August 7, 2025 • 26 mins
It's a crowded house aboard the ISS with 11 crew members on board. Crew-10 is preparing to leave and make things a little less crowded. Bitch Wilmore has decided to retire from NASA after 25 years. A CME is pointed at Earth and could bring aurora to high latitudes. Plus, a dead star is sending out radio signals.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning. 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 2 (00:16):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
When made of stars, made them stars, made sides. When
made of stars, you could be from high they would
New Mexicomus, where all stars, When.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
We are made of stars.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
cruising from Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Hey Sean, it wes good to be here today.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
We are going to.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Talk a lot about the International Space Station, because well
there's just a lot going on up there. First of all,
there's an incredibly full house at least for the next
little while till around noon or so it'll be slightly
less full, but eleven on the International Space Station for
(01:27):
the crew. That probably means you got people, you know,
just sleeping in weird corners, I guess, or maybe in
their ride home. So at this point I guess this
is this is how I'll start this because I went,
we're going to get into the number and we're going
to get to who all's there.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
But my question.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
We've talked before about the fact.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
That you know, they dock there and their their actual ship,
their craft is attached to the International Space. It then
becomes another room, and we've talked about how sometimes they'll
sleep in there. That's you know, effectively could just become
a private area. There's not a lot of privacy up
(02:09):
there anyway. We know that there's a side that's kind
of designated for the Russians, there's a side designated for
the US. There's shared space and all that. But I
guess what I'm wondering is if at you know, noon today,
which is when they're set to break away and come
back down to Earth there and we'll get to that, but.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Or is there a.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Chance that someone is you know, has been sleeping in
that the same one or has it been prepped? Is
it all like, hey, we got to get all the
extra unnecessary food out to leave behind, and you know,
everything's all all the all the chairs are in exactly
the right position, everybody's got them the way they like
(02:52):
them for the ride home. Or is there a chance
somebody's been floating in a sleeping bag in there overnight,
That's my question.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So so one of the things they do is they
actually do prep the spacecraft, right, And I would imagine
if there's any kind of should we say, living quarters
arrangements that, yeah, all of that has to be stowed
because they actually have to sit in the seats with
spacesuits on. Right, They're in flight suits when they come back,
you know. And if you can imagine, I mean, if
(03:21):
you know, if I had a nickel for every time
I've done this before, you know, I pull up in
my prius to the rented tiny house I have, and
you know, the rented tiny house is so small that
when my friends show up, I just want to sleep
in the prius, you know, and maybe the prius is
able to attach directly to the tiny house. You know.
I'm just stretching this analogy, and friends, I neither have
(03:45):
a prius, nor have I stayed in tiny house, but
I'm just imagining. Right, So, the International Space Station is
kind of like it's a veritable tiny house, right. There's
sure it's as big as a football field, but that's
with all the solar arrays and all of the ammonia
cooling panels and all of the you know, the stretched
out spaces between the modules. When you're actually on the
(04:07):
inside on the level, it's a little tight. You know.
It's like, you know, it's like vacationing inside a submarine,
you know, in a way. And so so when there's
eleven people on board, that's a crowded house. Hey, now, hey,
now don't dream it's over. It was in my hair
(04:27):
at a crowded house. It was in my head.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
So I'm just glad that you said it, so I
didn't have to say it.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So I didn't have to say it.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
So, so what you're getting at is they would sleep
in there, but probably not while it's getting ready to
fly home.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Well, they'll they'll have to get up and you know,
put their accouterments away and you know, store their shaving
gear or whatever they use up there. And yeah, all
of their camping equipment has to be put in the trunk.
You know. That's that's the way to think about it. Right, Hey,
we have to I have this car. Now you can
no longer sleep in the driver's seat with it all
folded back, and you know, we have to actually put
(05:06):
put the seat in the ninety degree position, so we
can drive away in this prius after staying in the
tiny house. So that's that's basically what they're doing. The
crew ten crew is getting the Dragon capsule ready to
go packing up and and they're, you know, they're doing
that as we speak, right, They're they're getting their flight
suits on, getting secured inside the vehicle and getting ready
(05:28):
for us separation from the International Space Station to make
their journey home.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
And meanwhile, and I was gonna say, and that will
leave four empty sleeping spots.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, Meanwhile, the house gets a little less crowded, you know,
which is a good thing for those who love eighties rock. Anyway,
So that the is that rock. It's probably easy listening.
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Crossover, Yeah, you could call it any of that.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
I think it's from something like that adult contemporary. So
eleven Crew eleven.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The astronauts on board areas astronauts Xena Cardman and Mike Fink.
