Latest / Made of Stars / Recapping Space News of 2023 Part 2

Transcript

Recapping Space News of 2023 Part 2 · Made of Stars

0:00
Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics, and
0:04
space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been known to learn about astronomical
0:08
phenomenon the scientific method and expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus.
0:14
Listen, that's your own risk. Go ahead. We're made of stars,
0:24
made them stars, made sizes. When made of stars, Medio,
0:32
you could be from high they would New Mexico, maas where a stars?
0:43
When we are made of stars. I'm Wes Carrol John by my good friend
0:56
doctor Sean cruising from Columbus State University's Coca CoA Space Science Center. Hey Sean,
1:02
Hey Wes, good to be here with you. We are in part
1:04
two now of our season or year finale. It's season finale, year finale,
1:10
whatever we want to call it. Of the best space stories of twenty
1:15
twenty three the top space stories of the year. Last week we counted down
1:19
episode or sorry space stories ten through six. We are now rolling through the
1:25
top five space news stories of the year, and it's worth noting again,
1:30
as far as the order goes, many of these stories could have been in
1:34
different orders. This is just the order that we decided to put them in
1:38
because you know, we get to do that. If you want to put
1:42
them in a different order, get your own podcast. That's what we say.
1:45
Now, I don't know, that's what I say. I'm with you
1:47
on that, my friend. And you know what I would say is ours
1:51
is the correct order. So as long as you align it with our order,
1:53
you're probably right. Then you'll be right on the money. We'll start
1:59
the top five. I've with a story. It's a little little close to
2:01
home, little Columbus, Chattahoochee Valley area flavor to it with someone who spent
2:08
some time here in the area. Now, imagine you go to space,
2:12
and this is what you train for. You want to go to space.
2:15
You want to go be on the International Space Station. You want to do
2:17
some science while you're there. You want to grow some tomatoes or whatever you're
2:22
gonna do while you're there. And you find out, uh, oh,
2:25
my ride home is having a problem. So I'm going to have to stay
2:30
longer than any other American has stayed in space. I'm just gonna be stuck
2:35
here for a while. And that's what happened to Frank Rubio. I mean,
2:38
if I had a nickel for every Frank Rubio moment in my life.
2:43
Like, you know, you're at the party, there's a bunch of strangers
2:46
you don't really know, and then you find out that your ride ditches you
2:49
and just like leaves you there. How are you supposed to get home?
2:53
Well, if like I had a nickel for it all those times that that's
2:55
happened to me. And of course I've never been in space on any of
3:00
those, you know, it's a little harder to call an uber up there.
3:04
But that did actually happen to Frank Rubio. It's not that his ride
3:08
ditched him necessarily. It's that he went to space a board of soyus and
3:14
the Soyuz was struck by a micro meteorite allegedly anyway, So then the ride
3:20
home had this mechanical problem, and so they couldn't actually count on coming back
3:25
home on that vehicle. They couldn't count on its safety. In fact,
3:30
they were pretty sure that they didn't want to count on its safety. Eventually
3:34
they sent up another Soyus. After thinking of all kinds of different ways they
3:38
could possibly get Frank home, they sent up another soyused vehicle, and eventually
3:44
Frank Rubio was able to come home after a very long stay aboard the International
3:49
Space Station. He was only supposed to be up there for about six months,
3:52
but he ended up staying up there for three hundred and seventy days,
3:58
twenty one hours, twenty two minutes, avoid spanning five thousand, nine hundred
4:03
and thirty six orbits and one hundred and fifty seven million miles not intended,
4:14
but that was the result. So therefore he now holds the record as the
4:18
longest single flight by a US astronaut in space history. There it is Frank
4:27
Rubio, a record setting NASA astronaut who eventually got to come back home on
4:31
a replacement Soyez vehicle along with his Russian counterparts. So he eventually got to
4:39
come back home. And when he did finally come back home, he had
4:43
a few things to say. One of the things he said was hugging my
4:46
wife and kids is going to be paramount, and I will probably focus on
4:49
that for the first couple of days. This is what he said he would
4:53
do when he got back home. He also said, we're blessed enough to
4:56
have kind of a quiet backyard. I think I'm just going to go out
5:00
in the yard and enjoy the trees and silence. Up here, we kind
5:02
of have a constant hum of machinery. So I'm looking forward to being just
