europe at the time we were told not to go and play football in the in the fields because you know it could give you radiation sickness or whatever so for a few months there was a scenario but eventually everything went back to normal did it fall anywhere it must have fallen but it was not the effects were not significant in any way i don't think they were able to detect any radiation on the ground okay so if there's only one or two such bombs that explode typically there won't there won't be much of a problem but if a thousand nuclear weapons are detonated it will cause first of all massive damage on the ground lots of people will die and that much radiation in the air could poison the atmosphere and it could cause a significant health hazard worldwide because the atmospheric currents very rapidly will transfer that all across


currents very rapidly will transfer that all across the planet because of the atmospheric currents are like ocean currents the entire atmospheric atmosphere is always churning so if lots of nuclear weapons are detonated that could have a very bad effect on the environment on human beings on animals on the water groundwater all of that and you think we live in times where there are powerful men or women out there who would be ready to go to war using nuclear weapons i hope not i think the threat was much higher the risk was much higher in the court during the cold war i mean there were a couple of fake uh false alerts as well you know when um when the the computer system that was designed to detect an incoming launch missile launch actually once it was malfunctioned and it took a cool head to say it's a malfunction and it's not a real nuclear launch otherwise there could have been a nuclear stream it's happened a couple of times so we have come close but cool heads have


times so we have come close but cool heads have typically prevailed i think the threat of nuclear war is kind of less today most likely why because at that time there was a clear bipolarity in the world a clear division of the world order and both sides were roughly equally matched and both sides were equally ambitious today you have a unipolar world order people say that the the chinese are a second superpower they are not a superpower is defined in my in my definition a superpower is a nation that can intervene at any place in the world at 30 minutes notice intervene militarily and there's only one country that can do that the u.s the chinese are nowhere near that status really really they're not the narrative right now is that china is up there no china is not china is nowhere near being a superpower china is the most important and the most powerful asian power so you could say china is an asian superpower a superpower in asia okay but it's not a global


superpower in asia okay but it's not a global superpower it is an aspiring superpower it aspires to replace and displace the us by 2050 or so maybe earlier hopefully things work out yeah but yeah china is not a superpower right now so today we have a mostly unipolar world order mostly and i mean from 1992 onwards until the 2010s there was a clear unipolar world order there was only one big dog the us let's let's dial back a little bit into the 80s and the 90s what finally led to america so called winning the cold war so there's a whole change of chain of events uh what happened was the soviets would call it ideological dilution so you had you had leaders coming in see stalin was the the big strong man the iron man and he was adamant about his ideological superiority that our ideology is the best ideology and we have an ideological counter to the western capitalism so there was this strong ideological indoctrination among the russian population among


strong ideological indoctrination among the russian population among the elise among the kgb among the spiders the nkvd whatever after sullen died i think uh it was lavarenthi beriya i mean there are a couple of people yeah lavrenti berya was there for a while then you had nikita khrushchev and each subsequently ruler made certain ideological concessions towards the west that we are kind of ideologically kind of inferior by the time we come to the 1980s we have mikhail gorbachev who came to power he introduced the policies of perestroika and glasnost about openness and transparency and we will not be afraid to show where we are wrong and all that while the americans are always like we are bad we are better we are superior we have done nothing wrong we don't have any weaknesses and the soviets slowly started showing weaknesses and the grip on power also in the 1980s kind of weakened the grip of the soviet communist party and the


the grip of the soviet communist party and the politburo chernobyl happened that kind of was a blow to the international prestige of the ussr and the russians kind of see mr gorbachev as an agent of the west that he precipitated the decline in the destruction of the ussr so long story short by the 1990s mr gorbachev had lost his hold on power and because of that what happened is that there's a various soviet republics like whose kazakhstan uzbekistan et cetera et cetera et cetera they all declared independence ukraine and so on and there was a tremendous economic decline also gradually over time in the ussr so they were not doing very well economically the milit the the industries were not progressing they were kind of decrepit to some extent and all so all of these factors came together and by the 1990s the ussr was on the brink of disaster and then you had the uh there was this


disaster and then you had the uh there was this coup attempt and all that which uh boris helsin is involved in involved alexander rutskoy lots of other people from that time were involved in this mr gorbachev kind of abdicated power there was this period of strife conflict turmoil there was some shots fired etc and eventually the transition happened mr yeltsin came to power he was a very pro-west guy all the various soviet republics broke off became independent they had their own strong men in place and what mr yeltsin did was that he destroyed the russian economy what he did see for 60 70 years the soviet economy was a collectivized economy the entire wealth of the people was in the custody of the communist party now the communist party crumbled mr yeltsin came to power which means that all the wealth all the industries everything of the people all of their savings for decades were in the hands of this one person what he did was he created


