October 8, 2025 • 25 mins
In this episode of SpaceTime, we dive into the fascinating findings from Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, discuss delays in the Dream Chaser spaceplane's launch schedule, and celebrate NASA's breakthroughs in laser communications for deep space missions.
Enceladus: Unveiling Complex Chemistry
Recent discoveries reported in the journal Nature Astronomy reveal that Saturn's moon Enceladus is spewing complex organic molecules from its subsurface ocean. Data collected by the Cassini spacecraft during its mission has unveiled fresh insights into the chemical reactions occurring in this hidden ocean. The presence of organic molecules, including precursors for amino acids, raises the possibility that Enceladus may have once harboured conditions suitable for life. This episode explores how these findings could inform future missions aimed at further investigating Enceladus and its potential habitability.
Dream Chaser Spaceplane: A Delay in Launch
Sierra Space has announced that their Dream Chaser spaceplane's first free flight demonstration has been pushed back to late 2026. Originally designed as a manned spacecraft, Dream Chaser will now serve as a cargo transport for NASA's Commercial Resupply Services, delivering supplies to the International Space Station. The episode discusses the spaceplane's unique design, its cargo capabilities, and the future of its missions, including plans for a fully operational crewed version.
Nasa's Optical Deep Space Laser Communications Success
NASA's new Optical Deep Space Laser Communications project has surpassed all technical goals, paving the way for high-speed communications for future crewed missions to Mars. The technology, which successfully transmitted data over vast distances, demonstrated data rates comparable to broadband Internet services. This breakthrough enables faster communication for astronauts and could revolutionise data transmission in deep space. Tune in to learn more about the technology behind this ambitious project and its implications for future space exploration.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Nature Astronomy
https://www.nature.com/natureastronomy
NASA Dream Chaser
https://www.nasa.gov/dreamchaser
NASA Optical Deep Space Laser Communications
https://www.nasa.gov/lasercom
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-your-guide-to-space-astronomy--2458531/support.
Enceladus: Unveiling Complex Chemistry
Dream Chaser Spaceplane: A Delay in Launch
NASA's Optical Deep Space Laser Communications Success
(00:00) The Dream Chaser spaceplane set for another delay
(00:48) Scientists have discovered new complex organic molecules spewing from Saturn's Enceladus
(09:41) NASA says new optical Deep Space Laser communications project has exceeded all technical goals
(17:29) Around a quarter of all press releases in the United States are probably AI generated
(19:23) Companies failing to secure AI agents is causing security risks, warns expert
(20:27) Gary Stuart says AI agents can be hacked and should be treated like humans
Enceladus: Unveiling Complex Chemistry
Recent discoveries reported in the journal Nature Astronomy reveal that Saturn's moon Enceladus is spewing complex organic molecules from its subsurface ocean. Data collected by the Cassini spacecraft during its mission has unveiled fresh insights into the chemical reactions occurring in this hidden ocean. The presence of organic molecules, including precursors for amino acids, raises the possibility that Enceladus may have once harboured conditions suitable for life. This episode explores how these findings could inform future missions aimed at further investigating Enceladus and its potential habitability.
Dream Chaser Spaceplane: A Delay in Launch
Sierra Space has announced that their Dream Chaser spaceplane's first free flight demonstration has been pushed back to late 2026. Originally designed as a manned spacecraft, Dream Chaser will now serve as a cargo transport for NASA's Commercial Resupply Services, delivering supplies to the International Space Station. The episode discusses the spaceplane's unique design, its cargo capabilities, and the future of its missions, including plans for a fully operational crewed version.
Nasa's Optical Deep Space Laser Communications Success
NASA's new Optical Deep Space Laser Communications project has surpassed all technical goals, paving the way for high-speed communications for future crewed missions to Mars. The technology, which successfully transmitted data over vast distances, demonstrated data rates comparable to broadband Internet services. This breakthrough enables faster communication for astronauts and could revolutionise data transmission in deep space. Tune in to learn more about the technology behind this ambitious project and its implications for future space exploration.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Nature Astronomy
https://www.nature.com/natureastronomy
NASA Dream Chaser
https://www.nasa.gov/dreamchaser
NASA Optical Deep Space Laser Communications
https://www.nasa.gov/lasercom
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-your-guide-to-space-astronomy--2458531/support.
Enceladus: Unveiling Complex Chemistry
Dream Chaser Spaceplane: A Delay in Launch
NASA's Optical Deep Space Laser Communications Success
(00:00) The Dream Chaser spaceplane set for another delay
(00:48) Scientists have discovered new complex organic molecules spewing from Saturn's Enceladus
(09:41) NASA says new optical Deep Space Laser communications project has exceeded all technical goals
(17:29) Around a quarter of all press releases in the United States are probably AI generated
(19:23) Companies failing to secure AI agents is causing security risks, warns expert
(20:27) Gary Stuart says AI agents can be hacked and should be treated like humans
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Spacetime Series twenty eight, episode one hundred and
twenty one, for broadcast on the eighth of October twenty
twenty five. Coming up on space Time, the complex chemistry
and the oceans of the icemoon Enceladus, The dream Chase
of space plane set for another delay now won't fly
until at least next year, and NASA says it's new
optical Deep space Laser communications project has exceeded all its
(00:23):
technical goals. All that and more Coming up on space Time.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to space Time with Stuart Gary.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Scientists have discovered new complex organic molecules spewing from Saturn's
icemoon Enceladus. The findings, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy,
were made after searchers went digging through data collected by
the Cassini spacecraft during its tour of the ring planet
and its many moons back in two thousand and five.
