Latest / Made of Stars / The Sun and the Moon and Iceland
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
- 0:04Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
- 0:07Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
- 0:10Speaker 1: expand to vocabulary to include terms like quasar, asterism and uranus. Listen,
- 0:15Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
- 0:16Speaker 2: Go ahead.
- 0:22Speaker 3: When made of stars, medium stars, madies. When made of stars,
- 0:33Speaker 3: you could be from high they would New Mexicomus.
- 0:39Speaker 2: Where a.
- 0:41Speaker 4: Stars? When we are made of stars.
- 0:55Speaker 5: I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean Cruising,
- 0:59Speaker 5: executive director at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
- 1:03Speaker 2: Hey Sean, Hey, well, it's good to be here today.
- 1:06Speaker 5: And also, you know, a professor's back to school now right,
- 1:10Speaker 5: you're it is? It is teaching, teaching some astronomy and things.
- 1:16Speaker 2: Very fortunately, because of the busyness of my schedule, I
- 1:20Speaker 2: am not teaching this semester.
- 1:22Speaker 4: Oh wow, okay, I've got.
- 1:24Speaker 2: A semester break, which I get, you know, here and
- 1:26Speaker 2: there because of my administrative role. But the reason that
- 1:30Speaker 2: that's fortunate this year is because we are in a
- 1:34Speaker 2: very critical planning period for our new facility, and so
- 1:40Speaker 2: if people don't know that the Coca Cola Space Science
- 1:43Speaker 2: Center is going to be moving into a new facility.
- 1:45Speaker 5: We are.
- 1:47Speaker 2: That is in a phase where we're working with the
- 1:49Speaker 2: architects right now, but we are even concluding that phase
- 1:52Speaker 2: and groundbreaking. Well, it could be coming up soon ish,
- 1:57Speaker 2: So I can't really talk about a date for that,
- 2:00Speaker 2: but soon ish, soon enough that it's probably a good
- 2:05Speaker 2: thing that I'm not teaching this semester. All of those
- 2:08Speaker 2: things coming together. And friends, let me just tell you
- 2:11Speaker 2: that for the city of Columbus, Georgia, for the region
- 2:15Speaker 2: of the southeastern United States, we are building a facility
- 2:19Speaker 2: that's dedicated to emerging technologies, which include robotics, space tech,
- 2:25Speaker 2: and management, and also AI, cybersecurity and a variety of
- 2:30Speaker 2: other things. They're going to be there's going to be
- 2:34Speaker 2: a nexus point created for all of those things in
- 2:37Speaker 2: a new facility where we combine our Coca Cola Space
- 2:40Speaker 2: Science Center Museum with our robotics engineering program and have
- 2:45Speaker 2: overlap with other of the emerging tech programs on the
- 2:49Speaker 2: Columbus State University campus. And I'm very excited about playing
- 2:54Speaker 2: a key role in that new set of programs. And
- 2:58Speaker 2: then Space Science Center moving to a newer and larger
- 3:01Speaker 2: facility where we will put our iconic quarterscale engineering prototype
- 3:07Speaker 2: of the Space Shuttle on display. That is going to
- 3:11Speaker 2: be a fantastic artifact for people to come and see.
- 3:15Speaker 2: It's going to be positioned in the vertical stack position,
- 3:19Speaker 2: It's going to be about five stories tall. So all
- 3:22Speaker 2: of these things are just really exceptional add on to
- 3:26Speaker 2: what we have currently at the Space Science Center. And
- 3:29Speaker 2: we'll be doing that in a brand new facility. So
- 3:32Speaker 2: all very exciting times here at CSU's Coca Cola Space
- 3:35Speaker 2: Science Center.
- 3:36Speaker 5: And I mean you mentioned the Shuttle, and it's when
- 3:42Speaker 5: you think about artifacts that you guys already have in house,
- 3:46Speaker 5: that's one that you've been waiting for the right opportunity
- 3:49Speaker 5: to put it on display. And it is just going
- 3:51Speaker 5: to take things to another level when you have it
- 3:54Speaker 5: out on display.
- 3:56Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is. And again, we simply could not
- 3:59Speaker 2: house that artifact in our facility that we have now.
- 4:03Speaker 5: It wasn't for lack of trying.
- 4:04Speaker 2: I know, well, in any in any scenario, there was
- 4:08Speaker 2: going to have to be some construction, right right, And
- 4:11Speaker 2: so that was that was the you know, the key
- 4:14Speaker 2: over these last several years, like how how do we
- 4:17Speaker 2: best optimize that and how do we make it the
- 4:21Speaker 2: greatest bang for the buck for Columbus State University and
- 4:24Speaker 2: for Columbus Georgia. And so all of those decision making
- 4:29Speaker 2: factors went into what we're ultimately coming up with again,
- 4:32Speaker 2: this Nexus Facility for Encouraging the next generation of scientists, engineers,
- 4:39Speaker 2: science educators, and communicators. That's going to be the brand
- 4:42Speaker 2: new Space Science Center Columbus State University in the Nexus
- 4:47Speaker 2: Facility for Emerging Technologies at Columbus State University.
- 4:52Speaker 5: It's an exciting time and I get to hear about
- 4:55Speaker 5: it from you, and I also get to hear about
- 4:57Speaker 5: it from some of the fundraising people, so it's you know,
- 5:00Speaker 5: I get I get it from a couple of perspectives,
- 5:03Speaker 5: and I'm really excited about it, and I know you
- 5:06Speaker 5: guys are looking forward to it. Some time still has
- 5:09Speaker 5: to take place to get it the groundbreaking and get
- 5:13Speaker 5: it built, but it is something really to look forward to,
- 5:16Speaker 5: and you've done a good job on selling it, and
- 5:19Speaker 5: I just hope folks can appreciate what's coming because it
- 5:23Speaker 5: is going to be fantastic.
