Lost Wanderer: 02/23/25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hm, not anywhere.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm taking off my best, weeping up behind and to
start up the centuries line of the centaury, my tro
on the spaceship Night to No with the stars and

(00:47):
the school.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Long.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
But I'm from the f fancy family on the Jay,
not the Center, Me.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
On the Spaceship to the Stars and the.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
The talent seasons.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Said moves me is the stationship of the Center, on
the stationship with the stars and music the Center.

Speaker 4 (02:03):
Time for this nation to take a clearly leading role
in space achievement, which in many ways may.

Speaker 5 (02:11):
Hold the key to our future on Earth.

Speaker 6 (02:15):
H on all fair for man.

Speaker 7 (02:26):
On biable.

Speaker 8 (02:38):
Today is a day from morning and remember Nancy and
I are famed to the core.

Speaker 6 (02:43):
But the tragedy of the Shuttle challenge.

Speaker 9 (02:46):
The following program may contain false language, adult teens.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
And bad attempts of human listener discretion.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Is it vibe?

Speaker 9 (03:08):
What is President Trump's goal?

Speaker 3 (03:10):
What is his vision?

Speaker 9 (03:11):
He wants to put an American flag on Mars.

Speaker 10 (03:28):
Griffin?

Speaker 7 (03:30):
Anguality based here the landing Times.

Speaker 11 (03:35):
I am your host je double f also known as
a cosmic bard over on X and this is the
Lost Wonderer podcast for February twenty third, two thousand and
twenty five. Happy Sunday evening and welcome aboard the ACS serenade. Now,

(03:57):
I got to change up my plans a little for
the art of this show because I had everything written
out and well, thirty minutes ago we have breaking news.
It looks like Starship test flight eight. It's now scheduled
for Friday, according to a post from Elon Musk himself.

(04:17):
So anything in the rest of the show that talks
about Starship might be out of date. Just keep that
in mind, and please don't yell at me. I wrote
this last night. That update came literally thirty minutes ago.
But we do have some space X slash NASA news

(04:41):
to start the show out with, because we had the
latest from NASA's ongoing space saga. Those two little pesky astronauts,
Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams, who have been aboard the
ISS since last June, are finally getting a little bit
of a break. They're coming home earlier than expected. NASA

(05:02):
has announced on February eleventh, of twenty twenty five that
it's swopping spacecraft for the SpaceX Crew ten mission, basically
shaping weeks off, the duos nearly ten months day in orbit.
Instead of a brand new Crew Dragon, they'll launch a
veteran capsule Endurance, now scheduled from March twelfth, speeding up

(05:25):
relief for the stranded pair. Now this all traces back
to Boeing Starliner, of course, Wilmore and Williams blasted off
from Florida on or from Florida on June fifth, twenty
twenty four, for what was supposed to be a quick
eight day test flight, the first crewed run for that
particular spacecraft. But things went sideways fast. Helium leagues and

(05:49):
thruster glitches plagued the trip to the ISS, and after
months of troubleshooting, NASA pulled the plug and bringing them
home a board star Liner. The council returned to Earth
empty on September seventh, landing safely in New Mexico, but
leaving the astronauts behind on the ISS, and there they
joined the ISS Crew nine team, setting in for a

(06:13):
very very much longer haul enter SpaceX. NASA had already
tagged Crew nine's Dragon capsule Freedom to bring will More
and Williams back, alongside astronauts Nick Kegg and Alexander Gorbonov,
who launched in September, and the original plan had them
returning in late March or maybe perhaps early April, once

(06:35):
Crew ten arrived with a shiny new Dragon, but SpaceX
needed more time to finish that in new spacecraft, things
such as fabrication, testing, integration kind of the work still,
so NASA made a call switch to Endurance, a proven
capsule that's flew before, and that moves bumps. Crew ten's
launched to no earlier than March twelfth from Cape canaveral

(06:56):
letting Crew nine and our star Liner duo head home
after a shorthandover likely mid March, and it's a it's
a relief for Wilmore and Williams who you have now,
as you can tell if you're watching live and seeing
the video we have. They have clocked over two hundred
and sixty days so far in space way Plass their

(07:16):
eight day planned trip. Of course nine months isn't a record.
Frank Rubio holds that for the US of three hundred
and sixty five days. But it's a marathon. Well, let's
face it. They didn't sign up for Crew ten's team.
Ann McLean, Nicole Ayres Takoya Nishi and Carol Peskoff will

(07:36):
take over launching a Toffee Falcon nine rocket weather of course,
off of Florida, where and durrancell splashdown will pin the
exact return date, but it's now days, not weeks from
the original schedule. Now for Bowing, it's another chapter in
star liners rocky story. NASA is still reviewing data from

(07:58):
the uncrewed return to side that the capsule needs another
test flight before regular missions. Space AX meanwhile keeps humming along,
proving its Dragon crew's fleet reliability. Up there two hundred
and fifty miles above US, Wilmore and Williams are wrapping
up a wild ride, one that's ending sooner thanks to
the spacecraft switch. And we have more news coming out

(08:22):
of NASA. For NASA seems to finally be ditching the distractions,
and there's some good news from the actual NASA headquarters
in d DC coming February nineteenth this year, words come
down that the agency has told employees to ditch the
lgbt q I, m o US symbols from their workspaces,

(08:42):
Rainbow flags pins, you know those virtual backgrounds on teams calls.
All of it. This popped up on February seventh from
a NASA watch, a site run by X staff for
Keith Cowing. Quoting folks inside HQ, they say managers made
it clear, keep it up, and you're looking at iministrative leave.
And it's not just for some, it's everyone about time.