Cassini found the first evidence that Enceladus has a hidden
(01:11):
ocean beneath its icy surface. Jets of water were bursting
out like geysers from cracks close to the Moon's south pole,
in the process, shooting ice grains deep into space, smaller
than grains of sand. Some of these tiny pieces of
ice fell back onto the Moon's surface, while others escaped
to form the e ring around Satin, which traces Enceladus's orbit.
(01:33):
The new data is a clear sign that complex chemical
reactions are taking place within Enceladus's global subsurface ocean. Some
of these reactions could be part of chains leading to
more complex, potentially biologically relevant molecules. Scientists have already found
many organic molecules in these ice grains, including precursors for
amino acids, the building blocks of proteins essential for life
(01:56):
as we know it. But the ice greens in the
ear ring can be hundreds of years old, and as
they verged, they may well have been weathered and therefore
altered by intense space radiation. So the authors of this
study wanted to investigate fresh grains ejected much more recently
in order to get a better idea of exactly what's
going on in the inslida in oceans. Fortunately, the authors
(02:18):
really already had the data. See back in two thousand
and eight, the scene flew straight through one of these
icy guysers. These were pristine grains ejected only minutes before
they hit the spacecraft's cosmic dust analyzer instrument at about
eighteen kilometus per second. These were not only the freshest
ice grains Cassini had ever detected, they also the fastest.
(02:38):
The ice grains contained not just frozen water, but also
other molecules, including organics. At lower impact speeds, the ice
shatters and the signal from clusters of water molecules can
hide the signal from some organic molecules. But when the
ice grains hit fast, water molecules don't cluster, and scientists
have a chance to see these previously hidden signals. The
(03:00):
authors found that some of the organic molecules that had
already been found distributed in the E ring were also
present in the fresh ice grains, so this confirms that
they were created within Insuladus asserceans, and they also found
totally new molecules that had never been seen before in
ice grains from Insuladus on Earth. These same molecules are
(03:20):
involved in chains of chemical reactions that ultimately lead to
more complex molecules essential for life as we know it.
The authors say there are many possible pathways from these
organic molecules found in the Cassini data to potentially create
biologically relevant compounds. That enhances the likelihood that this moon
could have been habitable. One of the studies authors, Frank Postberg,
(03:42):
says these molecules found in the freshly ejected material proves
that the complex organic molecule's Cassini is detected in Satin's
e ring and not just the product of long exposure
to space, but are readily available in the insuladaein ocean.
Discoveries from Cassini are valuable for planning a future ACIM
mission dedicated to Enceladus, and studies for this ambitious mission
(04:03):
have already begun. The plan is to fly through the jets,
possibly even land on the moon's south pole tiger stripes
terrain in order to collect fresh samples. Needless to say,
we'll keep an eye on its progress. This is space
time still to come. Sierra Space says their dream Chaser
space plane is now targeting late next year for its
(04:23):
first free flight demonstration flight, and NASA says it's new
Optical Deep Space Laser Communications project has exceeded all its
technical goals. All that and more still to come on
space time. Sierra Space say their Dream Chaser space planes
(04:54):
now targeting late twenty twenty six for its first free
flight demonstration flight. This mission will validate critical technologies for NASA.
Dream Chaser's unique lifting body design will provide additional cargo
carrying capacity on missions to the International Space Station as
part of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract, which already uses
(05:14):
SpaceX Dragon and Northrop Grumman Signet's cargo ships to service
the orbital outpost. Dream Chaser, which like Dragon, is reusable,
was originally designed as a manned spacecraft. It will eventually
fly aboard the United Launch a lines of Vulcan Centaur
rocket from Pad forty one at the Cape Canaveral Space
Force Space in Florida. The first dream Chaser space plane,
(05:35):
called Tenacity, arrived at the Kennedy Space Center back in
May from the Neil Armstrong Test Facility at the Glen
Research Center in Ohio. When it does finally take off,
dream Chaser, together with the Shooting Star cargo module, will
transport some five and forty kilograms of supplies and cargo
on regular missions to the space station, then return to
Earth after each mission, landing conventionally on the former Kennedy
(05:57):
Space Center Space Shuttle runway, Carrying up to one thy,
seven and fifty kilograms of returned experiments and equipment. The
idea of a gentler runway landing will allow the return
to Earth of more delicate equipment experiments which could be
damaged in a rougher high G capsule splash down. With
the early retirement of NASA space shuttle fleet in twenty eleven,
(06:18):
dream Chaser is now the early spacecraft NASA currently funds
that's capable of maneuvering within the atmosphere. The dream Chess
design goes back well over sixty years, with its origins
back in nineteen fifty seven in the United States Air
Force X twenty dinosaur manned spacecraft, which would have been
launched aboard a modified Titan three rocket. NASA continued its
(06:39):
development in the nineteen sixties and early seventies with a
range of experimental spacecraft, including the Northrop M two, the
Martin X twenty three Prime, the Martin Marietta X twenty four,
and the Northrop HL ten. During the nineteen nineties, NASA
used the same basic lifting body design that developed the
HL twenty, an experimental space plane which eventually evolved into
(07:00):
the X thirty eight Emergency crew Return Vehicle, which would
have been an emergency escape pod transported to the International
Space Station in the payload bay of the Space Shuttle.
It would then be docked to the orbiting outpost until needed. However,
that project was canned by NASA in twenty oho two
following budget cuts. Now a NASA of contracted Sierra Space
(07:21):
for an initial seven cargo missions to the orbiting our Post.
A second dream Chaser is currently under construction. Each of
the spacecraft would be out of fly at least fifteen
missions over a ten year lifespan. A third dream Chaser
was built purely as an engineering demonstrator for ground and
flight verification and validation tests and Siera Space having given
(07:42):
up on the idea of a fully manned spacecraft as well.
A fully operational manned version of the space plane could
carry crew into lowerth orbit, and it doesn't end there.
