Lost Wanderer Podcast: 3/23/25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Anywhere.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm talking about beds leaving Earth behind into the.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Start to upper sense of reasons, A percentrac on the
Space night too, Man with the Stars and the US long.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Frandsome family on this Scots rule stall, A percent of me.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
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. Arm All film on Bio.

Speaker 5 (02:24):
Today is a day for morning and remember Nancy and
I are gained the cores, but the tragedy of the
Shuttle challenge.

Speaker 6 (02:32):
The following program may contain false language, adult teens, and
bad attempts.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
A human listener discretion is a vibe.

Speaker 5 (02:54):
What is President Trump's goal?

Speaker 4 (02:56):
What is his vision?

Speaker 1 (02:58):
He wants to put an American flag on Mars.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
With a quality day here, You're gonna have landed time.

Speaker 5 (03:20):
I am your host, je double f also known as
a cosmic Bard over on X and this is the
Lost Wonder podcast for March twenty third, twenty twenty five.
Happy Sunday evening and welcome aboard the ACS Serenade. I
will do my best to get through tonight's show, but
after the last two hours if you missed it on

(03:43):
Vincent's show. Shame on you, shame, shame, shame, shame, But
onto this show. Here's a homecoming worth celebrating. Early Tuesday,
March eighteenth, NASA astronauts Sonny Williams and Butcher Wilmore splashed
down off Florida's Golf Coast, ending a nine nine and

(04:06):
a half month space marathon that started as what was
supposed to be a quaint and quick little twelve day jaunt.
They hitched a ride back on SpaceX's crew Dragon Freedom
with crew nines Nick Hag and Russia's Alexander Gorbanov, who
hopefully had no role in Lord of the Rings. For
those of you that know, you know, having a wild

(04:27):
journey that saw them swap spacecraft mid mission. It all
began June fifth, last year, when Williams and Wilmore blessed
off from Cape Canavero and Boeing star Liner the first
crew test of the capsule, dubbed Calypso. The plan a
short hop to the ISS and back, but some thruster
glitches and helium leaks threw a bit of a curveball.

(04:50):
NASA played it safe, landing star Liner empty on September seventh.
In New Mexico. The duo ended up staying on, joining
Expedition seventy two, with Williams stepping up his commander. They
logged two hundred and eighty six days, one hundred and
twenty one million miles four thousand, five hundred and seventy
six orbits, running experiments in fixed gear fixing gear alongside

(05:14):
Hag and Garbonov, who launched with Crew nine on September
twenty eighth. Fast forward to this month. Crew ten's relief
team docked March fifteenth, and after a brisk three day handover,
Freedom undocked at one oh five a m. On the eighteenth,
two hundred and sixty one miles above Guam. Fourteen hours

(05:35):
later it fired as Straco thrusters dishes trunk and sliced
through the atmosphere. Parachutes blooming over the Gulf of America
for a five to fifty seven PM splashed down near Tallahassee.
Dolphins swam by. A recovery crew hoisted the capsule aboard,
popping the hatch. By six thirty eight. Out came Hagu, Gorbonoff,

(05:56):
then Williams and Wilmore, grinning waving back on solid ground.
Now this wasn't just a long, unusual trip. It was
a bit of history. They are the first two to
fly two different commercial spacecraft in one go star Liner
to get there and Dragon to get back home. NASA's

(06:17):
pushed back on stuck or stranded labels such you know that,
Trump and Muska both said saying, quote, we were prepared
for this here at Lost Wonder, we call that bullshit.
Now Willmore set up there. It paid off. Williams now
clocked six hundred and eight days in space across three missions,
second only to Peggy Whitson among US astronauts. Wilmore is

(06:41):
at four hundred and sixty four. Hey, Gon Garbana wrapped
up one hundred and seventy one days their first Dragon
ride as well. Now for NASA and SpaceX, it's a
bit of a flex. Two systems, one epic save, and
after two hundred and eighty six days, I can finally
get rid of counter on my little spaceship center console

(07:04):
because Williams and Wilmore are home proof that even when
plans go chaotic, the mission can still land safely. Now,
as I said, SpaceX's screw Dragon Freedom dropped into the
Golfa America, bringing four astronauts back from the ISS and
we had that potted dolphins, though that ended up stealing

(07:26):
the show for After a smooth landing off Florida's coast,
these ocean acrobats circled the capsule, giving NASA's latest returnees
a wild welcome home. And when it hit the water,
wrapping up the journey that started when it undocked from
the ISS and inside with NASA's Nick Keg and Russia's Garbanov,

(07:49):
it was kind of an amazing sight to see the
recrevery team didn't miss a beat. Spacexis Sarah Walker, who
runs Dragon Missions, grinned during the post splash press call,
that was really fun to see a rare moment when
marine life outshine astronauts coming home. Now it is to

(08:15):
be noted SpaceX's last East coast splashdown. Next time they're
aiming for California waters, maybe hoping that dolphins there will
bring the same energy. But for now, the cruise back
after a solid run capped with the aquatic escort most
missions would only dream of, and thankfully they weren't asking

(08:38):
for any more fish. That said, here is a story
that blends human ambition with a maybe a delicate touch
of craft we have, well, I guess the best way
to say it a unique zero gravity indicator with Crew

(09:02):
ten launch it was a hand crocheted or a Gomi
crane named Drug. It's more than a plush toy. It's
a symbol stitched with their shared traits, their cultures, and
that quiet hope for what humanity can achieve when reach
beyond borders. But the Falcon nine lit up on the
Florida night at seven o three pm Eastern. Its engines