(09:07):
If you ask me, I don't care who you fuck with,
who you sleep with, and whether or night you suck
dick or not. Just do your damn job. But this
isn't random. It's part of a clean sweep. Since President
Trump took over last month, he's been pushing agencies to

(09:28):
basically dump the diversity, equity and inclusion crap also known
as DEI that's probably been cluttering up to way too
many systems. Late January executive orders have set the tone,
and NASSA is finally on board. They've yanked DEI pages
off of their website, shut down these programs, and Acting
Administrator Janet Petro put it in writing, follow the rules

(09:51):
or face the music. This pride symple thing. It's verbal,
not on paper, so take it with a grain of salt.
But it's a solid stuff to refocus on the things
that really matter, you know. Space That said NASA is
playing it cool. On February eleventh, a spokesperson told space

(10:14):
dot com there's no new ban on personal stuff like
flags or stickers, just a reminder to stick to legal
and safety rules. No, no, don't leave threats, et cetera. Sure,
but check x and people notice that the Rainbow Alliance
page has actually gone from the NASA website, and a
pride parade posted from NASA Glenn last yearne got scrubbed

(10:35):
off Instagram. That's probably not a coincidence. It's probably a cleanup.
The agency is saying one thing, but the evidence is
saying that they're moving, in my opinion, in the rate direction.
And of course you're getting the usual pushback. Democrats reps
Zoe Lofgren and Valerie Vouchet from the House Space Committee

(10:59):
are crying over a region censorship, blaming Trump and of
course Elon Musk, who's helping run the Department of Government Efficiency.
They're mad that Dei's Gravy's train is derailing. Well, let's
be real, NASA's job is rockets and planets, not identity politics. Now,

(11:19):
of course musk name gets tossed around, though there's no
proof he's the one behind this. It really doesn't need
to be because largely it should be common sense. So
here's where we're at. The sources haven't gone public, and
NASA is keeping its story straight. No official ban, they say, okay,

(11:40):
but with DEI on the way out, Pronoun's gone from
Emails Affinity Group's sideline. In my book, it's a win
either way. Up in orbit, the ISS crew is still
working down here, NASA is shedding the fluff and getting
back to proper business. That's a mission I think we
can all cheer four, and NASA probably needs to be

(12:05):
really on top of its game because rockets are roaring
in twenty twenty five is set to top it. Now
here's a stat that might wake you up. Straight from
the launch pads of twenty twenty four. Last year we
saw two hundred and twenty three rocket launch attempts worldwide.
That's nearly one every three to four hours day and night.

(12:30):
I know those numbers do not add up. We'll talk
on that later, but as of February nineteenth, because the
numbers are in and there, that's basically kind of a
breath of fresh air. Space is getting serious again, and
this year is shaping up to be even busier and
I I can't even begin to fathom, besides maybe my

(12:56):
alleged typo and the number of launches that I copied
and pasted way too many times. But all these launches
worldwide basically came from fourteen countries and a slew of
companies with a course, SpaceX leading the pack at one
hundred and eight launches, give or take their Falcon nine

(13:18):
was a workhorse, pumping out stark Starlink satellites like clockwork,
eighty eight missions alone for that network. Now with seven
thousand satellites up there just from those, China wasn't far
behind with sixty seven attempted launches. We'll have to go
with attempted because well, there's no official cow count for

(13:41):
this episode. They're not always successful, and those were mostly
course long march rockets piling on their own space station
and lunar plans. Russia shipped away at twenty two launches,
and India hit with eight, including a reusable tech demo
point Is twenty twenty four was a rocket marathon and

(14:02):
it's paying off. So what's driving all of this? Well, efficiency,
plain and simple. SpaceX re used Falcon nine boosters a
shit ton of times. They're not tinkering with diversity agendas.
They're getting the job done. It's just pure simple, let's
get it done.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Now.

Speaker 11 (14:23):
Twenty twenty five is looking wilder. SpaceX is targeting one
hundred and forty four Falcon nine launches, that's twelve a month,
plus Falcon Heavy and of course Starships orbital debut and
actual payloads are in the works. China, for its part,
is planning on one hundred, and Russia so far has

(14:44):
got at least twenty lined up. Then you have newcomers
like rocket Lab in India's ISRO that are stepping up too.
ISRO's got a space station module and works. For December,
the US alone could hit over one hundred and fifty launches,
fueled by STARLINGNK six maansion and of course NASA's Artemis push.

(15:05):
And it's crazy to think where we were over just
a couple of years ago that this year alone could pass,
blow blow past that two fifty total.

Speaker 7 (15:16):
And it should.

