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Interstellar Inquiries: Hot Jupiters, Rocket Fuel Solutions & Debunking the Artemis Conspiracy |... · Space News Today

• 0:00
  Hello again. Thank you for joining us on
• 0:02
  another episode of Space Nuts. This is a
• 0:04
  Q&A edition where we take audience
• 0:06
  questions, we write them on a piece of
• 0:08
  paper, and then we throw it in the bin.
• 0:11
  Or we could answer them. We'll do the
• 0:12
  we'll do the latter. Uh we got questions
• 0:15
  about ultra hot Jupiters. We've also got
• 0:18
  questions about reusing spent rocket
• 0:21
  fuel. How would you do that? That is the
• 0:24
  question. And wow, how about this one?
• 0:27
  uh some conspiracy with the Arteimus 2
• 0:30
  mission being fake. We'll deal with all
• 0:33
  of that on this episode of Space Nuts.
• 0:37
  >> 15 seconds. Guidance is internal. 10 9
• 0:42
  Ignition sequence start.
• 0:43
  >> Space nuts.
• 0:44
  >> 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1
• 0:49
  >> Space Nuts.
• 0:50
  >> Astronauts report. It feels good.
• 0:53
  And joining us to try and sort all that
• 0:56
  out is Jonty Horner, professor of
• 0:57
  astrophysics at the University of
• 1:00
  Southern Queensland. Jonty, hello.
• 1:02
  >> Good afternoon. How are you going?
• 1:04
  >> I'm all right. Um, please forgive me if
• 1:07
  there's some background noise. There's a
• 1:09
  gardener working uh just out the front
• 1:11
  and uh he's doing a fabulous job, but
• 1:13
  he's using that kind of equipment that
• 1:15
  you would um you know demolish a
• 1:18
  building with. So,
• 1:20
  uh, it's, um, it's making quite a noise,
• 1:22
  but, um, I've got my filter turned on,
• 1:25
  so hopefully it'll just keep it blocked
• 1:26
  out.
• 1:28
  >> All these things work. I use this
• 1:30
  microphone in front of me for my
• 1:31
  teaching. I've had a number of occasions
• 1:33
  where the dog has decided that I'm
• 1:35
  paying too much attention to my students
• 1:36
  and not enough to her. It's got quite
• 1:38
  vocal about that, lying just behind me
• 1:40
  here next to her fire at the minute,
• 1:41
  keeping her really happy. And they say,
• 1:43
  "No, we can't hear anything." It's
• 1:44
  amazing how well it can filter out the
• 1:46
  background noise.
• 1:47
  >> Yes. the the technology is amazing
• 1:49
  today. It's like the telescope uh
• 1:51
  technology that exists now where you can
• 1:54
  filter out light pollution. I don't know
• 1:57
  how that works, but uh it it's quite
• 1:59
  incredible these days. Works really
• 2:02
  well. I want to answer some questions,
• 2:04
  >> of course.
• 2:06
  >> All right, let's start with David who's
• 2:08
  on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland,
• 2:11
  Australia.
• 2:12
  >> Good day, David from the Sunny Coast
• 2:14
  again. I just had a question regarding
• 2:16
  the uh ultra hot Jupiter article from
• 2:19
  the latest uh podcast. Um in the
• 2:24
  conversation uh Fred mentioned that uh
• 2:27
  the belief is that stars and their
• 2:29
  surrounding planets all form from the
• 2:32
  same uh disc of material. Um I just had
• 2:35
  a question regarding that material. Um
• 2:38
  you know we tend to think of stars as
• 2:41
  helium or hydrogen or both. Um and
• 2:44
  everything else is metals and we believe
• 2:46
  those metals formed within stars uh due
• 2:49
  to the the fusion burning. Um where then
• 2:54
  does this material come from in the disc
• 2:57
  to form a star and its planets? Is that
• 2:59
  from material from do we believe it's
• 3:02
  material from another star or um is
• 3:05
  there some other process going on?
• 3:07
  Thanks very much for the show. Awesome.
• 3:09
  See you guys.
• 3:10
  >> See you David. Thank you very much. Uh,
• 3:12
  that sounds like it's right up your
• 3:14
  alley. It is. It's a good fun one to
• 3:16
  start off with. So,
• 3:18
  you're right. The material that forms a
• 3:21
  star and its planets has been
• 3:24
  contributed to by many previous stars.
• 3:26
  If you imagine after the Big Bang, the
• 3:28
  universe was hydrogen and helium and a
• 3:30
  tiny little bit of other stuff, but it
• 3:32
  really was barely any, which meant that
• 3:34
  a generation of stars formed that were
• 3:36
  pretty much just hydrogen and helium and
• 3:38
  very little else. those stars in the
• 3:41
  early universe. There's some speculation
• 3:42
  that they may have been including mega
• 3:44
  mega stars much bigger than something
• 3:47
  called the Edington limit, which is a
• 3:50
  maximum size that a stable star can
• 3:52
  form. Um, because of how dense the
• 3:54
  universe was at the time, how much
• 3:55
  material there was. So, the speculation
• 3:57
  of stars up to several thousand solar
• 3:59
  mass. Those stars lived fast, died
• 4:01
  young, put material back out into the
• 4:04
  cosmos. So they when they died they
• 4:06
  locked some of the stuff up in the
• 4:08
  remnants to the left whether that's a
• 4:09
  black hole a neutron star a white dwarf
• 4:11
  whatever but the material that was flung
• 4:14
  outwards to form planetary nebula
• 4:16
  supernova remnants disperses into the
• 4:19
  wider galaxy. So what's happening over
• 4:22
  the eons of time since the Milky Way
• 4:24
  formed is that stars are born live and
• 4:28
  die. And when they die they pollute the
• 4:31
  cosmos. stars of different masses throw
• 4:33
  out different things. But what that
• 4:35
  means is that you gradually get more and
• 4:37
  more heavy elements introduced into the
• 4:40
  galaxy
• 4:41
  and that goes to basically contributing
• 4:44
  to the composition of the gas and dust
• 4:46
  that floats around in our galaxy. If you
• 4:48
  go out particularly this time of year in
• 4:50
  the southern hemisphere,
• 4:52
  but if you go out on any night of the
• 4:53
  year where you can see the Milky Way,
• 4:54
  you'll see that in the band of the Milky
• 4:56
  Way there are dark patches as well as
• 4:58
  glowing pits. The dark patches are not
• 5:00
  places where there is a lack of stars,
• 5:02
  but rather they're places where you've
• 5:04
  got huge clouds of gas and dust that are
• 5:06
  opaque that are blocking the light from
• 5:08
  stars that are more distant from
• 5:09
  reaching us. So they look dark in the
• 5:12
  same way that a cloud blocking the sun
• 5:14
  will look dark in the daytime. It's
• 5:16
  blocking the light from beyond.
• 5:18
  >> These clouds can be vast and they're
• 5:20
  made of gas and dust and ice, mainly
• 5:23
  hydrogen and helium, but lots of other
• 5:26
  stuff. And that other stuff will vary
• 5:28
  from one cloud to the next to some
• 5:30
  degree based on what it has been
• 5:32
  polluted with. You'll have some degree
• 5:34
  of stirring a pollution of the galaxy
• 5:36
  that gives you a background increase in
• 5:37
  the amount of metals. But you'll also
• 5:39
  get local variation.
