May 29, 2025 • 50 mins
China and Russia have made a deal to build a nuclear power facility on the Moon. SpaceX has both wins and losses with its latest Starship launch. A sunspot has been visible on the Sun for 54 days and is still going strong. NASA has revived the thrusters on Voyager 1 after twenty years.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
that's your own risk.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Go ahead. When made of stars, made them stars, made sizes.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
When made of stars, you could be from high they
would New Mexicomas.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
We're all stars when we are made of stars.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
Cruiser from Columbus State Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Hey Sean, good morning, Wes. Good to be here. All right,
we have.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Some significant stories. One of them has been a bit
of a headline story for a couple of days. We'll
get to that one a little bit later on in
the show, but it relates to the SpaceX starship latest launch.
In spite of what you've heard in most of the
news outlets, it wasn't a complete failure. In fact, there
(01:33):
were some successes and it's part of the way that
SpaceX does business. But we'll get to all that coming
up a little bit later in the show. I want
to start on the Moon, and I want to start
with the We've talked about this quite a bit, this
new space race that we're in, and this new interest
(01:58):
in the Moon. I think there's always been an interest
in the Moon to some degree by everybody, but the
fact that China has a growing interest in the Moon
it's part of what maybe we've talked back in the
radio days especially, we talked a lot about the fact
that sometimes you need a little competition to nudge things forward.
(02:20):
It's almost like, you know, how good is your sports
team really if there's no one to compete against, you
don't really know until they're tested in some way, And
I think part of a space race does sort of
motivate people most of the time, at least maybe for us.
I don't know that that's what's happening with China, other
than they have a very clear focus on the Moon
(02:43):
and they understand that we're going to need some sort
of power once we get to the Moon. So as
they're getting ready to start their work on their International
Lunar Research Station that will be jointly led by China
and Russia, teaming up, here we go WWE style. Wait
(03:06):
a minute, these two are working together. Oh my goodness,
we used to work together with it. So now this
is a pretty big step for those two countries. And
I don't know, is this one of the nudgets that
we need to get moving a little bit more when
it comes to the moon. So let's talk about the
(03:27):
agreement that they have.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Now, Yeah, okay, Well, and let me explain how I
would like to back into this conversation, which is I
love our show Made of Stars because we talk about space,
and we do it in a fun way. At least
Wes and I are having fun. If you'd like to
join us and having fun out there, you know, go
(03:48):
ahead and join in. But we're gonna make the jokes
that we think are funny, yeah, and just have a
good time, so hopefully you think it's a good time too.
So by the nature of that, one of the things
we do do is we don't really talk about politics
because you get enough of that everywhere else, and so
(04:08):
very few people are having fun, right, So that's not
the purpose of this podcast. You get enough of that
somewhere else. We're just having a good time talking about space. Okay. However,
it's really impossible to think about the human exploration of
space without without at least bumping up against politics once
(04:31):
in a while. All right, So we're gonna bump up
against politics this morning. That's what we're gonna do. The
next thing I will say is, I think if you
went out there and asked a certain number of a
statistically significant number of American citizens, what other two countries
in the world might be our most significant and unfriendly
(04:55):
unfriendly competitors. I mean, I think I think China and
Russia would come in at very near the top of
that list, if not number one and number two, they
would be right up there in the top five as
a fair assessment. Yes, I mean those guys from Luxembourg,
you know they're they're kind of trouble, but you know
(05:17):
we haven't heard much from them lately.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, at risk of at risk of stepping into some
of that stuff that you were definitely dodging a moment ago.
Perhaps some people would even say sometimes we're our own
toughest competitor because of self inflicted wounds. But that's another
story for another time and not on this show. So
just start I love that out there, all right.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So, so there we we've rubbed up against it, right, West.
There we go, and that's going to be relevant against politics.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
That's going to be relevant mainly in the last story
of the day. Right, we'll get to that later on,
but anyway, go right ahead.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I want to I want to get back to China
since though that our country actually has competitor nations. Yes,
then it becomes significant now you know, so we and
it's a political issue. You know, it's like, well, should
we be competing? I don't know, Yes, we should. Friends.
That's my humble opinion. There it is. It's not a
(06:12):
news item. It's opinion, my opinion. We the United States
of America should not abdicate our leadership role in space exploration,
both robotic and human. We should be at the forefront
for many reasons, military, political, but just economic. Right, So,
(06:35):
so all of those reasons, America should not abdicate its
leadership in space. There it is my opinion. Okay, Now
here's what's happening. Russia and China are teaming up, as
Wes said earlier, like a couple of WWE wrestlers. They're
doing a team up to beat us to the moon.
And they can't beat us to the moon. We already
(06:57):
won the space race. No, we got their first first,
but now they're working on permanent settlement. Well wait a minute,
don't we have the Artemis program here in the United
States of America with NASA. Yes, we're going to send
people back to the Moon, but we can't even decide
which rocket they're going to write on long term. And
that relates to the last story in today's podcast as well.
(07:20):
All right, So what's happening with China and Russia is
that not only are they working on the actual systems
to take people to the Moon, but they are actually
working on infrastructure for the Moon. And this story from
space dot Com is talking about how they're working together
to build a nuclear power plant on the Moon to
(07:44):
provide electricity for the joint Chinese Russian space laboratory called
the International Lunar Research Station or the ILRS. Now, look,
two countries working together to do research and science in space.
I have no problems with this in principle.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
We've done it for a very long time with Russia, right, Yeah,
and other countries involved as well, so.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
In Japan and Canada and a lot of European Space Agency.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yes, it gives each other rides to and from the
International Space Station those sorts of things.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, yeah, we have, but you know, the tenor of
that relationship has taken a bit of a turn given
recent geopolitical events. All right, So so now Russia's teaming
up with a new friend, China, and yes, they've signed
an agreement where they're going to be building a nuclear
(08:42):
power plant, a reactor system that can function in the
environment of the Moon, both microgravity and airless environment of
the Moon, and it can be built autonomously, or, according
to Yuri Borisov, the director General of the Russian Space Agency,
called roast Cosmos quote without the presence of humans unquote.
(09:05):
All right, so that's that's Borisov saying, hey, we're we're
gonna build this with drones. We're gonna build this with robots.
So this is a story about robotics as well. It's
a story about robotics, space exploration, geopolitical intrigue. And oh,
by the way, NASA just cut well, NASA just issued
(09:27):
a proposed budget for twenty twenty six where they would
cut plans for a lunar space station that they had
already planned, called Lunar Gateway. So the new NASA budget
no longer has Gateway, which was our planned moon base
in its budget. So this is all happening simultaneously. The China,
(09:50):
Russia Russia complete adventure. Their proposing should be done by
twenty thirty six, a mire eleven years, and by the way,
eleven years can go by really fast. So according to
their memorandum of cooperation, they're going to complete their moon
base with the nuclear power plant by twenty thirty six.
This is a statement from Borisov in ros Cosmos. He
(10:15):
says that the new technology is almost ready quote unquote
almost ready and quote the station will conduct fundamental space
research and test technology for long term uncrewed operations of
the ILRS with the prospect of a human being's presence
on the moon unquote. So they're going to say, well,
(10:37):
it's just going to be a robot station, it's an
autonomous station. Oh but we might put humans up there.
We might begin to take control of the lunar surface.
So there it is. You think that, without getting political,
they might. We just need to keep our awareness up,
(10:57):
my friend, and that is happening.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So I have questions. And again I'm not a nuclear physicist.
I know that you're not a nuclear physicist. So I
just feel like there are questions I have about successes
and failures of actually landing craft successfully on the Moon. Right,
and then if we take something that I don't know
(11:20):
involves plutonium or whatever and decide that they're going to
possibly you know, slam it into the surface of the Moon,
should we be concerned.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I don't know how this works. I don't know anything
about what their magic robots are. I just know that
if they start slamming things, that would be you know,
and I understand they're not building a bomb and sending
it up there. However, some of the key components of
you know, what you would use to build a bomb
(11:51):
would would be there, and enough of it that they
could run a power station. Should we be concerned at all?
Should we maybe request hey could just show us that
you can successfully you know, have a nice, safe, easy
touchdown landing with some frequency. And then also, are these
(12:12):
launching from Kazakhstan or are these things going to be
launching from China where we've seen a few rockets go
astray and land in villages in random places. Probably not
a good thing for anything plutonium based. So I don't know,
are these all fair questions that we could be asking
between now and twenty thirty six.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Well, I know that if the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration were following these same plans for a nuclear power
plant on the Moon, that yes, one percent, they would
be fair questions, and they would definitely be asked and
they would definitely be pursued hotly.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Now, now, you not being a nuclear physicist doesn't mean
that you can't answer because you can't answer this question.