Speaker 11 (15:17):
Probably be no wonder why launch sites are continually begging
for upgrades, and maybe with NASA getting its head on straight,
maybe some NASA sites can be upgraded as well. And
we do have some more news coming out of DC
and NASA, and this one also pertains to SpaceX. As

(15:40):
of February nineteenth, the agency has chosen SpaceX to launch
its Pandora mission, a three hundred and twenty seven million
dollar effort to study the atmospheres of distant exoplanets. This
left office set for August of twenty twenty eight from
Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a Falcon nine rocket, and it's

(16:00):
gearing up to give a closer look at what's floating
around out there in the cosmos. Now, Pen there was
full name. It's quite the mouthful, proving gotta love that
first one. Probing atmospheric chemistry of nearby, directly imaged exoplanets
and repeatable observations of activity. What it's really about is

(16:22):
basically scoping out twenty star systems within a hunt of
one thousand late years of Earth. The spacecraft, just under
a ton will hunt for signs of methane, water, vapor,
and other chemicals in the era of planets we can
see directly, not just infer Once it settles into polar
orbit four one hundred and thirty five miles off, it'll
pair with the James Web Space Telescope for three years

(16:45):
of data collection aiming to crack open some big questions
about life beyond our system. Now. NASA locked this in
on February tenth, hitting space X a ninety eight million
dollar contract for the launch, which of course is not
the whole mission costs, just their part. Falcon nine as
of right now, will be the ride, launching from either

(17:07):
Pad thirty nine A or SLC forty in Florida, with Vandenburg,
California as a backup if needed, and of course SpaceX
and XES no stranger to this, with just the sheer
amount of missions they run every year in This project
will be run out of Goddard Space Flight Center by
Elisa Quintana, part of NASA's Astrophysics Pioneers program, which bets

(17:29):
on lean, targeted missions like this one. Now, this isn't
just another satellite toss Pandora's built to fill hey gap giggity.
Most exoplanet studies guests at atmospheres from starlight dips, but
this will actually analyze plaza planets we can image head on.

(17:52):
With assembly stated to wrap up sometime in mid twenty
twenty eight, the SpaceX will handle the boosts into the orbit.
It's a tight timeline, but Given Falcon nine's track record,
it's a safe bet that they'll hit this mark and
so far no hitches have been reported. Just a straight
shot from announcement to planning and ra as of right now.

(18:13):
August of twenty twenty eight is the target and if
all goes planned will we will be decoding alien air
shortly thereafter. Now, with all these launches, we sometimes get
unique landing opportunities, and SpaceX has recently made history with

(18:38):
their first rocket landing near the Bahamas. Now we don't
know why the rocket got to go on vacation, but
it's kind of cool that they got the land as
the Bahamas. So February nineteenth, SpaceX pulled off a first.
A Falcon nine rocket launched twenty three Starlink satellites in
the orbit and then stuck its landing on a drone
ship off the coast of the Bahamas. It's the company's

(18:59):
debut touchdown in international waters outside of the US, and
it happened just after six twenty two pm Eastern time.
The mission kicked off at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
That's where the Falcon nine, standing two hundred and twenty
nine feet tall, blasted off from launch Complex forty, carrying
its payload of the twenty three Starlink Internet satellites. The
lift off was very smooth, and about eight minutes later,

(19:22):
the rocket's first stage peeled off and headed back down. Now,
instead of the usual open ocean landing, a touchdown on
the drone ship just read the instructions. Parked in the
Atlantic near Exuma, an island in the Bahamas, the booster
tail number B ten eighty, aced its sixteenth flight, nine
of which have been Starlink runs, and it did officially

(19:45):
markspacex's first international landing. But it wasn't just a routine
launch because SpaceX recently inked a deal with the Bahamas
to use their waters, opening a new flight pass for
Falcon nine that were not available prior. Wuty Prime Minister

(20:05):
Isaac Chester Cooper called it a huge event. During the
live stream, a small nation of four hundred thousand stepping
into the aerospace game. Residents might have heard a sonic
boom as the booster broke the sound barrier on its
way down. The signature of the reusable rockets post on
X lit up with excitement. SpaceX confirmed the landing at
six thirty one pm, tweeting welcome to space. Bahamas satellites meanwhile,

(20:30):
keep going. The Falcon nines up for stag dropped them
in the low Earth orbit about an hour after launch,
boosting Starlink's consolation already the world's largest with over seven
thousand active and it was SpaceX's twenty first launch of
twenty twenty five fifteen tied to Starlink, showing their break

(20:51):
neck pacing and the company's reuse record is insane. Some
boosters now have flown over twenty times and this Bahama
landing proves they're still pushing the boundaries with no hiccups
report it just a clean fight, light and historic touchdown.
The deal with the Bahamas could mean more launches from
new and different angles, maybe even louder booms over Azuma.

(21:12):
For SpaceX, it's another notch in the belt. For the Islands,
it's a front row seat to the space race. And
the space race doesn't stop there because we still have
NASA's Artemis three plans. And here's a head up from
NASA's safety watchdog coming out once again February nineteenth, because

(21:35):
it was apparently a big news dump. The Aerospace Safety
Advisory Panel or ASAP, don't ask I had no clue,
but they just dropped their annual report, and it's raising
a metric butt load of red flags about Artemis three,
the mission slated to land humans on the Moon for

(21:55):
the first time since nineteen seventy two, or for the
first time for you among us that are like that.
They're saying the risk might be too high with NASA's
current plan, packed with untested tech and tight deadlines. It's
a reality check for our program aiming to hit the
lunar South Pole by mid twenty twenty seven. That said,
it isn't a total slam. ASAP did praise some of

(22:18):
NASA's progress, mostly like you know, Space Ex's starship test
and even Blue Origins New Glen launch last month, but
they're worried about the pile up of first Artemis three
got a laundry list. The Wuto starship has a lunar lander,
new Axiom space suits, and it reworked a Ryan heat
shield after Artemis one's erosion scare. That's thirteen major milestones,

(22:41):
plus extras like I don't know, fuel depot in orbit,
chyrogenic refueling, all unproven in one go. The panels Bill
Bray put it bluntly stack that mini risk, and it's
a gamble on a near perfect run. The timeline's part
of the problem. NASA shooting for mid twenty twenty seven,
but ACEP says cramming everything in the one mission, especially

(23:03):
with Starship still needing an uncrued lunar test, leaves very
little wiggle room. They're now nudging NASA to rethink, maybe
spread those first across more flights, unfortunately, going back to
the Apollo style with clearer test goals at a steadier pace.
Bray raised this with emidt Kissheitira, a top NASA Moon official.