Xena Cardman is the pilot for that mission, and Mike
Fink is on board, and then there's mission mission specialists
Kamiya Yui from the Japanese Space Agency and Oleg Platinoff
from roast Cosmos. That's Crew eleven. Crew eleven just arrived
(06:18):
up there on Saturday, and so they've been up there
for a few days, but they were the they're the
latest additions to what they call Expedition seventy three, and
that's the mission actually a board International Space Station. So
the Crew ten, Crew eleven are just the comings and
goings of the Dragon capsules. Right. They joined a Soya's
crew who was already up there. The Soyuz crew is
(06:40):
Alexei Zubritsky, Sergei Rizakov, and Johnny Kim who's a NASA astronaut,
so two cosmonauts an astronaut from the Soyuz crew. And
then the folks that have been up there a while
are the Crew ten astronauts. That's Takuya Onishi, who is
a Jackson astronaut, NASA astronauts McLean and Nicole Ayres, and
(07:02):
then Rose Cosmos cosmonaut Careal Pescoff. So that's the crew
that's aboard the International Space Station now as they are
preparing to have the Crew ten departure and so and
the folks that will be left, of course are the
Crew eleven astronauts and the cosmonauts who are going to
be there for still a few months.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
So I like that you're using the camping analogy to
describe all of this. And clearly, my wife, my lovely bride, Jill,
who when we go camping, is very good at checklists,
and I would imagine that it's all about the checklist.
It's just a series of did you do this, did
you do this? Did you do this? Did you do this?
(07:42):
And you know they can't go anywhere till it's all
been done, so she would be very efficient with this.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
You know, your wife, Jill would be the kind of
person who could easily make a transition from the beautiful
career she has now right into mission control at the
Johnson Space Center because I know her as well in
a way that I can verify that she's very detail
oriented and she wants to tick off all those boxes. Yes,
(08:09):
And so it's the detailed oriented people who can keep
track of the micro details and check off the checklist
to make sure all of the camping equipment is in
the trunk of the prius. It's those kind of people
that you really want working in mission control. And I'm
sure that the folks down in Houston right now are
(08:29):
facilitating some of that as they are helping prepare Crew
ten for their final hours upboard the International Space Station
getting ready to head back to the Earth right now.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
I mean imagine having a three day camping trip list
and a four day camping trip list. That's what I'm
talking about. You know, you got to have the specific,
correct list for how many days you're going to be
camping and what all you're going to need while you're there.
So I want to quickly touch on the fact you
mentioned the commander and pilot ZENA Cardman. Now she's a
(09:02):
bit of an asterisk right as far as things that
have been a hot topic in the news, because let's
just jump back a little while to the stuck in
stranded astronauts and the plan for getting them home, which
was in place long before they were quote unquote stranded,
(09:23):
and then they sent up a crew to basically like
we're going to send a crew nine up. They're only
going to be two astronauts on there and the other
two have been bumped, and then that way the two
stranded astronauts will have a ride home. And we you
and I talked about this without and maybe then we
(09:43):
mentioned them by name. I don't remember, but or if
we even knew who the two that had been bumped
off of the mission were, but we did mention how
we kind of felt for them, because here they are thinking,
I'm going to get to go. I'm ready to go
to the International Space Station. I'm doing all those preparations.
They got their own checklist, they're doing in life and
family and all of those things, and everything is ready
(10:06):
to go. And oh, by the way, you're not going.
We're going to send up a ship with two empty seats.
And then we think, oh, we feel terrible for him.
So one of those two astronauts is Xena Cardman, and
she is now on the International Space Station, so that
we could feel a little better about that this was
her correct time to go.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
You know, imagine you and three of your friends had
tickets to the crowded house concert and and suddenly suddenly
your friend who's actually driving the car, says, hey, I'm sorry,
I've got two friends I'm going to meet up with
at the concert. I have to give them a ride back,
so you don't have a ride, and then you miss
the crowded house concert.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
That would be that would be devastating, Yeah, it.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Would be devastating. So but but Zena Carbon is there
in the crowded house right now. She was one of
the astronauts who was slated to fly on Crew nine.
On the Crew nine but because of the shall we say,
unfortunate engineering peculiarities of the Boeing Starliner mission, they couldn't
(11:12):
bring the spacecraft back home with astronauts on the inside
of it. They had to leave those astronauts at the
concert and so so then we had to set up
a capsule with four seats but only two astronauts. So
Xena Carbon did not get to ride aboard that Crew
nine mission. Another astronaut by the name of Stephanie Wilson
also didn't get to ride aboard that aboard that mission.
(11:34):
But now Zena is actually on the International Space Station,
and so and you know, let's remember that Stephanie has
had other flights to space, so she got bumped off
Crew nine, but she has been to space aboard Space
Shuttle and other flights to the International Space Station. So
you know, it's it's unfortunate. It's probably something that's just
understood when you take crew assignments that things can go
(11:57):
wrong and maybe they don't go exactly the way you planned.
But now Zenan Carman finally getting to be aboard the
International Space Station as a member of Crew eleven, in fact,
as the pilot of the Dragon capsule on the way
up to Crew eleven. Uh So, the two astronauts who
were who were stranded or some form of stranded aboard
(12:18):
the International Space Station Sunita Williams, Butch Willmore and and
Sunita Williams was actually the commander of the space station
while she was being stranded up there. It's like, you know,
being in prison, but also the warden I think maybe
something like that charge of the space station while also
(12:40):
being you know abandoned by her country apparently, which didn't
really happen, that's my point. Yeah, yeah, so anyway, so
that's that's Sumita Williams. The other the other astronaut aboard
was Butch Willmore and So some interesting news about Butch Willmore,
which is this is from space dot com. Astronaut Butch
(13:01):
Wilmore is retiring from NASA after twenty five years. He said,
that's it. I've had enough. I've been stranded aboard the
International Space Station. I finally made my way back home,
and I'm gonna go ahead and call it a career now. Listen.
