Latest / Made of Stars / Recapping Space News of 2025 Part 1

Transcript

Recapping Space News of 2025 Part 1 · Made of Stars

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Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
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Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
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Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
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Speaker 2: Go ahead.
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Speaker 3: When made of stars, made them stars, madies.
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Speaker 4: When made of stars.
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Speaker 2: You could be from high they would New Mexicomus, where all.
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Speaker 3: Stars? When we are made of stars.
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Speaker 4: I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
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Speaker 4: Cruise from Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center
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Speaker 4: here on Christmas Eve because we are counting down, not
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Speaker 4: really a countdown, it's just recapping. I guess we've done
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Speaker 4: it before as a countdown, but we're doing a no
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Speaker 4: particular order other than chronological order by time. But we
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Speaker 4: are looking back at some of the biggest space news
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Speaker 4: stories of twenty twenty five, and there have been some
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Speaker 4: big ones we have, I mean some really really big ones,
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Speaker 4: some that really dominated the news. Now we know next year,
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Speaker 4: with the Artemis two launch pending, obviously there's going to
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Speaker 4: be a whole new interest in some of the Space stories,
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Speaker 4: and that'll be obviously a really big one whenever that
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Speaker 4: takes place. But until we get into twenty twenty six,
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Speaker 4: it's important that we look back a little bit some
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Speaker 4: of the accomplishments in twenty twenty five, and we start
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Speaker 4: appropriately enough in January when Blue Originsk New Glenn successfully launched.
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Speaker 2: So that welcome everybody, by the way, and we hope
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Speaker 2: you're having a great Christmas holiday and a new year
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Speaker 2: and a nice holiday. Breaking general for everybody who celebrates
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Speaker 2: other holidays, I would say this, these are not maybe
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Speaker 2: the greatest space stories from last year. They're maybe not
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Speaker 2: the most important space stories from last year, but these
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Speaker 2: are the ones that we wanted to talk about, so
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Speaker 2: that's what they are.
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Speaker 4: That's true, And some of them were more prominent in
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Speaker 4: the headlines and in the new shows than others, because
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Speaker 4: we are going to use the terms, you know, stuck
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Speaker 4: astronauts coming up.
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Speaker 2: How could you not they weren't really stuck astronauts in
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Speaker 2: a twenty twenty five Space story recap.
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Speaker 4: Even if they weren't really stuck because they had a
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Speaker 4: ride home the whole time, but anyway, that is relevant,
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Speaker 4: my friend, they were stuck because darn it, it's clickbait.
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Speaker 3: But let's start with Blue Origin.
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Speaker 4: I want to give them this nod because this was
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Speaker 4: a pretty major accomplishment for Blue Origin.
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Speaker 2: So, as Wes just mentioned, we're doing a double recap show.
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Speaker 2: This week is the part one. We're going to cover
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Speaker 2: the first half of the year in January. The contestant
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Speaker 2: for January's greatest space story in our humble opinions was
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Speaker 2: the fact that Blue Origin launched their New Glen rocket
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Speaker 2: for the very first time. Why is New Glen so
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Speaker 2: important because it is a heavy lift rocket vehicle. In
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Speaker 2: other words, it is one of those rockets that's capable
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Speaker 2: of potentially taking human beings to the surface of another
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Speaker 2: planet or very heavy payloads to Low Earth orbit and
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Speaker 2: compete with other rockets like the Falcons super Heavy starship
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Speaker 2: and you know, if the Saturn five was still around,
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Speaker 2: that one the Space Launch System SLS. It's a rocket
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Speaker 2: in that class, right, And so the fact that Blue
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Speaker 2: Origin had a successful launch is important. They launched it
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Speaker 2: for the very first time on January sixteenth. Some of
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Speaker 2: the mission objectives were actually accomplished, some of them maybe
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Speaker 2: not so much so, so the FAA had to get
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Speaker 2: involved with an investigation because landing their second their booster
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Speaker 2: on a platform and see was a secondary goal. It
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Speaker 2: did not go well. And because you have just straight
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Speaker 2: rockets landing in the ocean, the FAA has to get
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Speaker 2: involved in the Wait a minute, Wait a minute, that's
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Speaker 2: not what you guys said you were going to do.