of this one person what he did was he created the system of oligarchs his various favorite cronies he handed various industries over to them and these guys proceeded to destroy these economies these industries they ruined these industries they ran them into the ground and by the time mr yeltsin was done the russian economy was gone destroyed there were long lines for food for bread for soup all these things those rampant unemployment the soviet military was was destroyed and so on and then you have the expansion of nato that we have spoken about in the past so that's kind of the inflection point the fall of the berlin wall the 90s then you had things happening in afghanistan in india kashmir pakistan pakistan was always been a client state of the us all the pakistani terrorism in india was funded and financed by the u.s there's no other way of saying it and so on so there's a lot of rules going on and of course there was the entire


rules going on and of course there was the entire spy espionage game going on in the cold war 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s the kgb was a very major power in this let's sit on this topic for a bit so what is this whole spy game spy versus spy and uh you know i think this is the also the origins of things like james bond and that whole culture so let's sit on the kgb a little bit what's up so the kgb is the successor organ of the nkvd the secret police or the or the whatever it is of of during stalin's time was called the nkbd after stalin it was rebranded reformulated restructured into what is now what was then later called the kgb so the kgb was an elite institution you couldn't apply to the kgb you did not know what the kgb was you know it existed you knew it existed it was everywhere it was ubiquitous it may be inside your house as well but you never know you knew it


house as well but you never know you knew it anybody could be a kgb agent your own spouse could you could be a kgb agent your own child could be a kgb agent the kg move was kgb was everywhere and nowhere it was the elite it was the praetorian guard it was the the soldiers that that uh kept the wolves at bay so you could not apply to the kgb the kgb found you and brought you in it was only the most the best the cream of the cream of soviet soviet society that was inducted into the kgb and they had various programs they had they had embassies in all major countries right uh diplomats would be there they would be called residenduras residenturas residentials and the chief of the embassy would be called the resident that person was always a kgb top kgb officer typically a man and they had various kgb officers in these embassies in the guise of diplomats you would have some genuine diplomats and some would


would have some genuine diplomats and some would be kgb agents posing as a diplomats so these are the legal spies they also had a program of illegals in which they would train youngsters kids in the language and customs and culture of a different country let's say they they take a bunch of extremely bright kids and they teach them proper idiomatic vernacular colloquial english in the style of the u.s south for instance they're trained in that they are trained and immersed in u.s culture customs and all that and eventually they are infiltrated into the u.s under false identities which are the identities of recently deceased people they have all the proper paperwork everything and they just fit into the u.s society and then they are kept as sleepers for decades for years sometimes decades and they are the illegals so they would blend into u.s society as proper u.s citizens have kids and all that and then they would collect information and pass it on surreptitiously to the official kgb


pass it on surreptitiously to the official kgb spies in the embassy via what's called trade craft various spying practices and all that so various countries were battled for this house how did all this information get released to the public well if after the end of the cold war many of these former soviet spies defected to the west even during the cold war and they released some information um why you don't remember the names right now there was this very famous guy um [Music] i think and yeah there were multiple names multiple soviet spies who defected to the west because for whatever reasons they were ideologically more enamored with the west or for for multiple regions so there are multiple western spies who defected to the ussr also they were converted they were brought into the uss uss are fooled there was this year called the year of the spy multiple american fbi cia agents were found to be soviet spies there was very prominent a british guy called kim philby who had to be uh


guy called kim philby who had to be uh brought to the to moscow to escape the west capturing him and many soviets also defected to the west where they revealed all this information so eventually all of this came out in the book into the public domain and the goal was okay now there's two big countries accumulating scientific knowledge and advancements and geopolitical advancements get information send it to your own side what do they know about us what information do they have about us what things are they hiding from us what are the real objectives what are the long-term geopolitical plans in country x or country y how which next nation are they targeting for a coup so that they can become a satellite state of the us or the ussr or whatever so there was this constant spy game go game going on very high stakes game very dangerous game in east germany in west germany across the european continent in the various european west european capitals in east european capitals as well in moscow in


in east european capitals as well in moscow in washington in london in india in in the ussr all across the world in africa in egypt massive massive spying operations were going on so this is what the kgb was and the u.s also had this israelis were involved in this in multiple ways they typically were on the side of the u.s the soviets were aiding egypt and the arab nations in trying to destroy the the israeli nation the multiple wars the yom kippur war the six day war the sinai conflict and much more the ussr was involved in arming and aiding egypt nasser whatever the name was the the egyptian strongman we still recognize as one of the great heroes of egypt so there was a lot going on very high stakes and the the the prize was global supremacy okay fair um simple questions firstly all of the world's secret services do they find the origin in the kgb or the fbi like were those two the original