5:08
outside and enjoying peace and quiet. Well again, this happened back in September
5:12
when he finally made his flight down by now here in December. We're hoping
5:15
that our good friend Frank Rubio got to do all of those kinds of things
5:19
and just enjoy. And I say good friends because we're admirers, we're space
5:23
geeks. We like to think that all these people are our friends. So
5:27
way to go, Frank Rubio made Glad you made it back home, and
5:30
glad you have the record. I mean, if you're going to be up
5:31
there anyway, you might as well have the record as the longest flying US
5:35
astronaut. I referenced the tomato that he grew while he was up there doing
5:40
an experiment that disappeared. He was teased by the other astronauts up there that
5:46
he had eaten this little tiny tomato, and they just recently found the tomato,
5:54
and he was vindicated that he did not, in fact eat this very
5:58
valuable piece of property while he was there on the International Space Station. So
6:01
I just wanted to mention that that's that the tomato reference, that's what that
6:05
was about. Yeah, you know, when when parts of experiments go missing,
6:12
you know it's it's a point of concern. But when they happen to
6:14
be edible items, well, I guess that gives the opportunity for these astronauts
6:17
to pick on each other just a little bit. And the other his fellow
6:20
companion astronauts were giving him a little bit of a hard time, saying,
6:24
hey, I think you just ate that tomato because it looked good, but
6:27
you were growing that as part of an experiment. So but yes, it
6:30
had just floated away and probably was located near the air handlers. That's pretty
6:34
much where they're they gather all these floating food items that get misplaced. Is
6:39
that the air purifires kind of sucked them up and hold them there. So
6:44
they did find a somewhat eviscerated tomato that was once part of the Frank Rubio
6:49
experiment. And when you say that, you know it's a piece of food,
6:54
it opens the door for them to tease him. It also opens the
6:58
door for the feasibility of actually eating it. I mean, you wouldn't think
7:00
he's going to eat some you know, other experiment they're doing up there that's
7:05
not edible. All right, let's jump down to number four now, as
7:09
NASA mark the twenty fifth anniversary of the International Space Station at the well earlier
7:14
this month, yeap the December sixth anniversary of twenty five years of the International
7:23
Space Station, and so that would have been December sixth of nineteen ninety eight
7:28
when it was completed. That was when the Russian module Zaria and the United
7:33
States module Unity were joined together in orbit, creating the core modules of what
7:41
we now call the International Space Station. And another interesting thing is it's been
7:44
inhabited continuously ever since that moment, and so we have had an orbiting platform
7:51
of astronauts above our heads for twenty five years, ladies and gentlemen. So
7:57
when we have visitors coming into the Space Science Center, particularly young students,
8:01
I like to tell them, Hey, in your entire lifetime, you've never
8:05
known a time where there weren't human beings living and working in space above your
8:11
head at all times, which is just really amazing. Right. So,
8:15
people of my age and my generation, which is just a little bit older
8:18
than twenty five years, so we don't remember having astronauts above our head.
8:22
It was a very rare occasion when astronauts happened to fly, and we would
8:26
track those missions very carefully, and we would you rejoice when they came back
8:31
down safely, and then it would be quite a stretch again before another astronaut
8:35
would go to space. But now it's very commonplace for school age students in
8:41
twenty twenty three to just think about astronauts always being up there at all times.
8:46
And so that's through the work of the International Space Station that that's happened.
8:50
And so a successful collaboration between many countries, including Canada and Japan,
8:56
but primarily the United States and Russia, many other European countries which commit resources
9:03
through the European Space Agency. But the International Space Station a serious success and
9:09
has been the orbiting laboratory for thousands of experiments or hundreds of astronauts and cosmonauts
9:16
from around the world. And we just like to hat tip to all of
9:18
those involved, particularly the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, for a successful anniversary
9:26
of twenty five years marked on the twelfth of December twenty twenty three. All
9:30
right, Number three on our list is NASA's Psyche mission as it gets ready
9:35
to head towards the metal asteroid. Yeah. Yeah, so it launched successfully.
