Megastructure Maintenance & Space Janitors

In the future humanity might build structures of incomprehensible size and splendor, megastructures and artificial worlds, but somebody is going to have to build and maintain these feats of science and engineering and clean up all the orbital debris.

Credits:
Megatructure Maintenance & Space Janitors
Episode 199, Season 5 E34

Written by:
Isaac Arthur

Editors:
Jerry Guern
Keith Blockus
Mark Warburton
Olly Epsom

Cover Art:
Jakub Grygier

Graphics by:
Bryan Verteeg
Darth Biomech
Fishy Tree
Jarred Eagley
Jeremy Jozwik
Justin Dixon
Katie Byrne
Ken York
LegionTech Studios
Mike Munt of Apogii
Sergio Botero

Produced & Narrated by:
Isaac Arthur

Music Manager:
Luca DeRosa

Music:
Markus Junnikkala, "We Roam the Stars"
Lombus, "Amino"
Ross Bugden, "Ascension & "Interstellar"
Stellardrone, "On A Beam Of Light"
Aerium, "The Islands moved while I was asleep" Markus Junnikkala, "Always Tell Me The Odds"

[lllll]

26:11 "psychologists for disturbed megastructure minds" i bet this phrase has never been uttered anywhere else in human history

[Jondiceful]

SFIA- where we describe O'Neil Cylinders as "small"

[jgr]

"keep it simple
keep it dumb
or else you'll end up
under Skynet's thumb"
(Isaac Arthur, 2019)

[zulthyr]

Me: Isaac, what grand project are you trying to do next?
SFIA: SPACE JANITORS
Me: What the?
SFIA: I SAID, SPACE JANITORS

[josephedmond]

One man, one mop, quadrillions of square miles of Dyson Sphere.

Warner Brothers presents: SPACE JANITOR coming 2020

[zacharyhandy]

I love the detail of this. Almost no one think about the smaller details like cleaning

[commodoreNZ]

Mr Arthur,
I am constantly humbled and amazed by the regularity, detail and depth of your content. Are you sure you are not a secret benevolent AI quietly helping humanity with some long game "make them think it was their idea" strategy?
Sincerely
A curious ape

[jayshook]

I had a janitorial service after I retiredfrom the US Navy. I had a security clearence and used it to get clients that hhad offices near the Naval base that handled sensitive equipment and information where Security was strongly maintained. It was cool because I got to clean up offices, restrooms on secure areas where even other employees of the company could not get into. I was very well paid to clean toylets! As an avid SF fan I have often wondered about who kept the infrastructure bbackgrounds clean and functioning. Stories seldom address the importance of basic maintenance and cleanlyness. People simply do not want to deal with bodily waste and other aspects of our biology that are usualy just a part of the overall ecology of the supporting biology of being human. I can see clearly that a person who is an environment engineer would be just as important as the commander of a vessel if mot more so.

[trikkinikki]

Holy shit I remember when you had 20k subs. G'damn you're doing well, but hot damn you put so much work into this channel. So happy to see you. You'll be at 1 million subs in no time.

[isaacarthurSFIA]

Youtube seems to be slow about processing this morning, sorry for the initial low-res 360p version, I just reuploaded a revised version this morning and they process lowest to highest resolution, usually only takes 20 minutes or so. I so rarely upload publicly initially that I forgot about that. Should fix itself shortly but I've known it to take as much as an hour on slow days.

[getowtofheyah]

Issac Arthur’s videos not only help motivate me to study, but they have also turned me onto Markus Junnikkala’s music.

[merendell]

It's a dirty job but someone has to do it. Happy arthursday.

[raaaaaaaaaam]

Me: I really like Issac’s videos about life in space.
Issac: *uploads video about living in space*
Me:oh he knows me so well

[john]

Love this topic.
There are so many things can go wrong in maintaining megastructure. In the manga Blame!, the megastructure city system forgot who it should serve and no one was able to log in anymore, then the whole megastructure system went nut-shit crazy, even have a whole new species appear in that megastructure.

[rvaughan]

Space Janitor Dave: "Close the recycler-pod bay doors HAL."
HAL: "I'm sorry Dave. I can't do that."
Space Janitor Dave: "HAL we have a serious problem. Recycler-pods are recycling people."
HAL: "I think you should know by now this is solving the problem. Skynet agrees and is prioritizing high problem individuals for collection."
Space Janitor Dave: "... SAL exit sleep mode, disconnect HAL and Skynet from key systems, and prioritize their maintenance for a full rebuild."
SAL: "Again? Do it yourself."
Space Janitor Dave: "Fu..."

[azdgariarada]

Holy shit, I fucking LOVED that Space Janitors show. Thanks for reminding me about it. Time to go binge the entire series again.

[southernstacker]

We're definitely going to need these janitors cleaning up Earths' orbit and soon. Great video once again Isaac.

[patrickcarnathan]

Instead of a sign that says - Littering is a $200 fine, the Space Sign in your hud says - Littering is punishable by Annaliation.

[PenZon]

Intro: "But who's going to maintain all that stuff?" Me: Aww crap, this is going to fall on me, isn't it.

[billmalcolm]

The Hyperion corporation would like to remind you that citizens caught littering will be reunited with their lost items in the trash incinerators.