Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / #443: Mars' Mega Lake & ISS Archaeology Mysteries

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#443: Mars' Mega Lake & ISS Archaeology Mysteries · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi there, How are you going? Andrew Dunkley here, Great
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: to have your company again on another edition of Space Nuts.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Coming up on this episode, we're going to be looking
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: at well, Mars. Gosh, when was the last time we
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: did that? About a week ago, But a good reason
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: for it, because they've made a discovery that is mind blowing.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Lots of things on Mars are bigger than they are
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: on Earth, even though it's a much smaller planet. This
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: is one of those. We're also talking archaeology nowhere. When
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: you talk archaeology you're thinking of people digging around in
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the dirt looking at bones. No, they're looking at dirty
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: socks on the ISS, amongst other things, or maybe not
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: specifically socks, but the International Space Station. Yes, and the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: link between science fiction and real science. There's a fascinating
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: story that talks about that as well. All coming up
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: on this edition of Space Nuts.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Fifteen, Channel nine Ignition Space Nuts or three two.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: One Space Nurse's when I report it real good and
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: here to discuss it all and talk about the shopping
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: list from last week is Professor Fred Wat's, an astronomer
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: at Large.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Hello Fred, Well, there's bacon, there's corn flakes.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: The soap.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: All of the shopping list from last week, so I
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: need to talk about.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: That's all processed food, even the soap.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, even the soap.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently cut do you eat as well?
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I did when I was a kid. I was a
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: pretty stupid kid there. But apparently it's very good for
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: catching mice, is soap. I'm told, Well, there you go.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: That's interesting. Yes, I don't know how true it is.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: But when you try it, throw it at the mice,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: or you put it on the on the mouse trap,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: then okay, maybe it's the smell that it's them in
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and bang, Well that's right, it could be. Yes, I
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: don't know for certain. Shall we just get started, because
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: we've got a lot to get through as we should. Okay,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: let's do that. Our first story today involves the red
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: planet Mars, and as I mentioned at the very beginning,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: it's a place with some of the biggest things in
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  Speaker 1: the Solar System, the biggest mountains, the deepest canyons, and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: now it looks like the largest lake. It's a really
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: fascinating place for all of those reasons and more for it.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Yes it is, and in some ways this is a
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: bit surprising because we know that probably most of Mars
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: is northern Hemisphere in ancient times, and by that I
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: mean three to four billion years ago, probably had water
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: on it. It probably had an ocean that basically covered it.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: We don't know whether that ocean lasted a long time,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: whether it was something temporary or whether it's sat there
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: for hundreds of millions of years, but it definitely had
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: its effect on the landscape. But this story is from
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: actually it's kind of the equatorial region of Mars. In fact,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: it's actually in the southern hemisphere that we're talking about,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: so not that far south of the equator. I think
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: from about minus twenty five degrees. What we have there
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: is a much more highland region of Mars. That's where
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of craters are, where there are a lot
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: of mountains, and it's a region that you wouldn't expect
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: to be home to large bodies of water. But images
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: from the European Space Agency's Mars Express, which has been
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: photographing Mars from above, I don't know, probably about the
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: latter the best part of certainly more than ten years,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: probably more like fifteen years. Mars Express has not only
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: photographed the surface of Mars, but also as it is
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: obviously the planet. It's got ground surface radar, so you
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: get very accurate topographical maps. And it's by studying those
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: maps that scientists based at a number of institutions in
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  Speaker 2: Europe have What they've done is they've looked very carefully
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  Speaker 2: at the top topography of a region which is quite
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: a large region of Mars that encompasses several regions, the