• 5:41
  We see all of this incidentally in the
• 5:44
  Earth and the solar system. There are
• 5:45
  suggestions that the solar system when
• 5:47
  it was young, when it was forming, was
• 5:50
  polluted by a nearby supernova that
• 5:52
  injected a load of very short-lived
• 5:53
  radioactive aluminium isotopes that
• 5:56
  accelerated the degree of melting you
• 5:58
  got in the rocky objects. There's a
• 6:00
  signature there of a radioisotope that
• 6:03
  is so shortlived there shouldn't really
• 6:05
  have been any of it around unless a
• 6:06
  supernova exploded nearby to pollute our
• 6:08
  disc, giving us a slightly unusual
• 6:10
  composition. There is also an argument
• 6:12
  that the earth is richer in gold than it
• 6:16
  should be because sometime between 10
• 6:19
  and 100 million years before the
• 6:21
  formation of the earth 10,000 light
• 6:23
  years from where we formed two neutron
• 6:25
  stars collided polluting the universe
• 6:27
  with gold and some of that gold made its
• 6:30
  way into the disc that formed the solar
• 6:31
  system got incorporated into the earth
• 6:33
  and that's why we are a particularly
• 6:35
  good place for goldfinger to have his
• 6:37
  little layer. We've got more gold than
• 6:39
  normal.
• 6:40
  >> Yeah. What this all means is that those
• 6:42
  giant clouds of gas and dust in space
• 6:44
  can be truly vast. When they get nudged
• 6:46
  and start to collapse, they'll fragment
• 6:48
  in their interiors to form a cluster of
• 6:51
  stars. A number of stars which form from
• 6:53
  the little denser bits. It's like
• 6:55
  driving through a fog bank. Fog banks
• 6:57
  are never one uniform density. There's
• 6:58
  denser patches and less dense patches.
• 7:01
  A denser patch in one of these clouds
• 7:03
  will collapse under its own gravity. And
• 7:05
  so you'll get lots of stars forming. As
• 7:07
  that material collapses in, it collapses
• 7:08
  down to form a disc around that young
• 7:10
  proto star that's forming. And the star
• 7:13
  and the disc are made of the same
• 7:15
  material. They're forming from the same
• 7:17
  material. All that material that was in
• 7:19
  the cloud from which they formed, which
• 7:21
  has been polluted over many generations
• 7:23
  of stars, cooking the books to give the
• 7:25
  composition that is uniform across that
• 7:28
  star system. What happens then is that
• 7:30
  the star forms from everything. So it
• 7:33
  ends up very rich in hydrogen and helium
• 7:36
  because even after all that pollution
• 7:37
  and all that evolution, hydrogen and
• 7:39
  helium still make up something like
• 7:41
  between 98 and 99% of all atoms in the
• 7:43
  universe. So the star is going to be
• 7:46
  primarily hydrogen and helium with a
• 7:48
  thin veneer of everything else. In other
• 7:50
  words, the abundance of material in the
• 7:52
  star is going to be very nearly
• 7:54
  identical to the disc. Star will end up
• 7:57
  being very very very slightly enriched
• 8:00
  in the heavier elements because from the
• 8:03
  disc particularly when the disc is
• 8:05
  cleared there will be some infall of
• 8:07
  rocky and icy objects like the crotzing
• 8:09
  comets we see that fall into the star
• 8:11
  and pollute it further but that's a very
• 8:13
  very small effect compared to the
• 8:15
  overall mass of the star. The planets
• 8:17
  that form in the disc in the main form
• 8:21
  through a process we call core
• 8:23
  accretion. There are some suggestions
• 8:24
  that some of the most massive stars can
• 8:26
  form through a process of instability.
• 8:28
  And those planets and binary stars would
• 8:31
  form with a more stellar composition. I
• 8:34
  lots of hydrogen and helium. But most
• 8:36
  planets will form by initially growing a
• 8:39
  core of solid material because when you
• 8:41
  have a low mass, you can't capture gas.
• 8:44
  And so therefore, your composition will
• 8:47
  be dominated by the solid material, not
• 8:49
  the gases. So that's why the Earth
• 8:51
  doesn't have free hydrogen and helium.
• 8:53
  We simply don't have enough mass to
• 8:55
  capture those gases and hold on to them.
• 8:57
  So even though 99% of all atoms in the
• 8:59
  protolanetary disc were hydrogen and
• 9:01
  helium, we didn't get any of them other
• 9:03
  than the odd tiny little atom that was
• 9:05
  captured in a cage of other compounds
• 9:09
  called a clatherate that was captured in
• 9:11
  a mineral effectively. So we barely got
• 9:14
  any of those materials cuz we couldn't
• 9:16
  hold on to them. We formed out of the
• 9:17
  solid stuff. The further you are from
• 9:19
  the star, the colder it is. So the more
• 9:21
  different things can be solid rather
• 9:23
  than gas, which is where we get the idea
• 9:24
  of the ice line. If you're far enough
• 9:26
  from the star, water can be solid, can
• 9:29
  be ice. And then suddenly you've got a
• 9:31
  lot more solid material because water is
• 9:33
  about the most common compound there is
• 9:35
  almost. It's the most common atom
• 9:37
  hydrogen and the third most common atom
• 9:39
  oxygen. And you put them together and
• 9:40
  you've got water. So beyond the Iceland,
• 9:42
  you've got a lot more solid and you can
• 9:44
  form planets much quicker, which is why
• 9:46
  we think Jupiter and Saturn got so big
• 9:48
  so quickly. They had a lot to feed on
• 9:50
  and eventually they got massive enough
• 9:52
  that their gravity was strong enough to
• 9:54
  hold on to the hydrogen and helium
• 9:55
  around them and devour it. So they are
• 9:59
  in composition much more similar to the
• 10:01
  sun than the earth is because they have
• 10:03
  all that hydrogen and helium. But they
• 10:05
  are still richer in solid material than
• 10:08
  the sun because at their core there was
• 10:11
  all the solid material needed to build
• 10:13
  up before they could gather the hydrogen
• 10:14
  and helium. So they started with more
• 10:17
  solids effectively.
• 10:19
  The earth doesn't really have the
• 10:20
  hydrogen and helium. So all of the
• 10:22
  objects in our solar system will have
• 10:24
  the same composition as the sun in terms
• 10:27
  of the balance between carbon and
• 10:29
  nitrogen and iron and all these elements
• 10:32
  except for where they weren't able to
• 10:34
  capture those elements because they
• 10:36
  weren't massive enough. So the earth
• 10:37
  doesn't have the same compensation as
• 10:39
  the sun in terms of hydrogen and helium
• 10:41
  but it does in terms of iron, nickel,
• 10:44
  all those things. The balance between
• 10:46
  iron and nickel and carbon and all the
• 10:47
  rest of it are all in the same ratios as
• 10:50
  the sun. to an incredibly high
• 10:52
  precision. And that's because we all
• 10:54
  formed from the same material that quite
• 10:56
  rightly was mentioned in the question
• 10:58
  was delivered by past generation of
• 11:00
  stars that had lived and died. And
• 11:01
  that's where the whole concept that we
• 11:02
  are stardust comes from. It's the idea
• 11:04
  that all the atoms that we need to make
• 11:06
  us us other than the hydrogen atoms were
• 11:09
  cooked in the furnaces of stars long
• 11:11
  dead. All the carbon, the nitrogen, the
• 11:13
  oxygen, the phosphorus, all those
• 11:15
  wonderful things, calcium that
• 11:16
  contributes to our bones are all
• 11:18
  stardust from stars that died long
• 11:20
  before the solar system formed.