He had four different flights to space. He flew on
four different spacecraft during his astronaut career, which is pretty impressive, right, So,
(13:25):
which began way back in the year two thousand, he
spent a total of four hundred and sixty four days
off the Earth. He conducted five spacewalks during which he
racked up thirty two hours of outside the spacecraft time.
That's a very very impressive amount. So that's a legendary
(13:46):
amount of spacewalking right there, right. So it's one of
the reasons why butch Wilmore is a very famous astrodopt
Wilmore was a captain and test pilot in the US
Navy during both peacetime and wartime. He had wartime operational
and then when NASA selected him to join its astronaut
core in the year two thousand. He also flew to
(14:06):
the space to space three times during his NASCA career,
starting with eleven day sts wine mission to the International
Space Station at Space Shuttle that was a board Space
sal Atlantis back in November two thousand and nine. He
spent five and a half months aboard the International Space
Station during a stint from September twenty fourteen to March
of twenty fifteen, and then he came back down a
(14:28):
board of Russian Soyuz spacecraft. And then he returned to space,
of course on the Boeing star Liner, which is one
way to get to space, but he had to come
back down a board a Dragon capsule, so that's a
different way to go down. So Butch Wilmore on three
trips to space, flew aboard four different kinds of spacecraft,
(14:48):
the Space Shuttle, the Boeing star Liner, the SOYUS Russian
Soyu spacecraft, and then the Dragon Capsule on the way
back down. So pretty interesting space career right there. Certainly
very notable in terms of the number of hours in space,
days in space, and hours outside the spacecraft. That's pretty incredible.
(15:11):
Steve Corner is the acting director of NASA's Johnson's Space
Center in Houston, and he had this statement about Butch Wilmore.
He said, quote Butch's commitment to NASA's mission and dedication
to human space exploration is truly exemplary. His lasting legacy
of fort Tude will continue to impact and inspire the
Johnson workforce, future explorers, and the nation for generations. On
(15:35):
behalf of NASAs Johnson's Space Center. We thank Butch for
his service. There you go. Steve Corner, acting director of
NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, a quote about Butch.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Wilmore coming up after a quick break. There's a dead
star that's still sending out radio signals. We'll talk about
that next.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
All right, So let's talk about as a dead star
sending out radio signals that should have stopped, right at
some point? Is it eventually going to stop? What's going
on with that?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah? So it's it's it's weird, you know, it's it's
interesting when a star sends out radio signals. It's just
nothing but weird when a zombie star sends out radio signals, right,
it's just a little unusual. And uh, but what's more
unusual is about this system of stars. So this isn't
a story from astronomy dot com, and astronomers have identified
(16:44):
a source of strange radio flashes. So it's a binary
star system that contains a white dwarf, which is indeed
a dead star, and the remnant it's a remnant of
a star like the sun. Right, So, so astronomers found
this source of mysterious radio waves from a location you know,
fairly far away. We call this deep space. It's tracing
(17:05):
the signals back to an unusual stellar pair that, according
to astronomy dot com, is locked in a swift orbit,
flashing out their location for the universe to hear here.
Because why it's radioas we don't really hear radioays, but
it's a nice thought anyway. So in research published in
March in the publication called Nature Astronomy, a team of
(17:26):
astrophysicists has identified this strange source with minute long radio bursts. Okay, well,
so that's that's a little weird. It's not, it's not
too weird yet, but but it's going to get stranger. Friends.
The system is called il t J eleven oh one
plus fifty five twenty one. Just rolls off the tongue.
(17:48):
It's the artist for formerly known as uh Steve anyway,
so but now it's I L t J eleven zero
one plus fifty five twenty one. Those are just catalog corns.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
By the way, there I say, artists forming on his
crowded house. What a missed opportunity.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
If I could have thought of anyone in crowded house,
I would have loved to have thrown that in anyway.
That just wasn't quick enough. So here's the weird thing.
The source sends out radio bursts that lasts somewhere between
thirty and ninety seconds. They do it every two hours, okay,
And why do I say they Because it's a binary
(18:24):
star system, all right, So none of that is too
weird except this. The orbital period of the stars themselves
around their common center of gravity is also two hours,
so astronomers don't really completely understand the mechanism that's causing
these gigantic bright radio flashes that are in tune with
(18:50):
the period of orbit of these two stars around each other.
That's what is unusual about the story, right, And so
the phenomen when I was first identified in the data
from what's called the low frequency array or the l
O FAR radio telescope, and it was by lead author
Iris de Ritter, who is a student working on her
(19:12):
PhD in Amsterdam at the time. She's now a postdoctoral
research researcher at the University of Sydney and Australia, and
she says this about the system. She says, quote, we
found that the period of the radio pulses seemed to
be exactly equal to the orbital period of the system.