The company also plans the used dream Chaser to launch
and build its own orbiting habitat in space before NASA
reties the International Space Station into a twenty thirty Now
we mentioned earlier, Dream Chaser had a cargo module, the
(08:04):
Shooting Star. It's a fully independent spacecraft which can be
attached to the space plane before launch in order to
increase capacity, Shooting Star is fitted with docking ports at
each end, allowing it to attach to the rear of
dream Chaser at one end and to the space station
at the other. Now this allows Shooting Star who act
as an additional cargo module for astronauts to work in
(08:24):
and hold supplies before they transferred to other areas of
the space station. Shooting Star also carries external marting points
for three additional cargo containers. But unlike the reusable dream Chaser,
which returns to Earth after each mission landing on a
conventional runway, Shooting Star is designed to burn up during
re entry. I. Meanwhile, the Pentagon's looking at using the
(08:44):
Shooting Star cargo module as the basis for its own autonomous,
unmanned military space station for research and development, training, and
operational missions in low Earth orbit. For this, Serias space
will redesign the module to include guidance, navigation and control
systems in order to be at a maintain free flat operations.
The military version wouldst specialized payloads, undertake experimental testing, manufacturing
(09:07):
assembly in microgravity, and carry out a range of logistics operations.
Longer term plans could include high elliptical and even geosynchronous
Earth orbits, as well as more distant missions to the Moon.
This is space time still to come, NASA's new Deep
Space Laser Communications project, and later in the Science report,
a new study shows that people whose dad's smirk during
(09:29):
puberty appear to age faster than expected. All that and
more still to come on space time, NASA says its
(09:52):
new optical Deep Space Laser Communications project as exceeded all
its technical goals, setting up the foundations for high speed
communicationtions for future man missions to Mars. The technology successfully
showed that data encoded in lasers could be reliably transmitted,
received and decoded after traveling millions of kilometers from Earth
to spacecraft at distances comparable to that of Mars. Nearly
(10:15):
two years after launching about NASA's Psyche mission in twenty
twenty three, the technology demonstrator recently completed its sixty fifth
and final pass, sending a laser signal to Psyche and
then receiving a return signal from more than three hundred
and fifty million kilometers away. Just a month after its
launched desk, the Deep Space Orbal Communications demonstration proved it
(10:36):
could send a signal back to Earth after establishing a
link with an optical terminal about the Psyche spacecraft. The
technology demonstrated data rates comparable with those of broadband Internet services,
sending engineering and test data from Earth for record breaking distances.
Back in December twenty twenty three, the demonstration achieved a
historic first by streaming an ultra high definition video to
(10:58):
Earth from over thirty million kilometers away, about eighty times
the distance between the Earth and the Moon, and it
was done at the system's maximum bit rate of two
hundred and sixty seven megabits per second. The project also
surpassed optical communications distance records a year later in December
twenty twenty four, when a down linked Psyche data from
four hundred and ninety five million kilometers away, which is
(11:20):
further than the average distance between the Earth and Mars,
managed by NASA's Jet Proportional Laboratory in passing into California.
The experiment consists of a flight laser transceiver mounted on
the Psyche spacecraft, along with two ground stations to receive
and send data from Earth. A powerful three KILLO white
uplink laser at NASA's Jet Proportional Laboratories Table Mountain facility
(11:41):
transmitted a laser big into Psyche, helping the transceiver determined
way to waim the optical communications laser back to Earth.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
See.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
The thing you got to remember is that Psyche and
the planet Earth are both moving through space at tremendous speeds.
They're also so far away from each other that the
laser's signal can take several minutes to reach its destiny,
even traveling at the speed of light. The project enlisted
the two hundred inch telescope at Caltex Palomar Observatory in
San Diego as its primary downlink station, which provided enough
(12:10):
light collecting ERIC to gather the faintest photons. These were
then directed to a high efficiency detector array at the observatory,
where the information encoded in the photons could be processed.
In another test, data was downlinked to an experimental radio
frequency optical hybrid antenna at the Deep Space Network's Goldstone
Complex near Barstow, California. The antenna was retro fitted with
(12:32):
a ray of seven mirrors, totaling a meter in diameter
and enabling the antenna to receive both radio frequency and
optical signals from Psyche simultaneously. The project also used Caltex
Palomar observatory at a smaller one meter telescope at Table
Mountain to receive the same signal from Psychi at the
same time. Known as arraying, this is commonly done with
radio antennas to better receive week signals and to build
(12:55):
redundancy into the system. This report from Nasser TV.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Is the Deep Space Optical Communications Project. It is the
first demonstration of using lasers instead of radio waves to
transmit data to and from a spacecraft out to distances
beyond Luna.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Orbit two one engine ignition.
Speaker 6 (13:14):
The experiment launched in October twenty twenty three, attached to
the side of Massa's Psyche spacecraft and for its first
big test, it's streamed a cat.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Video in dinner.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Why was it a cat video because the Internet loves cats.
Speaker 6 (13:32):
Future astronauts are going to need faster broadband style connections
with Earth and is currently available for navigation, health updates,
streaming video, and for sending back science. This is the
first step in making that possible. So how does it work.
Let's zoom in with laser precision to find out. Not
far from Los Angeles, JPL's Table Mountain facility plays a
(13:52):
big role the optical communications telescope laboratory sends a powerful
laser beacon over millions of miles to Psyche.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
We've done that is by using ten separate lasers. So
we have put lasers that come into the enclosure. We
have ten individual channels tound of ten of these collimeters,
those long clear cylinders. We have a few lenses that
then shapes the beam to get it the right size.