• 11:23
  There you are, David. Um, a very uh good
• 11:26
  answer that um pretty well nails it. Uh
• 11:29
  I I like the bit about there being more
• 11:31
  gold on Earth than there probably would
• 11:32
  be in other places. So, uh that's that
• 11:34
  was a lucky break for us.
• 11:36
  >> Absolutely.
• 11:37
  and so useful for a lot of the
• 11:39
  technology we use. Not just for those
• 11:40
  who like sparkly bangly things, but you
• 11:43
  know, there's a lot of those rarer type
• 11:45
  things that
• 11:46
  >> are so vital to our technological growth
• 11:48
  that are all linked to our ancient
• 11:50
  heritage.
• 11:52
  >> Yeah. Yeah. Um well, there's gold,
• 11:55
  there's lithium, there's there's just so
• 11:58
  many of them. But we've got a lithium
• 11:59
  mine just down the road from us,
• 12:00
  actually.
• 12:01
  >> And that is probably all primordial. The
• 12:04
  lithium in the universe is almost
• 12:05
  certainly almost all leftovers from the
• 12:07
  big bang.
• 12:09
  >> Wow, that's interesting. There you go,
• 12:12
  David. Thanks for the question. Lovely
• 12:14
  to hear from you. Hope all is well on
• 12:15
  the Sunshine Coast. This is Space Nuts
• 12:18
  with Andrew Dunley and Jonty, a Q&A
• 12:22
  edition.
• 12:24
  Let's take a short break from the show
• 12:26
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• 12:29
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• 14:12
  >> Roger. Also,
• 14:14
  >> Space Nuts. And we're with Professor
• 14:16
  Jonty her today with Freda Away. Uh
• 14:20
  let's go to our next question. Jonty,
• 14:22
  this one comes from Mark.
• 14:25
  >> Hi, it's Mark from Sunny SH in the UK.
• 14:27
  I've eventually plucked up the courage
• 14:29
  to send in an audio question. So here
• 14:31
  goes. You quite often mention water ice
• 14:34
  and the possibility of turning this into
• 14:36
  rocket fuel. So my what do you think
• 14:38
  sort of question is when you use
• 14:40
  hydrogen and oxygen as a rocket fuel it
• 14:43
  must turn back into water ice in space.
• 14:45
  So do you think it would be possible to
• 14:47
  collect it and reuse it through the
• 14:49
  rocket engine again massively reducing
• 14:51
  the amount of fuel you would need to
• 14:53
  carry for an extended journey to say to
• 14:55
  Mars. I've sort of drawn up an idea but
• 14:58
  what do you think once again? Keep up
• 15:00
  the great work from the UK.
• 15:03
  >> Thank you Mark. It's an interesting
• 15:04
  idea. Uh my first thought when I first
• 15:08
  heard the question was um how how would
• 15:11
  how would you collect it? That that
• 15:14
  might be the first challenge. That would
• 15:16
  be a bit of the challenge. I mean the
• 15:17
  thing is your exhaust is being pushed
• 15:18
  out of the back of the rocket at very
• 15:20
  high speed in a very dispersed form. Now
• 15:23
  the rocket's going forward because
• 15:25
  you're throwing the things out the back.
• 15:26
  You've got the momentum being
• 15:28
  transferred. And it's equivalent, I
• 15:30
  guess, to you, the way I'd visualize
• 15:33
  this is imagining again sitting on an
• 15:35
  ice rink on a wheelie chair. So you've
• 15:37
  got no friction whatsoever, really
• 15:39
  slippy, and you're holding, normally I'd
• 15:41
  just say one medicine ball, but instead
• 15:43
  imagine that you're holding a big bag of
• 15:44
  short puts. You throw a short put away
• 15:47
  from you, and you'll recall in the other
• 15:49
  direction. You throw another shot put,
• 15:50
  and you'll speed up, and you'll move in
• 15:51
  the opposite direction to the direction
• 15:53
  your short puts are going. So that's how
• 15:56
  you'll work. And that's essentially what
• 15:57
  you're doing with a rocket. you're
• 15:58
  pushing material out of the back and
• 16:00
  you're moving the opposite way because
• 16:02
  overall the momentum is conserved
• 16:04
  between the stuff going one way and you
• 16:05
  going the other. The problem with the
• 16:08
  rocket itself capturing its own exhaust,
• 16:11
  pumping it back in and reusing it is
• 16:13
  then you're taking that momentum and
• 16:15
  bringing it back to you, which means
• 16:16
  you're getting pulled back towards it
• 16:18
  and you'll end up having gone nowhere
• 16:20
  to some degree. So imagine now that
• 16:22
  situation with the short puts on the ice
• 16:25
  shrink, but instead you've got a really
• 16:27
  efficient bungee code so that when you
• 16:29
  throw them away, they bounce back and
• 16:30
  you catch them again. What'll happen is
• 16:32
  as they're moving away from you, you'll
• 16:34
  wheel away from them and then as they
• 16:36
  get pulled back towards you, you get
• 16:37
  pulled back towards them and you end up
• 16:38
  where you started from
• 16:40
  a little bit of change due to friction
• 16:42
  and loss of energy and stuff like that.
• 16:44
  So the problem I'd have with this
• 16:46
  suggestion is not actually the idea of
• 16:48
  capturing and reusing the fuel. Um, I
• 16:51
  think that will be hard because the fuel
• 16:53
  will get so dispersed. So, water will be
• 16:55
  scattered out there and it's just easier
• 16:56
  to go get a big lump of ice from
• 16:57
  somewhere than to try and pick up
• 16:59
  individual water molecules or small
• 17:01
  grains of ice, disperse over a large
• 17:03
  area. But the idea of being able to
• 17:05
  capture it from the same rocket and
• 17:07
  reuse it would get you into this problem
• 17:09
  of having to pull back material that
• 17:10
  you've pushed away, which means you'll
• 17:12
  be pulling yourself back to where you
• 17:14
  started from. So, you can't get away, I
• 17:16
  think, from that momentum issue there.
• 17:19
  So I think it's two different things. I
• 17:21
  think if you had the ability to instead
• 17:23
  of using hydrogen and oxygen as a fuel
• 17:25
  and burning them to be water, you could
• 17:28
  instead have a rocket fired powered by
• 17:31
  firing pellets of water out of the back.
• 17:33
  You could fire them at a target that
• 17:35
  captures them, collect them, and reuse
• 17:38
  those pellets for something else. But
• 17:39
  that target would get pushed around by
• 17:41
  the arriving water pellets. So you'd
• 17:43
  want to be clever with that, and you'd
• 17:44
  need to continually change its orbit and
• 17:46
  stuff.
• 17:47
  So, in theory, potentially you could
• 17:49
  gather the fuel for use on another
• 17:50
  rocket without it being the rocket
• 17:53
  you're flying that gathers that fuel.