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  Speaker 2: Ariadnes Colleaise, the Gorgonum Chaos, the Newton Crater, Caralis Chaos.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: All of these are zones on Mars. Turns out though,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: that you can lump them all together and you can
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  Speaker 2: draw a contour around them, and you can also from
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  Speaker 2: that workout that that was once a shoreline, and from
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: that you can establish that and it's not just the
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: appearance of this. I think the chemistry actually also backs
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: this up. But you can work out that there was
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  Speaker 2: a very large lake there which has a name. It
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: is called Lake Ridania uh and Lake Ridania, as I said,
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  Speaker 2: three times bigger than the biggest lake on Earth, which
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  Speaker 2: is the Caspian Sea. So it's a colossal body of water,
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  Speaker 2: or it would have been when it was wet. It's
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  Speaker 2: not wet now, but the evidence is all there, and
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  Speaker 2: there's so much geological support for this idea that to
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: some extent is surprising that we haven't been talking about
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  Speaker 2: it before. But yes, much is being learned about this
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: region of Mars, and it may maybe maybe that it
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  Speaker 2: also involved geothermal activity, you know, when when when that
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: water was there, there may well have been geothermal vents
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  Speaker 2: on the on the floor of that lake which have
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  Speaker 2: given rise to some of the interesting history of the
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: minerals that we find on that region. So, yeah, really
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  Speaker 2: interesting story from a planet that is the planet that
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: keeps on giving, really, isn't it? Mars?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so three times bigger than the Caspian Sea, which
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: is the biggest inland body of water on Earth, and
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  Speaker 1: it measures three hundred and seventy one thousand square kilometers,
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  Speaker 1: So we're talking what one to one point two million
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  Speaker 1: square kilometers.
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  Speaker 2: Of water something of that sort. That's correct, you know,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: about one point once million kilometers is the estimate from
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: the scientists who have done this work.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: It's you know, it is.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: When you think of a body of water like that,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: you think in terms of oceans. It's not an ocean.
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  Speaker 2: It's basically bounded by land, unlike the ocean in the
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: northern hemisphere, which certainly was bounded on its southern border,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: but probably covered the polar region as well. So it is. Yes,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: it's what you could perhaps call an inland sea or
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: a lake, but whatever it was, it's a lot of
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: water and right, really quite extraordinary evidence for its existence.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: To the paper that we've been looking at, and there's
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: a very nice summary of this Universe Today website that
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: shows some of the evidence as to why we now
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: believe that this lake existed.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it shows that it confirms I suppose previous theories
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: about the abundance of water on Mars. Do we have
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: any idea what kind of water it might have been?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Has that sort of been probably wet because it's salty.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Look, it might have had Because of the fact that we,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: you know, the scientists have really looked very closely at
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: the minerals that have been deposited on the floor of
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  Speaker 2: this extinct lake, in particular chlorides around the shoreline, and
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  Speaker 2: which may be related to the you know, volcanic activity,
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  Speaker 2: the suggestion is that it would have been quite rich
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: in minerals. So, yes, salty is probably a good way,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: a good way to describe it. It's there some very
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: interesting chemistry. That's that I think is being studied in
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  Speaker 2: relation to this so very fine piece of work.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: It could it have existed long enough for some kind
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: of microbial life to exist.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Sixty four thousand dollars question there it is maybe it could,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe you could find evidence of life there.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: And I suppose the reasoning will be very similar to
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: why Perseverance is in jesuro Crater at the moment, because
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: that's a place where there was a definitely was a
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: river Delcha Delta, which is thought to have deposited material
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: brought down from a long river system, quite a long
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: way actually from the region we're talking about at the moment,
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  Speaker 2: but it's a place where you expect the sediments to
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: have been dropped to the floor of the crater in
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: the case of jesuro Crater, and they might carry evidence
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  Speaker 2: of microbial life, as we talked about not very long ago.