- 5:25Speaker 2: You know, all of these efforts are team efforts, and
- 5:28Speaker 2: fortunately we have a really talented team of a lot
- 5:32Speaker 2: of very great individuals with lots of skills. We're bringing
- 5:35Speaker 2: those skills to bear to make this a reality. And yes,
- 5:40Speaker 2: that does include somebody that you know very.
- 5:41Speaker 5: Well, that I know very well. Yes, you've got one
- 5:45Speaker 5: very beautiful woman that's doing that that I can speak to.
- 5:49Speaker 5: Let's talk about the uh my wife, by the way,
- 5:52Speaker 5: in case anybody's going, what is he talking about? That
- 5:53Speaker 5: was a very sexist thing. He said, no, my bride.
- 5:58Speaker 5: So let's let's one thing we're recording now. While there
- 6:02Speaker 5: is a spacewalk going on that started this morning. I've
- 6:07Speaker 5: been kind of checking in and out on that. One
- 6:10Speaker 5: thing about the spacewalk is as a concept, it's fascinating
- 6:15Speaker 5: and you think about anything that's going on in the process.
- 6:18Speaker 5: There's people that are just there and they're they're tethered
- 6:23Speaker 5: in some capacity to something, and then everything in the
- 6:27Speaker 5: universe is beyond where they are, and that self is fascinating.
- 6:32Speaker 5: And to know that our the administrator of NASA once
- 6:37Speaker 5: did a spacewalk where he just stuck his head out
- 6:39Speaker 5: of a ship and looked out at the beyond is
- 6:43Speaker 5: pretty awesome as well. The whole concept of it is
- 6:46Speaker 5: fascinating when they're doing it. You want to be able
- 6:50Speaker 5: to take in the magnitude of what they're doing. But
- 6:54Speaker 5: when you're actually watching them do it, and you're like, yeah,
- 6:56Speaker 5: that guy's just like tightening a bolt, and you know,
- 6:59Speaker 5: it's to become like less fascinating just to watch in
- 7:02Speaker 5: full details, you have to. It's almost like, and I'm
- 7:05Speaker 5: not a NASCAR fan, but when people watch NASCAR and
- 7:08Speaker 5: they just turn it on and then they leave the
- 7:10Speaker 5: room and come back in and they go, what a
- 7:11Speaker 5: lap are we on? That's the way I kind of
- 7:13Speaker 5: watch the Space Walk, you know, I'm just kind of
- 7:15Speaker 5: in and out. Let's see what they're doing. Is it
- 7:17Speaker 5: something interesting? No, he's like working a screwdriver in big gloves.
- 7:22Speaker 5: All right, I'll come back in a few minutes. You know.
- 7:24Speaker 5: That's what I do.
- 7:26Speaker 2: I mean, it's fair. Yeah, it's fair. That's That's the
- 7:30Speaker 2: way I watch the World Cup, you know, see, I
- 7:33Speaker 2: do the.
- 7:33Speaker 5: World Cup the other way. But my point is, even
- 7:36Speaker 5: though I'm taking it in that way, I appreciate the
- 7:39Speaker 5: magnitude of what's going on because there's just a helmet
- 7:43Speaker 5: between them and everything in the universe.
- 7:46Speaker 2: I try to tell people this way, you know, imagine this. Imagine. Yeah,
- 7:51Speaker 2: you're working on something you can almost imagine like the
- 7:54Speaker 2: outside of your house, right, so, like you're working on
- 7:57Speaker 2: the AC unit on the outside of your house. But
- 8:00Speaker 2: then you just kind of turn around one hundred and
- 8:03Speaker 2: eighty degrees, you know, put the house to your back,
- 8:06Speaker 2: and what you see is the Earth in a spherical
- 8:12Speaker 2: shape and a blackness of space surrounding it, and that's
- 8:18Speaker 2: all you can see. So, you know, like fear of heights,
- 8:23Speaker 2: Like this is the most like fear of heights kind
- 8:27Speaker 2: of view you could possibly imagine. I guess, like like
- 8:30Speaker 2: you can't be in a situation where you're more like,
- 8:34Speaker 2: holy cow, am I high up in the air right now?
- 8:37Speaker 2: Where you're not high up in the air. You're high
- 8:38Speaker 2: up out of the air. Friend. This is as high
- 8:42Speaker 2: up as you can be without leaving Earth's gravity, all right.
- 8:45Speaker 2: So so to see that view and the only other
- 8:50Speaker 2: human made thing that you see are your own hands
- 8:53Speaker 2: and the gloves around them, like that's the only other
- 8:56Speaker 2: human contact the rest is just the most unbelievable view
- 9:03Speaker 2: of nature you could possibly imagine. That's what a spacewalk
- 9:09Speaker 2: would be like right, and you.
- 9:10Speaker 5: Know, you just look out into space and you're just
- 9:13Speaker 5: looking like you know, billions of years into the past,
- 9:16Speaker 5: you know, just in one direction, that's what you're looking at.
- 9:19Speaker 5: So it's well in every direction, yeah, right exactly, I.
- 9:23Speaker 2: Say almost because the one direction you're looking at your space.
- 9:25Speaker 5: Station and the other of the Earth. But you know
- 9:27Speaker 5: what I'm saying.