(09:24):
were thundering from Launch Complex thirty nine, a a pad
that is steeped in history from Apollo to Shuttle. Days
aboard the crew Dragon Endurance four astronauts strapped in NASA's
Anne McLean, the Commander Nicole Airs her pilot, Japan's Takoya Onishi,
and Russia's Kerril Peskov. They dodged a scrub two days

(09:47):
earlier when a hydraulic glitch stalled the rocket support arm,
but this time the countdown held. Nine minutes later they
were in orbit seventeen thousand, five hundred miles an hour
and two hundred and fifty miles up, and that's when
Tekoya Unishi let drogue loose to float a little bird,

(10:07):
signaling they'd slipped Earth's grip. Now am McLean introduced it
on the live feed, her voice steady over the home
of the capsule. This is a hand cruchete or a
Gomi crane, she would say. This is drug Russian for friend.
It's a nod to an old tradition. Cosmonite Yuri Gagaran
flew a doll in nineteen sixty one to market zero

(10:28):
G and space Ax has kept it alive with plush
toys like dinosaurs and penguins, but drugs a little bit different,
crafted with a purpose. Its wings sport a ten for
Crew ten, and its tail flaunts flags from the US, Japan,
and Russia stitched like airplane markings. We're all pilot's, McLean explained.

(10:50):
And this crane's our plane, a point of pride. It's
a picture four avatars Habbatha aviators, sorry, grinning in suits,
united by a love of flight that is now torn
towards space. That said, let's meet the crew, because I
really haven't talked much about Crew ten. McLean is a

(11:13):
colonel from Spokane, a West Point grad who flew Kiohwa
Warrior Choppers before testing jets at Pack Pakizan to River.
She has logs three hundred and twenty two days in
space already with Expedition fifty eight and fifty nine back
in twenty eighteen, and now she's back commanding her second mission. Airs.
The pilot is newer, picked by NASA in twenty twenty one,

(11:36):
a Georgia tech ace who flew F twenty two raptors,
making this her first cosmic rodeo. Oishi from Tokyo brings
Jackson's finesse. He copilot at seven six sevens then spent
one hundred and fifteen days on the ISS in twenty
sixteen holding paper cranes after Japan's earthquake descend Home. Peskov,

(11:56):
the Russian rookie, rounds it out, a Boeing seven to
fifty seven first officer turned cosmonaut, trained in skydiving and survival,
now staring down his debut in the void. That's said,
drug is more than a mascot. It's a story woven
in the threads or agami cranes, or Japan's emblem of
piece and healing. Think of Sadoko Sasaki folding a thousand

(12:19):
to wish away illness after Hiroshima and twenty eleven, ISS
crew sent cranes back on a cargo ship after Japan's quake,
a gesture of solidarity. We're furthering that beacon, MacLean said,
a reminder of what we can do when we see
the good in each other. They named drug ties in
Pescov's roots Russian for friend, while the crochet nods to

(12:42):
human hands, not machines, crafting something fragile yet tough enough
for space. And I know what already, and Calvin and
others may be thinking Russian for friend drug. Thank god
they didn't use that line in the movie that said
the missions no small feat Crew ten launched after weeks

(13:05):
of prep. SpaceX rolled the rocket out March ninth, ran
a static fire and dodged that hydraulic hiccup. They docked
with the ISS on March ninth, or sorry, March sixteenth
at twelve four am with hatches opening. By one thirty five.
Sepinian to the Harmony module to join Expedition seventy two.

(13:28):
Their job well six months of science, blood flow studies,
radiation tests, gear fixes, bust that handover from Crew nine,
and this is of course SpaceX's tenth crew rotation for NASA.
The eleventh though human flight in their commercial crew playbook,
and it's a bit of a historic one too, if

(13:49):
you love these angles. First time a mission is led
by two women, McLean and Airs, both pilots to the core.
They'll stay till roughly September, orbiting fifteen times a day,
staring down at Earth from a lab that's spun around,
has spun around for twenty five years. So that's what
we have. We have crew ten or pilots, one crane

(14:14):
a half year ahead in the stars, so we hope
that little bird will keep them safe and fly along
with them. Now after getting there, you may have noticed
that there's this little sporting event that started a little

(14:35):
bit of you know, March Madness. Am I allowed to
say that? Do they have copyright things when that like
super Bowl has like I'm not allowed to say super
Bowl in any kind of promotional fashion. Does March Madness
have that same thing? Or are they not assholes? But
any a bit of connectivity here, SpaceX and NASA are

(14:55):
dangling a ticket to Mars. And I admit this is
after the fact, so you can't go back retroactively and play,
but if you were wise to it, it's in a
kind of an interesting bit for if you were to
nail a perfect March Madness bracket, space X is going

(15:15):
to send you to Mars. Eventually. The contest dropped on
March seventeenth, right as the Nuba tournament tipped off, sixty
four college teams battling it out and one sharp fan
that could end up on the red planet. So if
you filled out the bracket on SpaceX's site and you
predicted every game from the first round to the championship

(15:36):
on April seventh, so you basically go sixty three for
sixty three, you're punching a ticket on Starship, the same
rockets set to carry NASA Artemis cruise to the Moon
in twenty twenty seven. Mars Madness is what they're calling it,
and it was open to US residents over eighteen running
through the tip off of the first games on March

(15:58):
twenty fifth, and SpaceX isn't kidding around. They're four hundred
foot beast built to hall humans beyond Earth orbit. It's
still technically intesting with you know Flight eight recently blowing up,
you know it's upper stage last month, but they are