or the fbi like were those two the original ones according to you second question i'm sure this system is still very much active in today's day and age possibly china is using it as well i mean it's a playbook that worked some more refined version of it must be happening in 2022 as well what's your take on secret services spies etc uh the former head of the indian research and analysis of wing raw mr vikram sood has written a book the title is the never ending game that's all you need to know it's a never-ending game as technology progresses it is all incorporated into the playbook but the playbook is simple you want to know everything the other side knows and you want to be able to predict and anticipate their next moves because if it's a chess game a typical regular chess player will think one or two moves ahead of the current move a grandmaster can think 12 to 15 moves ahead of the current move not only my move but the opposite opposite the opponents move


my move but the opposite opposite the opponents move as well so the more you can look into the future the better a chance you have of eventually prevailing over your adversaries and it all comes down to the collection of data of intelligence like they call it so it's a never-ending game it's an unending game every major country has an intelligence agency the pakistanis of the isi the indians we have the raw the chinese have their version of it the russians have their own version of it whatever it's called nowadays the americans we know they have the cia the fbi various other things the french have their own version the israelis of the mossad every nation that is a self-respecting nation with proper ambitions and a major player in the world will have such an agency and active operations going on right now as we speak what's your guess on which are the two most active ones probably america and china i would say america if you would i don't know about the top two but let's


i don't know about the top two but let's say top five the u.s china russia israel india maybe france the top geopolitical powers yes and i would consider the britain the british and the australians to be power part of the us block so so while the story has reached its end when it comes to the world war i feel like every massive war leads to the birth of a super villain like we saw in the case of world war one in some ways with adolf hitler the end of the cold war led to the formation of one vladimir putin what would you like to say about him in terms of i am dead sure he's someone you've read a lot about yourself being a geopolitics observer being a historian um the internet has a lot of opinions on him let's just speak a little bit about that man's origins character motivations possible future plans now so vladimir putin is a product of the kgb he was an elite kgb officer he served in east


was an elite kgb officer he served in east germany he is a fluent speaker of german he understands everything that's happened all these years and his ascent to power was kind of a plan gone wrong and it was kind of a surprise the u.s had kind of defeated the ussr broken it up they had somebody who was very much pro west in power mr yeltsin there were the the chechen wars the first chechen war that happened the chechnya republic declared independence they tried to break away from the u.s from from the from russia russia went to war with chechnya the first chechen war was lost russians the russians lost the chechen war and mr yeltsin was kind of humiliated then because his health declined due to alcoholism etc what happened is that they kind of brought mr putin to power and they thought they assumed that putin would continue the same kind of policies but putin turned out to be a strong staunch nationalist and he wanted


to be a strong staunch nationalist and he wanted to revive the russian power and bring russia back to what it originally kind of was from the perspective of economy power and all of that so the first thing mr putin did was to go back to war with chechnya and annihilate the opposition and bring chechnya back into the russian fold and from there onwards he has he set about over the past 20 years to rebuild the russian economy after a decade or so of rebuilding the economy started revitalizing the military the russian military uh the zapad exercises becoming started becoming uh more potent the russians have three different kinds of military exercises which happen in a cyclical fashion the zapada are the western exercises there is the eastern exercise and the south in the central exercise so the exercises becoming started started becoming more potent and more threatening so the russian bear again became very vitalized over the past 20 years there was the uh annexation of a


20 years there was the uh annexation of a part of georgia then there was a chechen war and now we have the ukrainian war so as russia has become more and more powerful she has wanted to take back territories that she considers to be historically hers and mr putin is now portrayed as a great super villain in the overall world media which which gives you the western narrative of how things are um is the cold war still on there's a new cold war on now it's cold war 2.0 between the us would like the world to be either unipolar or bipolar ideally they want a bipolar world with them at as one pole and china as the great supervillain on the other pole as long as there's a big villain the americans have a good role to play in the world they possibly position themselves as the global super cop as the as the keeper of the global morality as the good guys and they always need a bad guy so they would


and they always need a bad guy so they would like the world to be either unipolar that they only ruled or there's a big supervillain apart from them which is china but as of today we have a multi-polar world as long as russia is not destroyed and as long as india keeps rising we will have multiple world as long as the french have an independent foreign policy independent of the u.s and independent of nato there's gonna be a multi-polar world so that's where we are today this is like the line from batman that says that you either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain so if usa was in charge of a unipolar world it would suddenly become the big daddy and maybe people would point fingers people would call it out but as long as there's a rival for the u.s the branding automatically becomes listen by the protectors of the world as long as you control the media as long as you control social media you can


