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Let's Talk About Those Possible Alien Spacecraft · Made of Stars

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Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics, and
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space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been known to learn about astronomical
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phenomenon the scientific method and expand their vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and
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uranus. Listen, that's your own risk. Go ahead. Where made of
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Stars? Made of stars? Made stars? You could be from Highllywood,
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New Mexico, Mars. Where are stars? We are made of stars?
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I'm Wes Carroll, joined by'm a good friend, doctor Sean Cruising from Columbus
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State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center. Morning Sean, Good morning, Less
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good to be here with you today. There was a point when and sometime
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during the last week, so we do the show on Thursdays. We record
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on Thursdays. We have some some Thursdays where there's a lot going on on
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that particular day and we have a hard time getting everything in that we want
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to get in on that particular day. Some days, just week to week,
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things changed drastically. Hing something has happened in the last few days.
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Uh maybe I mean this is and I feel like this is a story that
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we're going to be talking about for a while, and we don't have a
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whole lot of information about it right now, so we can't really spend too
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much time on it because I feel like this is very much a developing story
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and in this morning there's an element to it that I guess this has now
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gotten to Congress. So we feel like just a few hours ago this story
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was published and we're doing this, you know, around lunchtime on Thursday,
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the eighth of June, and I feel like it's worth documenting that because I
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think about the scene in the movie Signs. Remember the m Night Shimelon movie,
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and there's a scene where they finally turned the TV on and they're seeing
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the news reports about the Aliens and the sun. Played by one of the
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Kulkin kids. He says, you got to get the videotape because we got
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to record this for history, and they wanted to document it for the purposes
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of it. So I feel it's important, And I remember they used Merrill's
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swimsuit video if I remember correctly the VHS. It's amazing my recall on this
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movie. But it's important to document that it is the eighth to day of
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June in the year of our Lord twenty twenty three, as we have this
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story that's been moving its way through kind of a little bit on the satellite
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um as far as media goes, and it's made its way into mainstream media.
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And when I say, now that you know ABC News this morning,
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I had a story about how Congress was going to have a meeting and they're
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going to look into this. But there's intelligence people who say, we not
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only have alien craft from from beyond our planet, non human origin, but
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bodies of pilots of those crafts. So um huh, Like is this Independence
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Day? Is do we need to get Brent Spiner on the phone, like
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what's what's what's going on? Uh? I guess, to quote Jerry Seinfeld,
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who are these people? So I can imagine that perhaps fellow listener out
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there in the web a verse, but this is the first time you've ever
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tuned into Made of Stars and you're thinking, oh, well, that's what
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these guys do. Is No, it's not. No. We try to
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keep the scientific integrity high on this show. We don't just sit around talk
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about alien bodies and pyramids that Bigfoot lives inside of and I don't know what
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else. We don't do that that's not our gig. I am a college
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professor. Not to say that all of those people are straight up either,
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but I happen to be one of those. And when I teach my college
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science classes, I try to focus on the science part. I honestly do.
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And so this show is kind of an extension of that. We liked.
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We like science, and we like to talk about how science works,
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and we like the space exploration efforts. So we talk a lot about all
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of the entities and companies that are exploring the universe. And we're going to
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do that today. We are going to do that. We're going to talk
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about that stuff is on our agenda, and we're gonna do it in a
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in a way that is, you know, it's as high a level of
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scientific integrity as I can maintain just being, you know, a museum director
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like I am. But anyway, so, but ladies and gentlemen, this
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story is in the mainstream media. This is not something that West and I
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are out there just kind of going, you know, somebody said one time,
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but they saw a body in a spaceship out in Nevada. No,
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that's not what this is. That's not what this is. Otherwise, we
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wouldn't be talking about it. I mean, we don't talk about those stories.
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Yeah, that's not a story we're gonna bring you. We might joke
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about them, but we don't bring them to you. But we got to
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just kind of introduce this story. It's not really on our show prep agenda
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even, but it's so darned prevalent in the news that West was like,
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Hey, are we going to talk about this thing because it's out there?