The Moon is important to us here on Earth, and
I'm not talking about for the purposes of you know,
settling on it. I just mean, you know, since the
Earth has been here, it's been important as as part
(13:15):
of the way that we you know, survive. So yeah,
I just think that there's a few things that we
should some questions that we should ask. And I'm not
saying that eventually someone shouldn't have some sort of nuclear
power plant on the Moon. That does seem like eventually
where this will go. I just I just have a
lot of questions about this. It really, you know, caused
(13:35):
an eyebrow to raise, much like the rock. If we're
sticking with our WWE theme, you know, when his eyebrow
would go up anyway, all right, just my question.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I like to talk about the things that I know
and that I'm an expert in, and and I'm not
an expert in moon based nuclear power. They've not really
added any technological specificity to their plans. Yep. You know,
they're just saying, oh, we're we're working on this. Well,
how does it work? Well, I haven't really said where
will it be launched? Well, they haven't really said, you know,
(14:05):
what would happen if it re entered Earth this atmosphere. Well,
they haven't really said. So there's not a lot of
technical specificity at this time. I do just understand the
history of lunar exploration, and the Russian's efforts for lunar
exploration have historically been not successful or not very successful. Right.
(14:27):
They've had a really hard time getting vehicles to them,
particularly to the surface of the Moon, with any kind
of technological repeatability. China, on the other hand, has been
as of late, very successful with lunar technology, lunar rovers
(14:48):
things like that on the surface of the Moon. They're
even performing right now a lunar sample return mission. So
the notion is that even though Russia's specifically lunar technology
is not all that great China is, and from what
I understand from the story, it's really Russia that's going
(15:09):
to build the power plant. So I would guess that
China would launch it and get it there, which, okay,
that's a little bit better for the record on this
track record.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
For the record, if you study a history book, no
issues with any sort of nuclear power ever in the
history of Russia, none whatsoever. There's nothing to be concerned
about in all of their history.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
You know, it's it's out there, right, go check, you know,
and you can go check the Russians record for trying
to land vehicles on the surface of the Moon too.
Go check that. Yeah, yeah, don't take my word for it.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
It was a long time ago. I'm just pointing out
the fact that there's you know, there's maybe something somewhere
in the history book worth looking into. But you know, anyway,
those are just the questions that I have. So and
the Moon is important, and that's that's the other part
is we don't we don't valid questions.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Now, it's not like they're going to actually destroy the
moon throw our tides off, but you know, the indiscriminate
spreading of you know, nuclear fissile material is probably not
a great mode of operation for them or us, by
the way. And so yeah, anyway, there you go.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
All right, let's let's let's talk about a couple of
wins for the old guys. Can we do that? A
couple of positive stories for the old guys. You know,
there's so much of like, hey, this new piece of
technology makes this person obsolete because you know, they're just
a dinosaur, if you will. And this first one isn't
(16:35):
really so much that. It's just the fact that we've
had a sun spot hanging around for a really, really
long time.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah. I mean, you know, if you get a certain
amount of gray hair, you like stories about longevity. That's
right there. I think that's what Wes is getting at.
And according to spaceweather dot com, which is one of
our favorite websites by the way, friends, go visit spaceweather
dot com every single day. They have new stuff up
every day. They're an international sun monitoring website, so they
(17:03):
keep track of activity on the sun. But they have
so much more than that, just lots of great stories
on spaceweather dot com. A quote that I just read
on spaceweather dot com is that one of the sun
spots should probably contact the AARP because they're getting really
old and they might want to join. So the sunspot's
number is forty one hundred, but that's we give we
(17:30):
give active regents on the sun catalog numbers, so it's
catalog number four thy one hundred. But this is actually
the third catalog number for the same sunspot, and that's
because it keeps rotating around out of view and popping
back up again on the other side. Now, it takes
the Sun about one month to rotate all the way around,
(17:54):
and so there's two weeks and then two weeks where
we can't see it, and then another two weeks and
then another two week stor we can't see it. And
now it's starting its third two week period crossing the
face of the Sun. And it is the largest sunspot
group of this year, twenty twenty five. And this year
is a year that we're expecting to experience solar maximum,
(18:15):
the maximum amount of sunspot activity. This is a huge,
gigantic storm that is now making its third pass across
the face of the Sun facing us. How rare is
that that is very rare. It is very rare for
a sunspot group to have existed for a minimum now
(18:37):
of fifty four days. A study back in nineteen fifty
one found that the longest lived sunspots ever at least
since human beings have been watching the Sun and observing sunspots,
were back in the eighteen forties with the sunspot that
lasted one hundred and twenty one days, and back in
(18:57):
the year nineteen nineteen where there was another sunspot that
lasted one hundred and thirty one days. This is already
about halfway or almost halfway to those record longevity sunspots,
and they just don't happen very often, so this one
is particularly notable and we should be watching it now.
(19:19):
Sunspot Group number forty one hundred would have to live
for about another two to three months to catch up
with those record breaking sunspots. But here's the thing. It
might actually do it. And according to space Weather, this
has been a very stable sunspot. They call it remarkably
stable because for a giant sunspot group like this, usually
(19:39):
they're exploding in solar flares on a regular basis. That's
what sunspot groups do. They're twists and contortions in the
Sun's magnetic field, and they pop and flare and produce explosions. Well,
this one hasn't produced a single significant solar flare, so
we haven't had any big flares. And this is the
(20:03):
third trip and it's the largest active region of this
entire year. So this is weird, right, It's a strange
sunspot group. It's making its third pass and could be
a contender for one of the longest lived sunspots of
all time. Check out the story spaceweather dot com.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Coming up after a quick break, we'll talk about another
win for the old guys, or at least one old
guy in particular, right after this. So, when you have
(20:51):
a piece of equipment, a piece of technology that was
launched into very very deep space a really long time ago,
needless to say, there's a there's a life expectancy for it.
There's a certain amount of like this is about how
much science we're going to get out of this thing.
(21:11):
With Voyager one, we continue to get science out of
it and maybe if if only you know, launched in
seventy seven, so that's that's almost as old as me.
So when you look at it this way, this science
that we got here recently with this thing is basically
(21:32):
a lesson in sometimes the equipment and technology and computers
were definitely better built back in the seventies cause they're
able to do things that they did not think were possible,
and it has happened yet again.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
I think one of the lessons here is that sometimes
simple is better and maybe that's maybe that's a lesson.
I mean, it would be a tucked away lesson, you know,
reading between the lines, because the computers aboard the Voyager
one spacecraft, by today's standards, are very rudimentary. It launched
(22:12):
in the year that Star Wars came out. Yes, I
don't mean like the sequels or the prequels or no,
the original motion picture.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Back before it was even called a New Hope yet
it was just called Star Wars.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
And they did have lightsabers, you know, and they could
jump to hyperspace you know, speed whatever, but that was
in their galaxy, far far away, not in hours. So
we had things that are just barely computers that we
you know, by today's standards at least, that we put
on the spacecraft and launched out into space. And that's
what's been controlling the Voyager one spacecraft since that launch
(22:51):
in nineteen ninety or ninety seven. Nineteen seventy seven. Okay,
so just just get a perspective there. I think Leftoverture
came out that year, you know, carry on wayward Sun, right,
that's right, yes, okay, so computers in that era, thrusters
(23:18):
built at that period of time. Technology, material science, are
understanding of chemistry and propulsion systems has changed a lot
since Left Overture. Okay, So these components have been, you know,
working semi successfully because the spacecraft is still going, still
(23:41):
making measurements, still sending data back to Earth, and it
left the Solar System a few years ago. It's an
interstellar space all right. Well, one of its main thrusters
now they call it a backup thruster system, but it
was never really a backup because it was responsible for
(24:03):
orienting the spacecraft into the proper orientation to point its
radio intended back to Earth to send communications. Okay, so
it was called the backup thrusters, but really they had
a main job. They had a central job, even though
the primary thrusters could also do the central job. Well,
these backup thrusters, responsible for helping to orient the spacecraft,
(24:25):
stopped working in two thousand and four. Now, I don't
know where you were in two thousand and four. Friends.
You know, I don't know what favorite songs of yours
came out in the year two thousand and four, but
that was over twenty years ago. It was, yes, so yeah,
we're we're I mean, we're were listening to grunge by then.
(24:48):
I guess, yeah, we were listening to grunge. You know.
It's it's it's a post grunt, not much past put
maybe maybe grunge still going strong and oh four yeah
versions of it. Yeah, that's right. All right. So so
these thruster systems that have been dead, actually defined as
(25:12):
fully defunct by JPL, designated as completely dead. We're just
fired back up again from Earth over a distance of
fifteen billion miles. And why did they even try this,
Well because the primary thrusters of the spacecraft, now, after
(25:34):
all this time and tide and abuse of outer space,
they're starting to you know, they're they're starting to go bad.