(23:23):
There's no word yet on the agency's take. The heat
shield fixed the loon sept for Artemis three after December
tweak announcement adds yet another layer to juggle, and really,
though it's not just Artemis three, later missions Pylon Gateway Station,
a blue Man Moonlander, and a lunar Rover, more new gear,

(23:44):
more risk. ASAP's point, NASA's got to balance ambition with
safety or it is asking for trouble, and budget woes
don't help. Congres still hasn't locked in funding and that's
slowing things down as well. And post on x Echo
the concern. One user called it overloaded another flag starship
wildcard status after its latest test. But for now NASA

(24:08):
is holding course with mid twenty twenty seven as the target,
and we do have Janet Petro pushing back on the
idea now that the agency has to pick between the
Moon and Mars. In an interview this month with Space News,
she laid it out, why not both. She almost she
almost did copyright infringement with the embrace the power of

(24:30):
van here. I'm gonna have to monitor that closely so
we can maybe get some profits coming hardway. And it's
a straight shot at critics who say NASA's stretch too
thin and a signal that the Artemis program leader's ambitions
aren't sidelining the Red planet. Patri has been running the
show basically since January twentieth, when she stepped in after

(24:52):
Bill Nelson's term ended. With the new administration, she's got
a point to prove. Artemis is her baby, aiming to
land humans on the Moon's south poll by Mint twenty
seven with SpaceX's starship, but Mars keeps popping up in
the chatter, especially after Elon Musk SpaceX test hit at
a twenty thirties trip. Some in Congress and the science

(25:15):
crowd argue NASA should ditch the Moon detour and gun
for Mars instead, but Petro's not buying it. She says
the Moon is a necessary stepping stone, not a sidetrack. Now,
of course, the plans to prong Darta Miss three is
the big one, first crude lunar landings since Apollo targeting
twenty twenty seven with Oryon and Starship scouting water ice

(25:37):
for fuel and survival. Then there's Mars further out, but
yet in sight. NASA's got an uncrude sample return mission
with the European Space Agency set for late this decade,
plus a nuclear propulsion study due next year to cut
the six month trip. Petro told Space News the Moon's
proving ground test to gear nailed the APS and then

(25:59):
hit Mars with less guesswork need it. She's betting on
private muscle like SpaceX and Blue Origin to make this happen,
but it's not all smooth sailing. Budgets tight. Congress hasn't
finalized twenty twenty five funds and post on X flag delays,
with one user noting Artemis two still stuck at December

(26:19):
twenty twenty five for a lunar flyby. Critics say splitting
focus between kind of both could actually botch it, but
Petro is unfhazed. She pointed to NASA's history. Apollo lit
the shuttles in the ISS, saying dual goals drive progress.
Musk backs her up as well, and I gotta fix

(26:45):
one little thing here, please forgive me.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Here we go.

Speaker 11 (26:51):
So where's this headed? Well, we got Moon first twenty
seven still being the mark, then Mars hoping for twenty
thirty three if the tech lines up, and as Petros
theaters NASA to juggle both. No, either and or. It's
a long game, but she is betting the agency's got
the chops to pull it off. And maybe with their

(27:12):
one of our first stories, maybe the focus will be
in the right places. Now now, I said, one of
the companies that could help lead this, AH just cut
a thousand jobs because a story for the private space
rates coming out of Kent, Washington. We have Blue Origin.

(27:33):
Jeff Bezos's aerospace outfit is laying off more than one
thousand employees, about ten percent of its workforce, according to
reports that broke last week. The news hit on February thirteenth,
when CEO Dave Limp told staff in an all hands call,
it's time to trim down and sharpen up, just as
the company is ramping up its rocket game. Like I said,

(27:56):
this isn't a small cut. Blue Origins got around ten
thousand people in pay spread across hubs in Florida, Texas,
and Washington State. The layoffs confirmed by an internal email
Limp sent Thursday, targeting engineering, R and D, project manage
it and managerial roles. Quote, we grew fast, perhaps too fast,
the past few years. The goal is the streamline operations

(28:20):
in boots boost launches of their mass of New Glenn rocket,
which flew its first successful test last month. That January
debut was an absolute win. New Gland's upper stage hit orbit,
though the booster didn't stick at sea landing. But that's
that's okay. That was the secondary goal, and now Blue
Origin is doubling down. Limp said twenty twenty five about

(28:42):
scaling production and flying more, but not staffing up. The
company's been on a roll even with its smaller New Shepherd,
hitting twenty nine suborbital flights, nine with crews, including one
this month. But New Glen's the real prize, a reusable
beast dwarfing space X's Falcon nine, and the cut signal
a pivot to actually make it happen, and timing is

(29:07):
everything here. Blue Origins playing catch up to SpaceX, which
logged well over one hundred launches last year, to Blue
Origins itty bitty handful and Bezos who found that the
verm in two thousand has poured billions into it, selling
one billion in Amazon stock yearly by some counts, which
don't help when you spend that much on a crappy
piece of shit TV series that I won't talk about