So by the time it gets to Psyche, you know,
millions and million kilometers.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Away, it has the right shape.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
Think of it as a cosmic game of catch. Table
Mountain throws the pitch, Psyche catches it.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Imagine walking outside at night with a laser pointer and
try to point it back at Mars.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
That's the kind of level of accuracy we need to achieve.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
And after catching table Mountain signal, Psyche used its own
laser to send data back to Earth, reaching a record
breaking distance of over three hundred million miles. That's more
than three times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
The Palamar Observatory uses its powerful two hundred inch hail
telescope to catch Psyche's laser light, which is now extremely
faint after traveling millions of miles, so.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
By the time the signal from the spacecraft reaches us
here Palomar, it has spread out over the Earth so
that the light level is very faint. It's on the
single particle of light level called photons, and the way
that we send data using these photons is to encode
the data in the time of arrival of laser pulses,
kind of like sending worse code using a laser pointer.
(15:17):
The light from the telescope gets relayed down onto the
optical rail and then into this optical systemed Optics then
takes the light and focuses it down onto a detector
and crystat which operates at a temperature just one degree
above absolute zero. Inside this chamber there's a detective with
a very tiny active area. So we're taking the light
from our giant telescope and coupling it down to less
(15:39):
than a millimeter.
Speaker 6 (15:40):
And tracking a moving spacecraft across the Solar System is
not easy, but when conditions are right, data flies ms.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
This is GLR.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
We're starting to see flashes of light.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
DSAC broke records almost immediately after being commissioned. We have
established data rate records giving broadband comparable data rates in
the hundreds of megabits per second from Mars close range.
That's the first time that anything has been done like
this at distances beyond the Moon.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
The idea here is to slowly start having more optical
communications rather than radio frequency communications, to just get more
data down from space. There's kind of bottlenecks now in
just how much volume of data we can get down
in a given amount of time from the transmitters that
we have.
Speaker 7 (16:29):
So we have the downminand sign BIL from Psyche that's
bull loots from and then very five million alls away.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
One of the things that we hope to do is
enable Internet around the Solar System.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
You can send an astronaut to Mars and have them
take like a high dev video of the Martian landscape
and send that down in like one pass.
Speaker 6 (16:48):
A new era of space communications has begun, and it
all starts with a beam of light.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
And in that report from MESSATV, we're from d suck
Ground Software laid showing Maynham d suck Ground Late the
transmitter Lead Angelo Velesco, Deesock Flight LADSER Transceiver Lead Kenneth
andrews Esock, Ground Detector assembly Lead Emma Woolman, and DSOCK
Operations Lead Mira Shrinavazan this space time and time out
(17:30):
to take another brief look at some of the other
stories making using science this week with a science report.
A new study has found that people whose father's smirk
during puberty seem to age faster than expected. A report
presented at the European Respiratory Society's Congress found signs of
faster biological edge and compared to chronological age and people
whose dads began smirking at the age of fifteen or younger.
(17:52):
They found that smirking during puberty creates damage in boys
developing sperm cells, and this can be passed on to
their children. Quantum computed chips have just cleared a major
manufacturing hurdle. A report of the journal Nature claims the
University of New South Wales Nanotech's startup DIRAC has shown
that its lab perfect prototype quantum chips can be fabricated
(18:14):
under real world production conditions, maintaining the ninety nine percent
accuracy needed to make quantum computers viable. Direct achieve the
feat by teaming up with European company iMac to show
that their chips work just as reliably coming off the
superconductor chip fabrication line as they do in experimental conditions
in a research lab. It's now emerged that around a
(18:37):
quarter of all press releases published on major public relations
platforms in the United States are probably written by artificial intelligence.
The findings reported in the journal Patterns also shows that
science and technology releases were especially likely to be AI generated.
The authors used an hour detection program to estimate the
amount of AIS being used to write consumer complaints, job postings,
(19:00):
and press releases from both corporations and the United Nations.
They found that across the board, AI usage had increased
from one point five to fifteen percent in the nine
months after chat GPT was released, and it's likely AI
is being used even more than the detectors can pick
up now. That's because it struggles once AI generated content
has been heavily edited by a human. There's a new
(19:23):
warning today about AI agents. These are software programs that
act autonomously to achieve user to find goals by perceiving
their environment, making decisions, and taking actions using reasoning, planning,
and memory capabilities. Unlike basic chatbots that merely respond to prompts,
AI agents are capable of complex multi step tasks by
(19:45):
dynamically creating workflows, utilizing external tools, and adapting their behavior
over time. They function through a continuous sloop of understanding
the environment, planning the next steps, and executing actions to
achieve their objectives with minimal human overse leveraging large language
models to facilitate this process. AI agents are now being
(20:05):
widely used in business, but companies failing to secure them,
limiting their access and knowing what they're doing is causing
security risks. Experts are wanting that artificial intelligence need to
be treated the same way as what you would a
real human in terms of access to your computer network.
With the details, with joined by technology editor Alex saharov
(20:25):
Royd from Tech Advice Start Life.
Speaker 8 (20:27):
So, I was at a company's conference called Octa. They
secure identities, and I mean doing that for sixteen years,
and they've been doing that so well that they realized
that because of the AI agents that now proliferate across
different businesses for customer service or to help employees do
aspects of their job in a better way. And there
are dozens of these AI agents for marketing and other reasons.
(20:49):
But they're sitting on the network and sometimes they get
forgotten about and often they have access to all kinds
of data that they shouldn't necessarily be having access too.
And often these agents can also be hacked. AI wants
to be very helpful, and if a hacker can get
into an AI agent that is no longer being used
and it's just sort of sitting there on the network,
all sorts of information can be exfiltrated and obtained. And
(21:12):
so the need to treat AI agents like their humans
in being able to block and restrict their access and
deny access up to a certain period of time. And
you know, once somebody has been logged out of a system,
be it a human or an our agent, they get
logged out everywhere. This has all become quite paramount. And
it's quite funny that in science fiction movies we see
(21:34):
robots wanting to get human rights, you know, and were
treated like humans. And here we are in twenty twenty
five and we're treating AI agents, which is sort of
the least sophisticated form of artificial human you can guess
as humans.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
It was an interesting agent. So are we talking about
the sort of people who answer the phone when you're
in a company. Is that what we're talking about? The
sort of product. Should I say that answers the phone
when you're in.