So it takes about two hours for the stars to
(19:33):
orbit around each other, and every two hours we see
a radio pulse. Again, this is Iris Disider, lead author
on the study. She then goes on to say this
strongly leads us to believe that it has to do
with some sort of interaction between the two stars, and
then she goes on to make the statement, which you know,
(19:55):
probably applies to a lot of things in many of
our lives. I don't think we fully actually know what's
going on. And so when you have a scientist saying
I don't think we've fully actually know what's going on,
they're probably investigating some you know, branch of physics that's
really interesting and looking at very complicated processes. If you're
(20:15):
just walking around your house saying I don't think we
fully actually know what's going on, it might be a Tuesday,
you know, and what I'm saying, so so this is
this is one of those statements that maybe you have
to think about before you put it out as a quote,
but okay, no, it's it's good, right. It leads us
to understand that this is a mysterious phenomenon taking place
with this within this two star system, and you know,
(20:38):
the astronomers haven't figured out the mechanism for the tuning
between the orbital period of these stars around each other
and the giant radio flashes that are being emitted once
every orbital period. Very cool stuff.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
Now, when you said we don't hear radio waves, clearly
you're not talking about when they're blasting out crowded house,
So I mean you hear those. And by the way,
just got a message from Neil Finn. He said, ouch,
thanks for not remembering my name, So.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Neil, and we thank Neil for listening to the podcast.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
By the way, so all the way from New Zealand,
we appreciate you styling us up.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Let's talk about CMME all the New Zealand listeners we
can get, by the.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Way, we do, yes, yes, and we're we let the Kiwis.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And the Ausi's. This is an Auzzy story, but we
like the Kiwis also we do.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
Let's talk about CMEs because we got some solar activity
worth mentioning going on.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, some fun as we head into the weekend. So
on Tuesday, that would be the fifth of August twenty
twenty five, sunspot number forty one sixty eight erupted in
what's called an M class solar flare. It's an M
four point four. It's a pretty strong one. But this
particular flair generated what's known as a partial halo CME,
(21:57):
and that partial halo CME means it's head right at us, right.
And so the partial halo CME is now heading directly
toward the Earth, and according to NASA's modeling, that coronal
If you don't know what a CME is, let me pause.
A coronal mass ejection is when the Sun gets a
little rowdy, shall we say, explodes in a giant solar flare,
(22:20):
and that hurls a massive deadly radiation equivalent to the
mass of Mount Everest directly at the Earth. That's what
we're talking about right now, friends. So that partial halo
CME Mount ever sized gigantic wave of deadly radiation is
now heading into the Earth and it should graze by
the Earth sometime late on August the eighth, that's Friday, okay,
(22:43):
And I'm assuming late means Eastern Standard time because this
is spaceweather dot com and they typically reference things in
Eastern Standard Time. So spaceweather dot Colm the story, so
it could spawn what we call G two class geomagnetic storms,
which means listeners at high latitudes. First of all, thank
(23:03):
you for listening, regardless of what latitude you're at. But
if you're in high latitudes, you might keep your eye
on the sky on Friday evening because there's a bad
attitude CME heading in for the Earth and it could
cause some what we call solar earth geomagnetic interactions and
you might have some northern lights right, so we could
(23:23):
see a northern light display across northern tiers of states
are up into Canada, and I'd like to welcome all
the Canadian listeners as well, and so everybody up there
in the Great White North listen look out for some
Aurora borealis on Friday evening because of this storm.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
And we've touched on most of the Commonwealth, So we
haven't mentioned mentioned the UK, but we've touched on most
of the Commonwealth. All right, let's talk about you guys
are back into school session because Columbus State Universities having
their welcome back this week, and you guys obviously are
in the preparations at the Coca Cola Space Science Center.
(24:00):
Start looking ahead to having kids starting to show back up.
It's something that you guys do, and it's a big
part of growing those future STEM careers and something that
you guys do to help get interest in that.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, And so first of all, we like to welcome
back our Columbus State University students. It's good to have
you back. And I know that there are a few
of you out here who are regular listeners to this podcast,
and go ahead and just shout out Madeline and Jose
and some of the CSU students who I know listening
to the podcast. Welcome. Hope you found this mildly entertaining
this evening anyway, So welcome back all the CSU students.
(24:33):
So that happens in the August time frame. But then
what we call the K through twelve and the Lingo
of education. These are the kindergarteners to the twelfth graders.
The public school students will begin to return to us
after Labor Day typically, and so those field trips begin
either in late August or early September. And we're preparing
(24:55):
right now the exhibit gallery with some brand new exhibits.