• 17:55
  But in reality, you're dispersing it
• 17:57
  over such a large area that
• 17:58
  unfortunately it wouldn't be that
• 18:01
  practical anyway. Especially when we've
• 18:02
  got just huge lumps of ice floating
• 18:04
  around anyway. I mean, you and I have
• 18:05
  both been photographing a beautiful lump
• 18:07
  of ice flying through the solar system.
• 18:09
  There we go in the background.
• 18:11
  That's enough fuel for missions forever
• 18:14
  more if we were to go and mine there.
• 18:16
  And that's a lot more efficient to mine
• 18:17
  one big comet or asteroid for water ice
• 18:22
  or mine the moon for water ice than try
• 18:24
  and catch it when it's dispersed. I
• 18:25
  think so it's a really good idea.
• 18:28
  >> It's really good thinking but it's
• 18:30
  something that wouldn't work. I think
• 18:31
  that's the way I'd view it.
• 18:33
  >> It it'd be very complicated and as you
• 18:35
  said um trying to capture it in the ship
• 18:37
  you're actually propelling would be
• 18:40
  counterproductive.
• 18:41
  >> Yes. using another spaceship to capture
• 18:44
  the ice after it's been expelled
• 18:47
  uh would be difficult because it would
• 18:49
  spread out too far, but then you're
• 18:51
  using the same technology to chase the
• 18:55
  ice that's been spent already and
• 18:57
  spending more to get the ice back. So,
• 18:59
  it yeah, it's a catch 22. It's just
• 19:02
  going to keep going around and around.
• 19:04
  So, um yeah, it makes it a little bit
• 19:07
  difficult. Uh Mark, but uh thanks for
• 19:09
  your question. Um, that was a fun one
• 19:12
  actually. But, uh, yeah. Um, yeah, I
• 19:16
  like the way people think, but I
• 19:17
  suppose, um, just to expand on it a bit,
• 19:19
  um, there's going to come a time where
• 19:22
  using those kinds of fuels probably
• 19:24
  won't be necessary. They're developing
• 19:26
  all sorts of different kinds of engine
• 19:28
  technology. Uh, everything from solar
• 19:31
  sails to scramjets and and they don't
• 19:36
  use that kind of fuel.
• 19:37
  >> There's all sorts of things you could
• 19:38
  do. I mean again going back to the Bobby
• 19:40
  verse which I mentioned before the van
• 19:42
  probes going through they used kind of
• 19:45
  um ram scoops essentially initially in
• 19:47
  the book set they then move on to other
• 19:49
  kind of speculative sci-fi things but
• 19:51
  initially the idea of having a fusion
• 19:53
  drive where you scoop up hydrogen atoms
• 19:55
  and turn them into helium and push them
• 19:57
  out the back where in front of you you
• 20:00
  deploy a big thing that gathers the
• 20:01
  hydrogen you're moving through. This is
• 20:03
  also what they did in Tal Zero by Paul
• 20:04
  Anderson is, you know, you're moving
• 20:06
  really quickly. You gather hydrogen from
• 20:08
  in front of you and compress it like a
• 20:10
  ramjet effectively.
• 20:12
  There's all these kind of things, but
• 20:13
  they will all unless we get to truly
• 20:16
  sci-fi type things like warp drive or
• 20:18
  air drives or or whatever, which require
• 20:20
  physics to be somewhat different than
• 20:22
  how we currently understand it, you
• 20:25
  still have either a source of
• 20:27
  propellant, which you then get rid of
• 20:30
  out the back one way or the other, or
• 20:32
  with solar sails, you're using the
• 20:34
  stellar wind, and that pushes you away.
• 20:38
  Um, people who are sailors can probably
• 20:40
  tell you a lot more about the complexity
• 20:42
  of how you can tack into the wind and
• 20:44
  move across the wind. But the wind, the
• 20:45
  solar wind is incredibly tenuous
• 20:48
  compared to the wind in the Earth's
• 20:49
  atmosphere. So, you need a very, very
• 20:50
  big sail. And I think that will be
• 20:53
  somewhat limiting if you wanting to do,
• 20:56
  I guess, Star Wars style dog fight
• 20:58
  maneuvers. You wouldn't do that with a
• 20:59
  solar sail. So, people will pick the
• 21:01
  right technology for the kind of mission
• 21:02
  that they want. And that was where the
• 21:05
  Dawn mission which went to series and
• 21:07
  Juno in the asteroid belt was really
• 21:09
  interesting. So it used an ion drive
• 21:11
  where it was using I think ionized xenon
• 21:14
  and that kind of drive achieves a much
• 21:17
  much lower thrust but can operate for
• 21:19
  much much longer time. So it's very
• 21:21
  energy efficient. Um but it wouldn't be
• 21:24
  any good for getting off the surface of
• 21:25
  the earth but it's very very good for
• 21:27
  cruising around the solar system when
• 21:28
  you're not in a rush. And so what will
• 21:31
  happen is I think different people will
• 21:32
  have different types of drives for
• 21:35
  different types of scenario
• 21:38
  and choose the one that works best.
• 21:40
  >> Yeah. But to get off the planet at the
• 21:42
  moment, you you need rockets. There's
• 21:44
  there's no real other technology that
• 21:47
  will get you out there. I know they've
• 21:49
  been trying um sort of catapult
• 21:52
  technology u which um could deploy
• 21:56
  satellites in the future. Um, I think
• 22:00
  you'd need to be in the right place on
• 22:02
  the planet to take advantage of the u
• 22:04
  the rotation of the earth so that you
• 22:06
  don't have like you couldn't do it too
• 22:08
  far away from the equator, that kind of
• 22:09
  thing. But
• 22:11
  >> um at the moment uh yeah, the um the
• 22:14
  standard old rocket engine is uh is the
• 22:16
  best option at the moment. So, um, part
• 22:18
  of where the refueling station idea
• 22:20
  around the moon comes from, which is,
• 22:22
  you know, if you have to take your fuel
• 22:24
  with you, you're carrying a lot of extra
• 22:25
  weight. So, you've got to burn extra
• 22:26
  fuel to carry that fuel, which means
• 22:28
  you're carrying extra weight. So, you
• 22:29
  got to take even more fuel to burn to
• 22:31
  carry the weight of the fuel you're
• 22:32
  carrying to carry the extra fuel. And
• 22:34
  so, it becomes very inefficient very
• 22:36
  quickly. So, if instead you can have
• 22:38
  small launches from Earth and then
• 22:39
  refuel once you're beyond the Earth,
• 22:41
  that's a lot more effective. I mean the
• 22:43
  other thing that people have suggested
• 22:45
  long term
• 22:46
  >> as a solution to get things off the
• 22:47
  earth more cheaply are things like space
• 22:49
  elevators which are probably still far
• 22:53
  science fiction. I don't don't think we
• 22:55
  have the material science to do that nor
• 22:56
  the political will. I mean putting that
• 22:59
  in perspective just saw the announcement
• 23:00
  this week that the vast inland rail
• 23:02
  project that was happening in Australia
• 23:05
  is no longer happening because it got
• 23:07
  too expensive and it's taken too long.
• 23:09
  And if we can't build a railway between
• 23:11
  Melbourne and Brisbane, it's going to be
• 23:13
  really hard to build an elevator between
• 23:16
  low Earth orbit, well, between the
• 23:17
  Earth's surface geostationary orbit and
• 23:19
  the same distance beyond for the
• 23:21
  counterweight.