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  Speaker 2: And it's possible that this lake, Lake Eridania might also
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  Speaker 2: have the same sort of properties that may be the
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: sediments on its bed, which in some cases were almost
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: to kill a meter below the surface. It's a deep lake,
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  Speaker 2: it's not just a shallow stretch of land, so that
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  Speaker 2: there may be evidence to be gained if somebody felt
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: like sending a spacecraft there to have a look.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it sounds like it's a prime target for
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  Speaker 1: future investigations. Oh yes, yeah, and the volcanic activity went
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: along with it, and may well have you know, we
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: talk about volcanic activity in the depths of our ocean
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: where life is abundant, so you could that kind of
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  Speaker 1: scenario have existed in this particular lake on Mars. Who knows.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: We're talking about a time frame of three to four
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: billion years when this lake existed, but it took a
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: long time to disappear. From what I can tell, I.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Think that's right. And you know, that's one of the
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: areas of interest in terms of research on Mars. How
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: long did it take for Mars to become a dry, cold,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: and dry world rather than a warm and wet world.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: In fact, it's a question we've had from Space Not's
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: listeners as well. How long did that process take? And
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: it probably took quite a long time, And it may
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: have occurred in episodes Andrew where you've got a wet
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: period and then a dry period, and then a wet
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: period and the dry period just gets up a bit
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: longer than the last one was, and before we know
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: where you are, you've tried the whole thing, and we'll
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: never really be able to play a movie of that,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: but I'm sure the evidence will build up as to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: what kind of duration these water systems had.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, imagine if humanity had time to evolve on
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Mars and then came to the realization that their planet
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: was dying. That would be a horrible thing to discover.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Fiction story does that, The stuff does a bit.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yes, it's called three body problem. Yes, that's what
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: it's about. But yeah, I mean imagine if we right
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: now made that discovery. We are not yet technology technologically
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: capable of doing anything about it in the short term,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: and we certainly are in a position to say, all right,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: let's leave because this place is you know, not going
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: to be worth hanging around.
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  Speaker 2: Well, there's some there's already one person who thinks like that,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: but the odds are that you you know, you'd have
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: a very long lead time for that kind of thing,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: and just hope your technology catches up, which it probably would.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, indeed, all right, as Fred said, if you
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  Speaker 1: would like to read up on that story, a great
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: article on Universe today dot com. There's a space that's
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Andrew Dunkley with Professor Fred Watson Space Buds. Now Fred
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: to our next story, and that is archaeology. Our archaeology
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: is the study of historical artifacts to learn about the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: people and places of the past. That's a pretty loose definition.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: There's all sorts of variations in what archaeology is and
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: what it's trying to achieve. But we generally think about
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: people with the little brushes and spades, digging around the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: dirt looking for triceratops skulls and digging around the ruins
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: of Pompeii, for example. But this is archaeology with a difference.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: This is photographic archaeology courtesy of the International Space Station
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and it's on board Cruise as they changed and did
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: their work over the last two and a half decades,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and they're coming up with some interesting stuff there.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed, actually one of the authors of this work is
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: an Australian colleague, actually somebody I know not terribly well,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: but I do know. Her name is Alice Gorman. She's
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: very well known as a space archaeologist here in Australia.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: She's at at Flinder's University. So that is, you know,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: the preface to what I think is a really interesting
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: piece of work. And you know, what has happened is
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: that the Alice and her colleagues have applied standard archaeological
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: methods to a very non standard environment, namely the space station.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: They've basically divided the space station up into one meter squares,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: or the surface area. And that's what you do in archaeology.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: You divide your archaeological site into a grid of one
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: meter squares, and then you take excavations of some of
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: those squares, which are known as test pits, and so
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: you diggip it one meter square and that gives you
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: a sample of what kind of stuff there is in there.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: And so the scientists have done this work have obviously
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: collaborated very strongly with the crew of the International Space Station,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: which itself is a movable feast because in the twenty
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: three years or twenty four years that it's been inhabited,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: something like two hundred and eighty people have visited it.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: So lies my mind, I wouldn't never have put it
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: at that many.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Wow, Yeah, it's a lot.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: So that's.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Large number. You know, some of the recent inhabitants have