(16:18):
eyeing Mars missions by the end of the decade. Maybe
twenty twenty nine. If the push holds, the winner will
get a seat when it is ready, plus a three
day crash course at Starbasin, Texas to prep for the ride,
and NASA is on it too, tossing in a trip
to Kennedy Space Center during launch season, complete with VIP

(16:40):
tours of the pads that sent Apollo and Shuttle skyward.
Now you may be asking, Jeff, It's Sunday night on
Tailorindradio dot com. We do math here, so what are
the odds that someone will win this? Well, experts have
paid a perfect bracket at one and nine point two

(17:03):
quintillion with random picks. The hoopuffs who know their upsets
might slim it to maybe one an one hundred and
twenty billion. It's tough, but someone could win if multiple
geniuses somehow somehow managed to nail it. They'll draw one

(17:27):
name and there is no cash alternate you. Basically, you're
going to Mars or you get nothing, and the fine
print is pretty clear. Flight subject to starship readiness, FAA approval,
and a winner passing a fitness check, so no couch
potatoes will be necessarily be able to go to Mars.

(17:51):
That said, it's a slam dunk for hype. SpaceX won
starship in the spotlight, and what better way than tying
it to America's bracket fever. And who knows in the
years to come if they'll continue doing this, but it's
definitely an interesting way. If you've ever had thought about
going to another planet, you might get your shot.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Now that Wow.

Speaker 5 (18:14):
Fans on Earth were busy penciling in their March Madness
brackets and crying the very first day. The company was
racking up wins of its own. Early Friday morning, March
twenty first, SpaceX launched its eighth batch of next generation
spy satellites for the US National Reconnaissance Office, setting a

(18:34):
new rocket reuse record and keeping its eyes on the sky.
The Falcon nine took off from Vandenburg's Space Force Base
in California two forty nine am Eastern, lading up the
night with the NROL fifty seven mission. This wasn't just
another launch. It marked the shortest turnaround ever for a
Falcon nine first stage, flying again just nine days after

(18:58):
losting NASA sphere X telescope and Punch solar probes on
March eleventh. That booster on its fourth mission blasted off
with a secret of payload of reconnaissance satellites, part of
NRO's push for a quote tougher, smarter orbital network unquote.
That said, about seven and a half minutes after a
lift off, that record breaking first stage swung back to Earth,

(19:20):
touching down right on target at Vandenberg's landing zone. It
was a smooth return for a rocket that beat the
old Falcon nine reuse market of fourteen days, proving SpaceX
neck for flipping boosters ever so fastly. Meanwhile, the upper
stage pressed on hauling its classified cargo into orbit and

(19:43):
did it wonderfully. Now we don't know much about any
of what those actual satellites were up to. I know,
if this was China routine and we'd probably say spy
satellites and we probably would be accurate. But as with
always with the NRO, the folks running America's orbit orbital
espionage fleet, we don't know. They were hush hush. But

(20:04):
this was the eighth in a string of launches since
May of twenty twenty four, all on Falcon nines from Vandenburg,
stacking up with the agency describes as quote numerous smaller
satellites designed for capability unquote Okay, it's for SpaceX. It
really was a double win, another step in their spy
satellite streak, in the flex of their reusability rocket game. Now,

(20:28):
while the Mars Madness winner still has years to wait
for Starship's Red Planet debut, this nro L fifty seven
laws showed SpaceX isn't just sitting on its hands cranking
out mission heres and now with a booster that's ready
to back in the barn, ready already for its next shot.
And it's kind of funny to think SpaceX busy racking

(20:51):
up spy satellite launches like they're collecting cosmic Pokemon cards.
Their pals at Boeing hit a different kind of streak,
one where their Starliner capsule keeps NASA scratching its head
instead of breaking any records. And on Friday, March twenty first,
the agency wrapped up a week long pow wow about

(21:11):
are we allowed to say powow anymore? If I'm part
Native American, I'm I allowed to say it anyway. The
agency wrapped up the week long pow wow about what
to do with Boeing's troubled spacecraft and surprise surprise they're
still mulling it over ten months after it left two
hashernauts twiling their thumbs in orbit. And of course this

(21:33):
all kicked off last Yune when the star Liner, Bowing's
shiny ticket into the commercial crew game, launched Wilmore and
Williams from Florida for what was supposed to be that
quick little jaunt to the ISS. Instead, we had thrust,
hiccups and helium weeks that turned it into a cosmic lemon.
By August, NASA I've waved it off, and star Liner

(21:55):
limped back to Earth alone. They finally splashed down, thankfully
with the ash I'm not on a dragon, but star
Liner's fate ironically, sadly, I don't know whether their adjectives
are use here. Star Liner's fate is still up in
the air, and I said. The latest chapter unfolded at

(22:16):
Kennedy's Face Center, where NASA's Commercial crew chief Steve Stitch
and his team huddled from March seventeenth to twenty. First,
they chewed over two big options. Tweaked star Liner for
another crude shot crewf like Test two, or punt it
to just cargo duty, letting in a whole gear instead
of people there is no verdict yet, according to Stitch,

(22:36):
who told reporters Friday that quote taking a little bit
more time unquote to sift through Boeing's fixes on thrusters
and seals. Translation, Let's face it, they're not sold on
it flying humans anytime soon, and Boeing has been scrambling
ground test in New Mexico showed those thrusters overheating under
thin insulation. They snag tied to Summer's last Summer's woe.