- 9:28Speaker 2: Yeah, So in addition to that, less in addition to that,
- 9:32Speaker 2: you're going from daylight to darkness or darkness to daylight
- 9:37Speaker 2: every forty five minutes, and this particular job, it's it's
- 9:41Speaker 2: going to take them a while. They're going to be
- 9:43Speaker 2: out there a bit, right. This is in fact, they're
- 9:45Speaker 2: out there now. I like you, I pulled up the
- 9:48Speaker 2: I've got the stream going, and right now there are
- 9:50Speaker 2: flashlights on, which means they're in the Earth. You know,
- 9:55Speaker 2: they're around the back side of the Earth. They're in
- 9:57Speaker 2: the on the night side of Earth, so they're in
- 9:59Speaker 2: the Earth shadow. They're not seeing the sun, so they
- 10:02Speaker 2: have to go with auxiliary lighting to even see what
- 10:05Speaker 2: the heck they're doing. But then they're gonna come around
- 10:09Speaker 2: in just something less than forty five minutes and being
- 10:11Speaker 2: glaring sun again and then in another forty five minutes
- 10:15Speaker 2: they're gonna be back into darkness. And that's gonna happen
- 10:18Speaker 2: the whole time they're out there. So Jessica Meir and
- 10:21Speaker 2: Neil minnowon this is what they're dealing with today. They're
- 10:25Speaker 2: working on some repairs of some solar panels out there.
- 10:29Speaker 2: They're doing a space station rollout of the solar array,
- 10:34Speaker 2: that is what they're calling it. But okay, so that's
- 10:36Speaker 2: what they're working on, trying to hook up their power units.
- 10:39Speaker 2: But they're doing it in this environment that is absolutely unimaginable.
- 10:44Speaker 2: So you have that view. I was just describing that
- 10:47Speaker 2: overlook effect, right, they call it the overlook effect, where
- 10:51Speaker 2: you're you see this view that is just so stark
- 10:55Speaker 2: and unlike anything else that often has emotional and sometimes
- 10:58Speaker 2: even psychological effect on astronauts. You see that view and
- 11:02Speaker 2: then you turn around and go, Okay, I gotta tighten
- 11:04Speaker 2: this bolt or I gotta you know, unfurl this solar
- 11:07Speaker 2: panel or whatever it is I'm working on today. How
- 11:10Speaker 2: do you how do you keep perspective and and the
- 11:14Speaker 2: and the answer is, you know, that's how you get
- 11:17Speaker 2: to be an astronaut. You're you're you're a person that goes, Okay,
- 11:19Speaker 2: that's nice, but I got a job to do. I'm
- 11:21Speaker 2: gonna go back to my job right now, which I
- 11:24Speaker 2: wouldn't be an astronaut because I'd be like, no, I'm
- 11:27Speaker 2: not doing that solar panel thing. I'm gonna hang out
- 11:29Speaker 2: here and check this view out for as long as
- 11:31Speaker 2: they'll let me before they haul me back in.
- 11:33Speaker 5: Yeah, before they start tugging on the tether pulling you
- 11:36Speaker 5: back inside.
- 11:38Speaker 2: Uh.
- 11:38Speaker 5: Well, anything to report on that will have next week,
- 11:41Speaker 5: because like we said, it's going on now, and if
- 11:43Speaker 5: there's anything that we need to talk about with that,
- 11:45Speaker 5: we'll we'll cover that next week. Let's talk about the
- 11:50Speaker 5: story that it's It's been in the news in a
- 11:53Speaker 5: number of places, uh in the last week, because I mean,
- 12:00Speaker 5: I mean sadly, and we don't get into the politics
- 12:03Speaker 5: of all of this, but there is a political component
- 12:06Speaker 5: with SpaceX, just because of Elon Musk. So some people
- 12:11Speaker 5: calling this so oh my gosh, they can't even you know,
- 12:14Speaker 5: get to the moon, right, and they SpaceX has hit
- 12:17Speaker 5: the moon and this is it's not the first time
- 12:22Speaker 5: it's happened. It is I guess the first time it's
- 12:26Speaker 5: happened for them, right, is that the significance of this,
- 12:29Speaker 5: but the fact that, you know, people that are just
- 12:32Speaker 5: looking for a way to be critical of him or
- 12:35Speaker 5: of SpaceX or whatever it is. But the reality is,
- 12:39Speaker 5: once they became aware that this was going to happen,
- 12:41Speaker 5: it's like, well, there's an opportunity to study this. And
- 12:44Speaker 5: you know that's the way science works, right, We like science.
- 12:50Speaker 5: Science is good. Yes, we're against people who try to
- 12:54Speaker 5: get in the way of science.
- 12:58Speaker 2: Yes, that all right? So well, all right, let me
- 13:04Speaker 2: just say, you know, Wes and I have had to
- 13:06Speaker 2: state on the show many times that though we consider
- 13:11Speaker 2: ourselves not SpaceX fanboys, it's hard to it's hard to
- 13:18Speaker 2: deny their accomplishments. I would say that I don't have
- 13:24Speaker 2: any personal feelings about SpaceX. It doesn't make me frustrated
- 13:32Speaker 2: or angry to say the word SpaceX. I try to
- 13:35Speaker 2: keep some kind of a you know, mental and emotional
- 13:38Speaker 2: balance when it comes to SpaceX. They have achieved many things,
- 13:44Speaker 2: and what they did back in January of twenty twenty
- 13:46Speaker 2: five is that they launched two different landers toward the Moon,
- 13:53Speaker 2: one for Firefly Aerospace. We've talked about that one on
- 13:56Speaker 2: this show a lot was the Blue Ghost and one
- 14:00Speaker 2: for a company called I Space, their Resilience Lunar Lander.
- 14:05Speaker 2: So back in January twenty twenty five on a Falcon
- 14:07Speaker 2: nine they gave those two vehicles a ride to the Moon.
- 14:13Speaker 2: Now I'll talking about the success stories of those two
- 14:16Speaker 2: vehicles because there's a lot to talk about there, and
- 14:18Speaker 2: we already have somewhere else in our podcast library. Go
- 14:21Speaker 2: back and listen. However, the upper stage of that Falcon
- 14:26Speaker 2: nine rocket is what's been kind of hanging around in
- 14:29Speaker 2: the lunar environment for a while. It got captured by
- 14:33Speaker 2: the Moon's gravity. It wasn't certain that that was going
- 14:36Speaker 2: to happen. It was probable, but not certain. Okay, Well,
- 14:39Speaker 2: when it did, then then everyone knew that eventually that
- 14:42Speaker 2: upper stage was going to fall to the surface of
- 14:44Speaker 2: the Moon, like dozens of other rocket parts and other
- 14:51Speaker 2: components of space vehicles have before. So maybe that's an
- 14:55Speaker 2: important piece of context. This is not the first rocket
- 15:00Speaker 2: part to I didn't even want to use the term accidentally,
- 15:04Speaker 2: but you know, maybe in a not entirely planned manner
- 15:08Speaker 2: to come down on the surface of the Moon.