9:43
It's on its way. That launch took place on the thirteenth of October.
9:50
And you might be saying, okay, well, you guys have as
9:52
number three on your list of space stories. You have a NASA mission that's
9:58
not even there yet launching out to an asteroid. Yes, yes, we
10:01
do. It's a baby. Tell you why. Let me tell you why,
10:05
ladies and gentlemen. This is an important story because at the end of
10:09
that two point two billion mile voyage of this spacecraft, it's going to arrive
10:15
at an asteroid whose projected worth is ready ready, ten thousand quadrillion dollars,
10:24
Let me say that again, ten thousand quadrillion dollars. Why is it worth
10:31
so much? Because of the very rare but dense collection of some highly valuable
10:39
materials that are known to exist in this particular asteroid. So this mission is
10:45
going to go out to this metal rich asteroid which is in the Asteroid Belt
10:48
and investigate it very carefully because this could be the dawning of the era of
10:56
mining asteroids in our Solar system for men. Any of the valuable resources or
11:01
rare earth materials that are required for our modern society, for things like the
11:09
Internet and electronic devices which access the Internet, and all of the kinds of
11:13
things that give us all the modern conveniences of life. The Earth's crust has
11:18
a finite number or finite amount of these kinds of materials, but we can
11:24
find lots more of them as we go out and do some exploration of the
11:28
Solar system, including and especially maybe in this particular asteroid called Psyche, which
11:37
is really a strange object. It is almost just a giant chunk of metal.
11:43
That's because it's the differentiated inner core of what was once a larger protoplanet.
11:48
That the rest of that protoplanet was smashed, and so while it was
11:52
still a protoplanet, all the heavy materials, dense materials sunk down to the
11:58
center of that protoplanet. Then the protoplanet was smashed, leaving that core.
12:03
We call that process by the way of sinking differentiation. Heavy stuff sinks,
12:07
white stuff gets pushed to the top. Now you have all the heavy stuff
12:11
collected in one location. The collision exposes it bare. And then in twenty
12:16
twenty three, you have a giant chunk of really valuable metals which have sold
12:22
on today's market, would be estimated to have a value of ten thousand quadrillion
12:28
dollars. So that's why this is a really interesting mission. It's going to
12:31
unfold over the next couple of years. We're going to be watching for a
12:35
rendezvous in twenty twenty nine. But anyway, this is a really interesting mission,
12:41
and we're going to take notes on how we can go out and explore
12:46
four mineral resources or material resources our solar system in various locations, beginning with
12:54
asteroid Psyche. Ten thousand quadrillion dollars worth of rare materials I believe would be
13:01
used to make three electric car batteries. So that just for perspective on how
13:05
valuable that stuff is. It's, uh, you know, it's it's very
13:09
high dollar. So if you're driving a Tesla, we're gonna get you a
13:13
couple more of those on Earth out of a psychment. Three batteries. That's
13:18
all they get out of that. Just three batteries, three electric cars.
13:26
Congratulations, that would be amazing, all right, Number two on the list.
