Lost Wanderer Podcast 12/1/24

Talking Space, Science, Aliens!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Yeah, I'm backing up my best, weaving up behind and
to the start of the center.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Reason of the center on the space SI night to
month with the stars and the sandsome family on this

(00:51):
Scots answer.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Since time for this nation to take a clearly leading
role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold
the key to our future on Earth.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
H m hmm, one all fair man.

Speaker 5 (01:34):
On BIA.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Today is a day for morning and remember Nancy and
I are gained the core, but the tragedy of the
Shuttle challenge.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
The following program may contain folse language, adult teens, and
bad attempts of humans.

Speaker 6 (02:00):
The discretion is it vie?

Speaker 5 (02:15):
What is President Trump's goal?

Speaker 7 (02:18):
What is his vision?

Speaker 5 (02:19):
He wants to put an American flag on Mars.

Speaker 6 (02:36):
Bin angularity.

Speaker 4 (02:38):
Das here, you're Lambers.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Time for this nation to take a clearly.

Speaker 8 (02:44):
Lead I am your host.

Speaker 7 (02:49):
Here.

Speaker 8 (02:49):
I am your host.

Speaker 5 (02:50):
J eble F also known as Owner Brewing Co Over
on X and this is the Lost Wonder podcast for
December first, twenty twenty four. I hope everyone is having
a good Sunday.

Speaker 8 (03:01):
I will be honest with you. I am not.

Speaker 5 (03:03):
I can barely read my notes today, so I'm going
to try to try to get through this. I appreciate
you tuning in. I hope everyone had a good holiday
and the food was bountiful, but just remember at whatever food,
if any is left over, to dispose of the food properly,

(03:26):
because after a while it could start to stink, sort
of like, oh, I don't know. A Russian spacecraft at
the iss Or it should have been a routine mission
to ferry about three tons of food, fuel and supplies
to the International Space Station. But when Russian cosmonauts opened
the hatch to a cargo spacecraft on Saturday of last week,

(03:47):
they got a bit of a surprise a toxic smell.
Quote After opening the Progress spacecraft's hatch, the Ross Cosmos
cosmonauts noticed an unexpected odor and observed small drop. What's
prompting the crew to close the hatch the resk of
the Russian segment. However, the US Space Agency maybe, uh, well,

(04:10):
let's face it, they might be downplaying this the seriousness
of the event. According to Anatoly Zaka Russian Space Web,
a reliable independent website, the smell was toxic and prompted
the Russian cosmonauts to immediately close the hatch, leading to
the Progress spacecraft that launched from the balcon Or Cosmodrome
and causes on On Thursday, Zach reported that the cosmonauts

(04:34):
aboard the Russian segment of the station donned protective equipment
and activated an extra air scrubbing system aboard their side
of the facility. On the US side of the station,
the astronaut Don Petit said he smelled something sort of
akin to spray paint. As of Sunday afternoon of last week,
NASA had said there was no concerns for the crew

(04:57):
and that the astronauts were working to open the hatch
between the module and the the spacecraft itself attached to
the space station in two thousand and nine. Poisk is
a small element that connects to one of the four
docking ports on the Russian segment of the station. It
was not immediately clear what cous the foul odor to
emanate from the Progress vehicle. However, previous Russian vehicles have

(05:18):
had leaks while in space. Most recently, in February twenty
twenty three, a Progress vehicle attached to the station lost
pressurization in the cooling system. Sadly, we do not know
if that smell was just bad borshed being delivered or
something else, because no, no one really reports anything on
the food or stuff like that being shipped anymore. And yes, yes,

(05:39):
it still pisses me off quite a bit. Someone needs
to learn to communicate better. Just all I'm saying. I mean,
if Voyager one can keep in touch, why the fuck
can't they tell us what's flying to the space station?
All we want is food. That said, NASA has confirmed

(06:02):
that one of its greatest ever missions, Voyager one, is
back in business with communication restored, following an incident in
October that had led to the Veterans Space Fair losing
its voice. Now forty seven years later or old, Voyger
one is fifteen point four billion miles from Earth, a
distance that grows greater with every pass and second, but

(06:24):
the power supply from its decaying plutonium dwindling. Only four
of its instruments remain operational, and surprisingly so given they
are now all working at temperatures lower than they were
originally designed for. So when engineers commanded Voyager one to
switch on one of its heaters to give the instruments
a gentle thermal massage, how much does that pay or cost?

Speaker 8 (06:45):
Either one?

Speaker 5 (06:46):
I'm either in need of money or getting laid. I'll
take either one. A safety future was tripped because of
low power levels. The spacecraft's fault protection system monitors how
much energy Voyager one has left, and if it deems
there to be too low energy for the probe to
continue operating, it automatically switches off non essential systems.

Speaker 8 (07:05):
It seems that the.