- 15:10Speaker 5: It's just not.
- 15:13Speaker 2: In fact, the third stage. Components of all the Apollo
- 15:16Speaker 2: missions from Apollo thirteen through Apollo seventeen all landed on
- 15:20Speaker 2: the Moon, and they knew that was going to happen,
- 15:23Speaker 2: all right, So that context being said, when everybody figured
- 15:28Speaker 2: out that it was going to hit, everybody said, well,
- 15:29Speaker 2: wait a minute. I'm sorry, not everybody, not every everyone
- 15:34Speaker 2: in the scientific community said, wait a minute, perhaps this well,
- 15:39Speaker 2: not everybody in the scientific community.
- 15:43Speaker 5: I love the disclaimers that have to keep coming in.
- 15:48Speaker 2: Certain forward thinking people in the scientific community said, wait
- 15:52Speaker 2: a minute, if it's going to hit the surface of
- 15:54Speaker 2: the Moon, perhaps we can observe that happening and learn
- 16:00Speaker 2: or about the Moon, because even though we've been there,
- 16:06Speaker 2: and even though we've sampled certain parts of the Moon,
- 16:08Speaker 2: there's always more to learn about the lunar service. So
- 16:11Speaker 2: they asked observer observers all over the world to try
- 16:14Speaker 2: to keep an eye out and see if anybody could
- 16:17Speaker 2: image that particular event. We were going to try to
- 16:20Speaker 2: do that here at the Coca Cola Space Science Center,
- 16:24Speaker 2: but we have an observatory upgrade going on right now,
- 16:27Speaker 2: and literally the same day, our telescope had just gotten
- 16:30Speaker 2: installed on its new mount and therefore it was not
- 16:33Speaker 2: entirely up and running, so we didn't get a chance
- 16:35Speaker 2: to try to see it there. But apparently people had
- 16:38Speaker 2: a really hard time seeing it because it didn't make
- 16:40Speaker 2: such a giant explosion that it was clearly visible to
- 16:44Speaker 2: observatories all around the world. Okay, most people didn't see it,
- 16:50Speaker 2: that's the point. Okay, Well, the European Southern Observatory has
- 16:55Speaker 2: something called the VLT and yes, that stands for their
- 17:00Speaker 2: very large telescope. Why would they name a telescope that
- 17:03Speaker 2: Because it's very large, friends, that's why it has a
- 17:07Speaker 2: gigantic mirror. And with that gigantic mirror, the European Southern
- 17:11Speaker 2: Observatory did happen to pick up spectral features from the
- 17:16Speaker 2: dust plume that was thrown up from this lunar impact,
- 17:20Speaker 2: and they actually were able to sample spectral lines of
- 17:25Speaker 2: sodium and lithium in the gas and dust that was
- 17:30Speaker 2: ejected into a plume from that impact from a SpaceX
- 17:35Speaker 2: Falcon nine uper stage, which means they identified the chemical
- 17:40Speaker 2: fingerprints of these two very important elements in that plume,
- 17:45Speaker 2: which gives us a little bit more data on the
- 17:48Speaker 2: overall chemistry of the soil of the Moon. In a
- 17:52Speaker 2: new and different location where Apollo astronauts never landed. See,
- 17:55Speaker 2: that's the thing that we can't assume that the lunar
- 17:59Speaker 2: surface is one homogeneous, the same everywhere. It might be
- 18:04Speaker 2: different in places. So now we have kind of a
- 18:07Speaker 2: way to compare the sodium to lithium ratio in a
- 18:10Speaker 2: new place on the surface of the Moon. All because,
- 18:15Speaker 2: all because a plume of some kens of kilometers high
- 18:20Speaker 2: was ejected into space after this upper stage of a
- 18:23Speaker 2: Falcon nine hit the surface. How do we know how
- 18:26Speaker 2: big it was? According to Carl Schmidt, the astronomer from
- 18:29Speaker 2: Boston University's Center for Space Physics, all of this in
- 18:34Speaker 2: a variety of articles that we find online. Check them
- 18:38Speaker 2: out there. We were looking at articles from space dot
- 18:43Speaker 2: com and other sources for this story more.
- 18:47Speaker 5: Made of Stars. Right after this, speaking of the Moon,
- 19:13Speaker 5: and I've seen Jered Isaacman has been doing the interview circuit.
- 19:17Speaker 5: They've been talking about NASA moving forward on things as
- 19:22Speaker 5: far as Artemis and plans to ultimately build a permanent
- 19:26Speaker 5: base on the Moon. And of course to get to
- 19:30Speaker 5: that stage, they got to get to the next Artemis mission.
- 19:34Speaker 2: Well, and they've already gotten to it. Yeah, so it's
- 19:37Speaker 2: not flown yet, but it is being assembled right now.
- 19:41Speaker 2: And yes, some of our interns from our own Columbus
- 19:44Speaker 2: State University and the Coca Cola Space Science Center are
- 19:47Speaker 2: intimately involved in the stacking of that rocket. Zach Koker,
- 19:51Speaker 2: if you're out there, I'm giving you a shout out
- 19:53Speaker 2: right now. Friend. Anyway, So this, according to NASA dot Gov,
- 19:57Speaker 2: NASA is advancing toward Artemis three's crew demonstration mission with
- 20:02Speaker 2: accelerated measurable progress across all fronts, says NASA about itself.