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And I'm like, yeah, I guess we have to. So last week
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on the show, last week's show, we talk about a special commission that
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included among the members of the commission Scott Kelly, NASA astronaut, investigating what
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we know about the data being collected and what the United States Navy is reporting
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as unidentified anomalous phenomenon UAPs. Now that word used to be unidentified aerial phenomenon,
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but apparently they got video of these things going under water, so they
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can't call them aerial anymore. They go into water and pop back up and
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do I don't know what all they do. That's Scott Kelly's job anyway.
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So, but apparently they had to change the acronym to mean something that doesn't
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include only the air. Okay, so we were already in that set up
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in context, when, as West said, in just the last forty eight
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hours or something, it's really hit the media that a decorated veteran of the
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Afghanistan War, somebody who has a high level of recognition for their service to
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the United States military, who then worked for various intelligence agencies within the federal
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government which serve the military, including the National Reconnaissance Office the NRO, which
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is a very famous intelligence gathering information entity, has come out and said,
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hey, we're keeping alien spacecraft that have crashed, and some of those spacecraft
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have bodies of alien pilots in them or something to that effect. Now,
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I'm not going to go into the detail of everything this individual said because it's
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too new, and by the way, I like to talk about things that
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I have half a clue of what I'm talking about, and in this story,
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yes, it involves space, but it has nothing to do with anything
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that I know about. So I am not an aviation expert, I am
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not an intelligence agency expert. I am not going to call out somebody who's
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a highly decorated military veteran and say that they're either truthful are not truthful because
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I just don't know. That is not what I'm an expert at. So,
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but it's interesting and we're watching the story, and trust us, we
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will bring you our opinions on this story on our show here Made of Stars
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as we go forward and more information comes out. We are just heard this
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morning via an ABC News report that apparently various members of the United States Congress
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are going to accept some validity, or at least enough validity into these statements
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that they're going to conduct hearings. So again, we're not just two guys
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that are mom's basements making up stories about UFO body parts found an aircraft in
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the desert, Nevada. No. And by the way, yes, people,
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I know it's Roswell, New Mexico. I know, I know the
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mythology. I lived out west, I used to live right by the ET
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Highway near Las Vegas, Nevada. I get it. But that's not what
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the story is. It's not that it's something different. So it's different enough
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that it's got us at least needing to talk about it on a show where
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we try to keep the scientific validity high. Now, if someone was to
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ask me right now, doctor Kruzen. Do these reports make you believe in
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aliens? No? I mean, let me let me specify that. Do
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they make you believe in aliens that are actually visiting our planet and secret aircraft
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that dive into the water and pop back up and plague dogfight with military jets.
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I don't think so. I don't think so, but I don't think
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so. However, I'm gonna leave it there. Yeah, So, as
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you pointed out, they're gonna do hearings. The Oversight Committee chairman James Comer
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basically said, I've heard about it, I don't know anything about it.
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We plan on having a hearing, and I think that kind of sums up
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our attitude on it here. Right, We've heard about it, we don't
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know anything about it, and we're gonna let it play out, I guess
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is maybe the way that we will handle it. And again, to stress
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your point from the very beginning, you're an actual scientist, I'm a longtime
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career broadcaster. We thought that combination of us makes a nice fit for us
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to be able to put a show like this together. So we will continue
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to follow it and see how it plays out. But there's also the thing
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that we have to address, which is the fact that there are some stories
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that just get people's attention and make them more interested in the other things that
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we do talk about. When there is an eclipse, when there is some
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sort of a major event that takes place, like I don't know, a
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giant rocket takes off and circles the moon and comes back. There's events that
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get people's attention and get them more excited about the other things that we talk
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about. This would certainly be one of those things because we don't know what
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it is. We don't know what they're talking about, but it certainly sparks
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the science fiction fan in us that thinks, Okay, well, what are
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these things, what could they be, what might they look like, where
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might they be from? But that gets way ahead of what this is,
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which is at the science part of it. Someone says that they exist,
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and then that's all that we know at this point. Someone obviously, if
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whatever it is that they're talking about, if there really is something there that
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means someone would have seen it, If these intelligence people are talking about it,
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someone would have seen it, And we don't have any idea what they
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saw. We don't know what it means, we don't know anything other than
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the fact that this is someone of some repute saying that they exist. That's
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all that we know. And we both agree on this philosophy for the show
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that we do, which is that much like science tries to do, we
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try to beat back the dark powers of superstition with the process of science and
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really understand what we're talking about and look for where the facts overlap with the
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fun yet somewhat crazy ideas held by many people. So that's typically our mode.