Speaker 8 (21:55):
A company, Yes, well, customer service agents are one form
of AI agent, but they're also used for marketing, to
create digital content, to analyze business information and data. I
mean an a agent can be any sort of program
that is augmented with the ability to analyze information far
faster than a human and then respond in converse with
(22:17):
humans in a very human like way.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
And agent now and I wouldn't know.
Speaker 8 (22:22):
It, well, I could be. I mean, part of what
they're talking about with death bots. With death bots is
where somebody gathers all the information about themselves before they die,
or somebody does it on their behalf after they die,
and then you have this virtual version of you that
has access to everything you've ever written, every recording that's
ever been made about you, you know, featuring you on
(22:42):
the Internet, or that you've uploaded from cassettes and audio
and video and CDs and whatever else you've done through
your life, and then the AI can simulate you.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
And there are.
Speaker 8 (22:51):
Already people who've used these. Well, it is a form
of digital immortality. Obviously, it's not you, it's just a
similar crom It's a fake version of you. But there
are people overseas who use this technology to get closure
with unfortunately deceased relatives that they couldn't get closure with beforehand.
And even though it's all fake, it's sort of you know,
the brain is kind of fulled. It's very comforting. Yeah.
(23:12):
So this ability to have an AI version of yourself
at the moment, it's very primitive, but you can imagine
in the future when technology is able to almost clone
the existing human brain. I mean, you will have a
digital version of yourself that could then one day, in theory,
be downloaded, whether into a robot or some sort of
organic version of you. And even though the real you
(23:34):
has departed this earth, if there is an exact copy
or a very near copy of you, then do you
live forever?
Speaker 9 (23:42):
That's Alex Sahara Ryd from Take Advice, Art Life, and.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
That's the show for now. Spacetime is available every Monday,
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(24:24):
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(24:45):
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Speaker 2 (24:55):
You've been listening to space Time with Stuart Gary. This
has been another quality poda cast production from bytes dot
com
This is Spacetime Series twenty eight, episode one hundred and
twenty one, for broadcast on the eighth of October twenty
twenty five. Coming up on space Time, the complex chemistry
and the oceans of the icemoon Enceladus, The dream Chase
of space plane set for another delay now won't fly
until at least next year, and NASA says it's new
optical Deep space Laser communications project has exceeded all its
(00:23):
technical goals. All that and more Coming up on space Time.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to space Time with Stuart Gary.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Scientists have discovered new complex organic molecules spewing from Saturn's
icemoon Enceladus. The findings, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy,
were made after searchers went digging through data collected by
the Cassini spacecraft during its tour of the ring planet
and its many moons back in two thousand and five.
Cassini found the first evidence that Enceladus has a hidden
(01:11):
ocean beneath its icy surface. Jets of water were bursting
out like geysers from cracks close to the Moon's south pole,
in the process, shooting ice grains deep into space, smaller
than grains of sand. Some of these tiny pieces of
ice fell back onto the Moon's surface, while others escaped
to form the e ring around Satin, which traces Enceladus's orbit.
(01:33):
The new data is a clear sign that complex chemical
reactions are taking place within Enceladus's global subsurface ocean. Some
of these reactions could be part of chains leading to
more complex, potentially biologically relevant molecules. Scientists have already found
many organic molecules in these ice grains, including precursors for
amino acids, the building blocks of proteins essential for life
(01:56):
as we know it. But the ice greens in the
ear ring can be hundreds of years old, and as
they verged, they may well have been weathered and therefore
altered by intense space radiation. So the authors of this
study wanted to investigate fresh grains ejected much more recently
in order to get a better idea of exactly what's
going on in the inslida in oceans. Fortunately, the authors
(02:18):
really already had the data. See back in two thousand
and eight, the scene flew straight through one of these
icy guysers. These were pristine grains ejected only minutes before
they hit the spacecraft's cosmic dust analyzer instrument at about
eighteen kilometus per second. These were not only the freshest
ice grains Cassini had ever detected, they also the fastest.
(02:38):
The ice grains contained not just frozen water, but also
other molecules, including organics. At lower impact speeds, the ice
shatters and the signal from clusters of water molecules can
hide the signal from some organic molecules. But when the
ice grains hit fast, water molecules don't cluster, and scientists
have a chance to see these previously hidden signals. The
(03:00):
authors found that some of the organic molecules that had
already been found distributed in the E ring were also
present in the fresh ice grains, so this confirms that
they were created within Insuladus asserceans, and they also found
totally new molecules that had never been seen before in
ice grains from Insuladus on Earth. These same molecules are
(03:20):
involved in chains of chemical reactions that ultimately lead to
more complex molecules essential for life as we know it.
The authors say there are many possible pathways from these
organic molecules found in the Cassini data to potentially create
biologically relevant compounds. That enhances the likelihood that this moon
could have been habitable. One of the studies authors, Frank Postberg,
(03:42):
says these molecules found in the freshly ejected material proves
that the complex organic molecule's Cassini is detected in Satin's
e ring and not just the product of long exposure
to space, but are readily available in the insuladaein ocean.
