Latest / Made of Stars / Starliner Mission Should Be Completed In Spite of Five Helium Leaks

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Starliner Mission Should Be Completed In Spite of Five Helium Leaks · 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 expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar,
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asterism and uranus. Listen, that's your own risk. Go ahead. When
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made of stars, made them stars, madies. When made of stars,
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you could be from high they would New Mexicomus where all stars? When we
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are made of stars. I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor
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Sean, cruising from Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center. Morning Sean,
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Good morning West, Good to be here today again. You were coming
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to us live from Houston, Texas, which I think it just adds a
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certain element to the show. You know, you're coming to us from Houston's
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and as I said, I think it would be great. Maybe, you
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know, if I would go, you know, to the Space coast and
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we could do it, we'd be covering both bases. Maybe we could check
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in with Huntsville or something along the way. I don't know. Anyway,
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we got We've been covering a couple of big stories in rockets over the past
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several weeks, and the obviously star Liner and Starship both having a good week
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last week, and I'm under selling Starship. Starship had a great week,
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Starliner had their successful launch. That's what everybody was hoping for. Or but
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we now have more to this story, and we have to now revisit this
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helium leak that was part of the delays that was keeping them from launching earlier
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when they were trying to initially launch, And now it turns out there's more
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helium leaks than we knew about. And now I guess there has to be
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some conversation about finishing the mission getting home safely, which I assume they still
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expect to be able to do comfortably, or else they wouldn't have launched with
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helium leaks. Yeah. So, and you're right first of all, that
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I'm in a bedroom somewhere near the Johnson Space Center geographically speaking, while recording
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the podcast here, I'm not actually at the Johnson Space Center, although it
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is here in Houston, and it is the reason why I'm here in Houston.
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So I guess all that connects, you know, in some familial sort
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of way, to the Johnson Space Center. But but yes, So we're
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covering this story live from Houston. Sound very romantic, it does. It's
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theater of the Mine, man, and you just blew it all up.
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But that's all right, that's all right. I was probably imagine me standing
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out in front of the Johnson Space Center. That was like, you know,
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the T thirty eight trainers in the background, and a giant Space Shuttle
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replica. And actually I'm just in a suburban bedroom somewhere near the Johnson Space
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Center. But yeah, if you had just described those things and not said
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you're in a bedroom, we'd be all in. Baby. I know better.
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Look behind me. I can see the T thirty eight trainers and the
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space Shuttle replica right there, right now, right behind me, there are
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actual astronauts walking behind you in slow motion. Like I just saw them go
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by in slow motion, and uh, you know, back in Black was
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playing. It was very epic to see. So that's what's happening right here
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behind me. Yeah, there you go. As we speak about Starliner anyway.
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All right. So Starliner, though, is tied to Houston because Houston,
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Texas, of course, is the central command for the human spaceflight program,
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and obviously this is a human spaceflight story. We had a couple of
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NASA astronauts ride Boeing's Starliner CST one hundred spacecraft successfully to the International Space Station.
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So before we start this story, yes, Starliner has been successful thus
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far. They got the astronauts safely delivered to the International Space Station on a
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test flight where you're supposed to be shaking out the bugs. So all of
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that is going well. Now here comes the rest of the story, which
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is they launched with one helium leak that they knew about. The rate at
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which the helium was leaking was determined to not be a threat or hazard to
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the operation of the vehicle, so they went ahead and launched after docking to
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the International Space which there were, you know, some level of troubles even
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in that process, but again it's a test flight. You're supposed to be
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shaking out the bugs. But here's the thing. They found that they have
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four more helium leaks for a total of five. And on June tenth,
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NASA put out in a statement they said, quote they said that the teams
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were examining, quote what impacts if any of the five small helium leaks in
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the service module helium manifolds have on the remainder of the mission. Unquote.