That some of the tubes necessary to carry fuel for
the thrusters are starting to clog up, and so the
primary thrusters are starting to die. What makes it worse
is that the Voyager one system communicates with a radio
(25:55):
telescope in Canberra, Australia and the telescope in Canberra. The
antenna in Canberra has to go down for maintenance. It's
gonna go offline for several months. And so right at
a time when Voyager needed to be talking back to
the Earth because it's primary thrusters were failing, they have
to take Canberra offline to get make sure that antenna
(26:17):
can still work. And so so if they were going
to do anything to fix Voyager one's situation shall we
call it in space, they had to do it right
away before the Canberra antenna went offline. So they sent
these commands from the Earth through the Canberra antenna in
Australia to say, hey, Voyager one, you know those systems
(26:41):
that have been offline for twenty one years, go ahead
and fire up the heaters because we're gonna we're gonna
fire up those thruster systems. Now. The heaters are there
to reheat the fuel so that the fuel can be
in a form which can be used by the thruster systems.
And it was the heaters that were alfunctioning, which is
why they decided to shut them down. But one engineer
(27:03):
at JPL said, you know, I really think I really
think the air we were seeing in those thrusters all
those decades ago, I don't really think it was because
the fuel heaters were malfunctioning. I think they're okay, and
they realized, well, if they're not okay and we fire
them back up again, we could explode Voyager one. It'm
(27:25):
I just blow up. This might be the explosion that
actually kills the spacecraft. But they had one engineer that
was saying, no, I think you're gonna be all right.
And so they solved the puzzle, they sent the command,
they held their breath, and guess what happened. Voyager one
(27:47):
did not explode. The heaters worked, the thrusters worked, they're
back online, and according to Todd Barber, the mission's propulsion
lead at JPL, quote, it was such a glorious moment.
Team morale was very high that day. These thrusters were
(28:08):
considered dead, and that was a legitimate conclusion. It's just
that one of our engineers had this insight that maybe
there was this other possible cause and it was fixable.
It was yet another miracle save for Voyager unquote. So
(28:30):
there you go. From Todd Barber, the propulsion lead at
JPL for the Voyager mission miracle. The word miracle, friends,
now listen, I want to just say that quickly. Engineers
don't use that word much because they're engineers, don't. They
don't do miraculous. They do engineering things, right, They.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Fixed stuff, They solve problems, that's right.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
They they know how things work.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Please tell me the engineer who said it's not going
to blow up, just fire It was like one of
the seventy year old guys that worked on it way
back in the day. Because that's what that's my dream
is that it would be that guy and he's sitting
over in the corner and they're like, oh, what does
he know, and he's like, launch that, than firing up,
do it? And then it worked and then they were like, Okay,
well maybe he knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
So so the story on space dot com it is
an excellent story, but it didn't exactly have that detail.
But I just envisioned the guy you know from Armageddon, right,
it was this is how we fixed eggs, oh the
Russian space station. He's just like beating things, you know.
It's one of those guys like American parts Russian parts. Anyway,
(29:38):
So so Yeah, that guy was probably the guy that
said fire up the engine. It'll work. It's not the
heaters anyway, anyway, something like that. All right, just a.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Couple of loose ends here. First of all, maybe one
of the more significant pop culture song moments in two
thousand and four was Ashley Simpson getting caught lip syncing
pieces of me on Saturday Night Live. Uh if you
remember that, so that'll date approximately when these were last used.
(30:08):
And then another thing, And I just wanted to point
this out because I'm in that weird hybrid world where
both of these things exist for me, and while here
in America we say things like Melbourne and we say
things like Canberra for our Australian contingency listening. Uh, just
want to make sure they know we're referring to what
(30:29):
they would call Canberra. It's a little it's a little
bit different in the in Melbourne. So it's between Melbourne
and Sydney. It's Canberra, it's the capital. So anyway, just
wanted to it's no knock on what you said, because
that's the way we say it, much the way that
we'll say, you know, we'll call them Aussie's and it's
a U s s I E s. But that's clearly
(30:51):
pronounced Aussie's. I don't know what. Americans have a hard
time with that on, especially in sports. Uh, So there
you go. I'm just gonna and I'm going to be
down there soon, right, so I gotta make sure I
got it straight for them, so I don't get a
whole lot of grief from them about that.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
So good on you mate.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
There you go, there you get and and there's there
and they don't say shrimp on the barbie. They say
prawns on the barbie. But that's also that's another conversation
for another time coming up. After one more quick break,
we're gonna finally get to it. We're gonna talk about
the latest successes and failures of Starship. Okay, so we've
(31:44):
had a another launch of SpaceX Starship. Uh and I
forgot we just had the story recently where they've up
the number.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
They're allowed to do it a year.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
So is this the first one in the new count
I don't know where we're at on all this anyway. Uh,
they've had a launch and it's basically pretty universally being
reported as well. It's another big failure for the Starship.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
But in reality.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
As we've discussed before many times, this is the way
SpaceX does business. This is their method for figuring things out.
They will have things that look like failures to some
and meanwhile they're taking away a lot of information that
will help them on the next launch. So we did
(32:33):
our digging, and you can't really find a lot of
the success stories and a lot of the big media
outlets for some reason, they're focused on that political stuff
we talked about at the beginning of the show, which
we're not necessarily going to get into, but I think
that's probably the reasoning behind not wanting to give credit
for some of the successes. But so let's talk about
(32:54):
this latest launch for Starship.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, so this would be the third launch of twenty
twenty five. It was flight seven back in January, flight
eight back in March, and this is flight nine for SpaceX.
Starship happened on Tuesday, May twenty seventh, twenty twenty five,
from their test site at Star Based, Texas, which we
(33:21):
stay Bocachica. Now it's just Star Based, it's its own town.
So that's I guess that's something new. Happened at seven
thirty six pm Eastern time. Okay, So friends. Before we
jump in, let's just remind ourselves this is the largest
rocket in human history, and it's being engineered in a
(33:44):
different kind of process. The process is called agile development.
That's the method that SpaceX uses for all of their
space development, which is a little bit, as we've described
on previous shows, a little bit like what are you
still doing at the whiteboard? Why don't we go outside
(34:05):
and just fly the thing? See if it blows up.
If it does, let's fix what blew up and go
again as fast as possible. Agile development, Okay, the way
SpaceX does things. Okay, so yeah, it's the ninth flight
of this rocket system, not of the specific rocket, but
the rocket system. They have several more of them, kind
(34:28):
of like the Borg from the Star Trek next generation.
They just have several more Borg in the warehouse ready
to go. You know, they're going to roll them out
and stack them and launch them. They just have more ready. Now.
They may be making modifications to those based on what
happened with this flight, but okay, let's just know that
it's not like, oh darned, we blew up our only
(34:49):
starship rocket. Now, what are we going to do? No,
they have many other systems ready to go. Okay, because
why that's the way they do things. Okay, now, like
just paving the road, wes, just paving the driveway. Oh,
you're making sure we can back out of the garage. Okay, yep,
so here we go. The successes of this mission were
(35:12):
as follows. This is the first time they reused the
super heavy booster, which means they already successfully brought back
one of the super heavy boosters on a previous flight.
And not only did they bring it back, they caught
it out of mid air with a giant set of chopsticks,
never done before in the history of humanity. Okay, so
(35:37):
the super heavy booster number B fourteen was reused for
this flight successfully.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Just for a perspective on this, the rest of human society,
mister Miagi with the chopsticks at the table, failing SpaceX,
Danny LaRusso with the chopsticks catching a fly in the
first like eight seconds, just for perspective.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
And yes, moreover, this is a Moon class rocket, and
every other main stage booster for every other Moon class
rocket is sitting at the bottom of the ocean because
they were not reusable. So let's just let that all
sink in. This was a reused booster second time, flown
(36:30):
already as success because they got it back last time
and were able to reuse it. Okay, there's one. Here
comes another success. Sorry, but there are some and yeah,
we're gonna talk about the failures too. We're gonna talk
about what went wrong because we need to to be fair.
But they did this thing called a directional flip. Okay,
(36:50):
what does that mean. Well, it means that as the
second stage, which is known as ship, it's the vehicle
part where payloads or humans might actually righte someday as
the ship separates from the main stage booster. In the
past flights, they've just let physics take its effect and
that booster kind of flips around and goes to a
(37:12):
semi horizontal position as it begins to fall back to
Earth in any old which direction it chose. But this
time they actually wanted to see if they can control it.
So when venting the fuel of the hot stage separation
of the starship ship from the main stage booster, they
(37:35):
wanted to control the direction of flip of this skyscraper
sized first stage booster check the box. Friends. They did
that successfully also, so they had a first ever directional
flip where the thing flipped in the direction that they
chose for it to do, not just randomly selected by
(37:59):
physical forces. Okay, there's two successes. Number three, the starship
itself actually reached space. This vehicle, now this is not
the main stage booster, it's not the big rocket engines.