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Speaker 2: We've got to take a look at that. So, you know,
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Speaker 2: a quote from the FAA said, quote a return to
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Speaker 2: flight is based on the FAA determining that any system
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Speaker 2: process or procedure related to the mishap does not affect
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Speaker 2: public safety. Quote. Therefore, Blue Origin had to go into
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Speaker 2: a FAA investigation because of some of the goals not
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Speaker 2: being met. And yeah, they're still under investigation right now,
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Speaker 2: but they did manage to get a waiver for a
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Speaker 2: November thirteenth launch which they deployed the twin spacecraft of
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Speaker 2: the Escapade mission for NASA. So happy ending to that story.
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Speaker 2: That's January's lead story, Blue Origin and their new Glen
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Speaker 2: heavy lift rocket successfully launching for the first time.
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Speaker 4: Let's now jump into February and talk about Key Poo.
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Speaker 3: What is Key Poo?
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Speaker 4: Well, we know what it is, the largest known object
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Speaker 4: in the universe, but let's talk about this large Key Poo.
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Speaker 2: I mean you've heard of keen Wa. Yes, this has
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Speaker 2: nothing to do with.
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Speaker 4: It, unrelated all together. And you know the middle school
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Speaker 4: or in me giggles, we.
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Speaker 2: Don't know whether King Waw is located inside Keypoo or not.
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Speaker 4: It's a fair question, yep.
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Speaker 2: I just want to make sure that we lay out
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Speaker 2: there what we do and do not understand from a
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Speaker 2: scientific perspective. Okay, story in the New Scientist back in February,
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Speaker 2: astronomers believe they have found the largest known structure in
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Speaker 2: the universe. Now, any month in which you find the
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Speaker 2: largest known structure of the universe, that pretty much has
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Speaker 2: to become the story of the month, I would say, right.
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Speaker 2: And so for February of twenty twenty five, Keepoo, the
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Speaker 2: one point four billion light year long super cluster of galaxies,
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Speaker 2: seventy of them. Structure became the largest story of February
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Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. So that's why we're talking about it
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Speaker 2: here today. Keepoo the superstructure and end is slightly longer
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Speaker 2: than the Sloan Great Wall, the previous contender for largest
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Speaker 2: object in the universe. So it helps us to understand
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Speaker 2: the cosmological principle a little bit better. Superclusters clumping together
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Speaker 2: there and uneven ways, though, would help violate the cosmological principle,
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Speaker 2: which is that the universe is the same every direction
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Speaker 2: that we look. So it's still kind of an interesting question.
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Speaker 2: Check out all the information on Kipou, the largest known
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Speaker 2: structure in the universe, and you can start with a
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Speaker 2: great article from the New Scientists back in February of
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Speaker 2: twenty twenty five.
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Speaker 4: after this. So, there were these astronauts and they went
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Speaker 4: to space and they you know, were stuck in space.
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Speaker 4: According to most news outlets. We never really used the
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Speaker 4: term stuck here. We just said, hey, they're going to
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Speaker 4: be bringing a different coming home, a different ride. That
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Speaker 4: was the way that it all kind of panned out.
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Speaker 4: There were some questions about you know, depends on what
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Speaker 4: your definition of is is kind of depends on your
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Speaker 4: definition of stuck. But they spent longer in space than
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Speaker 4: they had initially planned to, and I guess that was
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Speaker 4: the very loose definition of stuck that was used by
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Speaker 4: people who were looking to really utilize the clickbait and
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Speaker 4: have the headlines and stories. But the reality is there
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Speaker 4: were two astronauts that were in space, and the way
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Speaker 4: that they got to space wasn't the same way that
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Speaker 4: they got home from space.
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Speaker 3: Well, the story.
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Speaker 4: Ended for them at least in March when they got
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Speaker 4: unstuck by all definitions from space. Meanwhile, skip ahead a
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Speaker 4: few months and we're not really going to talk about
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Speaker 4: this story. I assume there were actually stuck astronauts on
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Speaker 4: the Chinese space station, so they know what stuck means
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Speaker 4: when you really don't have a ride home. But anyway,
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Speaker 4: back to the Americans that were able to eventually get
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Speaker 4: home in March.
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Speaker 2: I mean, you say, we don't call them stuck astronauts
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Speaker 2: on the show, but we use the phrase stuck astronauts
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Speaker 2: every chance we get.