- 20:10Speaker 2: So just you know, just keep it in real, friends,
- 20:13Speaker 2: just keep it real, all right. But here's what is
- 20:16Speaker 2: happening the Artemis three crewed mission. All of the steps
- 20:22Speaker 2: getting ready for that seemed to be happening at an
- 20:25Speaker 2: accelerated rate when compared to how long it took them
- 20:29Speaker 2: for Artemis two. Right, So, just the pieces of the
- 20:33Speaker 2: rocket which are being assembled like a giant Lego project
- 20:37Speaker 2: down inside various facilities at the Kennedy Space Center. That's
- 20:41Speaker 2: happening at a pace that was quicker than the similar
- 20:45Speaker 2: procedure for Artemis two. And so they're getting ready right now, friends.
- 20:48Speaker 2: And what's happened this week is on July thirtieth, the
- 20:53Speaker 2: crews completed the integration of the Orion spacecraft capsule and
- 21:00Speaker 2: its service module, so that is kind of the two
- 21:04Speaker 2: big pieces of the space vehicle itself. And of course
- 21:08Speaker 2: there is also stacking of the SLS and its solid
- 21:12Speaker 2: rocket boosters going on inside the VAB right now, and
- 21:16Speaker 2: eventually the Orion crew capsule and service module will be
- 21:21Speaker 2: mounted on top of that stacked SLS rocket. So all
- 21:25Speaker 2: of these are necessary steps in order for this vehicle
- 21:28Speaker 2: to carry astronauts Randy Bresnik, Andre Douglas, Frank Rubio, and
- 21:34Speaker 2: Luca Parmitano up to orbit so that they can complete
- 21:39Speaker 2: a very important set of tests with both lunar landers
- 21:43Speaker 2: built by Blue Origin and SpaceX in orbit around the Earth. Now,
- 21:50Speaker 2: I say that that's true as long as Blue Origin
- 21:53Speaker 2: and SpaceX hit all of their timelines right, so all
- 21:57Speaker 2: of those efforts are advancing simultaneously. Just on last week's show,
- 22:01Speaker 2: we talked about the successful launch of the Starship in
- 22:05Speaker 2: its latest version three, so they seem to be making
- 22:08Speaker 2: progress there. Blue Origin blasted its own launch pad to
- 22:12Speaker 2: oblivion on its last rocket explosion of the new Glen
- 22:16Speaker 2: rocket down at Kennedy Space Center. But what they're doing
- 22:18Speaker 2: right now in a hurried manner, is rebuilding that launch facility.
- 22:21Speaker 2: They hope to launch again before the end of this year.
- 22:24Speaker 2: All of these things working together friends to make America
- 22:29Speaker 2: and the American Space program heading back toward the Moon again.
- 22:33Speaker 2: I'll make that all possible. So that's what's taking place.
- 22:37Speaker 2: Interesting developments at NASA, and we will keep an eye
- 22:40Speaker 2: on it for you all out there.
- 22:42Speaker 5: When we talk about career development and things concerning space.
- 22:50Speaker 5: Meteorology is something we've talked more and more about over
- 22:52Speaker 5: the past few years, and having a budding meteorologist in
- 22:56Speaker 5: my home, I always tell them, I'm like, ay, everything
- 22:59Speaker 5: about space, think about it, think about that, think about it.
- 23:02Speaker 5: They've got, you know, weather stations on Mars now for
- 23:05Speaker 5: crying out loud. But NASA's punch is something that is
- 23:11Speaker 5: helping with the space meteorology world.
- 23:15Speaker 2: Yeah. So the World Economic Forum just came out with
- 23:18Speaker 2: a prediction of the global space economy expanding from what
- 23:23Speaker 2: it is today, which is around the six hundred and
- 23:25Speaker 2: thirty billion dollar mark for a total global space economy,
- 23:30Speaker 2: expanding from that point to about one point eight trillion
- 23:34Speaker 2: dollars in twenty thirty five. What does that mean. That
- 23:38Speaker 2: means a tripling friends a tripling of the global space economy,
- 23:42Speaker 2: most of that activity happening in the United States of America.
- 23:46Speaker 2: What does that mean for the story that Wes just
- 23:50Speaker 2: teed up. Well, that means a lot more of our
- 23:52Speaker 2: equipment and people are going to be working and operating
- 23:55Speaker 2: in outer space. Well, okay, so if that's true, we
- 24:01Speaker 2: really have to understand the effects of what the Sun
- 24:04Speaker 2: has going on every day. We call that space weather
- 24:09Speaker 2: and its interaction with the Earth, with Mars atmosphere, with
- 24:13Speaker 2: the area around the Moon. Like if these are the
- 24:16Speaker 2: places we're going, if we're going out there to mine
- 24:20Speaker 2: and explore and possibly habitate the surface of Mars, the
- 24:24Speaker 2: surface of the Moon, asteroids, all these things that we
- 24:27Speaker 2: want to do, including low Earth orbit, we have to
- 24:30Speaker 2: really have a solid understanding, better than we have today
- 24:35Speaker 2: of the dynamics of the solar interaction with all of
- 24:38Speaker 2: those environments. That's what's called space weather, and so space
- 24:42Speaker 2: meteorology is our space forecasting. Space weather forecasting is all
- 24:46Speaker 2: about that. It's understanding that when the Sun erupts in
- 24:50Speaker 2: what these giant explosions called solar flares, which trigger a
- 24:53Speaker 2: wave of material moving out through space called a coronal
- 24:56Speaker 2: mass ejection. We have to understand how that intensity relates
- 25:02Speaker 2: from the flare to the CME and how long it
- 25:05Speaker 2: takes to just move through the Solar system. All right,
- 25:07Speaker 2: there's the tea up. Check this story out on Universe
- 25:10Speaker 2: today dot com because it's really cool. NASA's punch mission,
- 25:16Speaker 2: NASA's punch mission punch. That's an acronym, NASA punch to
- 25:21Speaker 2: the Sun. Now it's a polarimetry and sorry, polarimeter to
- 25:26Speaker 2: unify the corona and hemisphere. There's the acronym. I was
- 25:30Speaker 2: trying to remember off the top of my head. That's
- 25:32Speaker 2: not what it is. Polarimeter to unify the corona and
- 25:35Speaker 2: the hemisphere. It's not like the corona and hemisphere had
- 25:39Speaker 2: a falling out and we're trying to get the band
- 25:41Speaker 2: back together. No, it's unify our understanding of the relationship
- 25:45Speaker 2: of the top layer of the atmosphere of the Sun,
- 25:48Speaker 2: which is called the corona, and the expanding gases out
- 25:51Speaker 2: through the Solar system, which is called the heliosphere. And
- 25:54Speaker 2: we're using a polarimeter tool to unify our understanding.