Speaker 5 (07:06):
Heater was using too much energy, but the problem was
that all the non essential systems had been switched off
long ago to concern what little power remained, So the
fault protection system took it upon itself to switch off
the meat X band transmitter and activate the lower band
S transmitter instead. Because of the greater distance between Voyager
one and Earth, hoower, transmissions on the S band antenna

(07:29):
could not be heard by NASA's Deep Space network, meaning
the Voyager one had effectively fallen silent. NASA engineers were
able to resolve the problem earlier in November, and xpand
communications resumed on November eighteenth, with the spacecraft once again
returning data from its four remaining instruments. And as each

(07:49):
spacecraft uses about four watts of energy per year from
its total energy budget, as is decaying plutonium in the
air on their on board radiostopic thermoelectric generator begins to ebb.
Their lifespan will ultimately be curtailed. If they can reach
their half centuries, which is looking actually promising, it would
be a magnificent achievement. The two voyagers may now be

(08:12):
old and require constant TLC. I mean, who doesn't everyone
loves waterfalls, But they are true trailblazers. Having launched mere
weeks apart in nineteen seventy seven, they have explored the
outer Solar System, discovered a wealth of detail about Jupiter
and Saturn's moon, including the entrances of Io's volcanoes that
visited some planets for the first time and still the

(08:32):
only time you're in a sad Neptune, passed clean through
the Kuiper Belt and exited the Sun's heliosphere, entering interstellar space.
Yet when they do eventually succumb to the night, the
Voyagers will not stop. They'll continue their lone furrows as
they begin long orbits around the galaxy. Of their story

(08:54):
is just beginning. That said, as we know, someday in
the near future, one of them we'll come back to
us and probably take over a decently hot alien ball
check on along the way. But I guess we should
be a little less harsh on the Russians and the
ISS for you know, not necessarily telling us what's going on.

(09:16):
I mean, like A, what was the smell that was eminating?
And B what was catered this time? Seriously tell us.
But it may have been because they were busy. The
International Space Station took some evasive action Tuesday of November nineteenth,

(09:37):
with the Russian Progress cargo ship that was recently docked
to the ISS fired its thrustlers for five and a
half minutes. Okay, way to brag their Russian Progress cargo
five and a half minutes anyway. It began at three
h nine in the afternoon, and the goal was to
make sure the orbiting complex dodged a potentilessly dangerous piece
of space junk that sounds like my ex wife or

(09:59):
a in bed to a whatnot. The predetermined debris avoidance
maneuver was conducted in coordination with NASA, Ross, Cosmos and
the other space station partners. Let's see Without the maneuver,
Ballistic officials estimated that the fragment could have been within
two point five miles of the station. The debris in

(10:21):
question was part of a defunct Defense meteorology well satellite
that broke up in twenty fifteen. According to the update
put that wasn't just it, no, for they would have
to make another move, because this time, one Monday morning,
November twenty fifth, they didn't quite have quite as much
stamina and only lasted three point five minutes in their maneuvers.

(10:45):
The debris avoidance maneuver position the orbital outposts further away
from the satellite fragment, nearing the station's flight path. That
burn began at four forty nine EST and raised the
station's orbit by about sixteen hundred and fifty feet, according
to Russian state owned news agency TASKS, which cited a
statement from the nation's space agency ross Cosmos. Now, the

(11:07):
debris population is still quite larger than most probably realize,
even though you've heard me mention it many times on
the show. ESA estimates the Earth harbors about forty thousand
plus objects of at least four inches wide, and then
about one point one million pieces between point four inches
and four inches, so short kings, don't worry, you're in
the majority. Even these tiny shed chards can be dangerous

(11:31):
to satellite or crued craft like the ISS. Given the
Truman the speeds at which they travel, for example, at
the station's average altitude of two hundred and fifty miles
and overload of velocity is about you know, seventeen thy
five hundred. Those pieces of debris, Yeah, they can do
some serious damage. That said, according to a twenty twenty

(11:55):
two December report by NASA, they had found that the
ISS had perform the evasive burn thirty two times since
nineteen ninety nine. So this is a little out of
the ordinary to do two maneuvers at one time, where yes,
you usually have to pay extra for that. Now, I
know what you may be thinking, We're twelve minutes into

(12:17):
the show and I really didn't touch on the Starship
six launch. Why didn't I start with that? Well, honestly
I wanted to, but didn't have enough time to put
together the video sequence, so kind of relegated to relegated
it to page four due to laziness, sickness, and other
things that I won't go into detail at this time.
About that said, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever

(12:41):
built now has half a dozen launches under its belt.
The four hundred foot tall Starship Mega rocket lifted off
for the sixth time ever today on November nineteenth, rising
off the orbital launch mount at the company starbas site
in South Texas at five pm. SpaceX then landed the
Starship huge first stage booster known as Super Heavy BECK,

(13:03):
or at least it was. The plan was to you know,
launch it and catch it again, but at the last minute,
cancelation calls that to go. It's not gonna happen once again.
Feeling like I'm married again. Or actually, what happened is
that tripped a commit criteria, so it couldn't. They had
to push it out in the Golf of Mexico. That said,

(13:25):
anticipation or Flight six was high in part because of
this booster catch attempt. You know, even President elect Donald
Trump made the trip to South Texas to watch flight
six in person. And it seems like, I don't know
Trump to Trump's support for Musk and Starship isn't really
terribly unsurprising. I don't know if these two are having

(13:45):
a bromance or just really good friendships going on, because
they've they seem to be around each other a lot.
It's kind of cool to see it kind of gives
hope for some future endeavors in space. I think, well,
that said the launch Sense ship on the same semi
orbit ultra Director that it took on flight five, targeting
a splashed down in the Indian Ocean off the northwest
coast of Australia about sixty five minutes after liftoff. Because