(23:01):
They've got patches in the works, but NASA's not biting
until every eye is possibly dotted. We're not rushing. This
thing's a mess. Okay, he didn't say that. He said
we're not rushing, but that you know, you know what
that is. That's diplomat speak for this shit stinks. This
thing's a mess. And I said the agency, Well, they

(23:23):
do have SpaceX's Dragon humming, where we have the crew
ten that just docked, the crew nine that just came home,
leaving star Liner as the awkward cousin who showed up
late and broke the furniture. So we don't know what
kind of deadline will be set for Boeing, if any
And I guess that you know, maybe when the stars

(23:44):
are aligned, we'll finally get some new information if this
thing is just going to be a cargo vessel or not.
But there's one individual he may have some significant say
in this, and that is President Trump. For his team

(24:05):
has swooped in with a broom to swoop away some
old lunar baggage, and Boeing could be on their list.
That said, on March nineteenth, the White House axed a
diversity plan for the Artemis moon landing that it cooked
up back in twenty nineteen, proving once again that when
it comes to space, they'd rather plant a flag than

(24:27):
a rainbow. Oh by the way, if you caught the
last lost wonder, it was all about that juicy Artemis
whistleblower spill. So no such drama here. This is just basically,
if you will, the dust settling maybe from it now.
It did start five years ago when Trump's first term

(24:47):
birthed the Artemis program. It was a grand scheme to
get humans back to the Moon and further, but this
time with some staying power. Back then they learned hard
into optics, not just more dudes in spacesuits. But he
promised to land the first woman and later the first
person of a color. Now fast forward to twenty twenty,

(25:09):
Vice President Mike Pence rolled out a crew of eighteen astronauts,
skewing more female in minority than NASA's usual lineup. He
would beam, the future is bright. They even spun a
graphic novel called First Woman, about a fictional Cali Radriez
moon hopping with her diverse pals, NASA's diversity gospel in

(25:33):
cartoon form. But that was then on Tuesday, the second
Trump White House yanked the Dei script. No more first
woman or first person of color in the artem. His
pitch just a pivot to updating our language for crued
lunar chips. Per a NASA spokesperson, why do you turn

(25:56):
well a January executive order from Trump torching diverse, the
equity and inclusion across the federal terf Cali's comic page
gone from NASA site, a digital casualty of the new vibe.
The agency would add, We're excited to hear Trump's next

(26:17):
moves for the moon in Mars, basically sidestepping the Dei
ditch with a bit of a shrug. Now, I said,
Artemis three's landing is still pegged for twenty twenty seven.
Those insider scoff at the timeline actually staying true, and
there has been no crew officially named. Especially with the

(26:38):
delays piling up and piling up and piling up, it's
anyone's guess who will step off first. The shifts got
some tongues wagging, though some see it as Musk's fingerprints,
giving his loud mars or bus stance and his admittedly
cozy ties with Trump. Others figure it was just red
meat for the base, stitching woke buzzword for leaner mission.

(27:02):
Either way, NASA is keeping mum beyond the party line,
waiting for the White House to call the next shot.
So the Moon's back to being thankfully a blank state.
No diversity asterisk is required. Trump's crew might have dropped
the rainbow, but they're still banking on Artemis to plant
the stars and stripes someday, somehow. For now, it has

(27:26):
gone back to less about who's first and more about
if they'll get there at all, as it should have
been all along. Now well, some some may call Trump's
admin assholes for ditching lunar diversity dreams. Let's talk, yeah,

(27:48):
let's talk about the real ones.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
And now assholes in space.

Speaker 5 (28:07):
China as China, and I apologize if you didn't hear that.
It was weird. It was playing on one screen but
not the other. So I'm hoping you guys heard that.
Now the real assholes in space, the adversaries that are

(28:29):
outpacing us in orbit, had some interesting events happening recently.
And sorry Andrew nocow count this week. But on Friday,
March twenty first, a top Space Force general dropped a
stark warning the US is at a make it or
break it moment, with foes like China and Russia closing

(28:50):
the gap fast in the cosmic arms race. Now, this
came straight from Lieutenant General Thomas James, Deputy Commander of
Space Operations Command Or or SPAC, during a Space Foundation
pow wow. I like that word this week, assuming that

(29:10):
was held in Colorado Springs. Sorry, I had the cough
fresh off unveiling the always the Hunter mode motto. James
laid it out this way. We are at an inflection point.
Our adversaries have matched or surpassed our capabilities. Now he's
not naming names, but let's face it, the culprits are clear.

(29:33):
China's got weapons that can zapp satellites blind, and Russia
has been coozing up to its own orbital tricks all
while the US scrambles to keep its edge, and James
didn't sugarcoat it. Space isn't the quiet frontier it was
when the Space Force stood up in twenty nineteen, back

(29:54):
then a Trump rainchild to lock down the higher ground.
Now it is a battlefield. China has doubled its satellite
counts since hitting seven hundred by last year, with anti
satellite lasers and jammers now in play. Russia's tested satellite
killers too, like the twenty twenty one blast that littered
orbit with debris. James says, the US still leads barely,

(30:17):
but Face Force's ten thousand guardians can rest, or can't rest.
We've got to evolve, he urged, or will lose the
ability deter threats up there. And the stakes really are
sky high. Literally, satellites run everything, GPS, missile warnings, calms,
and James warned that rivals could blind or choke those

(30:38):
lifelines in a blink of an eye. And they've been
trying to flex, trying to get this fixed and resolved.
And think of that. In March twenty first spy sat
launch with SpaceX. But sadly that's not enough. They're not
slowing down, he said of the competition, pushing for faster tech,
small SATs that are tracking, maybe even better counter strikes.