Discoveries from Cassini are valuable for planning a future ACIM
mission dedicated to Enceladus, and studies for this ambitious mission
(04:03):
have already begun. The plan is to fly through the jets,
possibly even land on the moon's south pole tiger stripes
terrain in order to collect fresh samples. Needless to say,
we'll keep an eye on its progress. This is space
time still to come. Sierra Space says their dream Chaser
space plane is now targeting late next year for its
(04:23):
first free flight demonstration flight, and NASA says it's new
Optical Deep Space Laser Communications project has exceeded all its
technical goals. All that and more still to come on
space time. Sierra Space say their Dream Chaser space planes
(04:54):
now targeting late twenty twenty six for its first free
flight demonstration flight. This mission will validate critical technologies for NASA.
Dream Chaser's unique lifting body design will provide additional cargo
carrying capacity on missions to the International Space Station as
part of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract, which already uses
(05:14):
SpaceX Dragon and Northrop Grumman Signet's cargo ships to service
the orbital outpost. Dream Chaser, which like Dragon, is reusable,
was originally designed as a manned spacecraft. It will eventually
fly aboard the United Launch a lines of Vulcan Centaur
rocket from Pad forty one at the Cape Canaveral Space
Force Space in Florida. The first dream Chaser space plane,
(05:35):
called Tenacity, arrived at the Kennedy Space Center back in
May from the Neil Armstrong Test Facility at the Glen
Research Center in Ohio. When it does finally take off,
dream Chaser, together with the Shooting Star cargo module, will
transport some five and forty kilograms of supplies and cargo
on regular missions to the space station, then return to
Earth after each mission, landing conventionally on the former Kennedy
(05:57):
Space Center Space Shuttle runway, Carrying up to one thy,
seven and fifty kilograms of returned experiments and equipment. The
idea of a gentler runway landing will allow the return
to Earth of more delicate equipment experiments which could be
damaged in a rougher high G capsule splash down. With
the early retirement of NASA space shuttle fleet in twenty eleven,
(06:18):
dream Chaser is now the early spacecraft NASA currently funds
that's capable of maneuvering within the atmosphere. The dream Chess
design goes back well over sixty years, with its origins
back in nineteen fifty seven in the United States Air
Force X twenty dinosaur manned spacecraft, which would have been
launched aboard a modified Titan three rocket. NASA continued its
(06:39):
development in the nineteen sixties and early seventies with a
range of experimental spacecraft, including the Northrop M two, the
Martin X twenty three Prime, the Martin Marietta X twenty four,
and the Northrop HL ten. During the nineteen nineties, NASA
used the same basic lifting body design that developed the
HL twenty, an experimental space plane which eventually evolved into
(07:00):
the X thirty eight Emergency crew Return Vehicle, which would
have been an emergency escape pod transported to the International
Space Station in the payload bay of the Space Shuttle.
It would then be docked to the orbiting outpost until needed. However,
that project was canned by NASA in twenty oho two
following budget cuts. Now a NASA of contracted Sierra Space
(07:21):
for an initial seven cargo missions to the orbiting our Post.
A second dream Chaser is currently under construction. Each of
the spacecraft would be out of fly at least fifteen
missions over a ten year lifespan. A third dream Chaser
was built purely as an engineering demonstrator for ground and
flight verification and validation tests and Siera Space having given
(07:42):
up on the idea of a fully manned spacecraft as well.
A fully operational manned version of the space plane could
carry crew into lowerth orbit, and it doesn't end there.
The company also plans the used dream Chaser to launch
and build its own orbiting habitat in space before NASA
reties the International Space Station into a twenty thirty Now
we mentioned earlier, Dream Chaser had a cargo module, the
(08:04):
Shooting Star. It's a fully independent spacecraft which can be
attached to the space plane before launch in order to
increase capacity, Shooting Star is fitted with docking ports at
each end, allowing it to attach to the rear of
dream Chaser at one end and to the space station
at the other. Now this allows Shooting Star who act
as an additional cargo module for astronauts to work in
(08:24):
and hold supplies before they transferred to other areas of
the space station. Shooting Star also carries external marting points
for three additional cargo containers. But unlike the reusable dream Chaser,
which returns to Earth after each mission landing on a
conventional runway, Shooting Star is designed to burn up during
re entry. I. Meanwhile, the Pentagon's looking at using the
(08:44):
Shooting Star cargo module as the basis for its own autonomous,
unmanned military space station for research and development, training, and
operational missions in low Earth orbit. For this, Serias space
will redesign the module to include guidance, navigation and control
systems in order to be at a maintain free flat operations.
The military version wouldst specialized payloads, undertake experimental testing, manufacturing
(09:07):
assembly in microgravity, and carry out a range of logistics operations.
Longer term plans could include high elliptical and even geosynchronous
Earth orbits, as well as more distant missions to the Moon.
This is space time still to come, NASA's new Deep
Space Laser Communications project, and later in the Science report,
a new study shows that people whose dad's smirk during
(09:29):
puberty appear to age faster than expected. All that and
more still to come on space time, NASA says its
(09:52):
new optical Deep Space Laser Communications project as exceeded all
its technical goals, setting up the foundations for high speed
communicationtions for future man missions to Mars. The technology successfully
showed that data encoded in lasers could be reliably transmitted,
received and decoded after traveling millions of kilometers from Earth
to spacecraft at distances comparable to that of Mars. Nearly
(10:15):
two years after launching about NASA's Psyche mission in twenty
twenty three, the technology demonstrator recently completed its sixty fifth
and final pass, sending a laser signal to Psyche and
then receiving a return signal from more than three hundred
and fifty million kilometers away. Just a month after its
launched desk, the Deep Space Orbal Communications demonstration proved it
(10:36):
could send a signal back to Earth after establishing a
link with an optical terminal about the Psyche spacecraft. The
technology demonstrated data rates comparable with those of broadband Internet services,
sending engineering and test data from Earth for record breaking distances.