13:31
Those things are expensive and they're rare, so that's all I'm saying the
13:33
materials they used to make those batteries. That's all just an observation, all
13:37
right. Number two, This is one of my all time favorite stories that
13:41
we've ever talked about, because we talked about it for so long, and
13:46
we followed it through its whole journey and its journey like we had a significant
13:52
win back in September for the Osiris REX mission. Yeah, this is a
13:58
story that I've really debated at putting at number one, because it easily could
14:03
have been the number one story. Friends. Osiris Rex was a mission that
14:09
launched several years ago from the Kennedy Space Center. It flew out to another
14:16
asteroid, a different asteroid called Benu. It did a soft touch of Benu's
14:22
surface with what amounts to a large vacuum cleaner. It pulled all kinds of
14:26
materials off that surface of that asteroid to bring back home. Why is that
14:31
important Because Benu is an asteroid that has not been through the kind of process
14:37
that we just talked about with Psyche. It has not been through some process
14:41
where it was the center of a much larger body that was differentiated in process
14:46
than all the kinds of things we just discussed. Benu actually looks a lot
14:50
more like a primordial time capsule of leftover material from the origin of the Solar
14:56
System, for when the Solar System first began. It's like a time capsule
15:01
for what things were like before there were planets around our Sun. And this
15:05
amazing spacecraft dipped down low over the asteroid Benu and with its robotic vacuum cleaner
15:15
nose, pulled a significant amount of materials off the surface of that vehicle,
15:20
off that object, I should say, put it into a container, and
15:24
then brought those containers back to the Earth and dropped them off. And that's
15:31
what happened this year twenty twenty three. On September twenty third, actually Osiris
15:37
REX flew by the Earth, dropped off its Touching Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism materials
15:46
or the tag SAM materials that it had collected on Benu back in October of
15:50
twenty twenty and dropped those safely down to the surface of the Earth out in
15:56
the deserts of the Southwest United States. And then that material was taken to
16:03
Houston to the Johnson Space Center for further research and exploration at the Astro Materials
16:08
Research and Exploration Science Directorate facility at Johnson Space Center. So the fact that
16:15
that whole mission worked and all of those systems which had to be robotic in
16:19
nature because the time travel of the signals out to that asteroid were just too
16:25
slow, because it was too far away to be driven like an RC car.
16:29
This thing had to be a robot and direct itself down to the surface
16:33
and pack that material in a way that it was safely able to be safely
16:37
returned to the surface of the Earth. And the fact that it all worked
16:41
is extraordinary. If you remember the eighties in any way, or if you're
16:47
just a fan of the eighties and you went and looked at up on YouTube,
16:49
there was this commercial where Michael Jordan and Larry Bird were calling shots off
16:53
billboards and through windows and bouncing off the bleachers and going into the hoop and
17:00
some gym, and this is kind of like one of those shots. Right.
17:03
Well, I'm gonna fly around the Earth a few times, then I'm
17:07
gonna bank off this other planet. Then I'm gonna go tag the surface of
17:11
this asteroid, pick up some materials. Then I'm going to take some other
17:12
gravity a says fly Bys. I'm gonna fly over the desert. I'm gonna
17:15
drop this container and I'm gonna hit it within less than a quarter mile of
17:19
the original targeted site. Call your shot, and basically almost within what minutes
17:27
of the actual time that it was supposed to land, which is also remarkable.
17:33
Something unbelievable about that is actually right, a little bit early. It
17:37
was ahead of schedule, which when does that ever happen? I mean,
17:41
I would say that even you know, five minutes late would have been an
17:45
accomplishment, but coming in early is pretty ridiculous. So now for some reason,
17:49
I'm craving McDonald's. I guess it's because of the Jordan and Bird commercial
17:55
you're talking about. But anyway, nothing but net right, Well, it
17:57
was truly a nothing but that moment for them and everybody involved in it,
18:02
and obviously hats off and kudos to them for a successful mission. Yeah.
18:07
Not only does this mission return the kinds of materials that they had promised,
18:12
and we're going to have all kinds of new information about the methods of the
18:17
Solar system information coming together, but it also shows the potential for what spacecraft
18:23
can do, what robotic control or even shall we say, artificial intelligence,
18:29
A bord of spacecraft can do in this sense, the artificial intelligence, just
18:33
the spacecraft itself making its own decisions when those critical moments arrive, and you
18:37
can actually build a spacecraft that can largely navigate itself and do these incredible maneuvers,
18:44
do this really rich science and come back safely to the Earth. It's
18:48
just extraordinary. And again, as you said, hats off to the Osiris
18:51
REX team for this incredible discovery and return to Earth. Coming up after a
18:59
quick break, we will talk about the biggest space news story of twenty twenty
19:06
three, and it was a successful mission, even though they blew up the
19:11
launch pad. We'll talk about that and how that's possible. Next, we
19:33
are counting down the biggest space news stories of twenty twenty three. It started
19:40
last week with the number six through ten. We have counted down five through
19:45
two. We are now at number one. Yes, the band Starship is
19:51
reunited and is touring. No, that's not what this is. It's a
19:55
different starship altogether. I don't know what I'm talking about. I know I'm
19:59
talking about SpaceX and they're big mambo jumbo rocket successfully launched. I mean,
20:08
I wouldn't be surprised if Elon didn't name the rocket mambo Jumbo, but a
20:15
huge rocket that successfully launched even though there were some problems and it blew up
20:22
the launch pad. But there was more to the story. It's not just
20:26
that it blew up the launch pad, and it also thankfully didn't just end
20:30
with him blowing up the launch pad. Yeah, some people might even call
20:33
it a BFR. It is definitely a BFR. It's definitely a BFR.