We're upgrading our Cyber five, which for those folks who've
been down to the Space Science Center. Before those are
the four motion based flight simulators that are in our
exhibit gallery. They're gonna have new control systems, new software,
and new skin this fall, so they're going to be
looking sharp and flying high, so come down and check
(25:16):
those out. We're also working on our new Mars Rover
exhibit that is almost at completion, and we are going
to be looking at putting some new seating inside the
Atmosphere theater and so we'll try to have that ready
to go for our music end of the Dome concert
series which begins this fall as well. So some upgrades
taking place around the Coca Cola Space Science Center at
Columbus State University. If you haven't been down for a while,
(25:37):
come down and check out all the new it's all
the new hotness. We're trying to replace all the old
and busted and put in the new hotness. So come
down and check us out at seven oh one Front Avenue,
Coca Cola Space Science Center, Columbus State University, or just
visit us on the website see what you think. Visit
www dot cc SSC dot org. Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie
(26:00):
dot org.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
this again next week. US Overhead Door Company of Columbus
has all of your garage door needs covered, Residential and
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Warning. 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 2 (00:16):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
When made of stars, made them stars, made sides. When
made of stars, you could be from high they would
New Mexicomus, where all stars, When.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
We are made of stars.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
cruising from Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Hey Sean, it wes good to be here today.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
We are going to.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Talk a lot about the International Space Station, because well
there's just a lot going on up there. First of all,
there's an incredibly full house at least for the next
little while till around noon or so it'll be slightly
less full, but eleven on the International Space Station for
(01:27):
the crew. That probably means you got people, you know,
just sleeping in weird corners, I guess, or maybe in
their ride home. So at this point I guess this
is this is how I'll start this because I went,
we're going to get into the number and we're going
to get to who all's there.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
But my question.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
We've talked before about the fact.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
That you know, they dock there and their their actual ship,
their craft is attached to the International Space. It then
becomes another room, and we've talked about how sometimes they'll
sleep in there. That's you know, effectively could just become
a private area. There's not a lot of privacy up
(02:09):
there anyway. We know that there's a side that's kind
of designated for the Russians, there's a side designated for
the US. There's shared space and all that. But I
guess what I'm wondering is if at you know, noon today,
which is when they're set to break away and come
back down to Earth there and we'll get to that, but.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Or is there a.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Chance that someone is you know, has been sleeping in
that the same one or has it been prepped? Is
it all like, hey, we got to get all the
extra unnecessary food out to leave behind, and you know,
everything's all all the all the chairs are in exactly
the right position, everybody's got them the way they like
(02:52):
them for the ride home. Or is there a chance
somebody's been floating in a sleeping bag in there overnight,
That's my question.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So so one of the things they do is they
actually do prep the spacecraft, right, And I would imagine
if there's any kind of should we say, living quarters
arrangements that, yeah, all of that has to be stowed
because they actually have to sit in the seats with
spacesuits on. Right, They're in flight suits when they come back,
you know. And if you can imagine, I mean, if
(03:21):
you know, if I had a nickel for every time
I've done this before, you know, I pull up in
my prius to the rented tiny house I have, and
you know, the rented tiny house is so small that
when my friends show up, I just want to sleep
in the prius, you know, and maybe the prius is
able to attach directly to the tiny house. You know.
I'm just stretching this analogy, and friends, I neither have
(03:45):
a prius, nor have I stayed in tiny house, but
I'm just imagining. Right, So, the International Space Station is
kind of like it's a veritable tiny house, right. There's
sure it's as big as a football field, but that's
with all the solar arrays and all of the ammonia
cooling panels and all of the you know, the stretched
out spaces between the modules. When you're actually on the
(04:07):
inside on the level, it's a little tight. You know.
It's like, you know, it's like vacationing inside a submarine,
you know, in a way. And so so when there's
eleven people on board, that's a crowded house. Hey, now, hey,
now don't dream it's over. It was in my hair
(04:27):
at a crowded house. It was in my head.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
So I'm just glad that you said it, so I
didn't have to say it.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So I didn't have to say it.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
So, so what you're getting at is they would sleep
in there, but probably not while it's getting ready to
fly home.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Well, they'll they'll have to get up and you know,
put their accouterments away and you know, store their shaving
gear or whatever they use up there. And yeah, all
of their camping equipment has to be put in the trunk.
You know. That's that's the way to think about it. Right, Hey,
we have to I have this car. Now you can
no longer sleep in the driver's seat with it all
folded back, and you know, we have to actually put
(05:06):
put the seat in the ninety degree position, so we
can drive away in this prius after staying in the
tiny house. So that's that's basically what they're doing. The
crew ten crew is getting the Dragon capsule ready to
go packing up and and they're, you know, they're doing
that as we speak, right, They're they're getting their flight
suits on, getting secured inside the vehicle and getting ready
(05:28):
for us separation from the International Space Station to make
their journey home.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
And meanwhile, and I was gonna say, and that will
leave four empty sleeping spots.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, Meanwhile, the house gets a little less crowded, you know,
which is a good thing for those who love eighties rock. Anyway,
So that the is that rock. It's probably easy listening.
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Crossover, Yeah, you could call it any of that.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
I think it's from something like that adult contemporary. So
eleven Crew eleven.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The astronauts on board areas astronauts Xena Cardman and Mike Fink.
Xena Cardman is the pilot for that mission, and Mike
Fink is on board, and then there's mission mission specialists
Kamiya Yui from the Japanese Space Agency and Oleg Platinoff
from roast Cosmos. That's Crew eleven. Crew eleven just arrived
(06:18):
up there on Saturday, and so they've been up there
for a few days, but they were the they're the
latest additions to what they call Expedition seventy three, and
that's the mission actually a board International Space Station. So
the Crew ten, Crew eleven are just the comings and
goings of the Dragon capsules. Right. They joined a Soya's
crew who was already up there. The Soyuz crew is
(06:40):
Alexei Zubritsky, Sergei Rizakov, and Johnny Kim who's a NASA astronaut,
so two cosmonauts an astronaut from the Soyuz crew. And
then the folks that have been up there a while
are the Crew ten astronauts. That's Takuya Onishi, who is
a Jackson astronaut, NASA astronauts McLean and Nicole Ayres, and
(07:02):
then Rose Cosmos cosmonaut Careal Pescoff. So that's the crew
that's aboard the International Space Station now as they are
preparing to have the Crew ten departure and so and
the folks that will be left, of course are the
Crew eleven astronauts and the cosmonauts who are going to
be there for still a few months.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
So I like that you're using the camping analogy to
describe all of this. And clearly, my wife, my lovely bride, Jill,
who when we go camping, is very good at checklists,
and I would imagine that it's all about the checklist.