Back in December twenty twenty three, the demonstration achieved a
historic first by streaming an ultra high definition video to
(10:58):
Earth from over thirty million kilometers away, about eighty times
the distance between the Earth and the Moon, and it
was done at the system's maximum bit rate of two
hundred and sixty seven megabits per second. The project also
surpassed optical communications distance records a year later in December
twenty twenty four, when a down linked Psyche data from
four hundred and ninety five million kilometers away, which is
(11:20):
further than the average distance between the Earth and Mars,
managed by NASA's Jet Proportional Laboratory in passing into California.
The experiment consists of a flight laser transceiver mounted on
the Psyche spacecraft, along with two ground stations to receive
and send data from Earth. A powerful three KILLO white
uplink laser at NASA's Jet Proportional Laboratories Table Mountain facility
(11:41):
transmitted a laser big into Psyche, helping the transceiver determined
way to waim the optical communications laser back to Earth.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
See.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
The thing you got to remember is that Psyche and
the planet Earth are both moving through space at tremendous speeds.
They're also so far away from each other that the
laser's signal can take several minutes to reach its destiny,
even traveling at the speed of light. The project enlisted
the two hundred inch telescope at Caltex Palomar Observatory in
San Diego as its primary downlink station, which provided enough
(12:10):
light collecting ERIC to gather the faintest photons. These were
then directed to a high efficiency detector array at the observatory,
where the information encoded in the photons could be processed.
In another test, data was downlinked to an experimental radio
frequency optical hybrid antenna at the Deep Space Network's Goldstone
Complex near Barstow, California. The antenna was retro fitted with
(12:32):
a ray of seven mirrors, totaling a meter in diameter
and enabling the antenna to receive both radio frequency and
optical signals from Psyche simultaneously. The project also used Caltex
Palomar observatory at a smaller one meter telescope at Table
Mountain to receive the same signal from Psychi at the
same time. Known as arraying, this is commonly done with
radio antennas to better receive week signals and to build
(12:55):
redundancy into the system. This report from Nasser TV.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Is the Deep Space Optical Communications Project. It is the
first demonstration of using lasers instead of radio waves to
transmit data to and from a spacecraft out to distances
beyond Luna.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Orbit two one engine ignition.
Speaker 6 (13:14):
The experiment launched in October twenty twenty three, attached to
the side of Massa's Psyche spacecraft and for its first
big test, it's streamed a cat.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Video in dinner.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Why was it a cat video because the Internet loves cats.
Speaker 6 (13:32):
Future astronauts are going to need faster broadband style connections
with Earth and is currently available for navigation, health updates,
streaming video, and for sending back science. This is the
first step in making that possible. So how does it work.
Let's zoom in with laser precision to find out. Not
far from Los Angeles, JPL's Table Mountain facility plays a
(13:52):
big role the optical communications telescope laboratory sends a powerful
laser beacon over millions of miles to Psyche.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
We've done that is by using ten separate lasers. So
we have put lasers that come into the enclosure. We
have ten individual channels tound of ten of these collimeters,
those long clear cylinders. We have a few lenses that
then shapes the beam to get it the right size.
So by the time it gets to Psyche, you know,
millions and million kilometers.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Away, it has the right shape.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
Think of it as a cosmic game of catch. Table
Mountain throws the pitch, Psyche catches it.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Imagine walking outside at night with a laser pointer and
try to point it back at Mars.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
That's the kind of level of accuracy we need to achieve.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
And after catching table Mountain signal, Psyche used its own
laser to send data back to Earth, reaching a record
breaking distance of over three hundred million miles. That's more
than three times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
The Palamar Observatory uses its powerful two hundred inch hail
telescope to catch Psyche's laser light, which is now extremely
faint after traveling millions of miles, so.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
By the time the signal from the spacecraft reaches us
here Palomar, it has spread out over the Earth so
that the light level is very faint. It's on the
single particle of light level called photons, and the way
that we send data using these photons is to encode
the data in the time of arrival of laser pulses,
kind of like sending worse code using a laser pointer.
(15:17):
The light from the telescope gets relayed down onto the
optical rail and then into this optical systemed Optics then
takes the light and focuses it down onto a detector
and crystat which operates at a temperature just one degree
above absolute zero. Inside this chamber there's a detective with
a very tiny active area. So we're taking the light
from our giant telescope and coupling it down to less
(15:39):
than a millimeter.
Speaker 6 (15:40):
And tracking a moving spacecraft across the Solar System is
not easy, but when conditions are right, data flies ms.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
This is GLR.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
We're starting to see flashes of light.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
DSAC broke records almost immediately after being commissioned. We have
established data rate records giving broadband comparable data rates in
the hundreds of megabits per second from Mars close range.
That's the first time that anything has been done like
this at distances beyond the Moon.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
The idea here is to slowly start having more optical
communications rather than radio frequency communications, to just get more
data down from space. There's kind of bottlenecks now in
just how much volume of data we can get down
in a given amount of time from the transmitters that
we have.
Speaker 7 (16:29):
So we have the downminand sign BIL from Psyche that's
bull loots from and then very five million alls away.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
One of the things that we hope to do is
enable Internet around the Solar System.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
You can send an astronaut to Mars and have them
take like a high dev video of the Martian landscape
and send that down in like one pass.
Speaker 6 (16:48):
A new era of space communications has begun, and it
all starts with a beam of light.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
And in that report from MESSATV, we're from d suck
Ground Software laid showing Maynham d suck Ground Late the
transmitter Lead Angelo Velesco, Deesock Flight LADSER Transceiver Lead Kenneth
andrews Esock, Ground Detector assembly Lead Emma Woolman, and DSOCK
Operations Lead Mira Shrinavazan this space time and time out
(17:30):
to take another brief look at some of the other
stories making using science this week with a science report.
A new study has found that people whose father's smirk
during puberty seem to age faster than expected. A report
presented at the European Respiratory Society's Congress found signs of
faster biological edge and compared to chronological age and people
whose dads began smirking at the age of fifteen or younger.