media as long as you control social media you can censor some things as long as you have that power you can set any narrative you want so for the longest time for the for like two decades you had a proper unipolar world the u.s was the only power that was in place and everyone thought that communism is over the iron curtain curtain has fallen and the world will be great now forever after but that's not quite how it went um how did it go mr chowder that's that's a topic for the next episode lots to talk about when it comes to america again disclaimer if you're an american watching this uh sir myself we've both lived in your country where admirers of america these are geopolitical conversations geopolitics is often not a reflection of the average everyday american and supposed to be viewed listened to and understood from a very objective perspective uh all in all the bottom line for the cold war was people's egos went crazy and scientific advancement went


people's egos went crazy and scientific advancement went crazy probably money got transferred from lots of places to lots of other places but how would you remember this phase of history looking back it's part of a big cycle okay it's something that's always been happening but as technology advances the consequences are larger and it's it's it spreads over a global scale now that we have transportation at this scale we have airplanes that can transport us from place to place in a very short period of time when you have instantaneous near instantaneous communication that's when every conflict becomes global so as technology advanced the scale of warfare and conflict also advanced now every conflict is possible more or less global in scope because everybody has an opinion everybody is weighing in on that and either you're with us or against us or whatever that sort of attitude exists from the u.s side so that's what we are seeing so it's part of a bigger cycle i just want to end this particular episode by reminding people that the


end this particular episode by reminding people that the last episode on the world wars when we had to begin talking about the reasons for the world wars we had to dial back about 100 years prior to world war ii roughly keep in mind that it's only been about 70 years since the 1950s which is when the cold war began and maybe the cold war could be one of the causes for world war three of course we don't wish that but maybe that's what you mean by a larger cycle in some ways yes i mean we are a violent species we our history is a history of warfare look at the past ten thousand years of human history it's war after war after war it's about conflict it's about expansion it's about gaining territory gaining power gaining prestige it's a never-ending cycle we had a we had a period of relative calm and peace we had wars of course in that we had cools we had overthrows and whatnot but relatively overall after world war two there


whatnot but relatively overall after world war two there was a reasonable reasonably calm period it may not last long if things continue the way they are continuing right now which is why it's very important to know everything about and understand everything about the american political system which does influence the rest of the world which is a topic for the next episode thank you ciao sir this was fantastic once again thank you very much all right that was the episode for today as you can tell linear sessions or linear lectures on history is not really the fun way of going about it history should always be taught using stories and should be taught tangentially that was the point of the last two episodes this one and the one on the world wars the third one is going to be an extremely impactful one it's going to be an extremely sharp listen i urge you to check out all the other abij chavda episodes that we've done across the two podcast if you understand hindi consume the hindi episodes as well


understand hindi consume the hindi episodes as well but if you're only an english listener especially if you are an international viewer or listener of the ranvi show if you're outside of india i promise you go down the rabbit hole of exploring abhijit chavra's episodes on our show we also do episodes related to spiritualism the science to neurology and a lot of other subjects please go check them out this is only the beginning of the nvidia show therefore make sure you follow us on spotify every episode's available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world lots more coming your way look out for episode 3 with abhijit java [Music] you


so most phones uh still don't have eye tracking at least as far as we know imagine if they give you scrolling through ice as a feature now you don't even have to touch it you have to look as you look down the scroll goes up automatically you don't have to click on it just blink on it or just keep your eyes paused on a particular point and it just selects itself what if the screen becomes that intuitive that you don't need your hands at all there is something called mr spectroscopy and mr tractography now these are two new techniques you can see the fibers of the brain and if you haven't seen it guys you should check it out one of the most beautiful images that you can see all the fibers of the brain in different colors your brain looks so gorgeous that's actually my desktop wallpaper doctor said warrior returns on the show to speak to engineer ranveer alabaya that was the beauty of this particular podcast while we speak about crypto and web3 and


podcast while we speak about crypto and web3 and the metaverse there's a lot of biotech that's going to become a huge and important reality for all of us this is a conversation between a doctor and an engineer discussing everything from neuralink to stem cells to nanobots little tiny robots that will infiltrate our bloodstream and help our bodies basically never die the human race is at the brink of a huge biotech revolution it's very important for all of us to know about what the near future holds so keeping that in mind this is a fantastic slightly technical but perspective enriching episode with dr sid wario if you're sitting outside of india our job on trs is to bring you the best perspectives and experiences and minds that india has to offer to the world so to keep in touch with trs make sure you follow us on spotify every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world because we're a spotify exclusive if you enjoyed this episode with