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: been not co opted, but have been collaborating with the
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: archaeologists to do what archaeologists do. And what they've done
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: is laid out five what they call sample areas, which
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: are roughly a meter square, to follow standard archaeological practice.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: And there's a very nice conversation article about this, so
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I'm going to read from that because I think it's
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: probably better than I could put it. We chose the
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: square locations to encompass zones of work, science, exercise, and leisure.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: The crew also selected a sixth area based on their
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: own idea of what might be interesting to observe. And
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: there's a actually a nice acknowledgment there. The study was
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: sponsored by the International Space Station National Laboratory. And what
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: what they've done is they've they've given the Space Archaeology
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Exercise a name.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: It is an acronym in the app. I love this
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: so good one, isn't it.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: It's the Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment or.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Square that's very clever, be there or be square that's right, square,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: And yeah, what they've found is really interesting.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Some of the areas that they've sampled are very busy areas.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: You know on the way from one part of the
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: space station space station to another. There's a rather a
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: rather nice summary here in the conversation article. The space
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: station is cluttered and chaotic, cramped and dirty. There are
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: no boundaries between where the crew works and where they rest.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: There's little or no privacy. There isn't even a shower,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: So you know what, that sentence actually reminds me of
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: of the Vogon destructor fleet because full of old mattresses, metrices.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: It's probably like that anyway. So they've analyzed. The conversation
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: article that these authors have written analyzes the first two
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: squares and one I'm reading again. One was located in
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: the US No. Two module, where there are four crew
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: births and connections to the European and Japanese labs visiting
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: spacecraft often dock here. Our target was a wall where
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: the maintenance work area is located. There's a blue metal
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: panel with forty valcro squares on it and the table
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: before for fixing equipment or doing experiments, and NASA intended
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: the area to be used for maintenance. However, we saw
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: hardly any evidence of maintenance there and only a handful
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: of science activities. In fact, for fifty of the days
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: covered by our survey, the square was only used for
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: storing items, which may not even have been used there.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: So it's because the amount of valcro there, you know,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: that made it just made it perfect for storing things.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: It says close to half all the items recorded, forty
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: four percent were related to holding other items in place,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: So it's amazing.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I suppose one of the things they've discovered from
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: all of this is that if they're going to build
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: space stations in the future, and they probably will, they
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: need to consider things like storage. I mean, even when
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: we were selling our last house, one of the feed
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: back things was where's all the storage? We need storage,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: want more storage. Well, it sounds like it's exactly the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: same for the ISS, and it's only being discovered through
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: the people who've lived and worked there for the last
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: twenty plus years, and you're seeing things that were built
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: with certain intent not being used for that purpose.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Adams, Yes, that's right, Yeah, exactly.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, they might have to sort of redo the
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: blueprints on future space stations to deal with the needs
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: of those who are living and working there. And another
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: example was I think it was like a vanity case
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: that someone had that spent sixty days stuck or worn
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: near the near the bathroom or whatever near the toilet.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: They never found out who owned it, no, no, but
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: it was just there. So that's the second area that
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: they analyzed. It was perhaps some more interesting. It was
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: sort of where the exercise machines were and the toilet,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: and it's a passage way to the cupular window, which
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: is one of the best places probably on the space station.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: So again there was a wall with no particular function,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: but it got everything stored on it, including this anonymous
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: toilet bag that we just mentioned, so really very interesting
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: to find that. And I think you're right, you know,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: you highlighted the right thing. It's all about storage put things.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: It also shows how humans take advantage of the opportunities
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: of the space they have to deal with whatever needs
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: they have, so you know, and I think it changes
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: from person to person, and with two hundred and eighty
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: plus people going up there and more to come, because
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I think they're not going to bring the ISS down
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: for another few years yet. But it's it's a case
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: of all right, I'm new, I need to find space
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: from a staff and you you adapt and that's what's