(29:30):
on here because I will go into full blown PTSD.
But post on X buzzed after the news. Some call
it a smart reset, other seas stumble after new Glenn's win.
Either way, it is a leaner Blue Origin now with
Limp at the helm since late twenty twenty three, pushing
four results that said there was no word yet on

(29:50):
if there were any severances offered and actually not even
in the exact numbers for Blue Origins, very tight lipped
on head count. That the layoffs are rolling out very
very fast, and last month's launch proved they can fly big,
so that's the luck Blue Origin. See what happens, and

(30:15):
we do have more jobs being cut, but this one,
this one makes a whole hell of a lot more sense.
For Boeing is gearing up to cut about two hundred
jobs from its Space Launch System or SOLS program, the
massive rocket powering NASA's artemist pushed to the Moon Now.
The news broke last week on February thirteenth, when Boeing's

(30:38):
Vice president for SLS, David Dutcher, email staff saying they've
trimmed a planned four hundred layoffs in half after talks
with NASA. Still, it's a bit of a gut punch
for the team and a question mark now for Artemis timeline.

Speaker 7 (30:55):
Now.

Speaker 11 (30:55):
This kicked off on February seventh, when word leaked that
Boeing was ironcut to align with revisions to the Artemis
program and cut expectations. The original plan slash four hundred
positions by April, half the SLS workforce of eight hundred,
since contracts with NASA might not be renewed past March,
and after daily huddles with the agency, Boeing ended up

(31:18):
saving two hundred, but sixty day layoff notices are still
rolling out under federal rules. The hits landing at places
like NASA's Michelle facility and New Orleans and the Kennedy
Space Center in Florida, so contact is matter. Artemis is
behind schedule. Artemis two's crew flyway is now Spring twenty

(31:40):
twenty six to over budget twenty three point eight billion
dollars alone for SLS since twenty eleven, Boeing has had
its share of flag like you know, quality snags on
the upper stage flag lay at August. Meanwhile, six space
advisors to Trump and Elon Musk reportedly went SLS phased
out poor reuters, and I agree with that, with NASA

(32:04):
not having any budgeting yet saying they're working with Boing
to align budget resources and schedules. But post on XO
course are split as some see a smart trim, other
a sign that the SLS will soon be toast. So
we'll see what happens. I don't like seeing anyone, except

(32:27):
for maybe federal government workers getting losing their jobs. And
I know this is quasi related, but I just don't
think the SOLS is the way to go, and it
should be should be shit canned. So with that, let's
take a three minute break. So I can get refresh
on my beverage. We will be right back.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
Glinted is through the sky region of.

Speaker 10 (32:57):
A thousand galaxies, whispers in the dark, listening for echoes,
waiting for us.

Speaker 8 (33:08):
Bark always send, Oh sad sweet trace go ways through
the cold and endless night.

Speaker 3 (33:20):
We searched for trade.

Speaker 6 (33:24):
Radio silence, Nothing but space, liliance.

Speaker 7 (33:28):
Stars, but not a single face?

Speaker 4 (33:31):
Are we alone?

Speaker 3 (33:33):
Or are they just quiet calling out? And the void
won't reply it?

Speaker 5 (33:52):
Low frequency dreams in the static sea, ghost self transmissions
lost in infinity.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
We scared from us, we scared the past, but.

Speaker 8 (34:11):
Just stand right back.

Speaker 6 (34:19):
Always sends as we trace bays through the cold and endlesstening.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
We searched for trace.

Speaker 4 (34:33):
Ready of silence, nothing but space the plans starts them
not a.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
Single face alone? Or are I just quiet calling?

Speaker 9 (34:44):
Now?

Speaker 3 (34:45):
Why won't reply it?

Speaker 4 (35:00):
Maybe there is spurning where we can't hear, or high
in and shindows watching usners. Maybe we're early, maybe we're late. Oh,

(35:21):
maybe they chose a different thing.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
So we can listen wick the light.

Speaker 4 (35:29):
We can hold the US side on the second voice sound,
So then we wait for the loss of the.

Speaker 11 (35:39):
Bou Hello, welcome back to the second half. Thank you
all for tuning in the night. It's been a blast

(35:59):
putting this one together. I've changed up the format behind
the scenes. I don't know if you can tell much,
but I'm enjoying it. I hope you guys are as well,
and as is our ones here at KLRN Radio. We
especially on Sunday nights, we seem to do this a
lot on Sunday in particular. We're gonna start the second

(36:21):
half with you know, some doom.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Dear lord, they're.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
Doomed dom.