It's the vehicle riding on top now designated Ship thirty five,
successfully reached its planned velocity. It didn't reach orbit because
(38:24):
it wasn't designed to orbit. It's a suborbital flight. But
it did reach the altitude and speed necessary for space.
This is a new version of the ship. It's called
the Version two so or Block two. So this is
the Block two design. But this Block V two ship
reached space for the first time for that particular series. Okay,
(38:47):
so there is another success all right, Now, what else happened?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Now, just to be clear, if Katie Perry was on board,
she'd be an astronaut. That's what we're saying.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
I've said that all along. Go back can review previous episodes.
You know, I'm on Katie's side on this whole.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
I'm just making sure we know how high the thing got.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
That's all. Yeah, so important, Maybe commercial. Maybe we need
the one word in their commercial astronaut, but astronaut none
the lest Yeah, okay, that's just me whatever. All right,
So here's what else SpaceX was able to do. They
got all kinds of data, because that's how you do
agile development. You get a bunch of data and then
(39:27):
you go fix all the stuff. So they got data
on a reused booster and heat shield. Okay, so it
had already flown and now it's flowing again a second
time for the first time in humanity, and they were
able to get data on it. All right. Here's the
last thing, engine reignition that super heavy booster after it
(39:50):
fired all of its engines and got to a high
enough altitude that starship could shove off from the booster
and head to an even higher altitude all the way
to SPA. All of that worked successfully the big now
first stage of the boosters falling back into the atmosphere.
SpaceX was able to successfully reignite all thirty three of
(40:12):
those wrapped or engines during what they called the boost
back burn, marking a significant step toward reasonability reusable rocket friends,
changing history. Now, did it blow up shortly after that? Yes,
(40:32):
it did? Speaking of which, what were some of the failures,
So let's just get right to the failure showing. Yeah, well,
one of the failures was they were hoping to have
a booster splash down. Now, they were never bringing this
thing back to the launch pad. That was never the plan.
They were going to lose this vehicle in the ocean.
This is the booster, right, They were going to lose
(40:54):
the main stage booster in the ocean. It was never
scheduled to come back and be recaptured and use again
from Texas. No, no, no. So what didn't happen though,
was a nice splash down in a controlled manner. What
instead happened was what SpaceX has termed a rapid unscheduled
disassembly or a RUD. So. Yeah, during its descent, they
(41:17):
were making various adjustments to the engine, trying to they
were going to bring it in a sharper angle of
attack than ever before, I should say, a flatter angle,
giving the stress on the vehicle, more stress than ever
before because they were trying to slow it down through
the atmosphere. But anyway, they think there were gases possibly
that were leaking in the rocket chamber when the engines refired,
(41:42):
rapid unscheduled disassembly occurred. It blew up, all right, that's
one failure. Number two failure. They also lost Starship. They
lost the vehicle too. Now now again it was never
going to come back, It was never going to be reused.
This still in the test phase, but they were hoping
(42:03):
to get a few more things done with it before
they lost control of the vehicle. And unfortunately for Starship
or some kind of propellant link and subsequent loss of
attitude control led to the Starship itself experiencing a rapid
unscheduled dissembly, so a pair of ruds for both halves
(42:24):
of this giant vehicle that certainly wasn't planned. That led
to also a failed set of suborbital objectives Starship. The
vehicle wasn't able to achieve most of its in space
objectives due to this loss of control. Also, they had
put some satellites on board. They had some Starlink satellites
that they were going to deploy and that was not
(42:46):
able to happen either, So they lost the Starlink satellites.
They were basically in their just as test payloads and
if they got into space that'd be nice, but anyway. So, yes,
some failures, but it is not fair to talk about
these failures without talking about the fantastic successes of this program. Friends.
And if we are the only media outlet out there
(43:08):
leading with the successes, so be it. I'm okay. And
if I never talk to you know, European news agencies
because they just don't want to interview me because I
go with the SpaceX successes first, so be it. Friends,
I'm okay with that too.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Sometimes that's just the cost of doing business, my friend.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I'm gonna sleep well tonight, I think. So.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
I just want to be honest, just being honest and
reporting it for what it is and understanding this concept
of agile development that you know, if they just understood,
this is how they do business.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
This is what they do uh.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
And it's just the way that they're going to continue
to do things, uh, at least for the foreseeable future.
And I can't imagine that they'll ever stop doing things
that way.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
All Right, I neither hate nor love Elon Musk. Can
I just say that except in the way that I
of all humanity as described by my faith. So there
you go. It's not an Elon Musk. Thank I'm not
an Elon Musk fan boy. I wish you would shut
up sometimes. But this company SpaceX, and let's not forget
Chief operating Officer Gwinn shotwell, this company SpaceX, with a
(44:17):
lot of other really talented engineers and rocket professionals, they
are accomplishing amazing things like or love or hate or
whatever you feel about Elon Musk.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
There you go, more made of stars right after this.
(44:51):
All right, So let's talk about a cool opportunity here
in the Chattahoochee Valley area. We know we have listeners
around the world. Thank you for that, God bless you
for that. I mean all around the world. I was
just going through some of the I mean most countries.
I know we have listeners in every state and we
have listeners in many countries. So we appreciate all of
(45:14):
you for that. But we have to talk about this
cool thing that's happening here in our hometown at the
bo Bartlett Center. And I'll just tee you up on that.
And let's for folks in the Chattahoochee Valley area or
who are a reasonable short trip away, some cool stuff
that you'll get an opportunity to see here for a while, yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
I work at an organization that the first name that
you're going to hear is a famous soft drink. Yeah,
but I don't work for the soft drink company. Okay,
So I work for an organization called Columbus State University.
We are the Coca Cola Space Science Center because the
the folks at the Coke Foundation gave us a very
(45:54):
generous donation to help get our building established. Okay, so
we are part of Columbus State University. The bo Bartlett
Art Gallery is also part of Columbus State University, and
physically they're located about three blocks down the street from
US Front Avenue, Columbus, Georgia. My good friend Mike mcfall's,
the director of the Bo Bartlett Art Gallery, has allowed
(46:18):
us to put up an exhibit in his art gallery
space of some really amazing artifacts and memorabilia from the
collection of the first human being to ever drive a
car on the service of the Moon. General David R. Scott,
commander of Apollo fifteen, a astronaut not a spaceflight participant,
(46:43):
an astronaut aboard Apollo nine, and also Gemini eight. All
three of those missions were historic for a variety of reasons.
Dave Scott got to be part of the first ever
docking of two spacecraft the board Gemini eight. He got
to be part of a very important dress rehearsal with
(47:03):
many firsts in Apollo nine, just three months before Buzz
and Neil walked on the surface of the Moon and
Mike Collins orbited up there. And then he got to
be the first human being to ever drive a car
on the surface of the Earth or on the serface
of the Earth, on the surface of the Moon, on
the surface of another planet besides Earth, as commander of
(47:24):
Apollo fifteen. James Irwin and Al Warden both on that mission.
By the way, Gemini eight, Neil Armstrong, this guy named
Neil Armstrong flew with Dave Scott all right. Dave's brother
Tom actually lived in our city for a number of years.
We got to be very good friends with Tom Scott,
and Tom has arranged the donation to our facility of
a number of artifacts and memorabilia from the collection of
(47:48):
David Scott. And now we have actual pieces from this
very famous astronauts collection, so many of them in fact,
that we can't hang them up in our own exhibit
gallery at the Cooke call a space Science Center. That's
why we are giving folks a rare opportunity to see
the majority of this collection on display together at the
(48:09):
bo Bartlett Art Gallery just down the street from the
Space Science Center all summer long, June third through August second,
and it is for free. Friends, you can go there
and visit for free. Not only that, when you go there,
we're going to have a little astronaut on display, and
if you take a selfie with the astronaut and come
(48:31):
show that selfie at our front desk at the Space
Science Center, you're going to get a discounted admission to
our facility. So you can do a double visit Space
day where you go over to the Bow Bartlett Gallery
and see this amazing collection from David Scott from Apollo fifteen,
and then walk down the street come to the Space
Science Center and enjoy all of the things that we
(48:52):
have to offer, including the rest of that artifact collection
from David Scott, our Omosphere Theater, planetarium, our Ride to Space,
a boarder, Space Shuttle Otyssey, and many artifacts that have
actually been in space as part of NASA's Space Shuttle
program right here on display at Columbus cit University's Coca
Cola Space Science Center. Want more information, of course you
(49:13):
do visit the website of the Space Science Center www
dot cc SSC dot org, Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org,
or follow us on Facebook and you'll get live updates
as we go through this summer exhibiting really cool artifacts
from the David Scott collection.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
all of your garage door needs covered. Residential and commercial
service and repairs. If you need a new garage door,
or you're just looking to upgrade or repair your current door,
(49:56):
Overhead Door Company of Columbus has you covered. Plus they've
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Warning.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
that's your own risk.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Go ahead. When made of stars, made them stars, made sizes.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
When made of stars, you could be from high they
would New Mexicomas.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
We're all stars when we are made of stars.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
Cruiser from Columbus State Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Hey Sean, good morning, Wes. Good to be here. All right,
we have.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Some significant stories. One of them has been a bit
of a headline story for a couple of days. We'll
get to that one a little bit later on in
the show, but it relates to the SpaceX starship latest launch.