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Speaker 4: Well, yes, but we know, so demonstrate a points, right,
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Speaker 4: There's a difference between being stranded and whatever they're calling stuck.
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Speaker 2: There's a difference between making political hay and your actual
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Speaker 2: status of space transportation.
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Speaker 4: Yes, however, it is important at least to mention that
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Speaker 4: Butch Willmore kind of did act like they were stuck.
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Speaker 4: That there was a political reason that they weren't brought home.
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Speaker 4: So you know, anyway they got home in March is
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Speaker 4: what we're getting at, and that was important. They caught
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Speaker 4: a ride from someone else when the car broke down.
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Speaker 2: How about like it's like taking lift to the party
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Speaker 2: and coming home on uber.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, Or maybe you just took a junkie car to
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Speaker 4: the party and it broke down and you know then
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Speaker 4: they just you know, set it on fire as it
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Speaker 4: crashed back to Earth or whatever, and then you just
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Speaker 4: caught the next ride home from a friend.
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Speaker 3: Maybe that.
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Speaker 2: All of these analogies I think work. I think so
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Speaker 2: Sunny Williams, butch Wilmore. Again, we don't want to make
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Speaker 2: light of people who are actually aboard of spacecraft from
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Speaker 2: which they cannot make it home. And in the very
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Speaker 2: loosest sense, it felt a little bit that way. Certainly
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Speaker 2: the vehicle that took them up there, which belonged to
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Speaker 2: an unnamed space company Boeing that we won't talk about
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Speaker 2: on the show, Boeing that it's still that is still
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Speaker 2: working its way through its problems, Boeing that has been
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Speaker 2: degraded to downgraded. I should say to just a cargo
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Speaker 2: only vehicle Starliner anyway, so that one is still being
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Speaker 2: worked out. SpaceX, however, was able to bring the team home.
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Speaker 2: They returned with the Crew nine team of astronauts including
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Speaker 2: Nick Haig and Alexander Gorbanov cosmonaut Sonny Williams. Butch Wilmore
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Speaker 2: came back home. Now, let me just throw out some statistics,
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Speaker 2: friends again that maybe you hear, maybe you don't hear
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Speaker 2: on a regular basis, but this is true since launched.
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Speaker 2: Since the launching of STARL in June of twenty twenty four,
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Speaker 2: Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore spent two hundred and sixty
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Speaker 2: eight days in space. Something interesting is that's less than
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Speaker 2: half of Sunita Williams's total career time in space of
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Speaker 2: six hundred and eight days. Butch Wilmore himself had four
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Speaker 2: hundred and sixty four days in space, which both of
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Speaker 2: those numbers are less than Peggy Whitson's total of six
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Speaker 2: hundred and seventy five days in space. In fact, the
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Speaker 2: stuck days, the two hundred and eighty six days, were
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Speaker 2: only forty three percent of Piggy Witson's total time in space.
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Speaker 2: America's greatest endurance astronaut Peggy Whitson, now retired from NASA
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Speaker 2: working for Axiom. It's also important to say that the
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Speaker 2: two hundred and eighty six days that quote stuck astronauts
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Speaker 2: unquote Butch Wilmore and Sunita william spent in space was
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Speaker 2: only eighty four percent as long as Scott Kelly's year
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Speaker 2: in space, which wasn't really a year three hundred and
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Speaker 2: forty days, but darn close to a year. Only eighty
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Speaker 2: three percent of Scott Kelly's total time in space on
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Speaker 2: that one mission. And another thing is it's really important
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Speaker 2: they came back home in March of twenty twenty five.
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Speaker 2: Sunita Williams was actually the commander of the International Space
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Speaker 2: Station for a vast majority of that time, from September
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Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four until returning in twenty twenty five.
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Speaker 2: The stuck astronaut story made him sound as if they
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Speaker 2: were imprisoned in some kind of lock up in space
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Speaker 2: and that they were wasting away, turning to gray and
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Speaker 2: having to eat food out of plastic bags, which they
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Speaker 2: do eat food out of plastic bags. It's a zero
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Speaker 2: gravity environment, so that's important to note that part of
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Speaker 2: the story is true, but it's also important to note
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Speaker 2: at I think everything worked.
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Speaker 1: Out all right.