- 25:59Speaker 5: I like that, you were I know, to do it
- 26:00Speaker 5: for memory, because I was like, that was I get
- 26:04Speaker 5: this stumbling on that one.
- 26:08Speaker 2: As we saw with Ocyrus rex maybe the coolest name
- 26:10Speaker 2: ever for a space mission. It was a terrible acronym.
- 26:14Speaker 2: It's one of the worst ever. What such a great
- 26:17Speaker 2: name for a space mission, right, So we kind of
- 26:19Speaker 2: forgive them for that punch. I mean, you know it's
- 26:23Speaker 2: it's memorable, yep, but not for what it means. What
- 26:31Speaker 2: was that punch mission to get I don't know, let
- 26:32Speaker 2: me read my prompter. Polarimeter to unify the corona and heliosphere. Okay,
- 26:38Speaker 2: but the point of that mission is this. It's four
- 26:40Speaker 2: suitcase sized spacecraft that are literally operating in the outer
- 26:47Speaker 2: reaches of the Sun's corona. So they're operating in a
- 26:51Speaker 2: place where they had to be space hardened against one
- 26:54Speaker 2: of the most extreme and hostile environments imaginable in outer space,
- 27:00Speaker 2: literally the outer layer of the Sun's atmosphere. And so
- 27:04Speaker 2: those four little space craft that are suitcase sized spacecraft,
- 27:08Speaker 2: they're actually returning data to the Earth that are leading
- 27:11Speaker 2: to some astounding forecasts. And one of those forecasts from
- 27:15Speaker 2: the very first set of test data from the spacecraft
- 27:19Speaker 2: that came back to Earth was they picked up a
- 27:22Speaker 2: coronal mass ejection moving out away from the Sun. Now,
- 27:27Speaker 2: traditionally that's been very hard to predict how just exactly
- 27:32Speaker 2: how long that wave of charge radiation will take to
- 27:36Speaker 2: get from the Sun to the Earth. So then here
- 27:40Speaker 2: on Earth we can take some steps to protect our satellites,
- 27:43Speaker 2: to protect our astronauts if we know when the thing's
- 27:46Speaker 2: gonna arrive. Right, well, they were able to forecast this
- 27:51Speaker 2: wave of oncoming radiation to within thirty minutes of its
- 27:55Speaker 2: actual arrival time. For comparison, typically they only know to
- 28:02Speaker 2: within a sort of a six to twelve hour windows,
- 28:07Speaker 2: sometimes as long as eighteen hours they're off. So to
- 28:10Speaker 2: go from that kind of predictive window down to thirty
- 28:14Speaker 2: minutes is an astounding improvement in our space weather forecasting
- 28:21Speaker 2: and forecasting when those space storms are going to impact
- 28:24Speaker 2: and affect the Earth. There's an individual by the name
- 28:27Speaker 2: of Craig DeForest who's the principal investigator for the Punch
- 28:30Speaker 2: mission at the Southwest Research Institute's Solar System Science and
- 28:35Speaker 2: Exploration Division in Boulder, Colorado. Imagine fitting all of that
- 28:38Speaker 2: on a business card. Friends, I just have to say,
- 28:41Speaker 2: Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center. But poor Craig,
- 28:45Speaker 2: he's got to have principal investigator for Punch at Southwest
- 28:49Speaker 2: Research Institute's Solar System Science and Exploration Division in Boulder, Colorado,
- 28:53Speaker 2: all on one business card.
- 28:55Speaker 5: Think about the poor business card maker. I mean, that's
- 28:57Speaker 5: not easy to fit on there unless you're going with
- 28:59Speaker 5: a rig tiny font.
- 29:01Speaker 2: Four point font frans. But it comes with its own
- 29:04Speaker 2: like magnifying lens to read it anyway. So Craig, we're
- 29:08Speaker 2: just gonna call him Craig. Craig had this to say, quote,
- 29:11Speaker 2: we thought Punch would be good at this. Fortunately that's
- 29:15Speaker 2: not the end of Craig's quote, So I'll just say
- 29:18Speaker 2: because if it ended, there would be a little silly okay,
- 29:20Speaker 2: But Craig Craig says, we thought Punch would be good
- 29:22Speaker 2: at this, But it's a stunning result. To put it
- 29:25Speaker 2: in perspective, this could be the space weather equivalent of
- 29:29Speaker 2: going from a steam engine to a modern internal combustion engine.
- 29:34Speaker 2: Thus says Craig unquote. So so you know, he didn't
- 29:38Speaker 2: compare it to like, you know, ev technology, but he
- 29:41Speaker 2: did go as far as the combustion engine. So there
- 29:43Speaker 2: you go from from Craig at Punch.
- 29:48Speaker 5: So this is one way to study the Sun. Another
- 29:51Speaker 5: way to study it is, you know, with a big telescope.
- 29:54Speaker 5: And every time we get some crazy amazing image from
- 29:59Speaker 5: a telescope, just go, man, what another big win for telescopes.