It's just a series of did you do this, did
you do this? Did you do this? Did you do this?
(07:42):
And you know they can't go anywhere till it's all
been done, so she would be very efficient with this.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
You know, your wife, Jill would be the kind of
person who could easily make a transition from the beautiful
career she has now right into mission control at the
Johnson Space Center because I know her as well in
a way that I can verify that she's very detail
oriented and she wants to tick off all those boxes. Yes,
(08:09):
And so it's the detailed oriented people who can keep
track of the micro details and check off the checklist
to make sure all of the camping equipment is in
the trunk of the prius. It's those kind of people
that you really want working in mission control. And I'm
sure that the folks down in Houston right now are
(08:29):
facilitating some of that as they are helping prepare Crew
ten for their final hours upboard the International Space Station
getting ready to head back to the Earth right now.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
I mean imagine having a three day camping trip list
and a four day camping trip list. That's what I'm
talking about. You know, you got to have the specific,
correct list for how many days you're going to be
camping and what all you're going to need while you're there.
So I want to quickly touch on the fact you
mentioned the commander and pilot ZENA Cardman. Now she's a
(09:02):
bit of an asterisk right as far as things that
have been a hot topic in the news, because let's
just jump back a little while to the stuck in
stranded astronauts and the plan for getting them home, which
was in place long before they were quote unquote stranded,
(09:23):
and then they sent up a crew to basically like
we're going to send a crew nine up. They're only
going to be two astronauts on there and the other
two have been bumped, and then that way the two
stranded astronauts will have a ride home. And we you
and I talked about this without and maybe then we
(09:43):
mentioned them by name. I don't remember, but or if
we even knew who the two that had been bumped
off of the mission were, but we did mention how
we kind of felt for them, because here they are thinking,
I'm going to get to go. I'm ready to go
to the International Space Station. I'm doing all those preparations.
They got their own checklist, they're doing in life and
family and all of those things, and everything is ready
(10:06):
to go. And oh, by the way, you're not going.
We're going to send up a ship with two empty seats.
And then we think, oh, we feel terrible for him.
So one of those two astronauts is Xena Cardman, and
she is now on the International Space Station, so that
we could feel a little better about that this was
her correct time to go.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
You know, imagine you and three of your friends had
tickets to the crowded house concert and and suddenly suddenly
your friend who's actually driving the car, says, hey, I'm sorry,
I've got two friends I'm going to meet up with
at the concert. I have to give them a ride back,
so you don't have a ride, and then you miss
the crowded house concert.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
That would be that would be devastating, Yeah, it.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Would be devastating. So but but Zena Carbon is there
in the crowded house right now. She was one of
the astronauts who was slated to fly on Crew nine.
On the Crew nine but because of the shall we say,
unfortunate engineering peculiarities of the Boeing Starliner mission, they couldn't
(11:12):
bring the spacecraft back home with astronauts on the inside
of it. They had to leave those astronauts at the
concert and so so then we had to set up
a capsule with four seats but only two astronauts. So
Xena Carbon did not get to ride aboard that Crew
nine mission. Another astronaut by the name of Stephanie Wilson
also didn't get to ride aboard that aboard that mission.
(11:34):
But now Zena is actually on the International Space Station,
and so and you know, let's remember that Stephanie has
had other flights to space, so she got bumped off
Crew nine, but she has been to space aboard Space
Shuttle and other flights to the International Space Station. So
you know, it's it's unfortunate. It's probably something that's just
understood when you take crew assignments that things can go
(11:57):
wrong and maybe they don't go exactly the way you planned.
But now Zenan Carman finally getting to be aboard the
International Space Station as a member of Crew eleven, in fact,
as the pilot of the Dragon capsule on the way
up to Crew eleven. Uh So, the two astronauts who
were who were stranded or some form of stranded aboard
(12:18):
the International Space Station Sunita Williams, Butch Willmore and and
Sunita Williams was actually the commander of the space station
while she was being stranded up there. It's like, you know,
being in prison, but also the warden I think maybe
something like that charge of the space station while also
(12:40):
being you know abandoned by her country apparently, which didn't
really happen, that's my point. Yeah, yeah, so anyway, so
that's that's Sumita Williams. The other the other astronaut aboard
was Butch Willmore and So some interesting news about Butch Willmore,
which is this is from space dot com. Astronaut Butch
(13:01):
Wilmore is retiring from NASA after twenty five years. He said,
that's it. I've had enough. I've been stranded aboard the
International Space Station. I finally made my way back home,
and I'm gonna go ahead and call it a career now. Listen.