(31:00):
No specifics, but the vibe is tense. Space Force hits
his fifth birthday last December and the party is over.
So while Trump's crew has tweaked the Moon plans, James
is sounding the clocks on space is getting crowded at
not with friends. The US might still be the hunter,

(31:22):
but the prey is catching up fast. And while Space
Force's Lieutenant General James was busting the sweat over China's
orbital edge like a kid who just lost his lunch
money to the playground bully, those same rivals are showing
off up in space. For On March twentieth, China's latest

(31:44):
Team GOWNG space Station crew kicked off their six months
stent with a shiny Ai robot and a pack slate,
proving their human spaceflights games not just talk. It is
a full on sprint. This all started when the Shinzow
nineteen trio commander Kai Jizu, Song Ling Long and Xu
Yang Xu talked with kiyog on November twenty eight, last year,

(32:07):
launched from chikwan A top a long March two f brocket.
By Thursday, they were deep into the groove, starring in
a video from China Space Agency CMSA that hit the
web March twentieth. First up a floating AI robot, think
a sleek, chattier version of a side sci fi sidekick,

(32:27):
helping them tweak station systems at two hundred and forty
miles up. It's not just a gadget Kai set on camera.
It's a teammate.

Speaker 4 (32:36):
Now.

Speaker 5 (32:36):
There is no name for this bot yet, so just
kind of think Alexa in orbit, but something a little
wittier probably, But it's built a troubleshoot and it does
talk back. That said they weren't stopping there. The crew
ran three D printing test, whipping up tools from plastic
filament and zero G while juggling over eighty experiments set

(32:58):
for their half year haul. That's biology, fluid physics, even
fire safety stuff to keep King Young humming as China's
permanent orbital outposts, Kai, a vet from Shen's out fourteen
and twenty two led the charge. Shong and Ju both
rookies jumped in and Xu is now the third Chinese
woman in space, eleven years after Liu Yang broke that

(33:21):
glass ceiling. So China's in a in space to stay.
We got ai bots, three D printers, and a crew.
That's all business. Well. The US is threading over its
losing the high ground. Tiangyang is buzzing proof that they're

(33:42):
not just catching up, they may be setting the pace.
So that's it for now. Stick around, folks. We'll take
a quick three minute intermission break so we can catch
our breath. I can have another drink, and we'll let
the cosmic dust settle.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
Alone and the stars and a silver glow.

Speaker 6 (34:10):
I'll cast the planets, cast gravities whole through endless.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
Light, through silence, and I let behind the world and
you tracing your dream. There are only few pursuing now, A.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Drifting the black tree beyond all time, through galaxies, strange
on a journey sublime cuss of stars are flying free
through coslexies, just spacing me A solitary soul and a
sh so small lying aways.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
When the galaxy is called lemulos blood like flowers and flame,
each one waspers a different name across like hears and an.

Speaker 6 (34:52):
Age is gone, racing your light by journey on every planets,
the story of forcing the dark come down instead of
blowing spark.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
No North, no south, just distant suns. I'm forever test
my voice begun the stars.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
I'm flying free through cost seas, just saicing me a
solitary soul, and it's just.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
So small, riding the waves, let the galaxies.

Speaker 7 (35:19):
Call across the stars sound, flying free through cosmic seas,
just spacing me a solitary soul and a shift.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
So small, riding the waves with a galaxies call of
what side of things? The stars comes in every soil patron.

Speaker 6 (36:00):
I'm part of the cosmos, down to the stream, I say,
the stars chasing the tree. Sometimes I wonder if I'll
ever return, or will I burn like a comic.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Turn by turn, But the thrill of a journey the
great unknown just just be worn. When I leave.

Speaker 6 (36:21):
Alone, I'm a wonderful free, the fastest dance, dancing through
darkness of cosmic chance.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
With nothing but stars lighting my way. I'll keep you
over the small.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
Word job letting met the stars.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
I'm flying free through cosmic SyES, just basically a solitary
soul and is just so small, flying the waves where
the galaxies call, the love of galaxies call, There's a

(36:57):
drift further from all of known.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
The universal whispers are never alone.

Speaker 7 (37:03):
A voyage is hard, a soul unbound, lost in the
stars where my home is found.

Speaker 5 (37:11):
Oh, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that little bit
of a three minute breather, because we're just gonna deep
dive right into that red planet's latest secret here. While
Chinese teen young crews were busy playing with their Ai robots,
last week's Scientist here on ours undercovered a bit of
a whopper. Mars might be stashing in ocean's worth of

(37:35):
water under its crust. And no, no, I know what
you're thinking. It's not the Wong family Martian ranch flooding
the place now. This story dropped on March seventeenth, courtesy
of seismic data from NASA's Insight Lander, which technically wrapped
its mission in twenty twenty two, but it does keep

(37:56):
on giving us information. Researchers Aqua KATAMAI Katayama and Uya
Akamatsu from Japan crunched the numbers and found evidence of
liquid water, lots of it, and it is buried six
to twelve miles beneath Mars's surface. We're talking enough to

(38:17):
cover the planet in a global ocean point six to
one point two miles deep, if you could somehow scoop
it all up. Their study freshened the journal Geology builds
on vibes from insights ce Seis Seisometer, the first to
catch Mars quakes rumbles back in twenty eighteen, and here's

(38:39):
how it shook out. It tracked three kinds of wave
pea waves bouncing like sound, s, waves wiggling up and down,
and surface ripples like a pond gone wild. Those signals
hinted at water trapped in fractured rock way down into
the mid crust. Katayama's team tested earth rocks dol Right
from Sweden, which is basically a Martian doppelganger, and found

(39:00):
wet versions matched the seismic signatures in site. Picked up
lots of folks peg water on ancient Mars. But this
says it's still there today. And that's a shift from
the old tale of Mars drying up billions of years ago,
when its atmosphere thin and its rivers vanished. So what

(39:21):
does it mean? Well, for one, it's a bit of
a juicy clue about Mars' past. Maybe not all of
it's water boiled off in the space. Some sank deep
and set instead, and life well, let's face it, if
there's liquid water, there's a chance microbes might be possible.