- 30:04Speaker 2: We've done this for years. Wes and I were on
- 30:07Speaker 2: radio for many years and now we are on an
- 30:09Speaker 2: audio only podcast and we have told you out there
- 30:13Speaker 2: in the audience, hey, this picture is really cool and
- 30:17Speaker 2: you can't see it. We understand, we get it, but
- 30:19Speaker 2: we're going to tell you where to see it. And
- 30:21Speaker 2: let me just tee it up by saying it's worth
- 30:24Speaker 2: following my recommendation friends, because this image, a super close
- 30:29Speaker 2: up image of a little, tiny, well comparatively little tiny
- 30:33Speaker 2: patch of the Sun's surface, is absolutely astounding. This image
- 30:39Speaker 2: is fantastic. But where can I go see it? Doctor C?
- 30:43Speaker 2: Let me tell you where spaceweather dot com. Well, but
- 30:47Speaker 2: I'm not listening live, doctor C. And space Weather updates
- 30:50Speaker 2: every day. Yes they do, but they have an archive
- 30:53Speaker 2: that's an upper right hand corner of their page. Via
- 30:57Speaker 2: the Wayback Machine, go click on that archive. Pull up
- 31:01Speaker 2: August sixth, twenty twenty sixth, and you will see this image,
- 31:06Speaker 2: which actually was published in Nature in August on August fifth,
- 31:09Speaker 2: But this image is a close up, a super micro
- 31:14Speaker 2: close up of an area of the sun that was
- 31:16Speaker 2: taken with the Annoya solar telescope on the Haleiocola Observatory
- 31:22Speaker 2: on Maui University of Why the Holeocola observatory four meter
- 31:28Speaker 2: solar telescope, that's the Annoya, the annoy A solar telescope
- 31:33Speaker 2: four meters in size, and so with a with a
- 31:37Speaker 2: sun telescope that big, you really can get some amazingly
- 31:40Speaker 2: fine details. And let me just tell you, friends, what
- 31:44Speaker 2: they saw. They saw these weird little fractal like looking
- 31:51Speaker 2: curvatures that we know as Kelvin Helmholtz instabilities. At this
- 31:57Speaker 2: point you might say, who's we.
- 31:59Speaker 5: Yeah, well, Kelvin Helmholtz, hell of a shortstop for the
- 32:02Speaker 5: Cubs back in the day.
- 32:05Speaker 2: Did he make the Baseball Hall of Fame?
- 32:07Speaker 5: I measure he should have. He was good man, fast,
- 32:10Speaker 5: little guy, good leadoff hitter.
- 32:15Speaker 2: And that's all I have to say about that anyways.
- 32:18Speaker 2: All right, So, Kelvin Helmoltz instabilities, friends, are when you
- 32:21Speaker 2: have sheer forces in fluid dynamics, and they create these
- 32:25Speaker 2: little wind curls. Occasionally we see these in clouds. We
- 32:30Speaker 2: can see a Kelvin Helmholtz curl in a cloud pattern,
- 32:33Speaker 2: which makes them really cool. You know the van Go
- 32:36Speaker 2: painting Starry Night, Vincent van Go. Actually, well, I was
- 32:41Speaker 2: gonna say he captured, but he didn't. Really, he invented
- 32:43Speaker 2: Kelvin Helmholtz like curls occurring in the sky, probably similar
- 32:48Speaker 2: to things that he had seen in cloud patterns. Cloud
- 32:51Speaker 2: patterns at the time. Ocean waves really are these kinds
- 32:54Speaker 2: of instabilities as well, and so we see these a
- 32:57Speaker 2: lot throughout nature. For the very time, even though they
- 33:01Speaker 2: were mathematically predicted, we had never observed them before. On
- 33:05Speaker 2: the Sun. For the very first time, they've been observed
- 33:08Speaker 2: on the surface of the Sun. Kh instabilities in the
- 33:12Speaker 2: solar atmosphere. Now, why does the average person care if
- 33:17Speaker 2: instabilities have been observed on the surface of the sun,
- 33:20Speaker 2: Because we still don't understand how all the energy that
- 33:25Speaker 2: makes solar flares so powerful is stored within the solar surface.
- 33:31Speaker 2: And so this is one more step in helping us
- 33:35Speaker 2: understand that some of that energy might be stored in
- 33:39Speaker 2: these magnetohydrodynamic structures called kh instabilities in the surface of
- 33:46Speaker 2: the Sun, and that can help lead to the energy
- 33:50Speaker 2: storage that allows for these solar flares to be so
- 33:53Speaker 2: powerful and so dynamic that we have to send the
- 33:57Speaker 2: Punch mission up to study when they're going to hit
- 33:59Speaker 2: the Earth. Right, So all of these things are tied
- 34:01Speaker 2: and really set of interesting science. Remember, friends, of all
- 34:06Speaker 2: the astronomical things that happen out there, this is one
- 34:09Speaker 2: of the few things that changes day to day and
- 34:12Speaker 2: can actually affect physically things on Earth, like air travel
- 34:17Speaker 2: and like power grids, and like the Internet and radio
- 34:20Speaker 2: and TV communications. All those kinds of things can be
- 34:23Speaker 2: affected because of what's going on in the Sun, and
- 34:26Speaker 2: that's why it's important to understand these effects in detail.
- 34:29Speaker 5: More made of stars. Right after this, speaking of the Sun,
- 34:55Speaker 5: a total solar eclipse is happening next week, just not
- 34:59Speaker 5: for but parts of the world are going to be
- 35:02Speaker 5: getting this. And Luke was trying to convince me that
- 35:05Speaker 5: we need to go to Maine next week.
- 35:08Speaker 2: You can see a partial, right partial in Maine.
- 35:11Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what he was telling me. He's like, we
- 35:12Speaker 5: got to go to Maine. We can just drive up there.
- 35:14Speaker 5: And I was like, yeah, that's that's not an easy drive.
