Welcome to Moonshot

Assuming the plans to send people to Mars actually happen and we do make it to the red planet, what will life be like for those first explorers?

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There's an increasing focus on sending humans to Mars, both from private companies and from government agencies such as NASA. But how do we get to Mars, will we survive the journey, and what will life be like when we get there?

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It's a bird, it's a plane.... no it's another brainchild of billionaire ideas man Elon Musk. But just what is the hyperloop and how close are we to seeing a hyperloop system realised?

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Universal Basic Income is an idea that many people have thought about for centuries, but are we any closer to seeing people receive a base level of financial support?

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Uber was the first company to ever experience a fatal accident with a self-driving car, and in just a few years autonomous vehicles will start flooding the market. So what went wrong with Uber's driverless car, and how do companies rebuild trust with the public?

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Most cars these days have some level of automation such as cruise control or lane guidance, but as technology advances the experience of owning a car and even driving one is about to change drastically. In just a few years autonomous vehicles will start flooding the market and it's just a matter of time before we don't need to drive at all. But how did we get to this point and when will the transition happen?

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We know self-driving cars are coming - everyone is talking about them. But what impact will these autonomous vehicles have on our cities and how will they integrate with our existing city space?

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From weather forecasting to artificial intelligence, chemical engineering, and drug design, quantum computers have the potential to completely change the way we think about solving complex problems. But how far away are we from seeing quantum computers used to tackle the world’s biggest problems?

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The idea of having holograms has captured the attention of generations of people through sci-fi films, and this week on Moonshot we are diving into the people who are right now working to make hologram displays a reality.

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The Concorde was one of the most beautiful aircraft ever created and it really set the bar for supersonic transport. However since the Concorde was retired in 2003 - the world hasn't seen another supersonic transport aircraft. So this week on Moonshot we’re going supersonic… diving into the new wave of companies who are trying to bring the idea of a supersonic passenger aircraft back from the dead.

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Pokemon Go brought Augmented Reality to the public on an unprecedented scale, becoming many people’s first experience using the technology. But while most people have moved on from playing Pokemon Go, there is still plenty of development happening in the AR space. So how is AR going to make the leap into everyday life, and what will that future look like?

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For years, scientists have been studying animals and their behaviours. We’ve tracked animals using cameras, GPS and radio sensors. But as the age of technology progresses, scientists have found a much better way to interact with and learn from the animal kingdom... using robots.

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Ever since humans started sending satellites into space we've always neglected one very big issue - what happens when these man-made objects reach the end of their useful life? Some of the satellites will fall out of orbit, but many have remained in space for decades with no clear strategy of what to do with them. So how do we actually go about cleaning up space?

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This year 1.7 million cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States, and for around 600,000 people, that will be a death sentence. But as technology improves companies are turning their artificial intelligence networks towards cancer detection and treatment. So can AI really be used to detect cancer?

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Years ago, people believed space travel was impossible. But now that we’ve ‘been there, done that’, the next crazy idea is mining space for the resources that will save Earth’s ecosystem, our global economies, and enable our species to keep growing. But is success mining far flung planets within our reach, or will our money disappear into space?

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One of the topics that always comes up when looking at robots is what will actually happen to humans…. Will robots just take all our jobs? Also how can we create systems that allows humans to work in tandem with robots? In this episode of Moonshot recorded at the Rise Conference in Hong Kong - we speak with Rosanna Myers the CEO and co-founder of Carbon Robotics - a company which is building industrial robots that are designed to work alongside humans.

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Ride-hailing services have received a lot of attention in recent years as they disrupt traditional transport industries. Uber might be the most well known of these companies, but there are many other startups that are competing in the ride-hailing space. In the Middle East - Careem operates in 100 cities offering users an experience that is tailored to the local market, and they've attracted more than USD $570m in venture funding. In this episode of Moonshot we speak with Mudassir Sheikha, the CEO and Co-Founder of Careem.

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As cities expand and more people are encouraged to use public transport, there's an increasing need for technology that can help people travel the 'last mile' to their destination. One of the companies that is really defining this category is Boosted - known for their electric skateboards. In this episode, CEO of Boosted, Jeff Russakow, shares his vision for Boosted and how the company fits into the future of transportation.

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Square Roots was founded by Tobias Peggs and Kimbal Musk in 2016, and is just one of the companies which is driving an urban farming revolution. Square Roots is building vertical farms in shipping containers, and training a new generation of farmers, in their quest to bring food production closer to where people actually eat it.

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Wearables are a huge market in technology. People are buying all kinds of devices to measure their steps, track their location, or even keep tabs on their heart rate. But what if these wearables could be made smaller and attached to the body with a patch that behaved like skin? RMIT University Associate Professor Madhu Bhaskaran is one of the people making this technology possible through her work on stretchable electronics.