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It's not that we don't like to laugh about those things and have fun
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with some of those ideas, but at the end of the day, you
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know, this is a this is a science based program. However, we're
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talking about actual data reported by observers of high integrity enough that commissions that include
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astrophysicists and astronomers and astronauts and people from the aerospace industry are being assembled by
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Congress to look into it. And now a punctuation mark on all of that
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is this person from the intelligence industry coming out and saying, oh, no,
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we actually have these things. So I guess what we're doing is we're
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just reporting the news of the day, and that's all that That's right,
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that's all that we can do with it is is we report it. We're
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telling you what we know. I've had a couple of people that have seen
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this story and ask me, you know what do you what do you what
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do you guys know what Sean's take on this? Well, now you just
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heard it, and that's that's our take as a show on it. And
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we'll we'll report it as it moves forward. What are they going to find
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out in that hearing? What's going to be said in that hearing? And
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again, sometimes those hearings have information that people go, I don't know what
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they're talking about. I mean, that's just the way those hearings go sometimes.
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So we're going to see how the hearing goes and and and find out
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I guess what comes from the hearings, assuming that they happen. And again,
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I think the hearings are like rocket launches. I think the weather has
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to be perfect. I think I think everything has to play out. It's
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just right. They'll have the hearing or they won't have the hearing. But
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it's very interesting and it's enough again that it's made some national news on a
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couple of levels. So we'll follow the story for you. Let's talk about
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some of those companies that we've that we've talked about, or at least some
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other things that we talk about, typically when we talk about actual rockets or
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test firing of rockets, because ULA has had a successful test fire. Two
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man, thank you for giving me off that last subject. I appreciate.
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It's get back down to earth as we talk about space. Well, let's
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talk about ULA and how it pertains to the aliens that are on Earth all
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amongst us everywhere. And if you're not wearing your special glasses and chewing your
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bubblegum, you can't recognize them, can we do that? I will tell
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you this if you're if you're keeping notes at home, this will be the
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second story we have today that doesn't include a mention of that company with an
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X in their name. So, so ULA is United Launch Alliance. Now
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you Launch Alliance is as a collaboration of some venerable rocket companies that you know
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from the past. Anyway, ULA is probably the chief competitor of that other
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company who were not naming it. Anyway, So ULA has decided to retire
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two of their long serving rocket platforms that are launch platforms, the Atlas five
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and the Delta four launch vehicles, So they decided to retire those because they
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are developing a brand new rocket called the Vulcan Centaur. That's two cool names,
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like this rocket couldn't have just like one cool name like Centaur or Vulcan.
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It's the Vulcan Centaur, Okay. So it's a two hundred and two
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foot tall rocket developed by ULA that would serve as a replacement for their heavy
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lift vehicles that can take rather heavy payloads all the way out to geostationary orbit
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or potentially small payloads all the way to the Moon. So that's the kind
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of platform that they're developing. A great story on this on space dot Com
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today, the Vulcan Centaur rocket has passed a crucial launch pad test for the
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first time. So they actually have one of the Vulcan Centaur rockets at Cape
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Canaveral's Space four station down in Florida. They are rolling out. They have
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rolled out it's large main stage and they did a test firing. And they
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did this test firing to make sure that the rockets are the rocket engines are
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able to fire and in a safe manner, safe and predictable manner. So
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they call this a flight readiness test, and so it was only six seconds
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of engine firing, but it's a very important six seconds because it makes sure
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that the fuel is flowing correctly, that the ignition system is working, that
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the rocket engines are actually behaving in a manner that is to be anticipated.
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The rocket engines that fired were Blue Origins B E four engine. And again,
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if you're keeping scored home, Blue Origin is yet another rocket company,
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right, and they're not one of the old venerable rocket companies like Lockheed,
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well you know, like Boeing for instance. Now they're they're somewhat more new
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new age rocket company headed up by Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame. Anyway,
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so their new heavy thrust engines, the B E four, are the main
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power plant for that main booster. And so these two B four engines fired
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successfully for about six seconds and allowed the flight readiness tests to be a success.