In spite of what you've heard in most of the
news outlets, it wasn't a complete failure. In fact, there
(01:33):
were some successes and it's part of the way that
SpaceX does business. But we'll get to all that coming
up a little bit later in the show. I want
to start on the Moon, and I want to start
with the We've talked about this quite a bit, this
new space race that we're in, and this new interest
(01:58):
in the Moon. I think there's always been an interest
in the Moon to some degree by everybody, but the
fact that China has a growing interest in the Moon
it's part of what maybe we've talked back in the
radio days especially, we talked a lot about the fact
that sometimes you need a little competition to nudge things forward.
(02:20):
It's almost like, you know, how good is your sports
team really if there's no one to compete against, you
don't really know until they're tested in some way, And
I think part of a space race does sort of
motivate people most of the time, at least maybe for us.
I don't know that that's what's happening with China, other
than they have a very clear focus on the Moon
(02:43):
and they understand that we're going to need some sort
of power once we get to the Moon. So as
they're getting ready to start their work on their International
Lunar Research Station that will be jointly led by China
and Russia, teaming up, here we go WWE style. Wait
(03:06):
a minute, these two are working together. Oh my goodness,
we used to work together with it. So now this
is a pretty big step for those two countries. And
I don't know, is this one of the nudgets that
we need to get moving a little bit more when
it comes to the moon. So let's talk about the
(03:27):
agreement that they have.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Now, Yeah, okay, Well, and let me explain how I
would like to back into this conversation, which is I
love our show Made of Stars because we talk about space,
and we do it in a fun way. At least
Wes and I are having fun. If you'd like to
join us and having fun out there, you know, go
(03:48):
ahead and join in. But we're gonna make the jokes
that we think are funny, yeah, and just have a
good time, so hopefully you think it's a good time too.
So by the nature of that, one of the things
we do do is we don't really talk about politics
because you get enough of that everywhere else, and so
(04:08):
very few people are having fun, right, So that's not
the purpose of this podcast. You get enough of that
somewhere else. We're just having a good time talking about space. Okay. However,
it's really impossible to think about the human exploration of
space without without at least bumping up against politics once
(04:31):
in a while. All right, So we're gonna bump up
against politics this morning. That's what we're gonna do. The
next thing I will say is, I think if you
went out there and asked a certain number of a
statistically significant number of American citizens, what other two countries
in the world might be our most significant and unfriendly
(04:55):
unfriendly competitors. I mean, I think I think China and
Russia would come in at very near the top of
that list, if not number one and number two, they
would be right up there in the top five as
a fair assessment. Yes, I mean those guys from Luxembourg,
you know they're they're kind of trouble, but you know
(05:17):
we haven't heard much from them lately.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, at risk of at risk of stepping into some
of that stuff that you were definitely dodging a moment ago.
Perhaps some people would even say sometimes we're our own
toughest competitor because of self inflicted wounds. But that's another
story for another time and not on this show. So
just start I love that out there, all right.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So, so there we we've rubbed up against it, right, West.
There we go, and that's going to be relevant against politics.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
That's going to be relevant mainly in the last story
of the day. Right, we'll get to that later on,
but anyway, go right ahead.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I want to I want to get back to China
since though that our country actually has competitor nations. Yes,
then it becomes significant now you know, so we and
it's a political issue. You know, it's like, well, should
we be competing? I don't know, Yes, we should. Friends.
That's my humble opinion. There it is. It's not a
(06:12):
news item. It's opinion, my opinion. We the United States
of America should not abdicate our leadership role in space exploration,
both robotic and human. We should be at the forefront
for many reasons, military, political, but just economic. Right, So,
(06:35):
so all of those reasons, America should not abdicate its
leadership in space. There it is my opinion. Okay, Now
here's what's happening. Russia and China are teaming up, as
Wes said earlier, like a couple of WWE wrestlers. They're
doing a team up to beat us to the moon.
And they can't beat us to the moon. We already
(06:57):
won the space race. No, we got their first first,
but now they're working on permanent settlement. Well wait a minute,
don't we have the Artemis program here in the United
States of America with NASA. Yes, we're going to send
people back to the Moon, but we can't even decide
which rocket they're going to write on long term. And
that relates to the last story in today's podcast as well.
(07:20):
All right, So what's happening with China and Russia is
that not only are they working on the actual systems
to take people to the Moon, but they are actually
working on infrastructure for the Moon. And this story from
space dot Com is talking about how they're working together
to build a nuclear power plant on the Moon to
(07:44):
provide electricity for the joint Chinese Russian space laboratory called
the International Lunar Research Station or the ILRS. Now, look,
two countries working together to do research and science in space.
I have no problems with this in principle.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
We've done it for a very long time with Russia, right, Yeah,
and other countries involved as well, so.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
In Japan and Canada and a lot of European Space Agency.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yes, it gives each other rides to and from the
International Space Station those sorts of things.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, yeah, we have, but you know, the tenor of
that relationship has taken a bit of a turn given
recent geopolitical events. All right, So so now Russia's teaming
up with a new friend, China, and yes, they've signed
an agreement where they're going to be building a nuclear
(08:42):
power plant, a reactor system that can function in the
environment of the Moon, both microgravity and airless environment of
the Moon, and it can be built autonomously, or, according
to Yuri Borisov, the director General of the Russian Space Agency,
called roast Cosmos quote without the presence of humans unquote.
(09:05):
All right, so that's that's Borisov saying, hey, we're we're
gonna build this with drones. We're gonna build this with robots.
So this is a story about robotics as well. It's
a story about robotics, space exploration, geopolitical intrigue. And oh,
by the way, NASA just cut well, NASA just issued
(09:27):
a proposed budget for twenty twenty six where they would
cut plans for a lunar space station that they had
already planned, called Lunar Gateway. So the new NASA budget
no longer has Gateway, which was our planned moon base
in its budget. So this is all happening simultaneously. The China,
(09:50):
Russia Russia complete adventure. Their proposing should be done by
twenty thirty six, a mire eleven years, and by the way,
eleven years can go by really fast. So according to
their memorandum of cooperation, they're going to complete their moon
base with the nuclear power plant by twenty thirty six.
This is a statement from Borisov in ros Cosmos. He
(10:15):
says that the new technology is almost ready quote unquote
almost ready and quote the station will conduct fundamental space
research and test technology for long term uncrewed operations of
the ILRS with the prospect of a human being's presence
on the moon unquote. So they're going to say, well,
(10:37):
it's just going to be a robot station, it's an
autonomous station. Oh but we might put humans up there.
We might begin to take control of the lunar surface.
So there it is. You think that, without getting political,
they might. We just need to keep our awareness up,
(10:57):
my friend, and that is happening.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So I have questions. And again I'm not a nuclear physicist.
I know that you're not a nuclear physicist. So I
just feel like there are questions I have about successes
and failures of actually landing craft successfully on the Moon. Right,
and then if we take something that I don't know
(11:20):
involves plutonium or whatever and decide that they're going to
possibly you know, slam it into the surface of the Moon,
should we be concerned.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I don't know how this works. I don't know anything
about what their magic robots are. I just know that
if they start slamming things, that would be you know,
and I understand they're not building a bomb and sending
it up there. However, some of the key components of
you know, what you would use to build a bomb
(11:51):
would would be there, and enough of it that they
could run a power station. Should we be concerned at all?
Should we maybe request hey could just show us that
you can successfully you know, have a nice, safe, easy
touchdown landing with some frequency. And then also, are these
(12:12):
launching from Kazakhstan or are these things going to be
launching from China where we've seen a few rockets go
astray and land in villages in random places. Probably not
a good thing for anything plutonium based. So I don't know,
are these all fair questions that we could be asking
between now and twenty thirty six.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Well, I know that if the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration were following these same plans for a nuclear power
plant on the Moon, that yes, one percent, they would
be fair questions, and they would definitely be asked and
they would definitely be pursued hotly.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Now, now, you not being a nuclear physicist doesn't mean
that you can't answer because you can't answer this question.