Speaker 11 (36:37):
Yep, that silly silly city killer asteroid twenty twenty four,
Why are four? As I mentioned last episode, we will
hear stories progressively getting worse and worse and then worse
again because we know how the game works. But we

(37:00):
do have some latest on the space rock that gots well,
let's see some astronomers on high alert and others getting erections.
I'm looking at you, mister Tyson. It's been dubbed a
city killer, and it's hurling through the Solar system and
it's depending on who you seek to speak to, it

(37:21):
anywhere from a one point five percent chance of slamming
in the Earth to a three point one percent well
from day to day, but we are getting fresh overnight
observations and that number is changing daily. But here's a
twist that you probably haven't heard about that could actually

(37:44):
could be more frightening. And I'm trying not to add
on the doom because i want you to hear it
first before it becomes you know, tomorrow's news. There is
a greater than zero percent chance that will hit the
Moon instead of Earth. Now either way, this one hundred

(38:08):
and eighty foot wide chunk of rock moving at nearly
thirty thousand miles an hour is keeping some scientists very,
very busy. And remember this all started on Christmas Day
of twenty twenty four, when the Atlas telescope in Chile
first spotted twenty twenty four yr four. Early estimates gave
it a one in eighty three chance of striking Earth

(38:28):
on December twenty second, twenty thirty two. Since then, odds
have jumped around, hitting one and thirty two early this
week before dropping to a one in sixty seven as
of uh, I think the twentieth and at fifty five
meters across think new measurement of unit for the show
Cinderella's Castle at Disney World Now, of course it'll be

(38:52):
too small to wipe out humanity, so it don't get
your hopes up, but big enough to obliterate a city
packing an eight mega ton punch, which is over five
hundred times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb, which is why,
of course it's topping NASA's risk list. Now, about that
Moon angle. David Rankin, an engineer with the University of

(39:15):
Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey, crunched the numbers and found a
point three percent chance one in three hundred and thirty
three that twenty twenty four yr four could smack the
Moon instead. But here's the scary part. No atmosphere up
there means it would hit full force, carving a crater

(39:36):
up to one point two miles wide from Earth. We'd
see a flash, maybe some debris, but experts like Gareth
Collins at Imperial College and said we'd be fine down here.
Most ejecta would burn up in our atmosphere. Still, it
would be one hell of a show, but the science
isn't standing still. NASA has tapped James Webspace Telescope for

(40:00):
emergency observations next month to nail down its size and
path right now estimates range from than one hundred and
thirty to maybe three hundred feet, and that gap matters.

Speaker 9 (40:11):
And impact that.

Speaker 11 (40:12):
But the bigger n well it'll be a lot worse.
And the asteroid's fading from view soon, not to be
back until twenty twenty eight, so these next few weeks
are very critical. Meanwhile, global teams are digging through old
data refining the orbit, and the essay says, of course,
because it's Thesa, they say, don't panic. The odds should

(40:35):
keep dropping as we learn more, just like they did overnight.
So where is this headed Well, probably nowhere. You know,
it's a ninety seven point seven percent chance at missus Earth,
and the Moon's an even longer shot. But if it
does hit that risk corridor stretches from the Pacific to
South Asia, with cities like Mumbai or Lagos in the

(40:56):
path for now twenty twenty four. A reminder, space isn't
just about the pretty stars. It's got some heavy hitters too,
and scientists are watching and will know more, probably sooner
rather than later. But there is some good news. We

(41:20):
have recently found out that death. There is such a
thing as death and almost dead. And we all thought
Princess Bride was making a joke because some spacecraft apparently
just won't stay dead. Take NASA's Image, launched in two
thousand to study Earth's magnetosphere. It went silent in December

(41:42):
two thousand and five after five solid years. Everyone figured
it was gone for good, solar storms or power glitch.
They gassed and the team moved on, then out of nowhere.
In January twenty eighteen, an amateur astronomer in British Columbia
named Scott Tilly picked up a signal. It wasn't a

(42:05):
los zooma satellite he was hunting. It was Image alive
after thirteen years, and that's scarily not the only zombie
craft out there. Fast forward to twenty twenty three. Colorado
University's Serbi satellite launched that apri of the scan radiation
belts flatlined after six months. No one knew why was it?

(42:27):
Memory corruption, maybe a cosmic kickup. Zenlen Lee, the mission lead,
kept the faith. Then on May twenty third, it pinged
home for two and a half days, then went quiet again,
and then roared back when June tenth. To its credit,
Serbia has caught two new radiation belts from solar storms
before burning up in October. Short lived but a comeback

(42:49):
for the bucks. Then let's rewind to nineteen seventy eight.
The International Sun Earth ex Floor three, or ICY three,
was a pioneer chasing solar winds and comets. By nineteen
ninety nine, NASA shut it down. Its job was done.
Then in twenty fourteen it swung back near Earth, and
a crown funded team of enthusiast including some ex NASA people,

(43:14):
tracked it with Puerto Rico's Arecibo dish. They fired commands
via a California radio rig and woke it up. ICY
three reboot. They called it first citizen led spacecraft revival.
It sent data for weeks before its thrusters gave out
a swan song for the thirty six year old satellite.
And these aren't flukes, Japan said. Tony X Ray Observatory

(43:36):
blanked out in twenty sixteen after a spin toward apart
to reconfirmed it, but its last gas called a black
hole flare. NASA's Voyager one fired thrusters in twenty seventeen
after thirty seven year dormant still humming at fifteen billion
miles out. Even tiny csswea student built Q from twenty

(43:56):
twenty reboot it in Phoenix mode after a radio you know, blackout,
delivering three years of additional data. Engineers talking up the resets,
radiation and well, let's face it, sheer luck. Sometimes a
solar eclipse or battery drain does the trick that said.
No grand rescues here, just signals in the void, proving

(44:19):
space gear is tougher than we think. Images Team Hope
for more than twenty eighteen, but funding fizzled. Serbia and
Icy three burned bright and faded still. These tails spanning
decades show the Cosmos has a knack for surprises. Dead today,
alive tomorrow out there is it really over? And that

(44:41):
leads us to WASP one T one B wild winds
blowing some mindes. We got a weather report from eight
hundred and eighty light years away. Astronomers have clock wins
on an alien world called WASP one one B, tearing

(45:02):
across its skies at thirteen thousand, four hundred miles an hour,
or eighteen times the speed of sound here on Earth.
This gash giant, a so called hot Jupiter, is something
out of science fiction and the new study of nature.
Astronomy just peeled back its howling secrets, or it's no

(45:22):
stranger to extremes. It orbits a star hotter than our sun,
so close it's tidally locked. One side has a nice
bomby four thousand, three hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit under
endless days, and the other chills at twenty one hundred
and fifty degrees fahrenheit and permanent night. Now that heat
gaps the engine windscreen from day to night, shredding the atmosphere.