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This happened on June seventh, which was yesterday as we're recording the show.
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So so anyway, a really important test right there. A quote from
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from ULA says, we are more than ninety eight percent complete with the Vulcan
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qualification program, with the remaining items associated with the final Centaur five testing.
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Now, it's important to note right now that the reason it has two names,
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Vulcan Centaur, is because Vulcan is the main stage booster and the Centaur
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five is the second stage booster. One of those second stage Centaurs actually exploded
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on a test stand launch back in March on March twenty ninth at Marshall's Space
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Flight Center over in Huntsville, Alabama. So that was kind of a negative
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moment for ULA where that that explosion took place. They are pretty sure it
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was because of a hydrogen leak that occurred, but it looks like they're they're
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getting that sorted out that investigations moving forward, but they're having a successful test
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now of those two Blue Origin main engines, and so a positive step toward
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the possible future platform coming online for ULA, the Vulcan Centaur rocket. If
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you're wondering how many stories we'd get through before we mentioned SpaceX, I guess
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that was two. We have a successful another successful launch for SpaceX. They've
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done a resupply mission to the International Space Station. This is the point where
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we make jokes about either taking you know, Tang or whatever up there,
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but actually a lot of science experiments. I think tang might be in there
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too, maybe not. I don't know as to be. I mean somewhere
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somewhere are some tang somewhere anyway, So, but you know, supplies which
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include beverages and food items. We're taken to the International Space Station on a
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SpaceX Dragon. That Dragon was able to dock with the International Space Station beginning
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the twenty eighth resupply mission for NASA that happened on June sixth. It was
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carrying with carrying with it several experiments, some really important things. Actually,
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one are these things called i rosas. It took up a couple of i
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roses. Now it's not a new phone in the iPhone series, the i
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ROSA. The i ROSA is an acron that stands for i SS roll out
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Solar array. That's where that one comes from. So these are new solar
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panels. These are new solar panels that will produce energy for the International Space
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Station. That's what the i roses are, And they're going to be spacewalks
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that are happening over the next several days as we're recording the show here where
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those i roses are going to be installed. And the power generation capacity for
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the International Space Station will thus be increased, so that's a good thing.
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Also on board that SpaceX Dragon are some experiments, some of those which will
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study thunderstorms on Earth, so that's cool. Studying thunderstorms from space you get
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a completely different look at the way not only that thunderstorms develop and move,
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but also how lightning moves through those storms. You just get a different view
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of that from from orbit. Then you get on the ground. There's a
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couple of biological experiments on board, one about plant adaptations and another one about
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the way telomeres behave. Now, telomeres are parts in our cells, in
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our bodies that help cells replicate, and so telomeres are what we need to
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stay young. In fact, as we age, one of the things that's
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happening to us where we're not producing our cells the same way we used to,
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is because our telomeres are actually getting shorter and running out. And so
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the way that telomeres behave in space in microgravity is potentially different than it is
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here on the Earth and might teach us something about helping to generate longer telomere
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life, which could help us stay alive longer here on Earth. So these
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are the kind of important experiments that are happening up on the space They all
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the time. There's all kinds of biomedical experimentation that takes place aboard International Space
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Station. Cube SATs are also being deployed, a couple of different flavors of
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cube SATs that arrived on the SpaceX Dragon. Some of those are going to
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be monitoring climate and climate change here on the Earth, and other ones are
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going to be monitoring solar activity. So these are all things that were aboard
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the space X Dragon cargo ship, next to the Twinkies and rollos and tang
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and you know, caprice suns or whatever they take up that I'm not sure,
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but anyway, So yeah, all that stuff on board and now available
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to the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Coming up after a quick break,
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we've got a story that combines the Carrington event and chat GPT that that's
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got my interest. We'll talk about that right after this. All right,
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So there's there's two things going on that we can talk about in this show
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that that could spell the end of humanity as we know it. One,
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of course, the discovery of alien ships and aliens that they're not telling us
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about I'm sorry, I just had to say that. And then the other
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one is chat GPT. Everybody says that AI is going to be the end
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of us. So we got two stories that that could just, I don't
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know, just scare you to death. H not so fast on that first
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one. Now we have a growing problem with AI. All right, we
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have a growing problem with A. Now some people say, I don't worry
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about it. It's just gonna make things wonderful for all of us and easier.