20:40
So anyway, yes, starship friends, that is the number one story.
20:45
If you're not a fan of Elon Musk, it probably hurts your head that
20:48
I selected this one could be the biggest story of twenty twenty three in space.
20:52
But friends, let me just tell you, it's not just a story
20:56
about a rocket that blew up a launch pad. It's not just a story
21:00
about a second rocket that also had to go through a self destruct sequence and
21:04
did not make it to orbit. Those are important components of the story,
21:10
But really, this is a story about a company that's showing us a brand
21:15
new way to engineer these giant space vehicles because they are doing it on a
21:22
pace that is remarkable. So in April of twenty twenty three, a very
21:29
large rocket exploded over a launchpad in Texas. And despite the fact that Elon
21:37
Musk's own self described criteria for success would be quote unquote, don't blow up
21:44
the launchpad the day before this launch, they didn't succeed in that. You
21:48
might think, well, it's a total failure. Then no, it's just
21:52
the next step in the engineering process known as agile development, and that is
21:59
what this demonstrates. So even though this first launch of a rocket that's actually
22:04
larger than the Saturn five that took the Apollo astronauts to the Moon, more
22:08
powerful than that rocket, literally the largest rocket ever launched by humanity, and
22:15
a very kind of devastating explosion that took place back in April. Devastating in
22:19
the sense that they really did blow up their own launchpad and throw debris all
22:25
over the neighboring beaches and some kind of fine grained debris over the neighborhoods near
22:30
that launch area. Is certainly not something that they wanted to do. They
22:34
did contaminatee contaminate some wildlife sites that were monitored by the US Fish and Wildlife
22:40
Service documented impacts for those kinds of areas. Certainly they didn't want any of
22:45
those kinds of things to happen. They did happen. You might have thought
22:49
that all of those terrible consequences would cause that rocket to be grounded for years,
22:56
But no, friends, in November of the same year, they're launching
23:03
again. On November eighteenth, Starship, the SpaceX Super Heavy and the Starship
23:12
vehicle launched for a second time. And yes, it was a flight that
23:21
also did not end up in an orbital flight. There were failures, but
23:26
new problems were discovered and rapidly fixed or rapidly addressed. And as we sit
23:33
here talking about these two launches in the month of December of twenty twenty three,
23:38
we are today seeing stories that SpaceX has already rolled out their next rocket
23:44
to the pad. The booster is already sitting on the pad. The Starship
23:48
vehicle is already sitting next to that booster, ready to be loaded onto the
23:52
booster. Starship is ready to be launched again before the end of this this
24:00
year, potentially. The only thing in the way is that they have yet
24:06
to get another launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration, which has to jump
24:11
all the hoops that have delayed up to this point. But this is how
24:15
agile development works. You don't try to work out every single problem on the
24:21
whiteboard or in the CAD program or in the simulation. You simply go out
24:26
and fly hardware. See where it fails, fix it, rapidly, fly
24:30
hardware again. See where it fails, fix it rapidly, fly hardware again.
24:33
And that's we're about to see, possibly the third launch of this brand
24:38
new vehicle that has gone through catastrophic failures in the same calendar year. Friends,
24:45
listeners, this is something unlike any other rocket launching organization has ever done
24:52
in the past or is really capable of doing even now, except for SpaceX.