He had four different flights to space. He flew on
four different spacecraft during his astronaut career, which is pretty impressive, right, So,
(13:25):
which began way back in the year two thousand, he
spent a total of four hundred and sixty four days
off the Earth. He conducted five spacewalks during which he
racked up thirty two hours of outside the spacecraft time.
That's a very very impressive amount. So that's a legendary
(13:46):
amount of spacewalking right there, right. So it's one of
the reasons why butch Wilmore is a very famous astrodopt
Wilmore was a captain and test pilot in the US
Navy during both peacetime and wartime. He had wartime operational
and then when NASA selected him to join its astronaut
core in the year two thousand. He also flew to
(14:06):
the space to space three times during his NASCA career,
starting with eleven day sts wine mission to the International
Space Station at Space Shuttle that was a board Space
sal Atlantis back in November two thousand and nine. He
spent five and a half months aboard the International Space
Station during a stint from September twenty fourteen to March
of twenty fifteen, and then he came back down a
(14:28):
board of Russian Soyuz spacecraft. And then he returned to space,
of course on the Boeing star Liner, which is one
way to get to space, but he had to come
back down a board a Dragon capsule, so that's a
different way to go down. So Butch Wilmore on three
trips to space, flew aboard four different kinds of spacecraft,
(14:48):
the Space Shuttle, the Boeing star Liner, the SOYUS Russian
Soyu spacecraft, and then the Dragon Capsule on the way
back down. So pretty interesting space career right there. Certainly
very notable in terms of the number of hours in space,
days in space, and hours outside the spacecraft. That's pretty incredible.
(15:11):
Steve Corner is the acting director of NASA's Johnson's Space
Center in Houston, and he had this statement about Butch Wilmore.
He said, quote Butch's commitment to NASA's mission and dedication
to human space exploration is truly exemplary. His lasting legacy
of fort Tude will continue to impact and inspire the
Johnson workforce, future explorers, and the nation for generations. On
(15:35):
behalf of NASAs Johnson's Space Center. We thank Butch for
his service. There you go. Steve Corner, acting director of
NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, a quote about Butch.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Wilmore coming up after a quick break. There's a dead
star that's still sending out radio signals. We'll talk about
that next.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
All right, So let's talk about as a dead star
sending out radio signals that should have stopped, right at
some point? Is it eventually going to stop? What's going
on with that?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah? So it's it's it's weird, you know, it's it's
interesting when a star sends out radio signals. It's just
nothing but weird when a zombie star sends out radio signals, right,
it's just a little unusual. And uh, but what's more
unusual is about this system of stars. So this isn't
a story from astronomy dot com, and astronomers have identified
(16:44):
a source of strange radio flashes. So it's a binary
star system that contains a white dwarf, which is indeed
a dead star, and the remnant it's a remnant of
a star like the sun. Right, So, so astronomers found
this source of mysterious radio waves from a location you know,
fairly far away. We call this deep space. It's tracing
(17:05):
the signals back to an unusual stellar pair that, according
to astronomy dot com, is locked in a swift orbit,
flashing out their location for the universe to hear here.
Because why it's radioas we don't really hear radioays, but
it's a nice thought anyway. So in research published in
March in the publication called Nature Astronomy, a team of
(17:26):
astrophysicists has identified this strange source with minute long radio bursts. Okay, well,
so that's that's a little weird. It's not, it's not
too weird yet, but but it's going to get stranger. Friends.
The system is called il t J eleven oh one
plus fifty five twenty one. Just rolls off the tongue.
(17:48):
It's the artist for formerly known as uh Steve anyway,
so but now it's I L t J eleven zero
one plus fifty five twenty one. Those are just catalog corns.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
By the way, there I say, artists forming on his
crowded house. What a missed opportunity.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
If I could have thought of anyone in crowded house,
I would have loved to have thrown that in anyway.
That just wasn't quick enough. So here's the weird thing.
The source sends out radio bursts that lasts somewhere between
thirty and ninety seconds. They do it every two hours, okay,
And why do I say they Because it's a binary
(18:24):
star system, all right, So none of that is too
weird except this. The orbital period of the stars themselves
around their common center of gravity is also two hours,
so astronomers don't really completely understand the mechanism that's causing
these gigantic bright radio flashes that are in tune with
(18:50):
the period of orbit of these two stars around each other.
That's what is unusual about the story, right, And so
the phenomen when I was first identified in the data
from what's called the low frequency array or the l
O FAR radio telescope, and it was by lead author
Iris de Ritter, who is a student working on her
(19:12):
PhD in Amsterdam at the time. She's now a postdoctoral
research researcher at the University of Sydney and Australia, and
she says this about the system. She says, quote, we
found that the period of the radio pulses seemed to
be exactly equal to the orbital period of the system.