• 23:23
  >> Yeah. So, I don't happen anytime soon.
• 23:26
  >> We can't even get a tunnel under the
• 23:28
  Blue Mountains between the West and
• 23:29
  Sydney. Uh, and that's despite the fact
• 23:34
  that that road is currently closed due
• 23:36
  to a structural failure in Victoria
• 23:39
  Pass, the old convict bridge that's uh
• 23:42
  200 years old or something or 150 years
• 23:44
  old and it's finally given up the ghost
• 23:47
  and so they've closed the road. It's,
• 23:50
  >> you know, people have been screaming for
• 23:52
  a tunnel for decades and um, no
• 23:56
  politicians willing to spend the money
• 23:58
  because there aren't enough people.
• 23:59
  Bottom line is there aren't enough
• 24:01
  people living west of the mountains to
• 24:02
  make it worth your vote. That's really
• 24:06
  what it comes down. That's what it comes
• 24:07
  down to.
• 24:08
  >> Reminds me of the old episode of The
• 24:09
  Simpsons when I was a kid with the kind
• 24:11
  of argument about books for the kids or
• 24:13
  something. It was just the two people at
• 24:14
  the front room basically shouting but
• 24:16
  our children but taxes. But our children
• 24:18
  but taxes and it's this whole thing of
• 24:21
  everybody wants it but nobody wants to
• 24:22
  pay for it.
• 24:23
  >> Exactly. Yes. Uh a tunnel under the Blue
• 24:26
  Mountains would be wonderful though.
• 24:28
  Although um some some of the arguments
• 24:30
  against it are well it'll only save you
• 24:32
  15 minutes. I think it'll probably save
• 24:34
  you more gets pretty log jammed up over
• 24:36
  that mountain.
• 24:37
  >> We have those arguments about the Towa
• 24:39
  bypass and that's been a godsend. I mean
• 24:41
  it
• 24:42
  >> yeah I used it uh last year. Yeah it's
• 24:44
  fantastic.
• 24:44
  >> It fell apart and bits fell onto it
• 24:46
  because it contracted fairly cheaply.
• 24:49
  Um, but that has saved about half an
• 24:51
  hour from my trip down to Brisbane when
• 24:53
  I go to the airport and stuff because I
• 24:55
  don't have to go through Towa and all
• 24:57
  the freight companies use it even though
• 24:58
  the tolls are quite high because the
• 25:01
  tolls being high is a lot better than
• 25:02
  the wear and tear on their vehicles
• 25:03
  coming up the old road into Toumba and
• 25:05
  having to stop at all the traffic lights
• 25:06
  and stuff. So, it worked out for them.
• 25:09
  It's better for the TWA council because
• 25:11
  they're having to repair less potholes
• 25:12
  and they have less accidents. And it's
• 25:14
  one of those things where it was a
• 25:15
  little controversial when it was being
• 25:16
  built, but since it's set, it's been a
• 25:19
  godsend. And I'd like to think that some
• 25:21
  of these big infrastructure projects
• 25:22
  would be the same. And I mean, a space
• 25:24
  elevator would be wonderful, but you
• 25:26
  know, going to be hard to persuade
• 25:28
  people to commit to building it even
• 25:29
  when we get the technology. I think
• 25:31
  >> ah wait till there are orbiting hotels.
• 25:34
  That'll change everything. You wait and
• 25:36
  see.
• 25:38
  might be waiting a while. Uh, thanks
• 25:40
  Mark. Lovely to hear from you. This is
• 25:42
  Space Nuts with Andrew Dunley and
• 25:45
  Professor Jonty Hornath
• 25:49
  and I feel
• 25:51
  >> space nuts. One more question, Jonty.
• 25:54
  And this one comes from Paul.
• 25:57
  >> Good day, Gre and Andrew. Paul here from
• 25:59
  sunny Bris Vegas. I have a question and
• 26:03
  a dirty secret that I need to confess.
• 26:07
  So, I was on this flat earth group on
• 26:11
  Facebook. Yes, I know. I know. Anyway,
• 26:14
  this guy provided some AI information
• 26:17
  which was absolutely correct to contend
• 26:20
  that there is no way that the Aremis
• 26:23
  mission could have ever caught up to the
• 26:25
  Earth because the Earth travels a hell
• 26:26
  of a lot faster than that little
• 26:29
  spaceship. I pointed out that they
• 26:32
  didn't need to catch up to the Earth at
• 26:35
  all. They just needed to point
• 26:36
  themselves to where it was going to be
• 26:39
  and then splash down, land safely, and
• 26:43
  be applauded by everybody except for the
• 26:45
  flatearthers like him, uh, who are
• 26:48
  absolutely insensed at the moment about
• 26:52
  how it's all fake as per usual. Anyway,
• 26:57
  I told him that if he really wanted a
• 26:59
  better answer, exact answer, he really
• 27:01
  needed to talk to an astrophysicist. So
• 27:04
  my second question is well my first
• 27:06
  question is was I on the right track and
• 27:08
  my second question is are there any
• 27:11
  astrophysicists or any websites out
• 27:13
  there that can give us an animation of
• 27:17
  the earth
• 27:19
  going around the sun that also has uh
• 27:22
  the animated version of the Artemis
• 27:24
  going around the moon so that we can see
• 27:26
  the whole thing in context in terms of
• 27:29
  the solar system or at least our area of
• 27:31
  the solar system. uh it's not going to
• 27:34
  convince him, I'm sure, but I think it'd
• 27:36
  be pretty cool to see something like
• 27:38
  that. Anyway, thanks very much,
• 27:41
  gentlemen, for the show as always. Um,
• 27:43
  look forward to it every week and catch
• 27:46
  us later. Have a good one. You too,
• 27:48
  Paul. Thank you. If only we had an
• 27:51
  astrophysicist
• 27:52
  somewhere nearby. Jonty any any I know I
• 27:56
  know he was directing the question to
• 27:58
  Fred but he asked for an astrophysicist.
• 28:02
  >> Yeah we are legion for we are many.
• 28:04
  There's plenty of us around. It was
• 28:06
  always a thing when I was at uni of what
• 28:08
  title you use for what you're studying
• 28:09
  would depend on how bothered you were
• 28:11
  about the conversation cuz if you know
• 28:13
  if I told someone I was studying physics
• 28:14
  they'd very quickly edit st exit stage
• 28:17
  left. If I told them I was doing
• 28:18
  astronomy they'd stay and chat. And if I
• 28:20
  told them I was doing astrophysics
• 28:21
  they'd just look a little bit scared.
• 28:23
  Um, but I was doing all three. This is a
• 28:27
  an interesting one. I mean, I people
• 28:29
  like the flatearthers are difficult
• 28:32
  because there is no amount of truth, no
• 28:35
  amount of evidence that you can put
• 28:37
  before people who are convinced that
• 28:39
  they've been lied to.
• 28:40
  >> Um, other than talking to them gently
• 28:43
  about it. And it's like discussions of
• 28:45
  climate change I've had in the past with
• 28:47
  people who argue climate change isn't
• 28:49
  real. Arguing and fighting with people
• 28:51
  over this doesn't win hearts and minds.