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Now, they kind of caval literally mentioned five helium leaks in a statement when
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they hadn't mentioned those helium leaks before. So all of those people in space
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media went, wait, did they just say five? They have five helium
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leaks. So this was the first reference to there being five helium leaks aboard
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the spacecraft, so they went from one to five. Now, SpaceNews dot
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com, among other people, reached out to NASA for more details. I'm
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quoting from SpaceNews dot com, and they had a statement from NASA spokesperson Josh
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Finch addressing the fifth leak and said the leak is considerably smaller than the others
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and has been recorded at one point seven psi per minute. Anyway, there's
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some data being exchanged about the rate at which the helium is leaking from these
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tanks. Now, friends, if you have no idea what helium does on
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a spaceship, here's what it does. As they use up the fuel in
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the tanks that have the supply fuel to the thrusters that allow them to maneuver
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the vehicle, they replace that fuel with helium to maintain the pressure in those
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tanks because you're in a microgravity environment and you have to rely on pressure to
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deliver the fuel to your thruster systems, So helium being an inert gas,
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they pump helium into those tanks to replace the fuel keep the pressure high so
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that the systems work well. That's that's the ultra shortcut version of all the
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stuff. Now, helium is the second smallest molecule on the periodic table,
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so it tends to leak out of stuff. It's really hard to seal a
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tank of helium, and it should we mentioned that. You know, many
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a Space Shuttle mission launched with known helium leaks as well, So in that
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sense, the Boeing star Liners not breaking new ground. But when NASA comes
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out and mentions, you know, five leaks when everybody thought they only had
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one, that does get folks attention, right, it does beg the question.
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Now. I saw in a different article where they had estimated the rate
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of leaking and how much team to lose compared to how much they would need
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to get home, and they have about ten ten times the amount of helium
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on board compared to the rate of leakage that would allow them to return home.
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Safely, so it looks like they're still within spec and everything is okay.
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So they've actually extended the mission just a little bit into next week so
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that they can do some further testing, but also you shake out the bugs
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and just make sure they have everything in order they know what's going on before
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they let Starliner come back home. So that's the latest on star Liner.
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It's an interesting situation. Doesn't appear to be anything dangerous at this time,
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and it's just a little bit surprising when you go from one leak to five
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weeks talking to the media. So last week we did the show on Wednesday.
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We normally record on Thursday like we're doing today. So because we did
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the show on Wednesday last week and we were really trying to talk a lot
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and give credit where it was due to Starliner for their successful launch. That
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meant that on Thursday morning, when SpaceX launched star you know, we sort
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of missed that story, but it was we we talked about the fact that
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it was going to happen, or that was planned to happen. The fact
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that it did happen, that's great, great for them, and it was
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just a series of wins for them. Wasn't it. Yeah, we had
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a great time in my Houston based aerospace industry Famili's household out here all watching
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Starship launch together. It was a good time out here. That's what you
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know, That's what geeks do on vacation, you know, they watched space
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launches. So so we watched that launch. It was a beautiful engineering achievement
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for SpaceX. On June sixth, they launched Starship. It's the most powerful
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launch vehicle ever built. It successfully achieved all of the objectives laid out for
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it, so that if you remember from our previous conversations or if this is
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the first time you're ever hearing it, Starship basically consists of a vehicle called
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star Ship and a giant booster that they set the vehicle on, and then
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the whole thing together is also called Starship. Anyway, So the Starship spacecraft
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separated from the giant booster. Everything being successful, the booster came back down
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and completed a soft landing, which means it fired its retro rockets, its
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engines that allow it to slow down as if it was coming in for a
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landing. Now, they intentionally didn't do that over land. They intentionally did
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that over the Gulf of Mexico because they're still testing things. But the booster
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performed nominally and came back down and did the landing completely great. And then
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the starship vehicle did what's called a hot stage separation. This is where the
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big rocket is still firing. But then the secondary stage or the spacecraft itself,
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was able to fire its engines and push away from the booster. All
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of that and perfectly. Those launches and maneuvers put the super heavy booster in
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a position to come back down and land make that soft landing out in the
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ocean. But it also put the starship vehicle the spacecraft into a trajectory over
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the Indian Ocean, where it then was able to perform what they call a
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flip maneuver, where it goes horizontal, comes coming back down using its fins.
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It puts it in an orientation that allows it to slow down dynamically through
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friction, and then flip at the last minute back to vertical, fire its
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engines and perform what it would call a soft landing in the Indian Ocean.