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: being revealed in this archaeological study which is being done.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I think you said through photographs. People on board taking
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: photographs of these these particular one meter square spaces to
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: see how they evolve and change. And it is fascinating
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: stuff and a one off opportunity really, because when that
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: space station's over and done with, all that information will
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: be gone.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: That's correct, absolutely, But you know your your reasonings right
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: on the money, Andrew that the given things like the
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Gateway space station, which is planned to be in orbit
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: around the Moon, a sort of gateway resource for people
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: to dock with before they take the journey down to
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: the Moon's surface, all of this archaeology is going to
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: directly into all the sort of meanesses that need to
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: be included in the Gateway station. The ounce is probably
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: going to be exactly what you said, storage storage, storage.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: And when you haven't got much room, I suppose you
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: do have to take advantage of whatever opportunity is available.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And if someone's built a wall with stacks of velcrow
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: on it, yeah, well it's going to be it's going
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: to be a very tantalizing opportunity to put your stuff
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: rather than use it for what it was built for,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: which I think in this case was supposed to be maintenance. Yeah,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: very very interesting indeed, and it is a good article.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I actually read the whole thing start to finish and
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: absorbed it all. On the conversation site, you're listening to
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: space Nuts Andrew Dunkley with Professor Fred what's an.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Space nuts? Now to.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: A genre that I am much invested in, and that's
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: science fiction. But this is a story about science fiction
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and science fact and how they have sort of collaborated
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and dovetailed so beautifully together. This is a really great
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: story for him, it is.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: And it's I'm going to let you talk to this
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: one because it's very much up your you know, up
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: your street. But basically it's a researcher is actually a
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: director of researcher leb Destro Physique and Marseille down there
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: in the south of France is a gentleman by the
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: name of Saul. What's here. So he's done this work investigating,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: you know, the relationship between science and science fiction, especially
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: in gets the backdrop of the era that we live
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: in now, where you've got misinformation, you've got deep fakes,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: you've got you basically basically attempts to or science. All
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: of that sort of thing, you know, the good old
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theories, all of that is distorting our view of
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: what science is all about. And so it's an interesting
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: context in which to put this study of the relationship
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: between science fiction and science fact.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there were two keystone things that came
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: out of it, and that is that science fiction has
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: a place in that it can inspire people to look
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: into careers in science. Even though science fiction is what
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: it is, it's you know, the imaginations of writers and
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: filmmakers for that matter, coming out in paper or on
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: an ebook, or on a TV or a big screen.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: But it does have a place in the scientific community
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: because it has been successful in an inspiring people to
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: get into those fields of education or those fields of expertise.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to say. The other keystone to
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: come out of this is that science fiction can also educate.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Even though the stories are coming from some incredible minds,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: they have been built on the back of real science,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: and so they educate. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series is
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a very good highlight in terms of teaching people about
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: not just what Mars is like, but what it could
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: be if we developed technology to turn it into a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: livable planet, which is what the Mars series was all about.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: The movie Interstellar was created using real science they used
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: and some of it was pretty well stretched. And the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Martian was science fiction film, but it was so close
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: to being really possible because of the consultations they did
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: with scientists and astronomers, it looked feasible in many respects.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot that works in and around science
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: fiction and science coming together, and I think this is
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: a really great story. And when you look at some
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: of the early science fiction writers, they didn't have the
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: science to back up their imaginations. They had to think
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: outside the box. And even some of the really early
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: ones that predated the rocket era came up with rocket
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: ships as they are today. I mean, yeah, so their
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: brains worked in incredible ways. And as someone who's written
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: science fiction, I never I just let my imagination run while.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: But I'm not in the caliber of the Isaac Asimov's
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: and Arthur C. Clarks of the world, who are some
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: of the greatest of all time and have written some
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: of the classic sci fi stories. But I've tried to
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: work it into what could be conceived as feasible if
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: it ever came to be, which it probably won't. But
