Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Astrophysicist with Australian National University Brad Tucker explains the exciting launch in Arnhem Land of the first NASA rocket outside of the US

Transcript

Astrophysicist with Australian National University Brad Tucker explains the exciting launch in Arnhem Land of the first NASA rocket outside of the US · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, in some pretty exciting news, you'd have to say. Overnight,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: NASA's first commercial launch outside of the United States has
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: taken off from the Unham Space Center in Null and Boy,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and while it went a little bit later, it wasn't
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: quite to the exact schedule in terms of time. Onlookers
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: were indeed treated to an amazing display of the Northern
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Territory skies last night. Joining us on the line to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: discuss this a little bit further is astrophysicist with the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Australian National University Brad Tucker. Good morning to you, Brad.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: How's it going?
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Oh so good?
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: How are you?
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: You must be excited.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Oh look, it's still excited, you know. As I said,
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  Speaker 2: I'm still standing upside looking at the gantry, the support
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  Speaker 2: structure report, bro. What used to have a rocket A
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: rocket that is now you know, successfully launched, as you said,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: after that period of delayed through some of the weather
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: that we had. Still look, it's still an exciting moment,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: you know, even though it was such a late night
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: here today, so many people were here bright and early
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: to start on it and get the next one ready.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Brad, explain it for us. What was it like last night?
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: You know as you lead into that launch and then
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: finally seeing that rocket actually launch up into the skies.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it was amazing.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 2: Firstly, you know, the countdown starts about eight hours before
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  Speaker 2: because there's this long build up of getting everything ready.
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  Speaker 2: Now a lot of this is, you know, not the
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: kind of cool stuff. There's a lot of important checks though,
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  Speaker 2: so you know, people have been working on it for
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  Speaker 2: a while. Then we get down to about ready for
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: an hour out and the then all of a sudden
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: we get the weather delay launch. And this has been
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: the problem. We've had winds and rain up here and
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: this is retafock from it, and the wind because of
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: the rocket launch is obviously the biggest factor here. And
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  Speaker 2: so there was about six times we started the countdown
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  Speaker 2: to get closer and then we had to pause it
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  Speaker 2: and reset because the wind. At one point we got
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: to eight seconds and then we had to halt because
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: of the wind and restarted to three minutes. So many
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  Speaker 2: people were like ah ah, And then we had that
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  Speaker 2: final you know, we knew it it was happening. Everyone
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: rushed outside, was standing and then you see the beautiful
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  Speaker 2: rockets start to take off and then because we're standing
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  Speaker 2: you feel the shock wave travel through us and it
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: just kind of it hits you in the bone.
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  Speaker 1: Oh wow, Brad, I can't believe they it took that
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  Speaker 1: many almost takeoffs, even getting down to eight seconds.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, you know, imagine you're a kid. You wake
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: up for Christmas, You run down and your parents are like,
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  Speaker 2: oh no, you have to wait an hour and fourteen
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: minutes and now open up your present. Just stare at
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: it and imagine what may be inside. That was kind
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: of the feeling for everyone here. That's right, because there
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: was so many times that when we got to three minutes,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: that was the final three minutes, and we had to
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  Speaker 2: stop because of those winds. You know, sometimes we made
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: it for fifty seconds that it said that one time
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  Speaker 2: we made it to eight seconds. We were so ready
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: and then no, but we eventually got there.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Was there ever any moment last night when you thought,
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  Speaker 1: oh goodness, we might not actually be able to do
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: this tonight. Sure this morning?
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Well, well, looks there was a period where there was
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: so much rain I could not hear anything because of
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: how loud it was with the rain coming down on
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: the roof. Right, I mean, you know it's the dry season, right,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: It did not really sound very dry last night here.
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  Speaker 2: And there was a period everyone's like, oh wow, it
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: is storming outside, what is going on? But you know everyone,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: this is why everyone is the professionals. They're prepared, was
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: ready for it, budget in for these circumstances and got it.
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  Speaker 1: And so how many people turned out in the end
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: to watch.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: So so onsite there was restriction. So this was just
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  Speaker 2: the people at the site for the launch and the
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  Speaker 2: other employees, like the NASA employees, but still all the people.
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  Speaker 2: Even so there's two more missions, the people who were
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  Speaker 2: on the second and third missions happening in the fourth
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  Speaker 2: and twelfth of July. They were all standing outside ready
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  Speaker 2: and then down the road in a state difference, there
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  Speaker 2: was a group of visitors from around and then people
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  Speaker 2: in town. So there was people scattered everywhere, plus everyone
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  Speaker 2: watching on the live stream and there were so many
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  Speaker 2: people want to watch this thing thing up and it
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  Speaker 2: was really great. You know, this was the front and
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  Speaker 2: center of the space world last night, Brad.
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  Speaker 1: You know, for those of us listening this morning, I
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  Speaker 1: guess so many of us sort of can't actually comprehend
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  Speaker 1: exactly what this launch means for Australia. But also, you
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  Speaker 1: know for the Northern Territory, how important is the space industry.
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  Speaker 1: You know here in Australia, but now for the territory.
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  Speaker 2: It's becoming a big thing. You know, Australia has been
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  Speaker 2: doing space for a long time, but a lot of
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  Speaker 2: it hasn't been the rockets. Now it's not just about
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  Speaker 2: the rockets. That's an important part. And the reason why is,
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  Speaker 2: you know, we could build satellites, we could build the experiments.
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  Speaker 2: The data we also have to get into space and
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  Speaker 2: that's been a critical missing piece and so far, anytime
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  Speaker 2: you build an experiment or satellite you have to go
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  Speaker 2: overseas to do it. You need to have it in Australia,
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  Speaker 2: and you know, the Northern Territory is essentially the best
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  Speaker 2: place to do this. Rockets like to go near the equator.