So it takes about two hours for the stars to
(19:33):
orbit around each other, and every two hours we see
a radio pulse. Again, this is Iris Disider, lead author
on the study. She then goes on to say this
strongly leads us to believe that it has to do
with some sort of interaction between the two stars, and
then she goes on to make the statement, which you know,
(19:55):
probably applies to a lot of things in many of
our lives. I don't think we fully actually know what's
going on. And so when you have a scientist saying
I don't think we've fully actually know what's going on,
they're probably investigating some you know, branch of physics that's
really interesting and looking at very complicated processes. If you're
(20:15):
just walking around your house saying I don't think we
fully actually know what's going on, it might be a Tuesday,
you know, and what I'm saying, so so this is
this is one of those statements that maybe you have
to think about before you put it out as a quote,
but okay, no, it's it's good, right. It leads us
to understand that this is a mysterious phenomenon taking place
with this within this two star system, and you know,
(20:38):
the astronomers haven't figured out the mechanism for the tuning
between the orbital period of these stars around each other
and the giant radio flashes that are being emitted once
every orbital period. Very cool stuff.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
Now, when you said we don't hear radio waves, clearly
you're not talking about when they're blasting out crowded house,
So I mean you hear those. And by the way,
just got a message from Neil Finn. He said, ouch,
thanks for not remembering my name, So.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Neil, and we thank Neil for listening to the podcast.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
By the way, so all the way from New Zealand,
we appreciate you styling us up.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Let's talk about CMME all the New Zealand listeners we
can get, by the.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Way, we do, yes, yes, and we're we let the Kiwis.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And the Ausi's. This is an Auzzy story, but we
like the Kiwis also we do.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
Let's talk about CMEs because we got some solar activity
worth mentioning going on.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, some fun as we head into the weekend. So
on Tuesday, that would be the fifth of August twenty
twenty five, sunspot number forty one sixty eight erupted in
what's called an M class solar flare. It's an M
four point four. It's a pretty strong one. But this
particular flair generated what's known as a partial halo CME,
(21:57):
and that partial halo CME means it's head right at us, right.
And so the partial halo CME is now heading directly
toward the Earth, and according to NASA's modeling, that coronal
If you don't know what a CME is, let me pause.
A coronal mass ejection is when the Sun gets a
little rowdy, shall we say, explodes in a giant solar flare,
(22:20):
and that hurls a massive deadly radiation equivalent to the
mass of Mount Everest directly at the Earth. That's what
we're talking about right now, friends. So that partial halo
CME Mount ever sized gigantic wave of deadly radiation is
now heading into the Earth and it should graze by
the Earth sometime late on August the eighth, that's Friday, okay,
(22:43):
And I'm assuming late means Eastern Standard time because this
is spaceweather dot com and they typically reference things in
Eastern Standard Time. So spaceweather dot Colm the story, so
it could spawn what we call G two class geomagnetic storms,
which means listeners at high latitudes. First of all, thank
(23:03):
you for listening, regardless of what latitude you're at. But
if you're in high latitudes, you might keep your eye
on the sky on Friday evening because there's a bad
attitude CME heading in for the Earth and it could
cause some what we call solar earth geomagnetic interactions and
you might have some northern lights right, so we could
(23:23):
see a northern light display across northern tiers of states
are up into Canada, and I'd like to welcome all
the Canadian listeners as well, and so everybody up there
in the Great White North listen look out for some
Aurora borealis on Friday evening because of this storm.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
And we've touched on most of the Commonwealth, So we
haven't mentioned mentioned the UK, but we've touched on most
of the Commonwealth. All right, let's talk about you guys
are back into school session because Columbus State Universities having
their welcome back this week, and you guys obviously are
in the preparations at the Coca Cola Space Science Center.
(24:00):
Start looking ahead to having kids starting to show back up.
It's something that you guys do, and it's a big
part of growing those future STEM careers and something that
you guys do to help get interest in that.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, And so first of all, we like to welcome
back our Columbus State University students. It's good to have
you back. And I know that there are a few
of you out here who are regular listeners to this podcast,
and go ahead and just shout out Madeline and Jose
and some of the CSU students who I know listening
to the podcast. Welcome. Hope you found this mildly entertaining
this evening anyway, So welcome back all the CSU students.
(24:33):
So that happens in the August time frame. But then
what we call the K through twelve and the Lingo
of education. These are the kindergarteners to the twelfth graders.
The public school students will begin to return to us
after Labor Day typically, and so those field trips begin
either in late August or early September. And we're preparing
(24:55):
right now the exhibit gallery with some brand new exhibits.
We're upgrading our Cyber five, which for those folks who've
been down to the Space Science Center. Before those are
the four motion based flight simulators that are in our
exhibit gallery. They're gonna have new control systems, new software,
and new skin this fall, so they're going to be
looking sharp and flying high, so come down and check
(25:16):
those out. We're also working on our new Mars Rover
exhibit that is almost at completion, and we are going
to be looking at putting some new seating inside the
Atmosphere theater and so we'll try to have that ready
to go for our music end of the Dome concert
series which begins this fall as well. So some upgrades
taking place around the Coca Cola Space Science Center at
Columbus State University. If you haven't been down for a while,
(25:37):
come down and check out all the new it's all
the new hotness. We're trying to replace all the old
and busted and put in the new hotness. So come
down and check us out at seven oh one Front Avenue,
Coca Cola Space Science Center, Columbus State University, or just
visit us on the website see what you think. Visit
www dot cc SSC dot org. Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie
(26:00):
dot org.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
this again next week. US 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,
(26:23):
Overhead Door Company of Columbus has you covered. Plus they've
got your emergency repairs or service covered as well. Seven
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six three five eight forty five hundred O Dccolumbus dot
com
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