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So both vehicles were able to perform flip maneuvers. Both vehicles were able to
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fire their engines and perform quote unquote soft landing maneuvers even though they lost both
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vehicles. That was intended all the time. So those were all very successful
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milestones for SpaceX. In addition to that, we got to watch all of
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this happen because there were high definition cameras on both vehicles and they had real
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time telemetry. The reason that we were able to enjoy that is because Starlink
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was working very well. So Starlink being the constellation of orbiting high speed Internet
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satellites that SpaceX is put into orbit, they were all delivering that telemontry perfectly,
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and Starlink is quite the hot topic of course in the space community because
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astronomers, by very good reason, hate all of those spacecraft basically polluting the
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sky. However, the Internet capabilities are remarkable, as demonstrated by this launch.
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So there you have it, friends, the fourth flight of Starship.
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It made huge strides. According to SpaceX themselves on their website, says made
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huge strides toward bringing us closer to a rapid reusability platform for the future,
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and of course Starship being fully reusable and being able to lift off that actually
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lands. It's getting us ready to go to places like the Moon and Mars
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and who knows where else after that. So all, according to SpaceX dot
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com, good stuff. There, a great flight, and it was a
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fun pleasure to watch how quickly they have come from blowing up their launch pad
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to having this successful, so many successes on this particular launch. Yeah,
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it's worthy to note. Also there are plenty of stories out basically a week
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later here talking about how many shore bird nests were disturbed on the beaches of
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Bocachica and what a calamitous environmental impact that is. And then of course they're
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preparing to launch these vehicles from the Space Coast in Florida, in the Titusville
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area, and so there are entities that are putting out queries about environmental impacts
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of possible rock launches from the Florida Coast as they go through the environmental impact
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study to get them licensed by the FAA to perform launches from the Kennedy Space
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Center. So all of that has kind of taking place in the background.
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I mean, at this point it's become you know, the usual exchange of
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ideas associated with these starship launches. You know, launches of big rockets are
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going to have some impact there's no way not to. Then there's a whole
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debate about, well, should we be launching rockets at all? Some of
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us think we should, others of us think we shouldn't. That's all out
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there in the public eye. You know, those stories are important and interesting
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as well. We're just not going to go into detail about them today.
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We're going to go ahead and say successful launch for SpaceX, Way to go
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starship, bringing us that much closer to the next generation of launch vehicles.
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Let's talk about the loss of a NASA legend. William Anders has died at
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the age of ninety. Yeah, So first of all, let's remind folks
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why Bill Anders was important to America's space program. He was one of three
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human beings, the other two being Jim Lovell and Frank Borman, who first
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went to the Moon. Now, you don't hear that story told very often
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when you think about the first people to go to the Moon, you think
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about the Apollo eleven crew. But they were the first ones to walk on
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the Moon, Neil and Buzz and Mike Collins orbiting around in the command module.
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But the first people to actually leave Earth orbit and to travel to the
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Moon and to orbit around the backside, completing ten orbits by the way around
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the Moon, and then coming back home. That was the Apollo eight mission.
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And it's well documented what a dangerous mission that was, simply because no
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one had ever gone further, faster and with as short a timeline as did
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the Apollo eight crew. And when I say that about the short timeline,
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remember we were racing the Russians. It was part of what is now referred
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to as the Space Race, and we thought that the Russians were getting very
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close to putting their own people on a rocket in a capsule and orbiting them
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around the backside of the Moon. So the Apollo program and the astronauts and
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technicians at NASA were working very rapidly, at an incredibly rapid pace to achieve
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all the milestones necessary to put the first crew around the back side of the
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Moon. These three men, Jim Lovel, Frank Borman, and Bill Anders
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that we're talking about now were the first ones to ever launch on a Saturn
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five. Up to very recently, that was the most powerful rocket humanity had
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ever launched. And they were the first human beings to say, yep,
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I'll go on that thing. Put me in our her, She's kissed shaped
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capsule and blast me to the moon. Friends. These are brave and intrepid
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explorers, unlike maybe anyone in history, because they're literally leaving the planet for
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the first time to go somewhere else, not just in orbit around the planet,
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but to leave. So this needs to be said about Bill Anders before
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we go any further. It's the star trek line, you know, going
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where no man has gone before, and that's what they were brave enough to
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do. I want a couple of things. I think that just in seeing
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this story. First of all, I think it's pretty common for me whenever
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I hear that someone in their late eighties, nineties or you know, early
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one hundreds, when I hear a story and it says, you know,
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and in this case, you say, oh, William Anders died at the
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age of ninety and in my head, I just and this is just sort
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of my sick, twisted humor. I just sort of think, well,
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how did they die? And I've done this before, like Betty White.