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  Speaker 2: The equator is where the Earth is spinning fastest. That's
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  Speaker 2: the best part to leave. You can also then obviously
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: access the southern part of the skies. You have a
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  Speaker 2: lot of remote dry conditions, so it makes for the
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  Speaker 2: very best condition. And I think the fact that NASA
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  Speaker 2: is the first customer launching three in a row just
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  Speaker 2: kind of goes to show, you know, the valid you know,
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  Speaker 2: the validity you get kind of the street cred when
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  Speaker 2: NASA comes and says yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, we're
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: gonna do it. And now you know, there are already
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  Speaker 2: customers wanting to become other groups, other countries, of other companies,
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  Speaker 2: and there is a real vision that you know, this
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  Speaker 2: is going to be happening, not you know, three times
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  Speaker 2: over three weeks and that's it, but you know, hopefully
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  Speaker 2: every week, you know, and this is the business up here.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Wow, Now what data is going to be collected from
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: last night's launch?
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so last night's launch sent an X ray telescope,
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  Speaker 2: So this is looking at X ray lights. So just
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  Speaker 2: as ago in the hospitals get an X ray for
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  Speaker 2: your bones, we're taking an X ray of the Milky Way.
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  Speaker 2: It's really important for understanding the energy and the power
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  Speaker 2: of our galaxy. But again it's only visible so far
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  Speaker 2: from the north in the state, so all of the
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: other data has been in the northern hemisphere and the
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  Speaker 2: southern bits of the galaxy, where in fact the center
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  Speaker 2: is has been missing. So it's very critical for putting
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  Speaker 2: together an understanding and map of how the galaxy acts.
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  Speaker 2: And again you can only access from the southern sky,
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  Speaker 2: so that data has already been collected. They started taking
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  Speaker 2: it one hundred seconds after launched last.
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  Speaker 1: Night, and so from last night's launch and even though
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: they were those delays, it was it was definitely considered successful,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: wasn't it?
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, it isn't. Look, the weather delays is completely normal.
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  Speaker 2: You know Florida when they launch, they have weather delays
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  Speaker 2: all the time. And you know Florida the Giant's walk,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: you know it, they have alligators, We have crocodiles up here,
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  Speaker 2: so you know's there's similarities, there's parallels, and there's differences,
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  Speaker 2: and so you know, weather delays are very common. That
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: was nothing that anyone sneezed about. The mechanical, the operational
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  Speaker 2: and again it's not just the rocket launching at that moment,
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  Speaker 2: it's all the work before and after all of that
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  Speaker 2: has gone according to plan, and again that data has
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  Speaker 2: been collected and that means it's a successful mission. So
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: the first commercial launch from Australia is most definitely a
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  Speaker 2: successful one.
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  Speaker 1: And Brad, I know that. You know, as you've just
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  Speaker 1: pointed on there and as we obviously saw last night,
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  Speaker 1: the way they did have a part to play is
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  Speaker 1: the weather as we go into the wet season. Obviously
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  Speaker 1: we're in the dry at the moment, but as we
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  Speaker 1: do head into the wet season, will that hinder us
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  Speaker 1: being able to launch rockets, you know throughout other parts
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  Speaker 1: of the year.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So there may have to be a seasonal variation
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  Speaker 2: to some of these launches, and that's not a bad thing.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of these sites do this. In fact, there
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  Speaker 2: are launch sites, say in the Arctic towards Bauldgard and
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  Speaker 2: Sweden or the Alaska and they have periods where they
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  Speaker 2: launch and they have periods that they don't what the
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  Speaker 2: biggest thing that people are seeing is there are so
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  Speaker 2: many different companies building rockets. There are so many people
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  Speaker 2: building satellites. They need places to take off, right and
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  Speaker 2: this is the critical part is you need not just
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  Speaker 2: the rocket it delt with the place in the infrastructure
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  Speaker 2: to support it taking on. And so they will be
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  Speaker 2: this demand and they're already is they're alread people say,
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: you know, we want to go do it, especially again
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  Speaker 2: when you see the first one was successful.
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  Speaker 1: How wonderful? Well, I guess it. Just in closing, I'm
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  Speaker 1: keen to know, you know, what do you think that
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  Speaker 1: this stares mean? For the future of launchers at the
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  Speaker 1: Arnham Space Center and the Northern Territories. Position is a
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  Speaker 1: plier in that space industry.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's been solidified at twelve pm or twelve
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  Speaker 2: am last night, or this morning, whatever day it is.
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  Speaker 2: You know, this is this is a show that the
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Arham Space Center is a spaceport and that you know,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: in a few years time, you probably won't be covering
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  Speaker 2: this as a news story. I'd be like, oh, yeah,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: there's an other rocket launch, because this is going to
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: be the business of this area. And I think this
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  Speaker 2: is a great thing. It's going to transform not just
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  Speaker 2: the equipment here, but now imagine you have the infrastructure
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  Speaker 2: of support people to come out and watch it, so
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: you have people to enjoy the beautiful country. In terms
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: of imagine, you know, we're getting into school holidays right now,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: right imagine doing the school holiday trip to go see
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  Speaker 2: a rocket launch in the Northern Territory. That is the
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: future for up here, and that future is, you know,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: within the next few years. Because it started tonight.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: How wonderful. Well, Brad, it is fantastic to speak to
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: you this morning. We really appreciate your time. Thank you
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: so much for joining us on the show
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Take Care, Thank you,