25:00
And so again, the top story here may not be the Starship flu
25:06
It may not be the starship exploded and tore up a bunch of stuff.
25:08
It may not be that the FAA and US Fish and Wildlife Service gave them
25:12
kind of a hard time. It is hard to get a second rocket license
25:14
and they blew up another rocket and had all these problems. No, the
25:17
story here, friends, is that agile development seems to be a very successful
25:22
way for this commercial space company to be launching at a cadence that is absolutely
25:30
unheard of. SpaceX. The company has shattered launch records for the year twenty
25:36
twenty three. They have planned out an even more aggressive schedule for twenty twenty
25:41
four. The number one story of twenty twenty three is simply SpaceX's agile development
25:48
engineering process. Friends, That's what I'm going to crown as the top space
25:52
story for this year twenty twenty three, and a contender already for twenty twenty
25:59
four, because it is, as you point out, realistically a possibility some
26:04
of these stories that will just roll on into next year. I'm sure we'll
26:08
be talking about James web still next year. I'm sure there's a handful of
26:12
these stories that will pop back up again because they're just pretty remarkable stories in
26:18
their own right, each of them, and they continue to be with all
26:22
the success stories that SpaceX has had and the James Webspace Telescope. Sean,
26:30
this is you're at a point now in the year where the Coca Cola Space
26:34
Science Center is closed, but it will be opening up again in the new
26:40
year, and you'll have some exciting things kicking off the year as we'll get
26:45
into the next phase of Music under the Dome will be one of the things
26:51
that'll be coming up in the new year. And I know you've got some
26:52
stuff to talk about. We have a tremendous announcement that's going to be made
26:59
in twenty two, twenty four. It has to do with our Omnosphere Theater
27:03
here at the Co Cola Space Science Center. I am so excited. I
27:07
just found out the news myself as we're recording the show that this is actually
27:12
going to take place, And so I now can confirm to you my listening
27:17
audience, that in twenty twenty four, the Atmosphere Theater will have a big
27:22
announcement. So there you have to come back. How is the teas of
27:23
all teases. You have to come back and hear the podcast in twenty twenty
27:27
four, and we will tell you what that giant announcement is in our very
27:32
first podcast of the new year, twenty twenty four. So look forward to
27:37
that and lots of other announcements about all kinds of fun things taking place at
27:41
Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center. If you want to find out
27:44
more about us and our programs, you can do it two ways. Number
27:48
one, just get on the old Internet. It seems old now, it
27:52
seems so old and low tech. But you know you type a few ws
27:55
www dot cc SSC, dot org, Charlie Charlie, say Sam Charlie dot
28:00
org that will get you to our website, or just do what the hip
28:03
kids do and follow us on Facebook. I know Facebook feels kind of old
28:07
too, now, doesn't it. Yes, it's a little less fresh,
28:08
but that's okay. We're not on X. I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
28:12
Elon. We don't do X, but we do Facebook. So follow us
28:17
on Facebook and that's where we post our announcements in the most rapid manner possible.
28:21
But also check out the website for all kinds of information about our programs
28:25
throughout the coming year, including what Wes mentioned, which is our music under
28:29
the Dome Concert Series. We hope you continue to have a fantastic holiday season
28:34
as we get ready to bring in a brand new year in twenty twenty four
28:40
in just a few days, as this show is being released, so we
28:44
wish you the best. We thank you for listening and spending any part of
28:47
your twenty twenty three with us, and we look forward to next year with
28:51
you listening. And we will be back here with a new show next week.
29:02
Overhead Door Company of Columbus has all of your garage door needs covered.
29:06
Residential and commercial service and repairs. If you need a new garage door,
29:11
or you're just looking to upgrade or repair your current door, Overhead Door Company
29:15
of Columbus has you covered. Plus they've got your emergency repairs or service covered
29:19
as well. Seven oh six three five eight forty five hundred seven oh six
29:25
three five eight forty five hundred Odccolumbus dot com