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The world is on the brink of a global food crisis due to an increasing population and climate change. So how will we combat these issues to make sure every person has access to the calories they require? Would you be willing to swap your regular steak for something that tastes the same but is grown in a lab, if it meant saving the planet?

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3D printing has taken the world by storm. We can print everything from the tiniest parts for a model robot, to jet engines, and even entire buildings. But one of the biggest revolutions in 3D printing is only just starting to take shape, and that’s the idea of having 3D printed food.

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Peter Beck is the Founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, a company building launch vehicles (i.e rockets) for the small satellite market, and which has built their own rocket launch facility on the east coast of New Zealand.

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From cryptokitties, to the stock market, and even digital music rights, there are decentralised blockchain applications being built that have the potential to change the world. Join us as we explore just some of the experiments happening in the world of blockchain.

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Continuing our look at digital gold we ask how you actually create a cryptocurrency? To answer that question we speak with Jackson Palmer, the founder of Dogecoin - a cryptocurrency that was meant to be a joke but started 2018 with a market cap of almost $2 Billion USD.

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In recent months there's been an awful lot of hype surrounding the cryptocurrency market with currencies like Bitcoin reaching record highs. However almost as quickly as the price goes up, the price comes back down with many investors wondering whether Bitcoin is in a bubble. So are cryptocurrencies all driven by hype, or is everyone actually striking digital gold?

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While traditional satellites are big and expensive, there are many new companies embracing the small satellite market in an effort to reduce costs. In this episode of Moonshot we meet Flavia Tata Nardini, the CEO of Fleet Space Technologies, an Australian startup that's building a constellation of nanosatellites to power the internet of things.

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A wave of investment and interest in space has inspired a new breed of entrepreneurs across the globe to find ways to do space on the cheap. We chat with Adam Gilmour, the CEO of Gilmour Space Technologies, a company trying to get in on the space race by building small, low-cost, rockets.

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We know self-driving cars are coming - everyone is talking about them. But what impact will these autonomous vehicles have on our cities and how will they integrate with our existing city space?

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There is nothing more inspiring than being in the room with entrepreneurs and innovators who are actively changing the future. In this episode of Moonshot we take you to Web Summit in Portugal - a gathering of 60,000 of the brightest minds in tech who are all on a path to change the world.

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Often moonshot ideas are pursued by large companies with lots of money but how can tools like AI be used to democratise the problem solving process? Marcus Shingles is the CEO of XPrize - a global competition encouraging anyone with a creative mind to tackle the world's biggest moonshot ideas.

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The world is slowly moving towards 100 per cent renewable energy and largely this means hydro, wind, solar, or geothermal. But what forms of clean energy will we see in the future? And how will we store that energy for use in electric cars or even spaceships?

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Artificial Intelligence systems are becoming increasingly prominent in our society, but how do humans stay in control? In this episode of Moonshot we speak with Nell Watson from Singularity University and OpenEth.org to find out why humans need a code of ethics for AI.

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There's no more visible display of artificial intelligence than in the field of robotics. But when will we all have our own robots? In this episode of Moonshot we meet people who are actively building robots that are set to change our future.

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François Chopard is the CEO and founder of Starburst Accelerator - a French aerospace accelerator that is investing in new technologies that are about to change our skies and make space more accessible.

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For more than a century, people have been dreaming of one day being able to build a personal flying machine. But where is personal flight technology headed and when we might be able to fly ourselves everywhere we go.

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What new products and technologies are going to take off? And which ideas are worth investing in? Investor and entrepreneur Kevin Rose shares his thoughts about where technology is heading and why he won't be investing in VR.

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What does it mean to be human? And what would be possible if you had technology hardwired into your mind? Bryan Johnson is the founder and CEO of Kernel - a company building chips to implant in your brain to fix problems and improve human potential.

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Moon Ribas is a Cyborg Artist and Co-Founder of Cyborg Foundation. In this special bonus episode we speak with Moon about her plan to get an implant to feel the seismic vibrations of the Moon.

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What would be possible if the human body was integrated with technology? In this episode of Moonshot we meet the people who are actively trying to augment the human body and improve our own abilities.

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Entrepreneur Michael Pryor shares the story behind Trello – the visual productivity app that’s changing the way people organise their businesses and their lives.

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Researchers have spent decades trying to build machines that have the ability to think and reason like humans. But how close are we from reaching the point of Artificial General Intelligence?

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If you’re a billionaire with lots of money there’s no better way to spend that cash then to try and send other humans to Mars. But is Mars space travel really something that could be a reality in less than a decade? Moonshot explores the race to Mars and the people trying to make it happen.

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