The Moon is important to us here on Earth, and
I'm not talking about for the purposes of you know,
settling on it. I just mean, you know, since the
Earth has been here, it's been important as as part
(13:15):
of the way that we you know, survive. So yeah,
I just think that there's a few things that we
should some questions that we should ask. And I'm not
saying that eventually someone shouldn't have some sort of nuclear
power plant on the Moon. That does seem like eventually
where this will go. I just I just have a
lot of questions about this. It really, you know, caused
(13:35):
an eyebrow to raise, much like the rock. If we're
sticking with our WWE theme, you know, when his eyebrow
would go up anyway, all right, just my question.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I like to talk about the things that I know
and that I'm an expert in, and and I'm not
an expert in moon based nuclear power. They've not really
added any technological specificity to their plans. Yep. You know,
they're just saying, oh, we're we're working on this. Well,
how does it work? Well, I haven't really said where
will it be launched? Well, they haven't really said, you know,
(14:05):
what would happen if it re entered Earth this atmosphere. Well,
they haven't really said. So there's not a lot of
technical specificity at this time. I do just understand the
history of lunar exploration, and the Russian's efforts for lunar
exploration have historically been not successful or not very successful. Right.
(14:27):
They've had a really hard time getting vehicles to them,
particularly to the surface of the Moon, with any kind
of technological repeatability. China, on the other hand, has been
as of late, very successful with lunar technology, lunar rovers
(14:48):
things like that on the surface of the Moon. They're
even performing right now a lunar sample return mission. So
the notion is that even though Russia's specifically lunar technology
is not all that great China is, and from what
I understand from the story, it's really Russia that's going
(15:09):
to build the power plant. So I would guess that
China would launch it and get it there, which, okay,
that's a little bit better for the record on this
track record.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
For the record, if you study a history book, no
issues with any sort of nuclear power ever in the
history of Russia, none whatsoever. There's nothing to be concerned
about in all of their history.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
You know, it's it's out there, right, go check, you know,
and you can go check the Russians record for trying
to land vehicles on the surface of the Moon too.
Go check that. Yeah, yeah, don't take my word for it.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
It was a long time ago. I'm just pointing out
the fact that there's you know, there's maybe something somewhere
in the history book worth looking into. But you know, anyway,
those are just the questions that I have. So and
the Moon is important, and that's that's the other part
is we don't we don't valid questions.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Now, it's not like they're going to actually destroy the
moon throw our tides off, but you know, the indiscriminate
spreading of you know, nuclear fissile material is probably not
a great mode of operation for them or us, by
the way. And so yeah, anyway, there you go.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
All right, let's let's let's talk about a couple of
wins for the old guys. Can we do that? A
couple of positive stories for the old guys. You know,
there's so much of like, hey, this new piece of
technology makes this person obsolete because you know, they're just
a dinosaur, if you will. And this first one isn't
(16:35):
really so much that. It's just the fact that we've
had a sun spot hanging around for a really, really
long time.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah. I mean, you know, if you get a certain
amount of gray hair, you like stories about longevity. That's
right there. I think that's what Wes is getting at.
And according to spaceweather dot com, which is one of
our favorite websites by the way, friends, go visit spaceweather
dot com every single day. They have new stuff up
every day. They're an international sun monitoring website, so they
(17:03):
keep track of activity on the sun. But they have
so much more than that, just lots of great stories
on spaceweather dot com. A quote that I just read
on spaceweather dot com is that one of the sun
spots should probably contact the AARP because they're getting really
old and they might want to join. So the sunspot's
number is forty one hundred, but that's we give we
(17:30):
give active regents on the sun catalog numbers, so it's
catalog number four thy one hundred. But this is actually
the third catalog number for the same sunspot, and that's
because it keeps rotating around out of view and popping
back up again on the other side. Now, it takes
the Sun about one month to rotate all the way around,
(17:54):
and so there's two weeks and then two weeks where
we can't see it, and then another two weeks and
then another two week stor we can't see it. And
now it's starting its third two week period crossing the
face of the Sun. And it is the largest sunspot
group of this year, twenty twenty five. And this year
is a year that we're expecting to experience solar maximum,
(18:15):
the maximum amount of sunspot activity. This is a huge,
gigantic storm that is now making its third pass across
the face of the Sun facing us. How rare is
that that is very rare. It is very rare for
a sunspot group to have existed for a minimum now
(18:37):
of fifty four days. A study back in nineteen fifty
one found that the longest lived sunspots ever at least
since human beings have been watching the Sun and observing sunspots,
were back in the eighteen forties with the sunspot that
lasted one hundred and twenty one days, and back in
(18:57):
the year nineteen nineteen where there was another sunspot that
lasted one hundred and thirty one days. This is already
about halfway or almost halfway to those record longevity sunspots,
and they just don't happen very often, so this one
is particularly notable and we should be watching it now.
(19:19):
Sunspot Group number forty one hundred would have to live
for about another two to three months to catch up
with those record breaking sunspots. But here's the thing. It
might actually do it. And according to space Weather, this
has been a very stable sunspot. They call it remarkably
stable because for a giant sunspot group like this, usually
(19:39):
they're exploding in solar flares on a regular basis. That's
what sunspot groups do. They're twists and contortions in the
Sun's magnetic field, and they pop and flare and produce explosions. Well,
this one hasn't produced a single significant solar flare, so
we haven't had any big flares. And this is the
(20:03):
third trip and it's the largest active region of this
entire year. So this is weird, right, It's a strange
sunspot group. It's making its third pass and could be
a contender for one of the longest lived sunspots of
all time. Check out the story spaceweather dot com.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Coming up after a quick break, we'll talk about another
win for the old guys, or at least one old
guy in particular, right after this. So, when you have
(20:51):
a piece of equipment, a piece of technology that was
launched into very very deep space a really long time ago,
needless to say, there's a there's a life expectancy for it.
There's a certain amount of like this is about how
much science we're going to get out of this thing.
(21:11):
With Voyager one, we continue to get science out of
it and maybe if if only you know, launched in
seventy seven, so that's that's almost as old as me.
So when you look at it this way, this science
that we got here recently with this thing is basically
(21:32):
a lesson in sometimes the equipment and technology and computers
were definitely better built back in the seventies cause they're
able to do things that they did not think were possible,
and it has happened yet again.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
I think one of the lessons here is that sometimes
simple is better and maybe that's maybe that's a lesson.
I mean, it would be a tucked away lesson, you know,
reading between the lines, because the computers aboard the Voyager
one spacecraft, by today's standards, are very rudimentary. It launched
(22:12):
in the year that Star Wars came out. Yes, I
don't mean like the sequels or the prequels or no,
the original motion picture.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Back before it was even called a New Hope yet
it was just called Star Wars.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
And they did have lightsabers, you know, and they could
jump to hyperspace you know, speed whatever, but that was
in their galaxy, far far away, not in hours. So
we had things that are just barely computers that we
you know, by today's standards at least, that we put
on the spacecraft and launched out into space. And that's
what's been controlling the Voyager one spacecraft since that launch
(22:51):
in nineteen ninety or ninety seven. Nineteen seventy seven. Okay,
so just just get a perspective there. I think Leftoverture
came out that year, you know, carry on wayward Sun, right,
that's right, yes, okay, so computers in that era, thrusters
(23:18):
built at that period of time. Technology, material science, are
understanding of chemistry and propulsion systems has changed a lot
since Left Overture. Okay, So these components have been, you know,
working semi successfully because the spacecraft is still going, still
(23:41):
making measurements, still sending data back to Earth, and it
left the Solar System a few years ago. It's an
interstellar space all right. Well, one of its main thrusters
now they call it a backup thruster system, but it
was never really a backup because it was responsible for
(24:03):
orienting the spacecraft into the proper orientation to point its
radio intended back to Earth to send communications. Okay, so
it was called the backup thrusters, but really they had
a main job. They had a central job, even though
the primary thrusters could also do the central job. Well,
these backup thrusters, responsible for helping to orient the spacecraft,
(24:25):
stopped working in two thousand and four. Now, I don't
know where you were in two thousand and four. Friends.
You know, I don't know what favorite songs of yours
came out in the year two thousand and four, but
that was over twenty years ago. It was, yes, so yeah,
we're we're I mean, we're were listening to grunge by then.
(24:48):
I guess, yeah, we were listening to grunge. You know.
It's it's it's a post grunt, not much past put
maybe maybe grunge still going strong and oh four yeah
versions of it. Yeah, that's right. All right. So so
these thruster systems that have been dead, actually defined as
(25:12):
fully defunct by JPL, designated as completely dead. We're just
fired back up again from Earth over a distance of
fifteen billion miles. And why did they even try this,
Well because the primary thrusters of the spacecraft, now, after
(25:34):
all this time and tide and abuse of outer space,
they're starting to you know, they're they're starting to go bad.