(14:07):
unlike Russia, Taco Bell would not put out a little
matt saying free Tacos to everyone in America if it
would hit it, because we all know Starship would hit
the target. That said flight six did carry the first
ever Starship payload, a plush banana on board the ship,
which served as a zero G indicator, although it was

(14:28):
not deployed into space at this time. In addition, ship
briefly ReLit one of its six Raptor engines about thirty
eight minutes into the flight, which cannot be overstated just
how important that firing up of that engine was and
will be now. This burned help show that ship can
perform the maneuvers needed to come back to Earth safely

(14:49):
during orbital missions. Indeed, ship is designed to be fully
and rapidly reusable, just like the super heavy SpaceX eventually
intends to catch it. With the chop six arms as well,
and will likely try to do so on a test
flight in the near future, landing directly on the launch
mount rather than on a ship at sea, kind of
like Falcon nine does now. Flight SEX also tested modifications

(15:11):
to ship's heat shield, which protects the vehicle during re
entry to Earth's atmosphere. The flight test will assess new
secondary thermal protection materials and will have entire sections of
heat shield tiles removed on one side of the ship
in locations being studied for catch enabling hardware on future vehicles.
The ship also will intentionally fly at a higher angle

(15:33):
of attack in the final phase of descent, purposely stressing
the limits of the flat controls to gain data on
future landing profiles. SpaceX also shifted the launch time for
Flight six to allow for better observation of ship's re
entry and splash down. Flight five and technically all the
other four predecessors lifted off from Texas in the morning

(15:54):
and the ship came down in darkness on the other
side of the world, or at least was planned to,
so we all got great views of ship's return to Earth,
which really did go swimmingly well. The shining Silver Vehicles,
survived its scorching hot trip through the planet's atmosphere, fired
up three of its six raptors to flip itself into
the vertical position as it approach to water, and hit

(16:15):
the waves space first as planned, sixty five and a
half minutes after liftoff. Now, Jesse Anderson on the broadcast, incredible,
we really pushed the limits of this ship and made
it all the way back down to Earth, her co
host Kate Tyson. Seriously, if you're not watching Space Sex broadcast,

(16:37):
you're an idiot anyway, Kate Tys said, I am shocked,
to be honest, I think many folks are. The fact
that it's survived all the way through while flying a
lesser gen heat shield is absolutely incredible and seriously a
what an amazing duo to have on screen. Smart and detractive,

(16:57):
but b maybe more important, they really really pushed pre
launch that they expected several potential failure points on this launch.
The fact that survived to an amazing landing in the
ocean was actually quite startling. Can you imagine trying to
fail and the only fail is that you failed to fail?

(17:22):
And if that wasn't right enough. Twenty twenty five, may
be amazing for starship launches. SpaceX wants to ramp up
flights of its Starship Mega Rocket next year, and seems
like the regulatory heavy hand might be lifted and won't
be staying in their way anymore. On Wednesday, November twentieth,

(17:42):
the US FAA released a draft Environmental Assessment at Starships
operation at Starbase. The one hundred and sixty page document
approves the company's request to boost a number of annual
starship lift offs from our starbas by a factor of
five from the current allowed five to twenty five. So yeah,

(18:07):
barring something really stupid, you may have twenty five starship
launches next year. And how convenient. Wednesday, November twenty is
just you know, a handful of days or weeks rate
after an election where someone else kind of wasn't expected
to win ended up winning under what changed their tune anyway.

(18:27):
The draft EA also approved twenty five landings for both
Starship elements, it's super heavy booster and the upper stage
back at Starbase. These landings would occur at the launch tower,
which would catch the returning vehicles using its chopstick arms.
SpaceX has of course achieved such a catch once and
hopefully we will see it again soon. That said, the

(18:48):
newly released EA is just the draft, so it's findings
our preliminary. The FAA will hold four in person public
meetings in South Texas to a piece on January seventh
and January ninth, and one virtual conclave on January thirteenth
to discuss the EA. Now, SpaceX and its founder and
CEO Elon Musk have complained a lot justifiably about the FAA,

(19:12):
recently claiming that the agency has stifled Starship's progress, which
they did, and the American launch industry overall, which they have,
which with overly burdensome regulation, which is true. Companies in
the space flight sector in most, if not all, other
industries will probably have freer reign to do not as

(19:35):
they please, but a little swifter, a little more rapidly
than under President elect Donald Trump once he takes office
in January. And Musk, of course will have say in
this effort, as he has been appointed in a co
lead of DOGE. Now, that said COO of SpaceX, when shotwell,

(19:57):
had a few things to say as well, we just
passed four hundred launches on Falcon and I would not
be surprised if we fly four hundred starships in the
next four years, we want to fly it a lot.
She would go on to say of these lofty goal
seam aspirational, not just because of the hardware challenges, but

(20:18):
also due to the ground systems with you know, currently
only one operational launch tower seems might cause a little
bit of a hindrance there, as well as the difficulty
of supplying that much liquid oxygen and methane for such
a high flight rate. However, it is worth noting that
SpaceX will launch Starship four times well what not four
times this year, but what five?

Speaker 8 (20:39):
Six?