• 28:54
  It just gets them more entrenched. But
• 28:55
  talking to them about it and talking
• 28:57
  about why we think something is a case.
• 29:00
  This is our evidence. This is what it
• 29:01
  is.
• 29:03
  That can be a little bit more fruitful I
• 29:05
  guess. But it is really challenging. I
• 29:06
  mean especially given that we had a
• 29:07
  beautiful eclipse of the moon just a few
• 29:08
  months ago where you can see that the
• 29:11
  shadow of the earth is round.
• 29:13
  >> I mean you know
• 29:14
  >> and that's the big argument. If the if
• 29:16
  the earth was flat, the shadow at some
• 29:19
  stage would be just a a line across the
• 29:22
  moon.
• 29:22
  >> We'd see the elephants and the turtle.
• 29:24
  >> Um the other thing is if the earth was
• 29:26
  flat, the cats would have pushed
• 29:28
  everything off the edge by now.
• 29:29
  >> Yes.
• 29:31
  >> Yes,
• 29:31
  >> that's the other one. But um
• 29:33
  >> Oh god.
• 29:34
  >> In terms of Artimus,
• 29:36
  at the end of the day, we know it
• 29:38
  happened because we saw it. You know, I
• 29:41
  was over in Europe at the time and my
• 29:43
  colleagues at UNISQ were happily sharing
• 29:46
  their own little footage of the
• 29:47
  spacecraft that they got from our
• 29:49
  telescopes. They have no reason to lie.
• 29:52
  They have no vested interest in this.
• 29:55
  It's not like they're secretly on the
• 29:56
  payroll of NASA, ignoring the fact that
• 29:58
  if it was faked, Russia and China would
• 30:01
  be racing to tell everybody because that
• 30:03
  would be the best PR victory ever. You
• 30:06
  know, it's the same with the moon
• 30:07
  landings in 1969.
• 30:10
  >> Did anybody really really think that the
• 30:11
  Russians would have stayed quiet if
• 30:13
  there was a sniff of it being faked?
• 30:15
  >> In fact, my great grandmother
• 30:19
  always thought the Apollo landings were
• 30:21
  faked. She She absolutely refused to
• 30:24
  believe it.
• 30:25
  >> But she grew up in an era before flight.
• 30:28
  >> Yeah. So, I can understand why she would
• 30:32
  she would think that, but she just
• 30:33
  thought it was all just some sort of
• 30:35
  publicity stunt, but I don't remember
• 30:37
  what they might have been trying to get
• 30:39
  publicity for
• 30:40
  >> because they beat the Russians. I mean,
• 30:41
  that's what it was to them or beat the
• 30:42
  Soviets as it was then. Have been pulled
• 30:44
  up on that a couple times.
• 30:45
  >> It was definitely a big PR exercise in
• 30:48
  that regard.
• 30:49
  >> I had a fun PhD student who worked with
• 30:51
  me, Jake Clark, Dr. check that out. Um,
• 30:54
  gave a wonderful talk a couple of times
• 30:55
  about
• 30:57
  the moon landings in 1969 and why they
• 30:59
  couldn't have been faked because we
• 31:01
  couldn't afford it. Talking about faking
• 31:03
  it with the technology we had at the
• 31:05
  time would have actually been more
• 31:06
  expensive than going there,
• 31:08
  >> which is fairly compelling for me. I
• 31:10
  mean, there's always a joke that, you
• 31:12
  know, yeah, the moon landings were
• 31:13
  always going to be faked, but they hired
• 31:14
  Stanley Cubri to direct and he was such
• 31:16
  a perfectionist that they demanded that
• 31:17
  they do it on site. Um, which is always
• 31:20
  the old joke. Um, with Artimus 2, there
• 31:24
  is abundant evidence that it really
• 31:27
  happened. Um, you can you could with a
• 31:28
  small telescope or binoculars go outside
• 31:30
  and see the spacecraft. And I mean, you
• 31:32
  can't fake that. It's not like we're
• 31:34
  beaming thoughts into your head and if
• 31:35
  you think we are, you can wear some tin
• 31:37
  foil. That's all good. Um, in terms of
• 31:41
  the argument that the earth is going too
• 31:43
  quick for this thing to catch up, that
• 31:46
  is in the kindest interpretation of it,
• 31:49
  that is
• 31:51
  allowing common sense based on your
• 31:53
  understanding of how day-to-day life
• 31:55
  works interfere with looking at how
• 31:59
  things would move through space. I can
• 32:01
  see why you would get to that. If you
• 32:02
  think about a small child running along
• 32:05
  with a model of Arteimus in their hand
• 32:06
  and a Ferrari driving down the motorway
• 32:08
  or insert other make of car driving down
• 32:10
  the motorway at 100 km an hour, the
• 32:12
  child is not going to catch the thing
• 32:14
  because they're not quick enough. And
• 32:16
  there are limits on how fast a child can
• 32:18
  run and how fast the car can move to do
• 32:20
  with air resistance.
• 32:22
  It's however almost similar to saying,
• 32:25
  you know, I can't throw a ball up in the
• 32:27
  air and catch it because I'm moving at
• 32:29
  over 1,000 km an hour around the Earth.
• 32:31
  So, I'm moving too fast to catch up with
• 32:33
  that ball. Doesn't work like that cuz me
• 32:35
  and the ball are both moving at 1,000
• 32:37
  km/h. And so, it's a relative speed
• 32:40
  between us that matters. The Earth is
• 32:43
  going around the Sun at about 30 km a
• 32:45
  second. That's demonstrably true.
• 32:47
  Arteimus moving in orbit around the
• 32:49
  Earth is moving around the sun at 30 km
• 32:52
  a second with the Earth. It's falling
• 32:55
  with the Earth. So, it's a relative
• 32:57
  speed that matters.
• 32:58
  >> Yeah.
• 32:59
  >> Now, if I went above the Earth onto the
• 33:01
  space station, but instead of orbiting
• 33:04
  the Earth and falling with things, I was
• 33:06
  able to use rockets to stand still or I
• 33:08
  had an an imaginary hovering platform of
• 33:11
  doom that wasn't moving. I'm out of the
• 33:13
  atmosphere. If I threw a ball up in the
• 33:15
  air, it would move away from the Earth
• 33:17
  and the Earth's gravity would slow it
• 33:18
  down and pull it back and it'd fall back
• 33:19
  down to me just the same as how it does
• 33:21
  on the ground. Now, if I was in orbit
• 33:24
  around the Earth and I was stood on the
• 33:26
  International Space Station and I tossed
• 33:28
  the ball upward, it would actually start
• 33:30
  moving on a different orbit around the
• 33:31
  Earth. So, while it would move up away
• 33:33
  from me and it would move down, it would
• 33:35
  be going around the Earth on an orbit
• 33:36
  that takes slightly longer to go around
• 33:38
  the Earth than I do. So, it'd also fall
• 33:39
  behind. And that would look like wind
• 33:41
  resistance, but it's actually just a
• 33:43
  quirk of orbital mechanics in that I've
• 33:45
  put it onto a different orbit. Um,
• 33:48
  because we are both falling at the time
• 33:50
  I let go of it. So, if we imagine our
• 33:52
  flat earther jumped off a cliff, and I'm
• 33:54
  not encouraging them to, please do not
• 33:56
  do this, but imagine one jumps off a
• 33:58
  cliff while holding one of the shortputs
• 34:00
  from the previous answer without it
• 34:02
  being on a bungee cord, and they let go
• 34:04
  of the shortput. The shortput will fall
• 34:06
  with them at the same speed.