(39:41):
But don't get too excited at drilling six millions That
six miles down is a bit of a pipe dream
with today's tech. The deepest hole we've ever punched on Earth,
Russia's col borehole barely hit seven point six miles, and
you know Mars ain't exactly next door. Still, it is
a bit of a tantalizing tease. Life could be lurking
in the dar wet cracks of a planet we've only scratched.

(40:04):
So for now, Mars can keep its secrets buried literally
while trying to tackle notts tinker up high. These findings
pull us back to the red planets, hidden diffs, where,
let's face it, an ocean weights silent and out of reach.
But as we sit here dreaming of Mars's underground ocean,

(40:28):
like some you know, interplanetary plumbing mystery, we have astronomers
that just flipped the telescope way further out and found
oxygen and the most distant galaxy ever spotted. Now, I
struggled with an analogy on this one. This is the
best one I could come up with, and I think

(40:49):
you'll you'll understand. It's like finding a pimply teenager. When
the rest of the cribs full of newborns. You expect
newborns in this little crib, but you don't expect the
pimply teenager. And it's really shaking up everything everyone has
thought about the universe's early days. And this story head

(41:13):
on March seventeenth, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope
zeroing in thirteen point three billion light years away on
a galaxy tag Jade's GSZ fourteen dash one. Now that's
a mere three hundred million years post Bing Bang, when
space was still in diapers. Stefano Carnenes team from Italy

(41:35):
Sculio normally Sipria, nabbed it with webs and ir spec
catching oxygen's faint glow. A cosmic curveball has just been thrown.
It really is like finding an adolescent where you would
expect babies. He would say, Now galaxy is that fresh,
should be bare bones hydrogen, helium, probably not much else

(41:59):
from the big bangs left. Oxygen means stars fired up quick,
blew up in sofer nova's and seated it fast, way
faster than any previous playbook predicted. James Webb's face telescopes
and for infrared caught the light stretched to a red
shift of fourteen point seventeen furthest ever, showing oxygen, nitrogen,

(42:19):
and even a whiff of carbon. Oh no. The first
quote that comes to my mind too, is is there air?
You don't know? But it looks like maybe there is.
And it's a bit of a plot twist. The old
story had these baby galaxies of slow pokes, tiny basic

(42:41):
taking ages to cook up metals, but this one might
be different. It's a bruiser five times larger than expected,
pumping out stars like its own deadline, and Carnini would
speculate something juicy is happening, and it's it's kind of

(43:03):
interesting because maybe black holes are some wild cosmic kickstart.
It's not alone or either web has snagged other Z
fourteen galaxies, suggesting that the universe may indeed have grown
up faster than we have ever given it credit for.
So we have Mars that is hiding water. And we
have galaxies now spilling secret secrets from the dawn of
time oxygen where it shouldn't be a teenage rebel any

(43:28):
nursery universe. The cosmos, as we always talk about on
this show, keeps surprising us. One distant gleam at a
time that said, let's come back. Let's come back a
little closer to home. For we have a debate over
exoplanet K twelve eighteen B that is still steaming up

(43:49):
the scopes. Scientists can't agree if this far off world
is hiding amly in life or just taunting us with
a bit of steamy shirt. And the latest data is
keeping the arguments as lively as ever. And this story
flared up again on March seventeenth when a fresh study
in the Astrophysical Journal Letters threw more fuel on the

(44:12):
K twelve eighteen B fire Sitting one hundred and twenty
four light years away in Leo, this planet eight times
Earth's mass, or if it's a cool red dwarf every
thirty three days. Back in twenty nineteen, the Hubble's Face
telescope spotted water vapor in its atmosphere, sparking buzz about
a hasion world, part ocean, part hydrogen blanket, maybe even

(44:33):
a spot for life. Then last September, the James Webbs
face telescope called whips of methane and carbon dioxide, hinting
at a watery surface under all that gas. The hype
is real. Are there alien microbes? But we can hold

(44:54):
the et phone home call for just a little bit
for this. New paper, led by Oliver Shortel from Cambridge
says not so fast. Using James Webb's sharper eye, they
found those same chemicals methane and CO two, but no
slammed dunk sign of life. I dimethyl sulfide whiff from
last year has now gone. Could have been a glitch

(45:14):
or methane playing some tricks. Shrottle's team argues K to
eighteen B might be too hot up to five hundred
degrees fahrenheit under pressure, cooking any ocean into supercritical soup,
not a cozy microbial bath. Shroto would say it's a
stretch to call it habitable, and four years ago me

(45:36):
is happy I could say that word the flip side,
though not everyone is buying it. Niku matajud Sinden, who
led to twenty twenty three studies stands by the life angle,
those gases could mean a biosphere if the planet's cooler
than feared. Problem is K two to eighteen B is
a bit of a puzzle. It's too big for a

(45:57):
rocky Earth twin but too small for a gas giant,
and its stars flares might fry anything that has ever
wanted to be alive. That said, James Webb does have
a's got some more peaks planned for this, but for
now it's kind of still a cosmic coin toss. Life
is possible, just not proven that Both sides argue we
need more data on.