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And then some people say, no, it's gonna take away jobs and
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it's gonna spell the end of all mankind. I don't know where we we
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are on that. And again we've pointed out we try to take a science
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based approach to this, and I'd love to just say, let's wait and
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see. This doesn't really have anything to do with the end of mankind.
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But it does have to do with chat GPT and someone asking it about the
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Carrington event. Yes, once again, in an endeavor to beat back the
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dark forces of you could tell which one of us is the real scientist.
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So chat GPT, which is a tool, ladies and gentlemen, it's a
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software application, has taken on sort of a pseudo scientific life of its own,
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at least in the media, where people are turning over important life decisions
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and the control of their own being too this artificial intelligence application and maybe taking
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things just a bit too far. And yes there, I mean again,
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once again, we talk about science and the media on this show, and
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occasionally the media, believe it or not, they'll take things a bit far
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trying to Oh never, I mean, it's not that scientists don't think take
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things a bit far as well. Sometimes never, But that's what we're talking
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about right now. That's right. We'll talk about that later anyway. So
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uh, a very entertaining article on spaceweather dot com. Doctor Tony Phillips,
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the author of that website does a fantastic job. By the way, So
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if you've never visited spaceweather dot com, it is a sun monitoring website basically
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a monitor solar and Earth interactions with solar activity anyway, that's its primary focus.
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But but Tony Phillips features all kinds of great space related stories on that
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website. I go there almost every day, and the days I don't go
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there it's because I either just got too busy, or I just forgot to
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go do it. If I had my choice and preferences, I would go
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read Tony Phillips stuff every single day. It's that good. So we quote
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we quote spaceweather dot com a lot on the show, so I checked it
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out for the preparation for this show. And he's got a great article today
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about the Carrington event. Ladies and Gentlemen, go review some of our previous
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episodes. We've talked about the Carrington event here. Back in eighteen fifty nine,
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Ladies and Gentlemen, there was a gigantic solar flare on the Sun that
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hurled enough radiation at the Earth that crazy things happened, including Aurora borealis phenomenon
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in tropical locations near the equator, and telegraph wires catching on fire and telegraph
26:49
operators being electrocuted, and the ability to operate telegraphs without being hooked up to
26:55
any kind of electrical source because there was enough ambient electricity in the air,
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all due to solar radiation penetrating the shield of Earth's magnetic field, and dogs
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and cats living together mass hysteria. All of those things I mean, and
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it's very true. Dr Magman anyway, So the notion is that this was
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an unusual event, right, it was a solar flare powerful enough to really
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stand out among all the solar flares in recorded history. Okay, So at
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that same time, there was an astronomer by the name of Carrington who was
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observing the Sun on a daily basis, and that astronomer happened to capture and
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record not via cameras but by sketching this gigantic sunspot group on the Sun.
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Now, his sketches were actually a projection of the Sun on a wall where
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he actually kind of trace outlined these features. So they are highly accurate,
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and they are you're, very lovely drawings, as noted by spaceweather dot com.
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A quote on there says Carrington must be turning in his grave based on
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some reports from chat GPT because the astronomer made such accurate and beautiful drawings of
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the sun spot and that they were included in a report in the Monthly Notices
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of the Royal Astronomical Society. So so yeah, don't think it's like,
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you know, a kindergartener drawing a sunspot with a crayon. No, it's
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not that it's a scientist sketching from a projection a sunspot in high detail.