Speaker 5 (20:39):
Yeah, six times twice the number of Falcon heavy missions now.
Apart from the founder Musk, Shotwell is now SpaceX's longest
tenured employee. She joined the company just months after its
founding in two thousand and two as vice president of sales.
In two thousand and eight, she became president of the
company and has let its operations since then.

Speaker 8 (21:02):
Although she is Well, let's.

Speaker 5 (21:04):
Face it, quite more diplomatic than Musk, her desire to
disrupt the global space flight industry is actually no less intense.
She relishes the fight, as her remarks at the business
conference indicated. Catwell said SpaceX is planning to steadily replace
its Falcon nine in heavy Falcon heavy launches with Starship
missions in the coming years. Even the last bastion of

(21:25):
Falcon nine flights crude missions on the Dragon spacecraftfel and
sooner than people realize, she said, Starship makes Falcon nine
and obsolete, and even the Dragon capsule. Now we are
not shutting down Dragon, and we are not shutting down Falcon.
We'll be flying that for six to eight more years.
But ultimately people are going to want to apply on Starship.

(21:47):
It's bigger, it's more comfortable, it will be less expensive,
and we will have flown at so many, many, many,
many more times. Now, spaces continues to scale its operations
to meet the demands of Starship and Starlink. Shotwell revealed
that SpaceX now has fifteen thousand employees, which is about

(22:08):
three times as many as the company had just six
years ago. The company will quote make money unquote on
Starlink this year, she had as the constellation now has
nearly seven thousand operational satellites and lower th orbit and
the service is now available in one hundred and fourteen
countries around the world. And has about one hundred and
twenty yet to go. And SpaceX has begun launching larger

(22:33):
Starlink satellites capable of direct to sales service as well,
and Shotwell said this service will be activated in about
a month or so. It will initially support light data
and messaging, but as the network grows larger, it will
evolve or provide more robust data services. So the next
question is will we see SpaceX worth a quarter or

(22:55):
a trillion dollars in value? Seeing well, guess what it
is all already a quarter of the way there. As
Starlink has come online, it has significantly increased the valuation
of the privately held company. A decade ago, it was
valued at twelve billion and this grew to thirty six
billion in twenty twenty. As of earlier this year, it

(23:16):
is now valued at two hundred and fifty five billion.
The company is incredible value, I think right now because
the Starlink, shot Well would say, and I think Starlink
will add a zero probably at least as we continue
to grow the Starlink system. But ultimately I think Starship
will be the thing that takes us over the top
as one of the most valuable companies in the world.

(23:37):
We can't even envision with what Starship is going to
do to humanity and human lives, and I think that
will be the most valuable part of SpaceX. She would
conclude with kind of amazing to think about, and it's
it's amazing to think about what SpaceX has accomplished. But
there was only well, really, there's one thing that SpaceX

(23:59):
really hasn't done yet. And let's face it, when you're
talking SpaceX, it's probably easier to list things SpaceX hasn't
done at this point instead of reciting everything that has
been achieved, despite with some assholes that what's the last name.

Speaker 8 (24:15):
Of Tyson would say, and that is believe it or not.

Speaker 5 (24:22):
To launch nuclear material. SpaceX has launched a handful of
planetary science missions for NASA, but these spacecraft have all
used solar rays to generate electricity. In this century, NASA
probes relying on nuclear power have all flown on rockets
built by United Launch Alliance, a fifty to fifty joint

(24:43):
venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. And this is about
to change with two hundred and fifty six point six
million dollar contract NASA has awarded to SpaceX. This contract
covers launch services and related costs of SpaceX to launch Dragonfly,
a rotor craft the design to explore the alien environment
of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, and Dragonflies power sources up

(25:08):
radio isotope thermoelectric generator, which narrates electricity from the heat
put out by the radioactive decay a plutonium two thirty eight.
These plutonium fuel generators have flown on many previous space missions,
including NASA's Perseverance and Curiosity rovers, the new Horizon spacecraft
that beam back the first up close views of Pluto
in the long lived Voyder probes exploring Internet interstellar space.

(25:31):
All of these missions were launching rockets that have either
retired or are nearing retirement, the Atlas five, the Titan
space shuttle, to name just a fuel. So it is
time for NASA to sertis by a new generation of
rockets to launch nuclear powered payloads. The Space Force is
already working on this for ULA's Vulkan rocket, the replacement

(25:52):
for Atlas five, which is due to launch an innovative
nuclear propulsion demonstration as soon as twenty twenty seven, and
there is additional certification required to launch nuclear materials, including
a review of the rocket's explosive self destruct range system
range safety system actually to ensure it would not damage
the payload and cause a release of radioactive plutonium because

(26:15):
that would probably be bad.

Speaker 8 (26:17):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (26:18):
Now, the RTG itself is designed to survive an impact
with the ocean intact. So let's face it, most of
us that listen to this networking programs really don't like
government regulations. I can I'm okay with this one. I
can live with this one. And NASA's policy for new

(26:39):
space missions is to use solar power whenever possible. For example,
the Europea Cliffer was originally supposed to use nuclear power generators,
but engineers advised a way for the spacecraft to use
expansive solar panels to capture up sunlight to produce electricity
even at Jupiter's vast distance from the Sun. But there
are some emissions where this just isn't quite feasible, and

(27:00):
one of these is Dragonfly, which will soar through the
soufi nitrogen methane atmosphere of Titan. Saturn's largest mood is,
of course shrouded in cloud cover, and Titan is nearly
ten times farther away from the Sun than Earth is,
so it surfaces comparatively dim and Dragonfly will launch with
about ten point six pounds of plutonium two thirty eight

(27:23):
to fuel its power generator, and plutonium two thirty eight
has a half life of eighty eight years with.