Speaker 4 (46:23):
And well.

Speaker 5 (46:24):
People were sweating over this whole K two eighteen b
steamy vive thing, meaning like for just a cosmic sauna,
which God, I could really use a nice sit in
a sauna. Some brainiac was told to look where the
sun doesn't shine, only this brainiac took it literally. A

(46:49):
study came out March nineteenth say it says alien life
might be chilling on Earth like planets around dead stars.
So I probably have fox moater somewhere going out there.
I told you the truth is out there. While, of course,
in the background, Scully is rolling her eyes at the
whole general idea that said this did land in the

(47:10):
Atrophysical Journal, cooked up by THEO. Kazakis and Piles at
Cornell's Carl Sagan Institute. Fitting since Sagan loved a good cosmic,
what if they zoomed in on white dwarfs, stellar corpses
left when Sun sized stars burn out, shrinking to Earth's
sized husk, blowing with some leftover heat the twists these

(47:30):
dead stars could host rocky planets in their habitable zone,
that goldilock spot where liquid water might still stick around.
And Kazoska's team ran computer models and found that, yeah,
life could hack it there, perhaps even better than we
could have possibly thought. Well, here is the skinny on

(47:53):
the whole thing. White dwarf's cool very slowly billions of years,
and their faint light still warms up close enough planets
just enough now, the study peg their habitable zones at
a cozy point five too point two astronomical units, way
tighter than Earth's ONEAU. Just dance with the Sun any
closer and tidal waves would lock the planets. Spin any further,

(48:17):
it becomes a basic ice box. But nail that sweet
spot and you've actually got stable climates. Some models even
showed oceans and air holding steady or upwards to eight
billion years, twice what Earth's current run is at, and
these could be prime real estate long after their stars
went caput. Now it's not all necessarily rosy white doors,

(48:42):
fit UV rays early on harsh enough to strip atmospheres
before settling down. But if a planet is born late
or migrates in like Earth size stragglers spotted by James
Webb around the stellar Ghost, it might actually dodge the
worst of the scenario. I think microbes are weird files,
not little green men's arriving in dim you know, red

(49:03):
tinted twilight. That said, the studies a first cut telescripts
like web are basically next going to hunt for oxygen
or methane clues. But it is kind of a wild pitch.
Life doesn't need a live star to actually shine. Now,

(49:25):
our old friend twenty twenty four yr four is bit
back in the news, And if you've been tuning in lately,
you know I'd be apped about this damn rock plenty
on past episodes and on guest spots on other shows.
And of course it was first as a potential you know,
oh my God City, Spasher Doom now it's more of

(49:46):
a cosmic has been but as of March twentieth, it
was officially labeled note threat, but scientists have now started
itching to send a spacecraft to it, not even kidding.

(50:07):
So why but why bother? Well, it turns out twenty
twenty four YR four is a gold mine waiting to
be tapped. It's a near Earth asteroid zipping by at
five million miles in twenty twenty eight and then one
hundred and sixty seven thousand and twenty thirty two, and
that's basically close enough to make it a very cheap trip.

(50:31):
The body for NACI from NASA's Jeff Propulsion Left says
it's a perfect target, small, reachable, and relic from the
Solar System's Dawn samething. A probe could spill some secrets.
Is it a rubble pile, is it a solid? Is
it carbon rich or metallic? And answers that could actually
clue us in this maybe some of the Earth's early
days or how to nudge the next big one off

(50:51):
course and folks have been harping on this rock's roller
coaster ride lately, and experts agree it's two good pass up,
It'll buzz once again twice more this century twenty thirty
two and twenty ninety three, giving multiple shots to tag
it with a spacecraft that said there is no mission
currently Greenlitz, so we don't know if it will actually happen,

(51:15):
but it is an interesting proposal. Now, with this near
miss drama out of the way, it turns out there's
actually been there's been some real action brewing in labs,

(51:36):
and god, I feel like I'm back on an episode
of the Intergalactic Kegger. So get ready to drink because
then apparently brewing in labs where Ai is giving Einstein
Drink a run for his money for On March twenty a,
scientists unveiled a slick new trick to team his spooky

(51:58):
action at a distance, and thanks through some brainy machines,
the dream of quantum Internet just got a whole lot
less fuzzy and a whole lot more real. This dropped
in Nature Communications courtesy of a crew led by Mahoe
Malik at Scotland's Harriet Watt University. They've been wrestling with
quantum entanglement that you know, wild Einstein Drink idea from

(52:19):
nineteen thirty five, where piraticles get so cozy, tweaking one
instantly zefster the other, no matter how far apart. He
called it spooky, and he wasn't wrong. Think twins finishing
each other sentences across galaxies. It's been a lab toy
for decades, but scaling it up for quantum internet to
think unhackable networks and warp speed data, which has been

(52:46):
basically a tangle of noise and chaos until now. The
Breakthrough Malis team leaned on AI to sort out some
of Entanglement's mess. Normally, unit a pristine set up, laser crystals,
perfect conditions to link particles like photons over distance, air, heat,

(53:06):
even a stray breeze scrambles it fast decoherence. They call
it the buzzkill of quantum dreams. But these folks fired
entanglement photons through three hundred and thirty feet of turbulent
air basically, you know, just a normal Scottish day, and
used a neural network to spot patterns in the chaos
that AI trained on gobs of data didn't just clean