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Speaker 2: And they're back home.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that's the ultimate end result. And as
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Speaker 4: I pointed out, you know, there have been some Chinese
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Speaker 4: astronauts that have really not even had a way home
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Speaker 4: at all. That's a very different kind of stuck in space.
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Speaker 2: That's a that's being stuck, that's.
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Speaker 4: Being really really stuck. So it's a different situation altogether.
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Speaker 3: The important thing, you're right is.
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Speaker 4: That they got home and got unstuck by everyone's definition.
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Speaker 2: Is it maybe just before we leave, is it maybe
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Speaker 2: important to note that there was a SpaceX vehicle attached
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Speaker 2: to the International Space Station in one way or another
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Speaker 2: that entire time that was actually capable of getting them
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Speaker 2: back home. In the early days, they would have had
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Speaker 2: to ride beyond the standard capacity. That's certainly not comfortable.
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Speaker 2: Wouldn't have been our first choice to bring them home.
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Speaker 2: But but very soon after that there was another just
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Speaker 2: regular SpaceX vehicle that had the extended capacity because they
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Speaker 2: only took two astronauts up there, and they could have
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Speaker 2: come home anytime.
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Speaker 4: And then the Boeing vehicle that they took up actually
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Speaker 4: came home and had no real problems. They weren't comfortable
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Speaker 4: sending them home in it, but they could have come
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Speaker 4: home in that. But anyway, that's that's another.
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Speaker 2: All of these things are true. Let's just when political
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Speaker 2: hay is being made, let's step back and really just
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Speaker 2: analyze the situation. That's what I say.
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Speaker 4: Speaking of political Hey, let's talk about Jared Isaacman testifying
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Speaker 4: before Congress to lead NASA back in April. And you know,
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Speaker 4: this story starts in April. I mean it really starts
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Speaker 4: before that, but this part of the story and then
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Speaker 4: it eventually you know, if we were to address it
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Speaker 4: again in December, we could. We talked about it on
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Speaker 4: last week's show. But we're going to wrap it all
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Speaker 4: up in one big story, Jared Isaacman testifying in April
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Speaker 4: before Congress to be the new administrator of NASA.
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Speaker 2: You know, the happy days of April, Wes, you and
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Speaker 2: I were. We were so excited because we thought to
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Speaker 2: ourselves and through many of our conversations together and with
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Speaker 2: other people, that we know, wow, isn't Jared Isaacman going
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Speaker 2: to be a great NASA administrator? And so if I
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Speaker 2: go back to the headspace of April ninth, it was
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Speaker 2: just joy and excitement.
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Speaker 4: It was there was a lot of it.
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Speaker 2: Now, for those of you who are regular listeners to
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Speaker 2: the show, as Wes just mentioned, we just talked about
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Speaker 2: last week about the in fate of Jared Isiagman. So
17:32
Speaker 2: you've already read the end of the book. You know
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Speaker 2: how this turns out. How about a spoiler alert man,
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Speaker 2: spoiler alert. Jared Isagman is ultimately confirmed to be the
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Speaker 2: administrator of NASA eventually in December, just not in April,
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Speaker 2: but not in April, and particularly not just a little
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Speaker 2: bit later than April, as he was effectively just kind
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Speaker 2: of booted out in May by the Trump administration. Ah.
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Speaker 2: So the story on April ninth is that Isaacman was
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Speaker 2: testifying before Congress and he had some great things to say.
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Speaker 2: In fact, one of the reasons I became a fan
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Speaker 2: of the of the Isaacman nomination is because he had
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Speaker 2: so many great and inspiring things to say about space
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Speaker 2: exploration in general, and about how about what role he
18:22
Speaker 2: would have and how he would, you know, how would
18:25
Speaker 2: he would execute his duties as NASA administrator. He said
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Speaker 2: this as part of the April ninth testimony. He said,
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Speaker 2: first American astronauts will lead the way in the ultimate
18:37
Speaker 2: high ground of space. As the President stated, we will
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Speaker 2: prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars. This was Jared Eisigman
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Speaker 2: April ninth, before the Fall, shall we say? And then
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Speaker 2: the later re rising of Jared Isigman in December. Senator
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Speaker 2: Ted Cruz, who was on the committee that was overseeing
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Speaker 2: the testimony, said this quote, we must stay the course
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Speaker 2: quote and extreme shift in priorities at this stage would
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Speaker 2: almost certainly mean a red moon seding ground to China
19:11
Speaker 2: for generations to come. I am hard pressed to think
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Speaker 2: of a more catastrophic mistake we could make in space
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Speaker 2: than saying to the communist China, the moon is yours. Okay.