(45:46):
Scientists led by Stefan Pelliaty from the University of Montreal
used the James Webspace Telescope to track it four orbits
in mid twenty two, watching chemical chefs frame by frame.
They peg those gusts at five to six kilometers a second,
and it's just it isn't just hot air. One twenty

(46:08):
one Bees is a bloated beast. It's twice Jupiter's with
stretched by its stars gravity, with a cloud deck of
vaporized iron and ruby red corundum crystals. The winds rip magnesium, iron,
even vanandium from the day side, smearing it across the planet,
and Plate's team called the action live elements lagging as

(46:30):
they got dragged a first for pitting down real time
exoplanet weather. Now the stars the puppet master of coourse
thirty seven times closer than Earth is to the Sun,
and it's baking WASP one twenty one BEE into teardrop shape,
leaking atmosphere into space. No earlier studies spot at that blowoff,
but these winds. While that's a new layer showing how

(46:53):
brutal a hot jupiter's life gets. For now, WASP one
twenty one B is a wind whipped titan tearing through
a hellish night, marriish sky. It's really not a place
to visit, but it is teaching us how alien worlds
tick one gust of wind at a time. And while

(47:18):
there's most likely no life on that planet, the search
for life beyond Earth continues. Astronomers have just wrapped up
a massive sweep of more than one thy three hundred
galaxies hunting for radio signals that might hint at alien civilizations.
And this was no small effort. It used a Murchison

(47:40):
Wyfield array, a powerful radio telescope in the Australian at back,
and focused on low frequency signals, the kind we haven't
explored much before. The results, yeah, nothing, no signs of
extraterrestrial broadcast, no cosmic hellow just violence. But the search

(48:02):
did kick off with a specific mission listen for low
frequency radio as between eighty and three hundred megahertz. That's
a arranged SETI. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence doesn't usually target.
Most efforts zero in on higher frequencies like the one thy,
four hundred and twenty megahertz hydrogen line, because it's a
natural spot to look for intentional signals. But researchers behind

(48:26):
the story published August twenty six and twenty twenty four
and the Astrophysical Journal wanted to try something different. They
pointed the Murchassen Array at Foreign Acts, a galaxy cluster
about sixty million light years away packed with over thirteen
hundred galaxies. For thirty six hours across three nights two
years apart, they scanned the skies. Now I'd ask, and

(48:47):
I know al could explain this. Why low frequencies. Well,
Earth's own early radio broadcast, like some of our first
TV signals were in this range and powerful emitters like
military radar, but they still use it. The thinking was,
if advanced aliens out there are leaking signals the way
we do, or even aiming them our way, this might

(49:08):
actually be a place to catch them. And the telescope
with this four thousand and ninety six antenna spread across
the desert, was built for this deep low frequency listening.
It's already spotted natural radio burkes before, so the team
knew it could actually handle the job. But here's what
they found, or maybe better phrase didn't find. Across those

(49:30):
thirteen hundred plus galaxies, not a single signal stood out
as artificial. No narrow band transmissions, no techno signatures, nothing
I couldn't be explained by nature. And the studies lead
Shinawa Tremblay from Austria Seti Hub put it plainly, we
didn't detect any civilizations this time. It's not a total wash.

(49:56):
That data sets a new benchmark. Any alien transmitter out
there would need to be pumping out at least ten
to twenty third watts of power, roughly a billion times
more than Earth's strongest radar to be picked up at
that distance. But that does narrow down the possibility and
it leads us to the next interesting concept. Now, shows

(50:22):
like This and Juxtaposition have talked about how special Earth
is when you think about life equations, even though when
you do certain equations, there should be millions upon millions
of galaxies out there, but we still have this thing
called the Goldilocks zone, you know, in the habitable areas

(50:43):
of solar systems. But he knew wire hit February twenty first,
and it's a study out of Penn State that says
life on Earth and maybe elsewhere might not actually be
the cosmic luke that many of us have thought for

(51:03):
way too long. Published on February fourteenth in Science Advances,
it's shaking up the old idea that intelligence like ours
needed a string of lucky breaks to even show up.
For alien hunters, this could actually be a spark of hope.
The traditional you called the hard stuffs model came from

(51:25):
physicist Brandon Carter back in nineteen eighty three. He argued
life took four point five billion years to get smart
on Earth because it had to hurdle rare and probable
leaps like self forming DNA, clicking, brains evolving. Still some
question if that's happened yet, with our son's ten year,
ten billion year lifespan that made Earth a one in
a billion shot an alien life perhaps even rarer, But

(51:49):
this new paper actually flips all of that. Lead author
Dan Mills from the University of Munich says it's less
about luck and more about timing. Life evolved on time
as Earth conditions riped, not against odds. And here's the
gist of it. The team looked at how oxygen levels,
ocean chemistry, and nutrients shifted over billions of years, setting