That some of the tubes necessary to carry fuel for
the thrusters are starting to clog up, and so the
primary thrusters are starting to die. What makes it worse
is that the Voyager one system communicates with a radio
(25:55):
telescope in Canberra, Australia and the telescope in Canberra. The
antenna in Canberra has to go down for maintenance. It's
gonna go offline for several months. And so right at
a time when Voyager needed to be talking back to
the Earth because it's primary thrusters were failing, they have
to take Canberra offline to get make sure that antenna
(26:17):
can still work. And so so if they were going
to do anything to fix Voyager one's situation shall we
call it in space, they had to do it right
away before the Canberra antenna went offline. So they sent
these commands from the Earth through the Canberra antenna in
Australia to say, hey, Voyager one, you know those systems
(26:41):
that have been offline for twenty one years, go ahead
and fire up the heaters because we're gonna we're gonna
fire up those thruster systems. Now. The heaters are there
to reheat the fuel so that the fuel can be
in a form which can be used by the thruster systems.
And it was the heaters that were alfunctioning, which is
why they decided to shut them down. But one engineer
(27:03):
at JPL said, you know, I really think I really
think the air we were seeing in those thrusters all
those decades ago, I don't really think it was because
the fuel heaters were malfunctioning. I think they're okay, and
they realized, well, if they're not okay and we fire
them back up again, we could explode Voyager one. It'm
(27:25):
I just blow up. This might be the explosion that
actually kills the spacecraft. But they had one engineer that
was saying, no, I think you're gonna be all right.
And so they solved the puzzle, they sent the command,
they held their breath, and guess what happened. Voyager one
(27:47):
did not explode. The heaters worked, the thrusters worked, they're
back online, and according to Todd Barber, the mission's propulsion
lead at JPL, quote, it was such a glorious moment.
Team morale was very high that day. These thrusters were
(28:08):
considered dead, and that was a legitimate conclusion. It's just
that one of our engineers had this insight that maybe
there was this other possible cause and it was fixable.
It was yet another miracle save for Voyager unquote. So
(28:30):
there you go. From Todd Barber, the propulsion lead at
JPL for the Voyager mission miracle. The word miracle, friends,
now listen, I want to just say that quickly. Engineers
don't use that word much because they're engineers, don't. They
don't do miraculous. They do engineering things, right, They.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Fixed stuff, They solve problems, that's right.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
They they know how things work.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Please tell me the engineer who said it's not going
to blow up, just fire It was like one of
the seventy year old guys that worked on it way
back in the day. Because that's what that's my dream
is that it would be that guy and he's sitting
over in the corner and they're like, oh, what does
he know, and he's like, launch that, than firing up,
do it? And then it worked and then they were like, Okay,
well maybe he knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
So so the story on space dot com it is
an excellent story, but it didn't exactly have that detail.
But I just envisioned the guy you know from Armageddon, right,
it was this is how we fixed eggs, oh the
Russian space station. He's just like beating things, you know.
It's one of those guys like American parts Russian parts. Anyway,
(29:38):
So so Yeah, that guy was probably the guy that
said fire up the engine. It'll work. It's not the
heaters anyway, anyway, something like that. All right, just a.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Couple of loose ends here. First of all, maybe one
of the more significant pop culture song moments in two
thousand and four was Ashley Simpson getting caught lip syncing
pieces of me on Saturday Night Live. Uh if you
remember that, so that'll date approximately when these were last used.
(30:08):
And then another thing, And I just wanted to point
this out because I'm in that weird hybrid world where
both of these things exist for me, and while here
in America we say things like Melbourne and we say
things like Canberra for our Australian contingency listening. Uh, just
want to make sure they know we're referring to what
(30:29):
they would call Canberra. It's a little it's a little
bit different in the in Melbourne. So it's between Melbourne
and Sydney. It's Canberra, it's the capital. So anyway, just
wanted to it's no knock on what you said, because
that's the way we say it, much the way that
we'll say, you know, we'll call them Aussie's and it's
a U s s I E s. But that's clearly
(30:51):
pronounced Aussie's. I don't know what. Americans have a hard
time with that on, especially in sports. Uh, So there
you go. I'm just gonna and I'm going to be
down there soon, right, so I gotta make sure I
got it straight for them, so I don't get a
whole lot of grief from them about that.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
So good on you mate.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
There you go, there you get and and there's there
and they don't say shrimp on the barbie. They say
prawns on the barbie. But that's also that's another conversation
for another time coming up. After one more quick break,
we're gonna finally get to it. We're gonna talk about
the latest successes and failures of Starship. Okay, so we've
(31:44):
had a another launch of SpaceX Starship. Uh and I
forgot we just had the story recently where they've up
the number.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
They're allowed to do it a year.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
So is this the first one in the new count
I don't know where we're at on all this anyway. Uh,
they've had a launch and it's basically pretty universally being
reported as well. It's another big failure for the Starship.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
But in reality.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
As we've discussed before many times, this is the way
SpaceX does business. This is their method for figuring things out.
They will have things that look like failures to some
and meanwhile they're taking away a lot of information that
will help them on the next launch. So we did
(32:33):
our digging, and you can't really find a lot of
the success stories and a lot of the big media
outlets for some reason, they're focused on that political stuff
we talked about at the beginning of the show, which
we're not necessarily going to get into, but I think
that's probably the reasoning behind not wanting to give credit
for some of the successes. But so let's talk about
(32:54):
this latest launch for Starship.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, so this would be the third launch of twenty
twenty five. It was flight seven back in January, flight
eight back in March, and this is flight nine for SpaceX.
Starship happened on Tuesday, May twenty seventh, twenty twenty five,
from their test site at Star Based, Texas, which we
(33:21):
stay Bocachica. Now it's just Star Based, it's its own town.
So that's I guess that's something new. Happened at seven
thirty six pm Eastern time. Okay, So friends. Before we
jump in, let's just remind ourselves this is the largest
rocket in human history, and it's being engineered in a
(33:44):
different kind of process. The process is called agile development.
That's the method that SpaceX uses for all of their
space development, which is a little bit, as we've described
on previous shows, a little bit like what are you
still doing at the whiteboard? Why don't we go outside
(34:05):
and just fly the thing? See if it blows up.
If it does, let's fix what blew up and go
again as fast as possible. Agile development, Okay, the way
SpaceX does things. Okay, so yeah, it's the ninth flight
of this rocket system, not of the specific rocket, but
the rocket system. They have several more of them, kind
(34:28):
of like the Borg from the Star Trek next generation.
They just have several more Borg in the warehouse ready
to go. You know, they're going to roll them out
and stack them and launch them. They just have more ready. Now.
They may be making modifications to those based on what
happened with this flight, but okay, let's just know that
it's not like, oh darned, we blew up our only
(34:49):
starship rocket. Now, what are we going to do? No,
they have many other systems ready to go. Okay, because
why that's the way they do things. Okay, now, like
just paving the road, wes, just paving the driveway. Oh,
you're making sure we can back out of the garage. Okay, yep,
so here we go. The successes of this mission were
(35:12):
as follows. This is the first time they reused the
super heavy booster, which means they already successfully brought back
one of the super heavy boosters on a previous flight.
And not only did they bring it back, they caught
it out of mid air with a giant set of chopsticks,
never done before in the history of humanity. Okay, so
(35:37):
the super heavy booster number B fourteen was reused for
this flight successfully.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Just for a perspective on this, the rest of human society,
mister Miagi with the chopsticks at the table, failing SpaceX,
Danny LaRusso with the chopsticks catching a fly in the
first like eight seconds, just for perspective.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
And yes, moreover, this is a Moon class rocket, and
every other main stage booster for every other Moon class
rocket is sitting at the bottom of the ocean because
they were not reusable. So let's just let that all
sink in. This was a reused booster second time, flown
(36:30):
already as success because they got it back last time
and were able to reuse it. Okay, there's one. Here
comes another success. Sorry, but there are some and yeah,
we're gonna talk about the failures too. We're gonna talk
about what went wrong because we need to to be fair.
But they did this thing called a directional flip. Okay,
(36:50):
what does that mean. Well, it means that as the
second stage, which is known as ship, it's the vehicle
part where payloads or humans might actually righte someday as
the ship separates from the main stage booster. In the
past flights, they've just let physics take its effect and
that booster kind of flips around and goes to a
(37:12):
semi horizontal position as it begins to fall back to
Earth in any old which direction it chose. But this
time they actually wanted to see if they can control it.
So when venting the fuel of the hot stage separation
of the starship ship from the main stage booster, they
(37:35):
wanted to control the direction of flip of this skyscraper
sized first stage booster check the box. Friends. They did
that successfully also, so they had a first ever directional
flip where the thing flipped in the direction that they
chose for it to do, not just randomly selected by
(37:59):
physical forces. Okay, there's two successes. Number three, the starship
itself actually reached space. This vehicle, now this is not
the main stage booster, it's not the big rocket engines.
It's the vehicle riding on top now designated Ship thirty five,
successfully reached its planned velocity. It didn't reach orbit because
(38:24):
it wasn't designed to orbit. It's a suborbital flight. But
it did reach the altitude and speed necessary for space.