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It was like ninety nine Betty White died and I'm like, you know,
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well, and someone to how did she die? You know, she was
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you know, bungee jumping, or you know, you just think of something
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ridiculous that you would think in this case, you know, my head sort
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of went there and went, oh, well, he just he died of
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old age. And then he said, no, no, he was.
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He was still flying. He was still doing something that he obviously loved,
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which, you know, it kind of is a twist in the story,
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but at the same time it brings me some comfort in knowing that he was
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still doing something that he loved very much. He was he was flying a
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plane. Yep, that's right. So details here coming from smithsonianmagazine dot com.
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There are lots of stories obviously about this. I've read in other stories,
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not Smithsonian, but I read in other stories where he was actually performing
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some kind of an aerobatic maneuver. Of course he was, of course he
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was. Yes, I mean, that's exactly He's doing something that he loved.
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Dared a nineteen sixty one Beachcraft T thirty four mentor aircraft somewhere over well
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the ocean off the San Juan Islands in Washington State, where he lived.
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His family actually owned a vintage aircraft museum, and he and his son,
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who his son is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. His name is Greg
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Anders. The family actually performed at air shows. So Bill Anders, at
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ninety, after having been one of the first three people to ever go to
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the moon, was still flying demonstrations of acrobatic maneuvers in vintage aircraft. And
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maybe if you had asked him, how would you want to go? I
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mean, I've got to believe in my own editorial way that this would have
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probably been like, yeah, I'd rather do that. I don't know that
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that's what happened. Again, I'm just quoting pieces of what I've read in
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other places, but that maybe what happened. The FAA is investigating, of
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course, but friends, that's not a bad way to go for an apollo
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astronaut, right, Yeah. I mean when I saw it, it was
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just again caught me by surprise. I thought, well, that's not really
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where I thought this story was going. You kind of just fill in the
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blanks, I guess, and then you think, well, of course,
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this just sounds like the right, This just seems right, This feels I
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mean, obviously the family hates to lose him, but you got to feel
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some comfort in knowing that he was doing something that he was very passionate about.
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And this just seems like that badassery that you would expect out of someone
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who flew around the Moon when no one else had done it, right.
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I mean, the term you used is the perfect term. That's how I
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would describe all of the Apollo astronauts that I personally have had the opportunity to
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meet. I had no opportunity to meet Bill Anders, but he fits this
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scenario, fits right in with the kind of impression that I've gained by meeting
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other Apollo astronauts. So it is no surprise to me that he was out
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there doing that, you know, when he passed away at age ninety.
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So yeah, really cool stuff, something important. Well, there's a couple
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of quotes I want to get in, so Smithsonianmagazine dot COM's where I'm finding
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these quotes. His son, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Greg Anders, said,
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the family is devastated. He was a great pilot and will be missed
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terribly. So that's a quote from his son. Then also, NASA Administrator
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Bill Nelson released a statement on the following Saturday that said, has Bill put
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it so well, after the conclusion of Apollo eight mission, quote, we
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came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is
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that we discovered the Earth. Now what did that quote mean. Well,
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there's a very very famous photograph in NASA history. If you see anything about
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the Apollo missions, they show the set of photographs as a video almost all
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the time. It's what's called the earth rise photograph. You see the Earth
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rising over the limb of the Moon. That photograph and those series of photographs
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were actually captured by Bill Anders a board Apollo eight when humanity was first on
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board a vehicle that traveled to the backside of the Moon where you could see
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an Earth rise over the limb of the moon. So that's another important contribution.