- 35:17Speaker 2: I try to make the same argument to my wife
- 35:19Speaker 2: about Iceland and we can just drive up there.
- 35:22Speaker 5: I mean, you know, you and I could justify it.
- 35:25Speaker 5: It's for work, I mean. And who would like to
- 35:30Speaker 5: go to Iceland?
- 35:31Speaker 2: And I want to. I have since I was a
- 35:34Speaker 2: child wanted to go to Iceland, And now I have
- 35:36Speaker 2: several friends who've actually been there, like, oh, yeah, it's great,
- 35:39Speaker 2: you should go. And there's this eclipse. And my wife
- 35:41Speaker 2: and I actually started planning, and in the planning just
- 35:44Speaker 2: fell apart. We had other things going on we couldn't
- 35:46Speaker 2: get away. But now it's just next week. It's Wednesday
- 35:50Speaker 2: of next week as we're recording the show, it's August twelfth.
- 35:54Speaker 2: Why is that? Why is that an important date? Friends?
- 35:57Speaker 2: Because it's also the night of the Percied meteor shower,
- 36:00Speaker 2: So there's two astronomical events of great import taking place
- 36:04Speaker 2: on the same day. The best media shower of the
- 36:06Speaker 2: year usually the Perseeds, happening on August the twelfth, but
- 36:11Speaker 2: also that earlier that day. If you're in the right
- 36:14Speaker 2: spot Greenland, Iceland, northern part of Spain, portions of Portugal,
- 36:20Speaker 2: you can get in the path of totality for a
- 36:23Speaker 2: total solar eclipse. One of the most spectacular sites I
- 36:27Speaker 2: have ever seen of any kind of my life, let
- 36:30Speaker 2: alone just in the sky. It is phenomenal. See one
- 36:34Speaker 2: in your lifetime. Friends. That's my advice. Go to the
- 36:37Speaker 2: path of totality. Get there. If you're free and easy
- 36:40Speaker 2: and you just like you know, you're retired, or you
- 36:42Speaker 2: just quit your job or whatever, and you got some
- 36:44Speaker 2: loose cash and you want to go to Iceland, Greenland,
- 36:47Speaker 2: northern Spain or parts of Portugal, you can still do it.
- 36:50Speaker 2: Go see this eclipse. Get in the path of totality.
- 36:52Speaker 2: It's awesome. If you're not in that category, don't worry
- 36:56Speaker 2: if you're stuck here in Georgia like Wes and I
- 36:58Speaker 2: might be. The European Space Agency is going to stream
- 37:01Speaker 2: this live for you friends. Let's hear it for our
- 37:04Speaker 2: friends at ISSA. The ISSA Live is on YouTube starting
- 37:08Speaker 2: about one thirty pm on August twelfth. Check out the
- 37:12Speaker 2: ISSA YouTube channel and they will be streaming the solar eclipse,
- 37:16Speaker 2: so you can at least participate in a somewhat vicarious
- 37:19Speaker 2: sense with all those people who are actually on the
- 37:22Speaker 2: ground in Iceland. Checking out a cool eclipse that I
- 37:25Speaker 2: did not make it to.
- 37:27Speaker 5: Not yet, I mean still possible.
- 37:31Speaker 2: The probability spectrum is going way down west.
- 37:33Speaker 5: Let me just tell you, you know, those last minute flights,
- 37:35Speaker 5: sometimes you can catch a really sweet deal and you
- 37:38Speaker 5: know the right off potential there for this is also there.
- 37:43Speaker 5: We talked to the beginning about Columbus State University's Cocola
- 37:47Speaker 5: Space Science Center and the plans in the future, future, future,
- 37:50Speaker 5: as you'd like to say, but there's things still going
- 37:53Speaker 5: on at the current building now.
- 37:57Speaker 2: There are actually doing upgrades throughout the building. Were upgrading
- 38:00Speaker 2: two major components of our facility. One is our observatory,
- 38:04Speaker 2: which I mentioned earlier on. We have a NASA grant
- 38:07Speaker 2: that we're working on to put some new capabilities in
- 38:10Speaker 2: our observatory and then train our students on how to
- 38:12Speaker 2: use those new tools. That's all taking place in the background.
- 38:15Speaker 2: So if you see some crates, or if you come
- 38:17Speaker 2: down and visit us and see a big crate sitting
- 38:19Speaker 2: out in the gallery in a dark corner, that hells
- 38:23Speaker 2: the telescope, just with a couple of days ago, anyway,
- 38:26Speaker 2: So a telescope mount, I should say. Anyway, The other
- 38:29Speaker 2: part is our moon base, it's our Falcon moon station.
- 38:33Speaker 2: We are upgrading that facility as well. So right now
- 38:36Speaker 2: we have a little construction dust going on throughout the building,
- 38:39Speaker 2: but it's improving our capabilities to do more things for
- 38:42Speaker 2: our visitors, for our students, for our programs here at
- 38:45Speaker 2: Space Science Center. In the meantime, you can still come
- 38:48Speaker 2: down and enjoy about ninety five percent of all the
- 38:52Speaker 2: other amenities we have taking place. So come down and
- 38:54Speaker 2: see the planetarium. Come down and see a show in
- 38:57Speaker 2: our Space Shuttle odysty flight to Space there. Come down,
- 39:00Speaker 2: see the artifacts on display. We'll give you a tour
- 39:03Speaker 2: of those artifacts throughout the building. Come down and fly
- 39:06Speaker 2: our newly upgraded flight simulators called our Cyberfighters. Come down
- 39:10Speaker 2: and check that out as well. All fun things to
- 39:13Speaker 2: do throughout our building. Friends, visit us on the web
- 39:16Speaker 2: at www dot CCSSC dot org. Ge Charlie, Charlie SamSam
- 39:22Speaker 2: Charlie dot org.
- 39:24Speaker 5: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we will
- 39:26Speaker 5: do this again next week. Nice Overhead Door Company of
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