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Speaker 2: So this is part of Ted Cruz testimony saying, Hey,
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Speaker 2: I know you want to get to Mars. That's what
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Speaker 2: the president wants to do. Let's not forget the moon,
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Speaker 2: shall we. Let's not forget the Artemis program. Isaac replied
19:38
Speaker 2: that he would not let that happen, saying NASA can
19:41
Speaker 2: work toward accomplishing multiple goals at once, and Wes and
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Speaker 2: I said, Wow, that's the kind of guy we want
19:49
Speaker 2: to lead NASA we thought this is going to be
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Speaker 2: great commercial astronaut, entrepreneurial billionaire, successful in many ventures both
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Speaker 2: private and public, and and in May he was booted
20:02
Speaker 2: out by the well, okay, he was withdrawn abruptly from
20:08
Speaker 2: the nomination by the Trump administration because of some kind
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Speaker 2: of public disagreement between President Trump and Elon Musk. Isaacman
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Speaker 2: seen as an ally Isaac Win being a past political
20:21
Speaker 2: donor to the Democrats. This all seemed bad and Jared
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Speaker 2: Isaacmin's nomination was removed. Now, we have not had a
20:30
Speaker 2: serving NASA director since then. We've only had interim directors,
20:35
Speaker 2: the Low and Behold last month. Back in November, President
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Speaker 2: Trump renominated Jared Isaacman. He's like, kept looking around for
20:42
Speaker 2: a really good guy, and I found one. His name's Isaacman.
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Speaker 3: You guys know this guy.
20:48
Speaker 2: Have you heard of him before? He's got some street cred.
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Speaker 2: Maybe we should nominate him.
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Speaker 3: I mean, you tell that version of the story.
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Speaker 4: I like to think that it's because the President's been
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Speaker 4: listening to us and he was like, you know what
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Speaker 4: these guys are, right.
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Speaker 2: President Trump, we'd like to thank you for listening to
21:06
Speaker 2: Native stars. We appreciate it, and we really appreciate you
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Speaker 2: hearing out our advocacy for Jared Isacman as a return
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Speaker 2: to the camp. I believe Wes. We did actually say
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Speaker 2: that on the show, like after he'd been kind of
21:21
Speaker 2: summarily removed in May. I think you and I said,
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Speaker 2: can we think about him again? Could we just have
21:27
Speaker 2: a do over on that, because we still think he'd
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Speaker 2: be the and lo and behold here in November and
21:33
Speaker 2: then now here in December, renominated and he passed full
21:37
Speaker 2: Senate confirmation on December seventeenth, and he's the guy President Trump.
21:43
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the show. We really appreciate it.
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Speaker 4: And what I've heard, I don't know if this is
21:47
Speaker 4: true or not. What I've heard is that, you know,
21:50
Speaker 4: he gets recaps of other podcasts. You know, they kind
21:52
Speaker 4: of give him little bullet points, but he makes it
21:54
Speaker 4: a point to listen to us word for word. He
21:57
Speaker 4: likes to hear exactly what we've got to say about it.
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Speaker 2: And I've never heard him deny that he listens to us.
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Speaker 4: That's the better way to say. That's the more truthful
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Speaker 4: way to say it, isn't it. He's never denied listening
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Speaker 4: to us.
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Speaker 2: It is not on the his denial is not on
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Speaker 2: the record of listening to the Made of Stars podcast.
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Speaker 2: Interpret that as you might to just thank you for listening.
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Speaker 3: We like to thank you.
22:20
Speaker 4: For not denying listening to us.
22:23
Speaker 3: We appreciate it very much.
22:25
Speaker 4: You know, maybe maybe we hear he got into some
22:28
Speaker 4: of the podcasts during the campaign because of Baron, So
22:31
Speaker 4: you know, if his son listens, we we appreciate that
22:35
Speaker 4: very much. If you're the one that's turned your dad
22:37
Speaker 4: onto it, but we.
22:38
Speaker 2: S if you're listening, you know, like we hope that
22:41
Speaker 2: you are. Thank you for telling your dad about Jared Isiacman.