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That photograph has often been credited for a change in humanity's perspective on the
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vulnerability and isolation and the importance of maintaining Earth's environment, right, and so
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it's just a really interesting photograph that had a huge impact on humanity being able
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to see ourselves on this tiny blue ball from outer space rising over the limb
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of the moon. That was Bill Anders' photograph. He's credited with that and
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literally may have changed humanity's perspective on the way we live aboard our pale blue
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dot, as Carl Saganlaer called it. Coming up after a quick break,
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we'll talk about frost on Olympus Monds. Do that right after this. All
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right, let's talk about Olympus monds on Mars. We had a couple of
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Mars stories here to wrap up the show today. But this discovery, for
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the first time ever of frauds on Olympus Monds. Yeah, so let's explain
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just a little bit about that. We know that there's frost on Mars,
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and it's water H two O frost, right, It freezes and then it
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doesn't actually turn into water. It does something called sublimation. It goes directly
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from a solid to a gas. This happens every day. There's a huge
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interchange of water between the surface and the atmosphere every single day on Mars.
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But all of that happens at the poles of Mars, is what we thought.
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Well, apparently not. Apparently there are some traces of frost in other
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places on Mars. For the first time, a group of scientists led by
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astronomers of the University of Burn or planetary scientists at the University of Burn have
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discovered water frost on top of some very large mountains on the Martian surface.
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There's something on Mars called the Tharsus Ridge, and on board this Tharsus Ridge,
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which is a rolling up geographical region on Mars, there are giant shield
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volcanoes, and these volcanoes are some of the largest mountains anywhere in the Solar
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System. One of those, the largest of these, is called Olympus Monds.
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It is number one. It is the biggest mountain anywhere in the Solar
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System, the largest volcano. And these are very near the equator of the
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planet Mars rather than toward the poles, so they're down in an area that
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we to this point, all of our observations have suggested that this area is
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very dry. It's devoid of any kind of surface ice, and we've never
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really seen evidence of ice anywhere near either the equator of Mars or even on
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these mountains on Mars, even though their altitude is quite high. Well,
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that doesn't appear to be the truth. It looks like some very clever observations
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were taken with something called the UP and Space Agencies Trace Gas Orbiter to vehicle
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orbiting Mars right now. There's an instrument on board called the Color and Stereo
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Surface Imaging System, or they call it Cassis. It's a high resolution imaging
26:11
system that looks for various details on the surface of Mars. They were able
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to near sunrise and sunset capture a process on top of these giant shield volcanoes
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of frost freezing down onto the surface of these very tall mountains. That's the
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first time that waterfrost has been discovered anywhere near the planet's equator, and so
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it's causing the planetary scientists to rethink and recalibrate their models of the planetary dynamics,
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especially in terms of climate and the interaction between the atmosphere and the surface
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of Mars. So interesting story. Check it out on Universe Today dot com.
26:53
Also on Mars, and we talk about solar storms, and we talk
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about the possibility of you know, a coronal mass ejection or something coming from
27:06
the Sun having an impact on our communications or on anything that we're doing here
27:11
on Earth. And we've talked about the Carrington effect. We've talked about,
27:15
you know, the potential danger and hazards. When we have Aurora borealis it
27:21
comes, you know, down to Puerto Rico and you think, wow,
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that's not normal, and that could have been much worse. But we don't
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really hear. I mean, we may think about that, and I don't
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think most Americans even think about that, unfortunately, but we talk about it
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here. But obviously in the space science community there's concerns about what could happen
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like on Mars. And we've had that happen now with the rovers on Mars,
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as the solar storms have had an impact on those rovers. Yeah.
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I heard someone mentioned this the other day put it in a kind of a
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clever way. Mars is the only planet in our Solar System inhabited entirely by
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robots. The population of Mars is entirely a robotic population, at least that
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we know of so far. So when we think about the effects of a
28:15
solar storm on Mars, we have to say, well, how does it
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affect the population of Mars, which right now is silicon based rather than carbon
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based, right and so, but in all seriousness, friends, that that's
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our Those are our emissaries to the planet Mars. We of course, as
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a species are very seriously colonizing Mars. We're building spacecraft right now to do
28:42
so. We've sent robot emissaries that are ahead of us to look for signs
28:47
of resources that we need. We are at work now colonizing Mars. We
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don't think about it that way, but we are. And so if human
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beings were walking around on the surface of Mars, a solar storm like this
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one would have an impact on human beings. But we're not there yet.
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What is there or what are there, I should say, in large number
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are our robot emissaries, And so we have to look and say, okay,
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well, if there's something like, oh, I don't know, an
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X twelve class solar flare on the Sun, which there was on May twentieth,
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and if that giant wave of charged particles streaming out through the Solar system
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because of that X class flare impacted the planet Mars, which it did,
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what would be the effects on any astronauts who are there. Well, to
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answer that question, we look at the effects on our robotic astronauts and what
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we saw was the electronics abord these these robotic emissaries of ours were highly affected.