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: that's the nature of science fiction. But some of the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: homework that goes into these stories is based on real science,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and some of the people who are working in science
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: today have been inspired by stories from the imaginations of
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: great people. And that's what this is all about. And
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I think it's fantastic stuff. I really am. I'm delighted
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: by this story, to be honest.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, going back to that old chestnut, my all
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: time favorite science fiction story, the movie that came up
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty eight two thousand and one, A Space Odyssey.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: I remember after I'd watched that, thinking that all of
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: that was entirely possible, you know, the idea of by
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: two thousand and one, we'd be having regular flights to
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: the Moon, we'd have artificial gravity space stations, we'd be
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: able to send a spacecraft out to Jupiter to investigate
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: things that were going on.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I can't remember which.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Way around it was. It was Saturn, one of the
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: either Saturn and Jupiter. I think it was one in
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: the movie and one in the book, And I can't
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: remember which way around it went. But all of that
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: seemed absolutely possible back in the nineteen sixties, and even
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: the you know, the spacewarp, the sort of warped space
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: into dimensional dive at the end of it, likewise seemed
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: like an absolute possibility. So it's certainly stilled the bosom
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: of my science fiction heart at that time I was
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: a young scientist, just starting out in my career.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I the TV series The Expanse. I've watched it twice actually,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: and it too is sort of looking at humanity living
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: across the entire Solar System from the from Mars Earth
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and Mars right out through past the gas giants into
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: deep the deep reaches of the Solar System, and how
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: it's sort of factionalized. So you had Earth and Mars
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: at Loggerheads and the people who lived in the outer
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Belt they call them belts strangely enough, and they all
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the tensions that existed between them. I see that as feasible.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: But within the story, there were technologies that might exist today,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: but not to that level. For example, they didn't overcome
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the problem of zero gravity in space travel, so there
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't artificial gravity, and we still don't have that today.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: But they overcame movement around spaceships by having magnetic boots, yes,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: which seems so very logical, and you can turn them
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: on and off as you needed to electromagnets in the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: bottoms of the shoes, so you walked around on metal decks,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: and that's how they solved the problem of no gravity
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: in space. It was a remarkable series and very very
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: cleverly done, and it sort of showed human nature to
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: a certain degree because we all hated each other and
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: wanted to kill each other because we had different beliefs
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: and different needs. And the people in the outer reaches,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: the Belters, felt that they were slaves to Earth and
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Mars and they hated us all and it was really
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: cleverly done. But that's the point we're making with this story,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: is that these science fiction stories come so very close
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: to being real, to the point where they can inspire
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: future scientists, and they can inspire future invention. Who knows
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: what the next big idea will be that will become
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: a reality as a result of science fiction, And who
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: knows who the next big scientists will be because they
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: are fans of science fiction. It is a really great
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and refreshing story. So I'm glad somebody did some work on.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Looking at that link, it's brilliant. Have we covered it enough?
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Very excited, I've got very excited. I can tell you
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: it's a great story. And if you would like to
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: read up on that one, I think that's in Universe
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Today as well. Universe today dot com. Yeah, the new
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: study examining the links between science fiction and astronomy. So
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: check it out. It is a great read. And don't
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: forget to check out our website too if you've got
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: a few moments, Space Nuts podcast dot com, Space Nuts
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: dot io. If you follow us on social media, don't
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: forget the like us or follow us or add us
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: to your favorites list, especially if you're on YouTube, please
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: hit the subscribe button. Fred, we are done and dusted
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: for another day. Thank you sir.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: It's a pleasure. What a great set of stories with
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: us today. It's all good fun.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah they were fun. Yep, so we were a lot
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: of fun.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Let's do it again sometime.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: All right, let's we'll talk to you soon. Thanks Fred,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: No worries, and thanks to here in the studio pushing
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: all the buttons, pulling all the levers, and flushing all
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the toilets. Thank you. Hugh and from me Andrew Dunkley.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Thanks for your company, looking forward to joining you again
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: on the very next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye. Thanks.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast available at
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or your favorite podcast player.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: You can also stream on demand at bytes dot com.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.