(53:27):
it up, it boosted the signal tenfold, making entanglement tougher
and simpler to pull off. So let's unpack it a
little bit. Entanglements the backbone of quantum tech. Lock two
particles and that spooky dance, and you've got a key
for encryption. No supercomputer can crack or a line for
instant data swaps. Einstein Drink and his pals Rosen and

(53:49):
Podoski doubt it. It ever, would be practical. Figuring nature
is just too messy. Pass setups needed, fiber optics or
vacuum tubes. Fussy, very expensive, pricey stuff. Malik's crew flipped
the script. Their photon stayed entangled through real world munk
thanks to AI, now sifting noise like a bouncer at
a rowdy bar. It's a game changer, Malik would say,

(54:10):
simplifying what we thought was largely impossible. I said, the
road here wasn't quick. Quantum entanglement's been a lab darling
since the sixties. John Bell proved Einstein Drink wrong, showing
it's real, not some cosmic glitch. By the nineties, we
were telepoting teleporting photon states, yeah, I said, teleporting Trek style,

(54:34):
but just info, not people. China's Miski a satellite zaptentanglement
pair seven hundred and forty five miles and twenty seventeen,
but that was space clean, cold controlled Earth is a
very tougher gig Air is basically a soup of jiggling molecule,
So this three hundred and thirty foot run is kind

(54:55):
of a big deal. Malik's AI didn't just bought the signal,
It learned to predict and fix this astortions, cutting the
gear needed from a warehouse down to a simple work bench.
Now I know you may be asking why care. Well,
Quantum Internet's the prize link cities with these spooky channels,
and you've got columns that laugh at hackers or computer

(55:18):
solving problems, and blinks that takes today's rigs, eons, pictures, banking, defense,
even science. You know, James webs Face tiltop could beam
data home faster than the light speed lag allows, but
it's not there yet. Three one hundred and thirty feet
isn't a continent. But Malik's crew says this, with the

(55:39):
AI tweak slashes these hurdles, we're closer to networks that
don't need perfect labs. So let's raise a glass to Einstein,
drink his spooky legacy getting a reboot, and AI being
the MVP, even though it may scare some so from
asteroids scares to quantum leaves, the Cosmos keeps us guessing,

(56:00):
and this one's a step toward wiring it back up.
We do have a few rocket launches coming up. We
have March twenty fifth, we have a Russian soil US
MS twenty seven. March twenty six we have rocket labbed
on Aurora Tech wildfire detection consolation. March twenty seventh we
have Lockheed Martin LM four hundred demo from Firefly yay.

(56:24):
And April second we have SpaceX Falcon nine and ROL
sixty nine nice. And April fourth we have fram two
polar orbit mission from SpaceX with some private astronauts. Now,
with that thought in our head, it is time to
grab that drink once more, find a seat by the campfire,

(56:44):
and lose yourself in the stars as we traverse the
night skies from March twenty third to April sixth. So
let's embark on a cosmic journey filled with celestial wonders
visible across the United States. March twenty third, Saturn's rings disappear.
On this day, Saturn rings will appear edge on from

(57:04):
our bantage point on Earth, causing them to seemingly vanish,
a phenomenon that actually occurs approximately every fifteen years. This event,
known as a Ring Plaine crossing, offers a unique opportunity
to observe Saturn moons more clearly, as the usual glare
from the rings is now minimized. Now, observing this event

(57:26):
may be challenging due to Saturn's proximity to the Sun
in the northern hemisphere sky. Then, on March twenty ninth,
Partial Solar Eclipse, early risers are in for a treat
with a partial solar eclipse gracing our morning skies in
the Eastern time zone. The eclipse will begin at sunrise,
with the maximum eclipse occurring around six forty one am

(57:48):
and concluding by seven seven AM. Remember never look at
the Sun without proper eye protection such as eclipse glasses
or solar viewers. We do have some planetary highlights. Venus,
our evening star, shines brightly after sunset and the western sky,
making it hard to miss. Mars, the red planet, is

(58:10):
visible in the evening sky, setting around four fifteen am Eastern,
and Jupiter, the gas giant, graces our night sky after sunset,
setting around one twenty four am Eastern time. That said,
we do have some meteor showers to report on. While
the Lriad media shower will peak on April twenty second,
just beyond our current time frame, the virgin Ed meteor

(58:32):
complex is actively happening during this period. They're not as
prolific as the Lyriids. They offer a little bit of
subtle streaks across the light across the sky, rewarding very
patient observers with the occasional meteor And with the new
Moon coming up on March twenty ninth, the nights surrounding

(58:55):
this date will be darker, providing optimal conditions for observing
fame celestial objects. It's an excellent opportunity to explore deep
sky wonders like star clusters and galaxies. So as we
navigate these celestial events together, remember keep your eyes to
this guy's and your heart's filled with wonder until our
next cosmic rondez who keep looking up. And that is

(59:20):
it for tonight's show. Thank you for tuning in when
and however you do. Special thanks to NASA, SpaceX, space
dot Com, our Technica, NASA Spaceflight, Palkuler Mechanic and more
for the great information on 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, maybe had a

(59:43):
laugh for two as well. Is a pretty big place.

Speaker 4 (59:49):
It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed, No more.

Speaker 5 (59:56):
So if it's just us, it seems like an awful
waste of space.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Right when I was young, it seemed that life was
so wonderful, a miracle. Oh it was beautiful, magical, And
all the birds in the trees would they be singing
so happily, oh joyfully, oh playfully? Watching me with the

(01:00:30):
missabile late to teacher, how to be sensible logical, oh, responsible, practical?

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
And then they show me a world

Speaker 4 (01:00:42):
Where recognize so deep beautiful or clinical intellectual, cynical