29:49
So the cameras aboard the Curiosity rover, for instance, recorded a swarm
29:55
of charged particles streaming through its camera systems. And then the Maven spacecraft,
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which is an orbit around Mars, which is another climate satellite. We just
30:03
talked about it different on in a moment ago. But this Maven spacecraft was
30:07
able to record several days of aurora phenomenon in the atmosphere of Mars, northern
30:14
lights and southern lights in other words, which is interesting because that's typically here
30:18
on Earth, an effect that's in an interaction between charge particles from the Sun
30:22
and Earth's magnetic field. Well, Mars has a not much of if any,
30:29
magnetic field. It is a very very weak magnetic field compared to the
30:33
Earth, and yet there were still aurora phenomenon detected, which means, you
30:40
know, these charge particles are directly, almost directly interacting with the atmosphere.
30:44
The reason that that no magnetic field is important is because that's our shield from
30:48
charge particles here on Earth. Mars has very little shield from these charge particles.
30:53
And so if this same storm had happened when human beings were rocking around
30:57
on the surface of Mars, they they would need to seek shelter. In
31:03
other words, they couldn't be just out on the surface doing EVAs in a
31:06
spacesuit because their spacesuits would not provide them with adequate protection from this level of
31:11
charge radiation. They would need to be indoors in some kind of a shield
31:15
and environment, which means they would have to know that the solar storm is
31:19
coming, which means there's a lot of things to think about when you're trying
31:22
to colonize Mars. Right, this is one more of them, and this
31:26
recent storm is just a kind of a reminder of all of that. Doses
31:32
of radiation that astronauts could have received would have been at least the power of
31:37
thirty chest x rays all at once. This is a number estimated given by
31:42
Sky at Nightmagazine dot com, which is kind of a British version of our
31:47
Sky and Telescope magazine or Astronomy magazine here in the US. I've been reading
31:51
Sky at Night since I was a teenager. It's a great magazine, by
31:55
the way, so check out Sky at Nightmagazine dot com check out their website
31:57
for this story and many others. But yeah, thirty chest x rays is
32:01
nothing to sneeze at. You certainly wouldn't want those without that lead vest if
32:05
you were at the dentist, for instance. So anyway, it's a real
32:09
effect, right, we have to think about as we colonize our solar system
32:15
outside of Earth's protective magnetic field. What are the effects from solar storms and
32:21
from solar radiation, And again, this story just another reminder that we need
32:24
to think about that all right. Well, whether you're pulling off the staycation
32:30
this summer and looking for things to do and exploring the city of Columbus and
32:36
the Chattahoochee Valley area, or perhaps you're just looking for something to do to
32:40
get the kids out of the house and not just staring at screens and you
32:44
want them to keep their brains stimulated over the summer. You guys are open
32:50
at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center. We are friends and we
32:54
have a very nice air conditioning system that when our power doesn't go out,
33:00
it remains running. Now I'm mentioning that about power outage because we just had
33:02
one of those last week where we had to close a day. But that
33:06
wasn't our fault, friends, that was you know, some other power utility
33:10
incident that cut our power. Why am I telling you the story because the
33:14
rest of the time we have air conditioning. That's why it's nice inside.
33:16
We have a planetarium and we have all kinds of exhibits like our space shuttle,
33:20
lotysy and all whole variety of hands on gallery exhibits that when our power
33:24
is working, all of those things are up and running and they're providing a
33:29
very nice entertainment venue on Front Avenue in Columbus, Georgia. So come down
33:34
and check us out, friends well. Coca Cola Space Science Center's website is
33:37
www dot cc s SC dot org and if you visit that URL domain,
33:45
you can come down and see all of the shows that you have listed in
33:49
our atmosphere theater that will be running throughout the day, as well as a
33:52
full lineup of all of the fun things you can enjoy inside Clumbus to University's
33:55
Coca Cola Space Science Center and that air conditioning and included in the cost of
34:01
admission. Shawn and I thank you for listening, and we'll do this again
34:05
next week nights. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has all of your garage door
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