Speaker 8 (27:30):
No moving parts.

Speaker 5 (27:31):
RTGs have proven quite reliable powering spacecraft for many decades,
such as NASAs twin Voyager probes, which are of course
approaching fifty years since launch, and the Dragonfly rhotocraft will
launch cocooned inside a transit module and entry capsule, then
descend under parachute through Titan's atmosphere, which is four times

(27:51):
denser than Earth's. Finally, Dragonfly will detach from its descent
module and activate its eight rotors to reach a safe
landing once on Titan. Dragonfly is to designed to hop
from place to place on numerous flights, exploring environment rich
inorganic molecules, the building blocks of life is Their goal

(28:15):
should read organic, but well we'll let.

Speaker 8 (28:17):
That typo go.

Speaker 5 (28:18):
This is one of NASA's actually most exciting and daring
robotic missions of all time. Now after launching from NASA's
Kennedy Space Center in Florida, probably July of twenty eight.
It will take Dragonfly about six years to reach Titan.
When NASA selected the Dragonfly mission to begin development twenty nineteen,
the agency hope to launch the mission in twenty six.

(28:41):
NASA later directed Dragonfly manages to target to launch at
twenty seven and then twenty twenty eight, requiring the mission
to change from a medium lift to a heavy lift rocket. Now,
as exciting as this is, you know what this means.
I maybe getting closer to going being able to go
back home.

Speaker 7 (29:03):
I'm with that.

Speaker 5 (29:04):
Let's take a three and a half minute break.

Speaker 6 (29:27):
We blot the start to be feel me gave a
call from a b on the stateful night to the
col of a thousand galaxies journey back home on a superie.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
The bloods of.

Speaker 6 (29:49):
Pod dust and waiting shimmering is the system Tamasie, A
boy with a stopford ejournal, calling me home where my
tip will survive? Should I am a tar, I'm coming

(30:14):
back with you.

Speaker 9 (30:37):
Only once came the posts of a memory and a
beginner home lived.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Away every stops if you went on my heart beat,
every song, every year, every day, as a bounds of.

Speaker 4 (30:59):
Ball come wa shun through the point to a realm
of my design, and I a thousan of a thousand
lifetimes to us.

Speaker 9 (31:12):
A sex ay, my gottage is wise, No MoES, no
mollly divide sing really as I let them, sat guy.

Speaker 6 (31:25):
Through the strength of time on a radius book, I returned.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
To my home and the sex angy dies. I am
a joor. I'm coming to you should I am a
j where my freak.

Speaker 8 (32:18):
Bobby and welcome back.

Speaker 5 (32:42):
I'm gonna jump right into this because I got to
keep the noose flowing like it's spice or something, because
hashtag dune posting. Plus I really really just want to
hop back in the bed and eating pad and all
the blankets back on top of me.

Speaker 8 (32:54):
So here we go.

Speaker 5 (32:57):
NASA is keeping its foot on the gas for the
Space agency's artems program, announcing plans to assign demonstration missions
for the two vehicles it has picked to land astronauts
on the Moon. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin have been
awarded contracts for NASA's human landing system and have been
in the process of designing their respective vehicles for returning

(33:17):
astronauts to the surface of the Moon. Now NASA has
been given both companies a heads up to expect to
put these designs to test and some upcalling upcoming qualification
missions that will test them with sending a large cargo
to the Moon. The mission assignments follow a twenty twenty
three request from NASA, which also directed SpaceX and Blue

(33:38):
Origin to build cargo variants.

Speaker 8 (33:40):
Of their lunar landers.

Speaker 5 (33:43):
Having two different lunar landing systems to choose from will
give NASA flexibility for both crew and cargo missions, and
also they get to ignore any boeing request, which will
be nice feature while also ensuring a regular cadence of
moon landings for continued discovery and scientific opportunity. Based on
current design and development progress for both crew and cargo

(34:04):
landers and the artist's mission schedules for the crew lander versions,
NASA assigned a pressurized rover mission for SpaceX and a
lunar habitat delivery for Blue Origin. The pressurized rover Starship
Will Deliver is being developed by a japan Aerospace Exploration
agency and is currently targeted to launch in twenty thirty

(34:24):
two to support missions after Artemis six. According to NASA,
Blue Origins lunar habitat is slated sometime a year later
in twenty thirty three. Now, I will admit this seems
like some really slow time progressing, and I wonder how
much regulatory involvement is involved to slow this down. I
would love to go into detail on where and how

(34:46):
this could possibly be altered, but hopefully someone will end
up taking maybe a less slothlike approach here.