22:45
Speaker 2: We really appreciate.
22:46
Speaker 4: We appreciate all all of those things. More Made of
22:49
Speaker 4: Stars right after this, the Voyager one is the thrusters
23:15
Speaker 4: of Voyager one were able to be resurrected by NASA
23:19
Speaker 4: in May. This is our story that happened in late May.
23:24
Speaker 4: We're talking about a spacecraft that is almost as old
23:28
Speaker 4: as I am, or at least maybe it is as
23:33
Speaker 4: old as me. But it was launched a couple of years.
23:36
Speaker 4: I was like two when it launched, so let's put
23:38
Speaker 4: it in those.
23:38
Speaker 2: Terms, which in spacecraft years, is like one hundred and
23:42
Speaker 2: ninety four years. Old. Let's just say that.
23:46
Speaker 4: Kind of like my hips. But that's another story altogether
23:49
Speaker 4: for a fifty year old geez.
23:52
Speaker 2: But anyway, so here's the setup. Voyager one launched in
23:57
Speaker 2: September of nineteen ninety seven, the most distant human made
24:03
Speaker 2: object from the planet Earth, traveling away from US at
24:08
Speaker 2: thirty eight thousand and twenty seven miles per hour. No
24:14
Speaker 2: one knows what that is in kilometers, No one knows.
24:18
Speaker 2: In May, Voyager one was in trouble of it was
24:26
Speaker 2: in a carrio's position. It was in danger of losing
24:29
Speaker 2: radio contact with the Earth, and engineers at the Jet
24:34
Speaker 2: Propulsion Laboratory said, you know, what if we just fire
24:38
Speaker 2: up its engines one more time and realign that antenna
24:43
Speaker 2: those backup thrusters. What if we use the backup thrusters
24:46
Speaker 2: because the main thrusters aren't working anymore, What if we
24:49
Speaker 2: could fire up the backup thrusters. Well, the backup thrusters
24:53
Speaker 2: had not been used since two thousand and four and
24:56
Speaker 2: had long been considered fully defunct. These are JPL's words,
25:03
Speaker 2: reported on space dot Com. By the way, fully defunct.
25:08
Speaker 2: So in an almost miraculous I reserve the word miraculous
25:14
Speaker 2: for actually miraculous events. But in an almost miraculous set
25:17
Speaker 2: of events, the engineers from JPL were able to fire
25:23
Speaker 2: up those thrusters not used for twenty one years in
25:29
Speaker 2: deep space, and they were able to get around the
25:35
Speaker 2: degrading residue build up and fire those thrusters off and
25:43
Speaker 2: realign that Voyager one so it's antenna was facing back
25:46
Speaker 2: toward Earth, so it can continue to operate after nearly
25:51
Speaker 2: fifty years of operation in the deepest part of well,
25:57
Speaker 2: shall we call it human explored space, not that humans
25:59
Speaker 2: have actually been there, but human created vehicles. It's in
26:02
Speaker 2: the deepest part of human created vehicle explored space, and that,
26:07
Speaker 2: friends is a miracle of engineering. Word noting reported here
26:12
Speaker 2: on May twenty ninth, twenty twenty five.
26:16
Speaker 4: Let's move ahead to June when something potentially miraculous. Maybe
26:22
Speaker 4: we could use that term for where this science is
26:25
Speaker 4: going eventually, because you know, sometimes people ask the questions
26:29
Speaker 4: like why do.
26:30
Speaker 3: We need an international space station, why do.
26:32
Speaker 4: We need to be in space? What is the need
26:35
Speaker 4: for spending this money and doing these things? And there's
26:38
Speaker 4: different answers that come up from time to time, But
26:41
Speaker 4: this is one of those times where I think most
26:45
Speaker 4: people would go, Okay, well this is this is fair,
26:48
Speaker 4: this makes sense, and you know, there's a lot of
26:51
Speaker 4: science being done every day on the International Space Station.
26:54
Speaker 4: But when that science overlaps into medicine and the potential
26:59
Speaker 4: for curing things like cancer, suddenly, then it becomes a
27:04
Speaker 4: whole different thing.
27:05
Speaker 3: For people who try to.
27:06
Speaker 4: Say, well, there's no reason to be up there in June,
27:09
Speaker 4: we have another reason to definitely.