• 34:08
  It won't move away from them and come
• 34:10
  back. It will accelerate downwards in
• 34:12
  exactly the same way that they do. And
• 34:14
  they'll only diverge once air resistance
• 34:17
  takes effect depending on which of them
• 34:19
  feels more air resistance.
• 34:21
  >> It's the it's the Galileo experiment,
• 34:23
  isn't it?
• 34:24
  >> So, if you're on the space station and
• 34:25
  you throw a tennis ball up in the air,
• 34:26
  you're both actually falling, but you've
• 34:28
  changed the speed of the tennis ball's
• 34:29
  falling so it'll move away from you and
• 34:31
  not appear to come back because you're
• 34:33
  both still falling. The reason all this
• 34:36
  is relevant to Arteimus is Arteimus
• 34:37
  boosted off towards the moon at a speed
• 34:40
  that was not greater than the escape
• 34:42
  velocity from the earth was a speed that
• 34:44
  was high enough to get to the moon and
• 34:46
  the moon stayed it around and flung it
• 34:48
  back towards the earth but then it fell
• 34:50
  towards the earth under earth's gravity
• 34:53
  moving with insufficient sideward speed
• 34:56
  that as it fell towards the earth it
• 34:57
  would miss us. it instead was going to
• 34:59
  hit us and they controlled it with
• 35:01
  rockets and stuff so that it entered in
• 35:02
  a controlled rather than uncontrolled
• 35:04
  fashion.
• 35:05
  >> What matters is not the speed the
• 35:07
  earth's moving around the sun or the
• 35:08
  speed the sun's moving around our galaxy
• 35:10
  or the speed that the galaxy's moving
• 35:12
  through space. All that matters is the
• 35:14
  difference in speed between the Earth
• 35:16
  and the object cuz they're moving
• 35:17
  together. This thing's speed was at no
• 35:20
  time greater than the escape velocity of
• 35:22
  the Earth. So, it could never fall away
• 35:24
  from the Earth and never come back. it
• 35:26
  was always going to go up and then come
• 35:27
  down again, unless they use rockets to
• 35:30
  boost it into an orbit around the moon
• 35:31
  to shed some of that energy, which they
• 35:33
  didn't. They instead slingshoted around
• 35:34
  the moon to come back. All of that is
• 35:37
  perfectly rational and straightforward
• 35:39
  given our understanding of physics, but
• 35:42
  it doesn't necessarily fit your common
• 35:44
  sense because you think about throwing a
• 35:46
  ball out of the window of your car while
• 35:48
  your car's doing 100 km an hour and the
• 35:49
  ball will fall behind you and never
• 35:51
  catch you up. And so a lot of the
• 35:54
  arguments that flat earth believers or
• 35:57
  other people in that kind of situation
• 35:59
  make and making good faith are built on
• 36:02
  a faulty groundwork
• 36:04
  where the common sense of how they
• 36:07
  understand the world to work is not
• 36:08
  applicable to the situation they're
• 36:10
  applying it in. Um and that's true of
• 36:13
  things like you know the oceans are
• 36:15
  flat. If you put a spirit level on them
• 36:17
  they're flat. Well, it's actually that
• 36:18
  they're curved, but they're curved at
• 36:20
  such a small level that locally they
• 36:21
  look flat.
• 36:22
  >> It's a subtle difference, but it's one
• 36:24
  that's easy to miss cuz it's hard to get
• 36:25
  your head around those distances.
• 36:28
  >> In terms of the animations, I just did a
• 36:29
  quick Google search for Artemis
• 36:31
  animation of orbit, and there's some
• 36:33
  beautiful The first hit is a NASA flight
• 36:36
  with an an annotated and animated path.
• 36:39
  There's a few YouTube videos. There is a
• 36:41
  Reddit link with an interactive 3D
• 36:43
  animation.
• 36:45
  There's a lot of little YouTube short
• 36:47
  videos that pop up which are not to
• 36:49
  scale because if you make things to
• 36:51
  scale, the sun and the earth and the
• 36:52
  moon are points that are one pixel
• 36:54
  across and the spaceship is a point that
• 36:58
  is a pixel across as well cuz nothing
• 36:59
  can be smaller than a pixel. Um there is
• 37:02
  a fabulous thing incidentally and I'm
• 37:04
  going to see if I can find it see if
• 37:05
  it's still there.
• 37:08
  There's a this great thing called if the
• 37:10
  moon were only one pixel. Um, it is. I'm
• 37:14
  going to see if the website still works
• 37:16
  cuz this is one of the great things on
• 37:18
  the internet. Here we go. I'm going to
• 37:19
  drop it into the chat window. Um, this
• 37:22
  was an effort somebody made many many
• 37:24
  long long years ago. I'll put this into
• 37:25
  the public chart which never gets used.
• 37:27
  There we go. To visualize the scale of
• 37:30
  the solar system. If you made the moon
• 37:33
  one pixel across, so the Earth will then
• 37:35
  be two or three pixels across. You can
• 37:38
  when you get bored of scrolling, you can
• 37:40
  click play. But if you open that up and
• 37:41
  then you scroll to the right to explore,
• 37:44
  you move along and then you've got the
• 37:46
  scale. One pixel is 3,500 km. So the sun
• 37:49
  is a fairly big blob. And you scroll to
• 37:52
  the right from the sun and you've got a
• 37:54
  distance at the bottom. Scroll to the
• 37:56
  right along way. We've gone 10 million
• 37:57
  km. This is this fabulous visualization
• 37:59
  to let you see how big things are. Oh,
• 38:03
  isn't that clever? How fast light
• 38:05
  travels. You can click and that's slow.
• 38:08
  It's fabulous. Now what you can do is
• 38:11
  you can skip through I need to find
• 38:14
  where there was a way to skip to the
• 38:16
  earth. Yes, at the top skip to the earth
• 38:18
  goes whiz whiz whiz whiz whiz really
• 38:20
  really quick goes past Venus comes to
• 38:21
  the earth and the moon if the moon is
• 38:23
  one pixel the earth is only two or three
• 38:26
  and you get the scale of them 8.3 light
• 38:28
  minutes out from the sun and think how
• 38:30
  far you've got to scroll to get there.
• 38:33
  >> Think with that moon being a single
• 38:34
  pixel how far it is from the earth. This
• 38:37
  is why none of those animations have
• 38:39
  things to scale because you wouldn't see
• 38:42
  the spacecraft. You wouldn't see the
• 38:43
  Earth and the Moon. They wouldn't look
• 38:44
  pretty. So, the caution there is that
• 38:46
  the animations that you see, even the
• 38:48
  beautiful NASA ones that show the flight
• 38:50
  path are not to scale and that can be
• 38:53
  misleading.