Speaker 8 (34:54):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (34:55):
Starting January twentieth that said, I do get the safety reasons,
but look, if you have a Ferrari, if you have
a Corvette, why are you pressing the gas pedal only
halfway down? There's so much more juice in the tank.
Let's just go. And of course, you know, maybe the

(35:21):
dose team I mentioned earlier can add this to the
list of things to look at. Is the money being
spent in an efficient and effective way? They may also
want to take a look at this next story. NASA
is looking to develop a new generation of low emission
commercial aircraft that will offer a more efficient and sustainable

(35:45):
mode of travel. The Space Agency has commissioned five new
design studies as part of its Advanced Aircraft Concepts of
Environmental Sustainability twenty fifty initiative. The organization's contributing to new
airliner dises. Design concepts include Boeings, over Our Flight Sciences,
the aerospace company Electra, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the

(36:09):
aviation startup Jet zero, and Pratt and Whitney. According to
a statement from NASA, the initiatives like AACS, NASA is
positioned to harness a broad set of perspectives about how
to further increase aircraft efficiency, reduce aviation's environmental impact, and
enhance US technological competitives in twenty forties, twenty fifties and beyond,

(36:31):
said Bob Pierce, the Associate administrator for the Aeronautics Research
Emission Directorate. Awards used to support the five NASA funded
studies total eleven point five million dollars. Each organization brings
Younese expertise to designing a next generation aircraft concept, ranging

(36:52):
from alternative fuel surfaces sources who propaution technology is an
aerodynamic vehicle design know Jeral asking why why, why? Why
is NASA wanting to develop commercial aircraft. Isn't that the
responsibility of Oh, I don't know, I'm gonna just throw

(37:14):
this out here commercial aircraft companies. The fuck is NASA
doing in this.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Now?

Speaker 5 (37:25):
The article continues. The aircraft design concepts developed through a
CES could enter service within the next twenty five years.
By making aircraft less dependent on traditional fuel sources that
contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, NASA is helping to support
the US goal of net zero aviation emissions by twenty fifty.

Speaker 8 (37:46):
Once again, why.

Speaker 5 (37:49):
Why doose? I don't ask for much. Just find out
who all the fucking retards are in government and get
rid of them.

Speaker 8 (38:00):
Please, That's all I want, all I ask. But on
good news.

Speaker 5 (38:11):
We have some. We have some Morgan news. I mean,
I'm sorry, not Morgan. Oh God, what's that company? Oh Firefly,
Firefly Aerospace news.

Speaker 8 (38:20):
Yeah, that's what we got. True anyway.

Speaker 5 (38:23):
Firefly Aerospace's Moonlander is ready for its upcoming lunar voyage.
The company announced it's Blue Ghost lunar Lander completed environmental
testing at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in mid October and
is now ready to be shipped to Kennedy Space Center
in Florida. NASA and SpaceX plan to launch the lander

(38:44):
from Launch Complex thirty nine atop a space X Falcon
nine rocket during a six day window that opens no
earlier than mid January twenty twenty five. The mission because
Firefly picks some of the best damn names in the game,
is known as Ghost Riders in the Sky. A Blue
Ghost will carry a variety of payloads to the Moon,

(39:04):
some of which are supported are in support of NASA's
Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program, and some that are for
commercial endeavors now. The environmental testing subjected Blue Ghosts to
extreme temperatures like those that will experience in flight and
on the Moon, in addition to high levels of vibration
and acoustic noise to semilate launch conditions. Firefly Aerospace says

(39:25):
it's lunar lander performed well during the testing, saying, quote,
blue Ghost acete environmental testing improve the landers performing as expected,
which is a testament to the incredible Firefly team, especially
including Morgan. I may have added that last part. They
would go on and say this team has gone above

(39:46):
and beyond with innovative testing approaches to ensure Blue Ghost
is ready to fly. While we know there will be
more challenges ahead, I'm confident this team has what it
takes to softly touchdown on the lunar surface and nail
this mission, said Firefly Aerospace CEO of Jason Kim, When
it launches, Blue Ghost will carry ten different payloads for NASA,

(40:08):
including one that will test a new electrostatic system to
repel harmful moon dust. Yes, they're testing shields.

Speaker 8 (40:17):
Think about it.

Speaker 5 (40:18):
New electrostatic system to repel harmful moon dust sounds like
shields to me.

Speaker 8 (40:24):
Right, guys.

Speaker 5 (40:25):
Lander will take forty five days to travel to the
Moon where land and Marchrisium, a lunar sea that was
home to the nineteen sixty nine crash landing of the
Soviet Union's Luna fifteen probe.

Speaker 8 (40:35):
No, I know what you're all saying.

Speaker 5 (40:37):
Besides what already typing a chat m Oregon, there is
now a greater than zero percent chance okay, greater than
zero percent chance that, with this being a space X launch,

(40:58):
we could have on one screen Jesse, Kate, and Morgan
all at the same time. I know, right right, be
still my beating heart if that happens. What I don't

(41:19):
want to hear it. I like attract of smart women. Okay,
sue me. Now with that said, let's get right into Yeah,
let's get right into it. It's the alien segment of
the show. Scientists have found what seems to be the

(41:43):
oldest direct evidence of hot water flowing on Mars during
its ancient past. This discovery could further indicate that the
Red planet, despite its arid and desolate appearance today, may
have been capable of supporting life long ago. The evidence
was delivered to Earth and sealed within the well known
Martian meteorite n WA seventy thirty four, found in the

(42:05):
Sahara Desert in twenty twenty one. Due to its black
way minute, Did they seriously call this NWA and then it?
Due to its black, highly polished appearance, The Martian rock
is also known as Black Beauty. Tell me they didn't
do this intentionally. If so, that's shit, There's funny, I said.