27:13
Speaker 2: Be up there. I have to tell you, I prefer
27:17
Speaker 2: the people who want to have a conversation about do
27:20
Speaker 2: we really need to be in space or not? I
27:22
Speaker 2: prefer them to the people who think we've never been
27:25
Speaker 2: to space. That's true, That is true because the first
27:29
Speaker 2: group I can actually have a conversation with, that's right.
27:32
Speaker 2: The second group I have to just smile and go
27:34
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas.
27:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.
27:35
Speaker 4: The need skeptic here, the need skeptics versus just the
27:39
Speaker 4: outright skeptics.
27:40
Speaker 2: Right, skepticism implies a level of inquiry that is evidence based.
27:48
Speaker 2: That's right.
27:49
Speaker 4: So the need skeptics are actual skeptics.
27:51
Speaker 2: The other people are just for some reason deniers anyway,
27:57
Speaker 2: all right, So let's not get let's not dwell upon
28:00
Speaker 2: that it is the holidays. It is a time for
28:02
Speaker 2: cheer and merriment. So here's the story. The International Space
28:06
Speaker 2: Station is scheduled to be retired in twenty thirty and
28:09
Speaker 2: as we've reported back in June, there's a group of
28:12
Speaker 2: biomedical researchers that are in a race to get some
28:15
Speaker 2: very important work done before the space station comes down, because,
28:19
Speaker 2: as it turns out, one of the many reasons to
28:22
Speaker 2: be in space is the microgravity environment makes a perfect
28:27
Speaker 2: place to study the growth and therefore the elimination of
28:32
Speaker 2: cancer cells as they would grow inside the human body.
28:36
Speaker 2: Because you see, you can remove tumors from people, take
28:40
Speaker 2: them to the International Space Station and they will grow
28:44
Speaker 2: in that environment just the same way they would grow
28:47
Speaker 2: inside a human body. And we can use artificial organs
28:51
Speaker 2: for cancer testing in space because the hydrostatic equilibinum inside
28:57
Speaker 2: the human body can only be reproduced in that microgravity
29:01
Speaker 2: environment of space. It cannot be reproduced in earth bound laboratories.
29:06
Speaker 2: So if you want to see how cancer cells and
29:08
Speaker 2: therefore tumors and therefore your worst enemy really grow, you
29:13
Speaker 2: have to be in a low gravity environment that spurs
29:18
Speaker 2: those cell growth instances the way they happen in the
29:23
Speaker 2: space environment, so we may actually come up with much
29:29
Speaker 2: better testing, much better plans for elimination, and just a
29:33
Speaker 2: much better understanding of cancer cells and the way they
29:38
Speaker 2: grow because of work being done by scientists like those
29:43
Speaker 2: from the University of Notre Dame. We call it Notre
29:46
Speaker 2: Dame in the SEC, so Notre Dame University. They're developing
29:53
Speaker 2: some cancer testing and some cancer elimination methods that were
29:58
Speaker 2: perfected as they began to do space based research on
30:03
Speaker 2: these cancer cells. So that story reported in space dot
30:07
Speaker 2: Com June nineteenth, twenty twenty five. If you in the
30:14
Speaker 2: what what I would call the near future, maybe not
30:16
Speaker 2: right now, but in the near future, are a patient
30:20
Speaker 2: who suffers from cancer, you might well be tested and
30:23
Speaker 2: treated with a method that was developed from research from
30:27
Speaker 2: the International Space Station and on behalf of NASA and
30:31
Speaker 2: all Space Explorations supporters. You're welcome.
30:36
Speaker 4: That is the first half of our recap of the
30:41
Speaker 4: biggest story, at least the ones that we wanted to
30:44
Speaker 4: talk about Space stories of twenty twenty five. Next week
30:48
Speaker 4: we will run through the second half of the year
30:51
Speaker 4: as we get ready to close out twenty twenty five,
30:55
Speaker 4: and there's some big stuff coming in twenty twenty six,
30:57
Speaker 4: including you know Artemis two is gonna launch pretty soon
31:01
Speaker 4: into the new year. Sean and I thank you for listening.
31:04
Speaker 4: We hope you have a fantastic holiday season and a
31:09
Speaker 4: very merry Christmas, and we will be back to do
31:12
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