(52:12):
the stage for complex organisms. It's not a series of flukes.
Co author Jennifer mclady from Penn State toltspace dot com.
It's Earth and life co evolving. They argue. Planets don't
need to win a lottery, just hit the right geological beats.
If that's true, intelligent life might pop up more often

(52:36):
out there wherever conditions align. I said, there's no smoking
gun yet. It's a model, it's not proof. The researchers
want to test it scanning exoplanet atmosphere for oxygen or
running lab experiments on microbes under extreme heat and low oxygen,
like you know early Earth was. And critics say it's
still guesswork without alien evidence, and there are some posts

(52:58):
out there there. It either changes everything or it still
sounds a bit like Earth propaganda. Either way, it's a
rethink of the great filter idea. There's some that something
wipes out life before it gets clever. For now, it's
a nudge for the search. If life's less improbable, those
trillions of exoplanets might not be so lonely. And NASA's

(53:22):
James Webb Space Telescope is already sniffing distant worlds. Maybe,
just maybe it'll catch a whiff of something alive sooner
than we thought. Once we sniff it, we have to
get there. So let's celebrate thirty years. Thirty years ago.

(53:46):
In nineteen ninety four, a physicist, and you've heard me
mention this name frequently on this show. And in the Crease,
a physicist named Michel Alcibier dreamed up a warp drive,
a way to zip through space faster than light, straight
out of star trek back when it was decent. It's

(54:08):
twenty twenty five now, and guess what, we're still sort
of stuck. The math behind it just won't play nice,
And a new look at the idea says we're nowhere
close to warping anywhere. And alkb Air was a Mexican
theorist hooked on side By and he wondered, could Einstein's
rules bend enough to make a space ship outrun light.

(54:29):
His answer was a bubble, a flat pocket of space
time where the ship sits still. Why space itself scrunches
up ahead and stretches out behind. From inside, you'd feel
nothing outside. You'd be booking it. He published this in
Classical and Quantum Gravity in nineteen ninety four, and it
lit up imaginations. Trouble is, it needs something called negative

(54:51):
mass to work. Stuff that, as our understanding is right now,
just doesn't work. Negative mass. Well pitcher space time as
a rubber sheet. Normal mass demps it down like gravity.
Negative mass would push it up, warping it the opposite way.
Alkohby Air's bubble demands a ton of this exotic gojuice.

(55:14):
Think ten times the universe's positive energy flipped negative. No
one's found it. And if you kick a ball with
negative mass, physics say it fly backward, breaking everything we
know about motion. Plus even if you got some calculation
show it'd leak out faster than light, tearing the bubble apart.
But scientists haven't quit on this idea. Over thirty years,

(55:36):
they poked at it, tweaking the bubble shape cutting the
energy tab from a Jupiter sized pile to maybe a
star's worth. Some, like Elrick Lintz in twenty twenty one,
pitch versions dodging negative mass entirely using some fancy geometry.
Others say quantum weirdness at the bubble's edges might blow
up or not if you ease it on slow. It's

(55:57):
all theory, no hardware. Where's warp drive now? Well, it's
Unfortunately it's still just a cool thought experiment with and
not a blueprint. It's been three decades of head scratching
since Alcabier spark. And while it's tied relativity to quantum
quirks and neat ways, I can't pack for Alpha Centauri

(56:18):
just yet. The masks a wall negative mass or bust,
and right now we're still on the wrong side of it.
And I want to say a happy birthday to everyone's
favorite planet, Pluto, for in February eighteen, nineteen thirty ninety

(56:39):
five years ago, an astronomer named Clyde Tombo spotted a
faint dot on a photographic plate at Little Observatory in Arizona.
That thought was Pluto the planet, and it's been a
cosmic icon ever since so, happy birthday Pluto the planet
and screw you in DT. And with that thought in

(57:02):
our head, let's go grab a drink, find a seat
by the campfire, and lose yourself in the stars. We
have a moon will reach its new phase coming up
on the twenty seventh. We have a couple launches. February
twenty third, we have starlink. February twenty seventh, we have
the Progress MS twenty six resupplied to the ISS. February
twenty eighth, we have a NASA Sphere and Punch launch

(57:24):
March third, SpaceX Starlink again. March ninth, we have the
NASA Herschel sounding rocket. So that's it for tonight show.
Thank you for tuning in when and however you do.
I really do hope you noticed a little bit of
the format changed and liked it special Thanks to NASA
spacexpace dot Com, our Technica on NASA Space Flight, and

(57:45):
Popular Mechanics for the great information on the stories tonight.
Stay tuned for Sunday Night with Alan Ray. Thanks to
my executive producer as always for your help and inspiration.
I hope you enjoyed the show, learned a little bit,
and maybe even had a laugh or two as well.

Speaker 9 (58:03):
Then it's a pretty big place.

Speaker 4 (58:08):
It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed, No more.

Speaker 11 (58:15):
So if it's just us, it seems like an awful
waste of space. All right.

Speaker 7 (58:27):
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, Oh it was beautiful, magical. Dat the birds
in the trees, what they'd be singing so happily, oh,
joyfully playfully watching me. But the Missabala to teachery how

(58:52):
to be sensible, logical, oh, responsible, practical than this the.

Speaker 5 (59:00):
New world us deep in the booth or clinicalte victual, synical.

Speaker 6 (59:11):
There are times where no worlds to see.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
The Cristan turned