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Okay, so our friends at spaceweather dot com took to chat GPT to ask
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them, I said them, didn't I I just I just anthropomorphosized chat GPT
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right when I'm saying, don't do that, Okay. No, Jill tells
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me all the time, don't refer to Alexa as she. It's not as
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she. Stop it, she tells me all the time. It's just so
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tempting. We just are wired that way. As human beings, we want
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to interact. We have this innate desire to interact with things that we think
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are human anyway, all right, So chat GBT and AI tool was posed
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an inquiry from our friends at spaceweather dot com. And the inquiry was the
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exact size of Carrington's sunspot. I'm sorry, no back up. The inquiry
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was how big was Carrington's sunspot? That was the inquiry. The response was
29:27
the exact size of Carrington's sunspot is not known with certainty since direct measurements of
29:33
sunspot sizes were not possible during that time, which is not correct. So
29:41
just note, ladies and gentlemen, not correct. Chat GPT. Okay,
29:48
so if you're basing your life on what you're getting back from chat GPT,
29:51
don't do that. So then the folks at space Weather put in another inquiry
29:57
asking the same question, how big was the Carrington event Sunspot, and it
30:02
came back with, well, Carrington's events, the Carrington events sun spot was
30:07
actually one of the smaller sunspots, and there are more details there. I
30:11
encourage you to read the story. But anyway, they put in a third
30:14
query and the response was, well, the Carrington event sunspot was the largest
30:19
sunspot in recorded history, or something to that effect. Anyway, the point
30:25
being, multiple inquiries to chat GPT about the Carrington Events Sunspot came back with
30:32
varying answers. One of those was that there was no way to directly measure
30:37
the size of the time, which is what our friend Tony Phillips then says,
30:41
Carrington must be turning over in his grave because he highly accurately measured the
30:45
sunspot group. Now, all of that's a poke at chat GPT, which
30:49
we like to do to say, you know, don't worry, be happy
30:52
AI, so not so I as you think it is. So how big
31:00
really was the Carrington event? Sunspot. Maybe that's a better question, and
31:04
Space Weather notes that it would be a monster sun spot today, even knowing
31:08
all the things we know about sunspots, we'd have to go all the way
31:11
back to the early two thousands to see a sun spot that appeared on the
31:15
Sun that was as large as the Carrington Event sunspot. For those of you
31:19
who are keeping track, that's about twenty years, so it's a big sunspot
31:22
group, but it's not one of the biggest ever recorded. So during sunspot
31:30
cycled number eighteen, which peaked in May of nineteen forty seven, just after
31:36
the Second World War, there were sunspots recorded that were twice the size in
31:41
terms of surface area as the Carrington Events sunspot group. So the Sun can
31:45
have much much bigger sunspots than the Carrington event. They don't happen that often,
31:52
but wow, what if one of those exploded. So it's really an
31:56
interesting set of data to things through and to consider as we wonder what would
32:02
happen if a Carrington Event class storm erupted on the Sun today in twenty twenty
32:08
three, where we're highly dependent on all of our electronic devices and the Worldwide
32:14
Web and all of our satellites in space. What would happen today if such
32:19
an event occurred. Chances are it wouldn't be good. It would would It
32:23
would be a societal upheaval for some unknown period of time, which is never
32:30
a good thing. But anyway, it's still an entertaining story. Go check
32:34
it out spaceweather dot com. Ladies and gentlemen. How big was the Carrington
32:37
event? And what does chat GPT think about? That? Pretty funny stuff.
32:40
So NASA has some concerns about the complication SpaceX has had with their starship
32:46
and saying that that could cause a delay for Artemis three. A lot of
32:51
people are excited about Artemis three and that of course will be the mission that
32:55
will take people back to the Moon from America. And uh because I mean
33:04
at this point, when you start talking about possible delays, you start to
33:07
wonder while it's someone else gonna beat us back to the moon. So all
33:12
of that is certainly in play and a possibility now, but valid concerns about
33:17
what needs to happen at SpaceX before they can be ready for Artemis three.