• 38:55
  That can also add to some of the
• 38:57
  arguments that this is fake cuz people
• 38:59
  say, "Well, the Earth and the Moon are
• 39:01
  much smaller than that and they're much
• 39:02
  further apart. That looks wrong." Um, so
• 39:05
  it's worth being explicit that these
• 39:07
  visualizations are definitively not to
• 39:10
  scale. Um, the one incidentally that was
• 39:12
  linked on the Reddit page looks like the
• 39:14
  dots for Earth and Moon actually are
• 39:16
  more to scale. So, I'll just drop that
• 39:17
  one in as well. Um, not sure how this
• 39:19
  works. I've not really played with it,
• 39:21
  but you can drag the orbits around. You
• 39:22
  can move them back and forward in time.
• 39:24
  You can see the in and out of plane
• 39:26
  stuff and you can move the visualization
• 39:28
  around even with the background stars,
• 39:30
  which is quite nice. Um, so that's worth
• 39:32
  a play as well. and that looks a bit
• 39:34
  more to scale and there's lots of things
• 39:36
  you can play with, but fundamentally
• 39:39
  we could see it. The hardest part for me
• 39:41
  about the small number of people who
• 39:44
  have argued that the Atimus mission
• 39:46
  didn't happen is that it's something
• 39:48
  that anybody on the planet could see so
• 39:50
  long as they own binoculars or a
• 39:51
  telescope.
• 39:52
  >> You could just point it somewhere and
• 39:53
  you could see the capsule moving there.
• 39:55
  If you really wanted at any time when
• 39:57
  the moon was above the horizon, you
• 39:59
  could track it round.
• 40:02
  And if you've got good enough gear, you
• 40:04
  can actually look at the moon and see
• 40:07
  the landing positions of some of the
• 40:10
  Apollo if you've got the gear.
• 40:12
  >> If you've got the gear, I mean, that's
• 40:13
  kind of spice satellite level. But what
• 40:14
  you can do if you've got slightly less
• 40:16
  of the gear is bounce laser pulses off
• 40:21
  the retroreflects that the astronauts
• 40:23
  left at those sites and measure the
• 40:25
  distance to the moon and measure its
• 40:26
  recession to an incredible precision.
• 40:28
  And we can only do that because people
• 40:30
  went to the moon.
• 40:33
  Yeah, absolutely. I
• 40:37
  I remember the the day that Neil
• 40:39
  Armstrong stepped on the moon. I was um
• 40:42
  sent home from school. I I I
• 40:46
  it's one of the strongest memories of my
• 40:48
  childhood. I was 7 years old and uh I'll
• 40:50
  never forget it. It was uh quite an
• 40:53
  extraordinary thing in human history.
• 40:56
  >> Inspirational. I mean, I I'm not old
• 40:58
  enough to have ever seen anybody walk on
• 41:00
  the moon. I'm hoping that'll change. But
• 41:02
  the generation of astronomers who are
• 41:05
  15, 20 years older than me, who were old
• 41:08
  enough to see the moon landings and take
• 41:09
  them in, so many people were inspired to
• 41:12
  become scientists and engineers by that.
• 41:14
  We got a whole generation of people
• 41:18
  across the sciences, across the
• 41:19
  engineering subjects that changed the
• 41:21
  world who were all inspired by seeing
• 41:25
  people walk on the moon. And it's kind
• 41:27
  of exciting to me, even ignoring the
• 41:29
  science, even ignoring the technology,
• 41:31
  that we're going to get that experience
• 41:32
  again in the coming years. If we go back
• 41:34
  there, there'll be a whole new
• 41:35
  generation who will change the world.
• 41:37
  All inspired by those people touching
• 41:38
  down and seeing it happen.
• 41:41
  >> Yes. Yes. So I was very lucky to meet
• 41:43
  one of them, Buzz Aldrin um some years
• 41:46
  ago came here because they built a right
• 41:49
  flyer at a place called Naramine just up
• 41:52
  the road from here 40 kilometers away
• 41:54
  and they took it out for a fly and he
• 41:57
  came for the occasion uh and gave a
• 42:00
  wonderful speech and uh a handful of us
• 42:02
  in the media got to interview him
• 42:03
  afterwards in a in a hanger at the same
• 42:07
  time as a helicopter decided to take
• 42:09
  off.
• 42:09
  >> Yeah, that sounds about right. He
• 42:11
  famously, you know what? You just you
• 42:13
  just go with it.
• 42:14
  >> Well, he very famously gave very short
• 42:16
  shrift to people who told him that he'd
• 42:18
  not been to the moon.
• 42:19
  >> Oh, I know.
• 42:21
  >> Uh yeah, I did actually raise that
• 42:23
  question, but gee, it was such an
• 42:25
  interesting answer.
• 42:27
  >> Yeah, fabulous. Um Paul, great question.
• 42:31
  Really enjoyed that one. And I
• 42:35
  >> I can understand your frustration, but
• 42:37
  um maybe just avoid those Facebook
• 42:39
  pages.
• 42:41
  Uh because you can't you just can't save
• 42:43
  them, my friend. Uh but good to hear
• 42:45
  from you. Uh if you've got questions for
• 42:47
  us, please send them in. Uh you can do
• 42:48
  that via our website, spacen
• 42:50
  nutspodcast.com or spacenuts.io.
• 42:53
  You can also visit us on social media.
• 42:56
  We've got the official Spacenuts
• 42:57
  Facebook page and the official uh what's
• 43:00
  the Instagram page. Uh we've also got
• 43:03
  the user group on Facebook. um the
• 43:06
  podcast uh group uh which is all it's a
• 43:10
  lot of fun. It's where people who listen
• 43:13
  get together, swap photos of stuff
• 43:15
  they've taken in space and uh ask
• 43:18
  questions and uh it is a really good
• 43:20
  group. So the Space Nuts podcast group
• 43:23
  on Facebook very much worth uh joining
• 43:26
  that one as well and hope you'll join us
• 43:29
  again real soon. And and thank you to
• 43:31
  Johnny her for filling in for Fred for
• 43:33
  the last month or so. It's been
• 43:35
  fantastic and hopefully we can get that
• 43:37
  uh photography special off the ground
• 43:39
  and get you back and have a chat about
• 43:41
  astrophotography, Jonty. That would be a
• 43:43
  real good one.
• 43:43
  >> Fingers crossed. That would be awesome.
• 43:46
  >> Yeah. All right. Catch you soon. Thank
• 43:48
  you so much.
• 43:48
  >> Later. Take care. Thank you very much.
• 43:50
  >> Professor Jonty Horner, professor of
• 43:52
  astrophysics at the University of
• 43:54
  Southern Queensland, filling in for
• 43:56
  Fred. Fred should be back uh next week
• 43:59
  or later this week. I can't I can't get
• 44:01
  my head around when it'll be. It's a
• 44:03
  time slip thing. Uh but uh yeah, thanks
• 44:06
  to Jonty for filling in and thanks to
• 44:08
  Hugh in the studio who couldn't be with
• 44:10
  us today because he's fake. Boom boom.
• 44:14
  And from me, Andrew Dunley, thanks for
• 44:16
  your company. We'll see you on the next
• 44:17
  episode of Space Nuts. Bye-bye.
• 44:20
  >> Space Nuts.
• 44:21
  >> You've been listening to the Space Nuts
• 44:23
  podcast
• 44:25
  >> available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
• 44:28
  iHeart Radio, or your favorite podcast
• 44:31
  player. You can also stream on demand at
• 44:33
  byes.com. This has been another quality
• 44:36
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