This is a new version of the ship. It's called
the Version two so or Block two. So this is
the Block two design. But this Block V two ship
reached space for the first time for that particular series. Okay,
(38:47):
so there is another success all right, Now, what else happened?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Now, just to be clear, if Katie Perry was on board,
she'd be an astronaut. That's what we're saying.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
I've said that all along. Go back can review previous episodes.
You know, I'm on Katie's side on this whole.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
I'm just making sure we know how high the thing got.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
That's all. Yeah, so important, Maybe commercial. Maybe we need
the one word in their commercial astronaut, but astronaut none
the lest Yeah, okay, that's just me whatever. All right,
So here's what else SpaceX was able to do. They
got all kinds of data, because that's how you do
agile development. You get a bunch of data and then
(39:27):
you go fix all the stuff. So they got data
on a reused booster and heat shield. Okay, so it
had already flown and now it's flowing again a second
time for the first time in humanity, and they were
able to get data on it. All right. Here's the
last thing, engine reignition that super heavy booster after it
(39:50):
fired all of its engines and got to a high
enough altitude that starship could shove off from the booster
and head to an even higher altitude all the way
to SPA. All of that worked successfully the big now
first stage of the boosters falling back into the atmosphere.
SpaceX was able to successfully reignite all thirty three of
(40:12):
those wrapped or engines during what they called the boost
back burn, marking a significant step toward reasonability reusable rocket friends,
changing history. Now, did it blow up shortly after that? Yes,
(40:32):
it did? Speaking of which, what were some of the failures,
So let's just get right to the failure showing. Yeah, well,
one of the failures was they were hoping to have
a booster splash down. Now, they were never bringing this
thing back to the launch pad. That was never the plan.
They were going to lose this vehicle in the ocean.
This is the booster, right, They were going to lose
(40:54):
the main stage booster in the ocean. It was never
scheduled to come back and be recaptured and use again
from Texas. No, no, no. So what didn't happen though,
was a nice splash down in a controlled manner. What
instead happened was what SpaceX has termed a rapid unscheduled
disassembly or a RUD. So. Yeah, during its descent, they
(41:17):
were making various adjustments to the engine, trying to they
were going to bring it in a sharper angle of
attack than ever before, I should say, a flatter angle,
giving the stress on the vehicle, more stress than ever
before because they were trying to slow it down through
the atmosphere. But anyway, they think there were gases possibly
that were leaking in the rocket chamber when the engines refired,
(41:42):
rapid unscheduled disassembly occurred. It blew up, all right, that's
one failure. Number two failure. They also lost Starship. They
lost the vehicle too. Now now again it was never
going to come back, It was never going to be reused.
This still in the test phase, but they were hoping
(42:03):
to get a few more things done with it before
they lost control of the vehicle. And unfortunately for Starship
or some kind of propellant link and subsequent loss of
attitude control led to the Starship itself experiencing a rapid
unscheduled dissembly, so a pair of ruds for both halves
(42:24):
of this giant vehicle that certainly wasn't planned. That led
to also a failed set of suborbital objectives Starship. The
vehicle wasn't able to achieve most of its in space
objectives due to this loss of control. Also, they had
put some satellites on board. They had some Starlink satellites
that they were going to deploy and that was not
(42:46):
able to happen either, So they lost the Starlink satellites.
They were basically in their just as test payloads and
if they got into space that'd be nice, but anyway. So, yes,
some failures, but it is not fair to talk about
these failures without talking about the fantastic successes of this program. Friends.
And if we are the only media outlet out there
(43:08):
leading with the successes, so be it. I'm okay. And
if I never talk to you know, European news agencies
because they just don't want to interview me because I
go with the SpaceX successes first, so be it. Friends,
I'm okay with that too.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Sometimes that's just the cost of doing business, my friend.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I'm gonna sleep well tonight, I think. So.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
I just want to be honest, just being honest and
reporting it for what it is and understanding this concept
of agile development that you know, if they just understood,
this is how they do business.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
This is what they do uh.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
And it's just the way that they're going to continue
to do things, uh, at least for the foreseeable future.
And I can't imagine that they'll ever stop doing things
that way.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
All Right, I neither hate nor love Elon Musk. Can
I just say that except in the way that I
of all humanity as described by my faith. So there
you go. It's not an Elon Musk. Thank I'm not
an Elon Musk fan boy. I wish you would shut
up sometimes. But this company SpaceX, and let's not forget
Chief operating Officer Gwinn shotwell, this company SpaceX, with a
(44:17):
lot of other really talented engineers and rocket professionals, they
are accomplishing amazing things like or love or hate or
whatever you feel about Elon Musk.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
There you go, more made of stars right after this.
(44:51):
All right, So let's talk about a cool opportunity here
in the Chattahoochee Valley area. We know we have listeners
around the world. Thank you for that, God bless you
for that. I mean all around the world. I was
just going through some of the I mean most countries.
I know we have listeners in every state and we
have listeners in many countries. So we appreciate all of
(45:14):
you for that. But we have to talk about this
cool thing that's happening here in our hometown at the
bo Bartlett Center. And I'll just tee you up on that.
And let's for folks in the Chattahoochee Valley area or
who are a reasonable short trip away, some cool stuff
that you'll get an opportunity to see here for a while, yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
I work at an organization that the first name that
you're going to hear is a famous soft drink. Yeah,
but I don't work for the soft drink company. Okay,
So I work for an organization called Columbus State University.
We are the Coca Cola Space Science Center because the
the folks at the Coke Foundation gave us a very
(45:54):
generous donation to help get our building established. Okay, so
we are part of Columbus State University. The bo Bartlett
Art Gallery is also part of Columbus State University, and
physically they're located about three blocks down the street from
US Front Avenue, Columbus, Georgia. My good friend Mike mcfall's,
the director of the Bo Bartlett Art Gallery, has allowed
(46:18):
us to put up an exhibit in his art gallery
space of some really amazing artifacts and memorabilia from the
collection of the first human being to ever drive a
car on the service of the Moon. General David R. Scott,
commander of Apollo fifteen, a astronaut not a spaceflight participant,
(46:43):
an astronaut aboard Apollo nine, and also Gemini eight. All
three of those missions were historic for a variety of reasons.
Dave Scott got to be part of the first ever
docking of two spacecraft the board Gemini eight. He got
to be part of a very important dress rehearsal with
(47:03):
many firsts in Apollo nine, just three months before Buzz
and Neil walked on the surface of the Moon and
Mike Collins orbited up there. And then he got to
be the first human being to ever drive a car
on the surface of the Earth or on the serface
of the Earth, on the surface of the Moon, on
the surface of another planet besides Earth, as commander of
(47:24):
Apollo fifteen. James Irwin and Al Warden both on that mission.
By the way, Gemini eight, Neil Armstrong, this guy named
Neil Armstrong flew with Dave Scott all right. Dave's brother
Tom actually lived in our city for a number of years.
We got to be very good friends with Tom Scott,
and Tom has arranged the donation to our facility of
a number of artifacts and memorabilia from the collection of
(47:48):
David Scott. And now we have actual pieces from this
very famous astronauts collection, so many of them in fact,
that we can't hang them up in our own exhibit
gallery at the Cooke call a space Science Center. That's
why we are giving folks a rare opportunity to see
the majority of this collection on display together at the
(48:09):
bo Bartlett Art Gallery just down the street from the
Space Science Center all summer long, June third through August second,
and it is for free. Friends, you can go there
and visit for free. Not only that, when you go there,
we're going to have a little astronaut on display, and
if you take a selfie with the astronaut and come
(48:31):
show that selfie at our front desk at the Space
Science Center, you're going to get a discounted admission to
our facility. So you can do a double visit Space
day where you go over to the Bow Bartlett Gallery
and see this amazing collection from David Scott from Apollo fifteen,
and then walk down the street come to the Space
Science Center and enjoy all of the things that we
(48:52):
have to offer, including the rest of that artifact collection
from David Scott, our Omosphere Theater, planetarium, our Ride to Space,
a boarder, Space Shuttle Otyssey, and many artifacts that have
actually been in space as part of NASA's Space Shuttle
program right here on display at Columbus cit University's Coca
Cola Space Science Center. Want more information, of course you
(49:13):
do visit the website of the Space Science Center www
dot cc SSC dot org, Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org,
or follow us on Facebook and you'll get live updates
as we go through this summer exhibiting really cool artifacts
from the David Scott collection.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
all of your garage door needs covered. Residential and commercial
service and repairs. If you need a new garage door,
or you're just looking to upgrade or repair your current door,
(49:56):
Overhead Door Company of Columbus has you covered. Plus they've
got your emergency repairs or service covered as well. Seven
O six three five eight forty five hundred seven oh
six three five eight forty five hundred O Dccolumbus dot
com
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