33:22
Yeah, there's there. There are some valid concerns there, and obviously,
33:25
you know, the the last launch of the Starship with its super heavy booster
33:32
and Starship vehicle which Starship is the first lander for the Artemis program. It
33:38
was the first lander selected by NASA to land astronauts on the Moon. We
33:43
all know famously now that NASA is looking at other landers uh to compete with
33:47
Starship. The Starship was the first chosen and therefore the primary vehicle. Okay,
33:52
so h. A gentleman by the name of Jim Free who's NASA's Associate
33:58
Administrator for Explorations System Development, was speaking to the National Academies of Astronautics both
34:04
their Space Engineering Board and their Space Studies Board a joint meeting on June seventh,
34:09
which is yesterday for us anyway. So he said this. He said
34:14
Artemis three was in danger of being delayed from a possible launch of December twenty
34:20
five to who knows sometime later in twenty twenty six. Why was that concern,
34:30
Well, because SpaceX has to complete a whole variety of launches and test
34:37
maneuvers in order for Starship to actually be qualified to land those astronauts on the
34:43
Moon. And now due to this explosion and the FAA investigation that took place
34:50
or is going on right now, I should say, from the explosion in
34:52
Boca Chica for the first launch of the total Stacks starship system, space Sex
35:00
might be delayed enough where they won't be able to get all these launches in
35:02
on time necessary to qualify the vehicle. So each Starship Lander requires launching the
35:09
Starship Lander itself as well as tanker starships to fuel the Lander in Earth orbit
35:15
before it goes off to the Moon, which that requires an in orbit fuel
35:22
transfer one starship to another, a bit like one aircraft fuels another aircraft.
35:29
We've seen video of that certainly taking place. So all of that has to
35:32
happen with uncrewed starship missions, in addition to an uncrewed starship actually physically landing
35:39
on the Moon safely and then lifting back off and coming back home, all
35:45
before NASA will qualify Starship to carry real astronauts. Tying up all of those
35:52
loose ends, completing all of those launch missions and demonstrations, and having that
35:57
all done for a time frame ready to go by December twenty twenty five seems
36:01
a bit tight, according to Jim Free from NASA, So I would just
36:07
throw in one editorial comment that that's not the only technical hurdle that might keep
36:14
astronauts from landing on the Moon in twenty twenty five. In all fairness to
36:17
SpaceX, NASA has a few of their own loose ends to tie up before
36:22
they can before they're ready, none, the least of which is the Orion
36:24
capsule itself has to go through a few more milestones. So anyway, this
36:30
is what is hard about space. Space is difficult, right, So even
36:34
though SpaceX the companies seem to have lots of successes, they certainly have demonstrated
36:39
lots of successful technologies, there's still a lot to be done before their starship
36:44
vehicle is ready to be a NASA moon lander. Let's talk about astronomy nights
36:51
as you guys have a partnership with Callaway Gardens during the summer and Monday nights
36:55
are a great night to get away from the pollution of city lights and check
37:00
out the sky with doctor Rosa Williams. Yes, we have a fantastic collaboration
37:06
with one of our partners and tourism, the Callaway Gardens here in the Greater
37:10
West Central Georgia area, and so we work with their education department. We
37:15
take our telescopes and a team of young amateur astronomers and professional astronomers out to
37:22
Callaway Gardens set up telescopes and show people the nighttime sky. And our amateur
37:25
astronomers, by the way, are people who are studying to become professional astronomers.
37:30
They just aren't there yet. They're students and so, but they'll set
37:31
those telescopes up and they will show you objects in the nighttime sky, and
37:36
they can discuss all variety of space issues and questions like if you want to
37:40
know if there's alien bodies you know, I'm sure doctor Williams would love to
37:45
have that question to make sure you bring all of those questions about, you
37:49
know, what's going on with aliens to our astronomy nights out of Callaway,
37:53
But hopefully we'll stick to just beating back superstition with the weapons of science and
38:00
UH. And you can look at the nighttime sky and just really have a
38:02
great enjoyable time out there with our astronomy team at Callaway Gardens. And you
38:07
guys have your calendar on your website with all the dates for those astronomy nights
38:13
plus other events, and you can check out our website has all kinds of
38:16
information about what's going on here at the Space Science Center at this address on
38:22
the on the Worldwide Web. It's a UURL www dot cc SSC dot org.
38:30
In case I have various speech defects, that's a Charlie, A Charlie,
38:36
A Sam Sam, and another Charlie Charlie, Charlie, Sam Sam,
38:39
Charlie cc SSC dot org. Great show, Thank you for listening. We
38:45
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