(17:52):
They found that smirking during puberty creates damage in boys
developing sperm cells, and this can be passed on to
their children. Quantum computed chips have just cleared a major
manufacturing hurdle. A report of the journal Nature claims the
University of New South Wales Nanotech's startup DIRAC has shown
that its lab perfect prototype quantum chips can be fabricated
(18:14):
under real world production conditions, maintaining the ninety nine percent
accuracy needed to make quantum computers viable. Direct achieve the
feat by teaming up with European company iMac to show
that their chips work just as reliably coming off the
superconductor chip fabrication line as they do in experimental conditions
in a research lab. It's now emerged that around a
(18:37):
quarter of all press releases published on major public relations
platforms in the United States are probably written by artificial intelligence.
The findings reported in the journal Patterns also shows that
science and technology releases were especially likely to be AI generated.
The authors used an hour detection program to estimate the
amount of AIS being used to write consumer complaints, job postings,
(19:00):
and press releases from both corporations and the United Nations.
They found that across the board, AI usage had increased
from one point five to fifteen percent in the nine
months after chat GPT was released, and it's likely AI
is being used even more than the detectors can pick
up now. That's because it struggles once AI generated content
has been heavily edited by a human. There's a new
(19:23):
warning today about AI agents. These are software programs that
act autonomously to achieve user to find goals by perceiving
their environment, making decisions, and taking actions using reasoning, planning,
and memory capabilities. Unlike basic chatbots that merely respond to prompts,
AI agents are capable of complex multi step tasks by
(19:45):
dynamically creating workflows, utilizing external tools, and adapting their behavior
over time. They function through a continuous sloop of understanding
the environment, planning the next steps, and executing actions to
achieve their objectives with minimal human overse leveraging large language
models to facilitate this process. AI agents are now being
(20:05):
widely used in business, but companies failing to secure them,
limiting their access and knowing what they're doing is causing
security risks. Experts are wanting that artificial intelligence need to
be treated the same way as what you would a
real human in terms of access to your computer network.
With the details, with joined by technology editor Alex saharov
(20:25):
Royd from Tech Advice Start Life.
Speaker 8 (20:27):
So, I was at a company's conference called Octa. They
secure identities, and I mean doing that for sixteen years,
and they've been doing that so well that they realized
that because of the AI agents that now proliferate across
different businesses for customer service or to help employees do
aspects of their job in a better way. And there
are dozens of these AI agents for marketing and other reasons.
(20:49):
But they're sitting on the network and sometimes they get
forgotten about and often they have access to all kinds
of data that they shouldn't necessarily be having access too.
And often these agents can also be hacked. AI wants
to be very helpful, and if a hacker can get
into an AI agent that is no longer being used
and it's just sort of sitting there on the network,
all sorts of information can be exfiltrated and obtained. And
(21:12):
so the need to treat AI agents like their humans
in being able to block and restrict their access and
deny access up to a certain period of time. And
you know, once somebody has been logged out of a system,
be it a human or an our agent, they get
logged out everywhere. This has all become quite paramount. And
it's quite funny that in science fiction movies we see
(21:34):
robots wanting to get human rights, you know, and were
treated like humans. And here we are in twenty twenty
five and we're treating AI agents, which is sort of
the least sophisticated form of artificial human you can guess
as humans.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
It was an interesting agent. So are we talking about
the sort of people who answer the phone when you're
in a company. Is that what we're talking about? The
sort of product. Should I say that answers the phone
when you're in.
Speaker 8 (21:55):
A company, Yes, well, customer service agents are one form
of AI agent, but they're also used for marketing, to
create digital content, to analyze business information and data. I
mean an a agent can be any sort of program
that is augmented with the ability to analyze information far
faster than a human and then respond in converse with
(22:17):
humans in a very human like way.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
And agent now and I wouldn't know.
Speaker 8 (22:22):
It, well, I could be. I mean, part of what
they're talking about with death bots. With death bots is
where somebody gathers all the information about themselves before they die,
or somebody does it on their behalf after they die,
and then you have this virtual version of you that
has access to everything you've ever written, every recording that's
ever been made about you, you know, featuring you on
(22:42):
the Internet, or that you've uploaded from cassettes and audio
and video and CDs and whatever else you've done through
your life, and then the AI can simulate you.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
And there are.
Speaker 8 (22:51):
Already people who've used these. Well, it is a form
of digital immortality. Obviously, it's not you, it's just a
similar crom It's a fake version of you. But there
are people overseas who use this technology to get closure
with unfortunately deceased relatives that they couldn't get closure with beforehand.
And even though it's all fake, it's sort of you know,
the brain is kind of fulled. It's very comforting. Yeah.
(23:12):
So this ability to have an AI version of yourself
at the moment, it's very primitive, but you can imagine
in the future when technology is able to almost clone
the existing human brain. I mean, you will have a
digital version of yourself that could then one day, in theory,
be downloaded, whether into a robot or some sort of
organic version of you. And even though the real you
(23:34):
has departed this earth, if there is an exact copy
or a very near copy of you, then do you
live forever?
Speaker 9 (23:42):
That's Alex Sahara Ryd from Take Advice, Art Life, and.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
That's the show for now. Spacetime is available every Monday,
Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher, Google podcast
pocker Casts, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, bytes dot Com, SoundCloud, YouTube,
your favorite podcast download Provider, and from space Time with
Stuart Gary dot com. Space Time's also broadcast through the
(24:24):
National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both
iHeartRadio and tune In Radio. And you can help to
support our show by visiting the Spacetime Store for a
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Speaker 2 (24:55):
You've been listening to space Time with Stuart Gary. This
has been another quality poda cast production from bytes dot
com
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