(42:28):
At an estimated two billion years old, Black Beauty is
the second oldest Martian media right ever discovered. However, the
Curtain University team discovered something even older within it, a
four point five or four point four or five billion
year old zircone grain that harbors the fingerpins of fluids
rich in water. Team member Aaron Cafose from Curtain School

(42:52):
of Earth and Planetary Sciences thinks this discovery will open
up new avenues that the understanding hydrothermal systems associated with
the activity of volcanic magnmum that once ran through Mars.

Speaker 8 (43:04):
Quote.

Speaker 5 (43:04):
We used nanoscale geochemistry to detect elemental evidence of hot
water on Mars four point four five billion years ago,
and hydrothermal systems were essential for the development of life
on Earth, and our finding suggests Mars also had water,
a key ingredients for habitab environments during the earliest years

(43:26):
of crust formation. These elements were added as the zircon
form four point four five five billion years ago, suggesting
water was present during early Martian magmatic activity. So yes, yes,
we are all Martians. In evidence of waterways in ancient
lake beds on Mars I previously led sciences to theorize

(43:46):
that water was present on the Red planet in liquid
form and the great abundance around four point one billion
years ago. This was during Mars's Noetian period, when the
watery Martian surface was intensely bombarded by astras, sending the
DNA for human life on Earth to come to Earth
and evolve into US. I may have added that last part. Now,

(44:06):
the red planet is thought to have lost its water
billions of years ago when the Martian asphere was stripped
away by hors solar radiation from the Sun. The loss
of the Martian atmosphere meant there was nothing to prevent
water vapor from escaping into space anymore, landing on Earth,
creating the first life form on Earth, and becoming involving
into us once again. I probably added that last part,

(44:28):
but I'm just saying, as science goes on, they're finding
more and more ways that this could actually be true.
So eventually I'm going to be proven right. And fine, fine,
I know this is not the aliens you were thinking.
I was probably gonna talk about I get it. In
the twenty sixteen science fiction movie Arrival, a linguist this

(44:50):
space with the daunting task of deciphering an alien language
consisting of palindromatic phrases, kind of like trying to listen
to this program when I'm not feeling well, which read
the same backwards as they do forwards, written with circular symbols.
As she discovers various clues, different nations around the world
interpret the messages differently, with some assuming they convey a threat.

(45:12):
If humanity ended up in such a situation today, our
best bet would be to turn to research uncovered uncovering
how artificial intelligence actually develops languages, But what exactly defines
a language? Most of us, at least one use one
to communicate with people around us, But how did that

(45:32):
come about? Linguists have actually been pondering this very question
for decades, Yet there is no easy way to find
out how language actually evolved into the beginning phases. Where
language is a fereum a temeral excuse me, it leaves
no example trace in the fossil records. Unlike bones, we

(45:53):
can't dig up ancient languages to study how they developed
over time at least okay, now, poor choice of words
because a I'm reading it, but we understand written language
spoken language is completely different. While we may be unable
to study the true evolution of human language, perhaps a
simulation could provide some insights. Perhaps this is where AI

(46:14):
could come in. A fascinating field of research called emergent
communication is now being studied to stimulate how language may involve.
They give agents or AI agents, simple tasks that require communication,
like a game where one robot must guide another to
a specific location on a grid without showing it a map,

(46:36):
almost no restrictions on what can be said or how. Basically,
they give them the task and let them try to
solve it on their own. I'm sure that will never
come back to bite us in the ass. But solving
these tasks require the agents to communicate with each other.
We can study how their communication evolves over time to

(46:57):
get an idea of how languages might evolve. Similar experiments
have been done with humans. Imagine you the audience basically
for the most part, speak and listen to English, are
paired with, say a podcast host who struggles with the

(47:17):
English language. Your task is to instruct your partner to
pick up a green cube from an assortment of objects
on the table. You would never get it from what
I'm saying on the show because me Now, you might
try to gesture a cube shape with your hands and
point at grass outside the window to indicate the collar green.
Over time, you develop a sort of proto language together.

(47:38):
Maybe you'd create specific gestures or symbols for cube and green.
Through repeated interactions, these improvised signals were to become more
refined and consistent, forming a basic communications system. This actually
works very similar for AI. Through trial and air, they
learn to communicate about objects they see in their conversation.
Partners learn to understand them because how do we know

(48:04):
what they're talking about? If they only develop this language
with their artificial conversation partner and not us, how do
we know what each word means? After all, specific word
could mean greening cube or worse both, like they tried
to learn finish or something. Now, this challenge of interpretation
is a key part of my research or their research. Sorry,
I'm reading it from a document. The task of understanding

(48:27):
AI language may seem impossible at first, but it is true.
If hearing finish for the first time, you would have
no clue what is being said. Over time, you could
pick up patterns and understand more and more and more.
And AI is starting to do the same thing now.
In an unrelated story, scientists have requested women be a

(48:52):
part of this to see if men can ever understand
the thing women say or want or mean. I think
that one will probably be as successful. So you ask,
how does this connect to aliens? The methods were being
tested and developing or understanding AI languages could actually help
the cipher future alien communications. If say, someone was able

(49:18):
to attain some written alien text together with some context,
maybe a visual information related to the text. Maybe some
statistical tools of an AI could be used to analyze them.
The approaches being developed today could actually be useful tools
in the future to study any an alien language was
found on Mars or elsewhere. And of course, as many

(49:40):
of us in the audience know, this is known as
zeno linguistics. At least anyone who's watched Star Trek and
other shows like that know this. But we don't need
to find extraterrestrials to benefit from this research, because I
don't think I'd be any help to any of their research.
There are numerous applications, from improving language models like chat,
GPT or CLAUD to improving communication between AUTOMAUS vehicles and

(50:02):
drones by decoding emergent languages. Future technology actually will become
easier to understand, whether it's knowing how self driving cars
coordinate their movements or how AI systems make decisions. But
they're not just creating intelligence systems, they're actually learning to
understand them. Okay, so I know what you're saying. Still

(50:26):
not alien enough for you? Okay, I got you covered.
An advanced alien civilization may want to cruise around the galaxy,
and the best way to do that is not by
a starship. It may be by steering their binary star system.
According to a new research proposed paper, long lived civilizations

(50:53):
may have many motivations for wanting to move somewhere else
in the galaxy, you know, like certain wrong people moved
into the neighbor hood.

Speaker 7 (51:02):
Now.

Speaker 5 (51:02):
They may need to escape an impending supernova for example,
maybe they need to scout out new natural resources, or
maybe maybe just maybe they feel like exploring. Given the
enormous distance between the stars, however, interstellar travel is tremendously
difficult in time consuming, So instead of leaving their system,

(51:23):
an intrepid alien species might decide to take their system
with them. Isn't that how rbs were created. The main
advantage of accelerating their own star would be that they
get to keep it with them as they travel. They
would do this by causing their star to either radiate
or evaporate in just one direction, which would propelled the star,
along with all of its planets, to a new location

(51:45):
in the galaxy. Astronomers have investigated whether hypervelocity stars, which
as their name suggest, our stars with an extraordinarily high
velocity maybe may have been purposely launched by alien civilizations,
but the known candidates show no signs of artificial interference.
In a recent paper, Clement Vaidel, a philosopher at the

(52:08):
Varied University Brussels in Belgium, pointed out that most stars
are not solitary, but rather belong to binary systems. This
means we might be missing half the potential artificially accelerated stars.
Even better, binary systems offer main advantages over their solar counterparts,
according to what Videll wrote in this paper, which has

(52:29):
not been peer reviewed or published in a scientific journal
at this time as he is a philosopher. But anyway,
in a recent paper, he pointed out, did I photocopy this?

Speaker 1 (52:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (52:42):
I copied it twice?

Speaker 5 (52:43):
Never mind, So he took a model system consisting of
a neutron star with a low mass star tightly orbiting
it and oddly enough to set up provides the most
flexibility and steerability and thrust. So there is just a
possibility mathematically this is actually possible. So unlike a certain earthling.

Speaker 7 (53:10):
In a.

Speaker 5 (53:12):
Really low rint starlight star break community, we lived in
a mobile home that never went anywhere. Imagine if your
mobile home never went anywhere but the planet it sat
on dead. And with that thought in our head, let's
time let's grab a drink on a seat by the
campfire or the heating pad and the blankets and medicine

(53:32):
and lose yourself in the stars for a little bit.
As talked about last episode, remember December thirteenth and fourteenth,
the Gemini meteor shower occurs, and the shower can produce
up the one hundred and thirty to one hundred and
forty metiears per hour on a clear sky. Year after year.
These Gemnis are the strongest meteor shower in terms of
rates and well over one hundred possibly appearing per hour.

(53:55):
That said, we also have a couple of Chinese and
Russian launches coming. So yes, yes, yes, I know you're going,
oh my god, there was no segment tonight and the
have really no news this week, so but that should
be back now with China and Russia both having two
or three launches in totality, so that segment should be
back next next episode. SpaceX has a bunch of launches,

(54:17):
India has one, and there's even a launch coming out
of France in the next two weeks. So that's it
for tonight's show. Thank you for tuning in when and
however you do. Thanks to NASA Spacexpace dot Com, Arce Technica,
NASA Spaceflight, Popular Mechanic, and more for the great information
on the stories tonight, I believe we do have a
Sunday Night with Alan Ray coming up, so please stay

(54:37):
tuned for that. Thanks to my execa producer as always
for your help and inspiration. I hope you enjoyed the show,
learned a little bit, and maybe I'll laugh for two.
The universe it is a pretty big place.

Speaker 6 (54:54):
It's bigger than anything anyone who's ever dreamed, No more.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
So if it's just us, it seems like an awful
waste of space.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
All right.

Speaker 7 (55:13):
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle. Oh it was beautiful, magical. And are the
birds in the trees? Would they be singing so happily?
Oh joyfully, oh playfully? Watching me with the missabil to

(55:36):
teacher how to be sensible logical? Oh, responsible, practical? And
then they show me word where recognize so deep andondabule
or clinical intellectual cemical.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
There are times now want to save

Speaker 7 (56:02):
The courage chantre intility