Latest / Made of Stars / China and Russia Have Big Plans for the Moon

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China and Russia Have Big Plans for the Moon · Made of Stars

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Warning.
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  Speaker 2: The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: that's your own risk.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Go ahead. When made of stars, made them stars, made sizes.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: When made of stars, you could be from high they
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: would New Mexicomas.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: We're all stars when we are made of stars.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
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  Speaker 3: Cruiser from Columbus State Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Hey Sean, good morning, Wes. Good to be here. All right,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: we have.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Some significant stories. One of them has been a bit
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: of a headline story for a couple of days. We'll
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: get to that one a little bit later on in
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: the show, but it relates to the SpaceX starship latest launch.
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  Speaker 3: In spite of what you've heard in most of the
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: news outlets, it wasn't a complete failure. In fact, there
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: were some successes and it's part of the way that
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: SpaceX does business. But we'll get to all that coming
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  Speaker 3: up a little bit later in the show. I want
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: to start on the Moon, and I want to start
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  Speaker 3: with the We've talked about this quite a bit, this
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  Speaker 3: new space race that we're in, and this new interest
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  Speaker 3: in the Moon. I think there's always been an interest
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  Speaker 3: in the Moon to some degree by everybody, but the
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  Speaker 3: fact that China has a growing interest in the Moon
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  Speaker 3: it's part of what maybe we've talked back in the
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  Speaker 3: radio days especially, we talked a lot about the fact
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: that sometimes you need a little competition to nudge things forward.
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  Speaker 3: It's almost like, you know, how good is your sports
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  Speaker 3: team really if there's no one to compete against, you
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  Speaker 3: don't really know until they're tested in some way, And
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  Speaker 3: I think part of a space race does sort of
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  Speaker 3: motivate people most of the time, at least maybe for us.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know that that's what's happening with China, other
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  Speaker 3: than they have a very clear focus on the Moon
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  Speaker 3: and they understand that we're going to need some sort
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  Speaker 3: of power once we get to the Moon. So as
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  Speaker 3: they're getting ready to start their work on their International
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  Speaker 3: Lunar Research Station that will be jointly led by China
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  Speaker 3: and Russia, teaming up, here we go WWE style. Wait
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: a minute, these two are working together. Oh my goodness,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: we used to work together with it. So now this
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  Speaker 3: is a pretty big step for those two countries. And
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  Speaker 3: I don't know, is this one of the nudgets that
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  Speaker 3: we need to get moving a little bit more when
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  Speaker 3: it comes to the moon. So let's talk about the
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  Speaker 3: agreement that they have.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, okay, Well, and let me explain how I
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  Speaker 1: would like to back into this conversation, which is I
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: love our show Made of Stars because we talk about space,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and we do it in a fun way. At least
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Wes and I are having fun. If you'd like to
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  Speaker 1: join us and having fun out there, you know, go
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: ahead and join in. But we're gonna make the jokes
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: that we think are funny, yeah, and just have a
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  Speaker 1: good time, so hopefully you think it's a good time too.
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  Speaker 1: So by the nature of that, one of the things
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  Speaker 1: we do do is we don't really talk about politics
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: because you get enough of that everywhere else, and so
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: very few people are having fun, right, So that's not
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the purpose of this podcast. You get enough of that
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: somewhere else. We're just having a good time talking about space. Okay. However,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: it's really impossible to think about the human exploration of
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: space without without at least bumping up against politics once
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  Speaker 1: in a while. All right, So we're gonna bump up
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: against politics this morning. That's what we're gonna do. The
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  Speaker 1: next thing I will say is, I think if you
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  Speaker 1: went out there and asked a certain number of a
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  Speaker 1: statistically significant number of American citizens, what other two countries
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  Speaker 1: in the world might be our most significant and unfriendly
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: unfriendly competitors. I mean, I think I think China and
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  Speaker 1: Russia would come in at very near the top of
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  Speaker 1: that list, if not number one and number two, they
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  Speaker 1: would be right up there in the top five as
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  Speaker 1: a fair assessment. Yes, I mean those guys from Luxembourg,
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  Speaker 1: you know they're they're kind of trouble, but you know
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  Speaker 1: we haven't heard much from them lately.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, at risk of at risk of stepping into some
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  Speaker 3: of that stuff that you were definitely dodging a moment ago.
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  Speaker 3: Perhaps some people would even say sometimes we're our own
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  Speaker 3: toughest competitor because of self inflicted wounds. But that's another
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  Speaker 3: story for another time and not on this show. So
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  Speaker 3: just start I love that out there, all right.
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  Speaker 1: So, so there we we've rubbed up against it, right, West.
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  Speaker 1: There we go, and that's going to be relevant against politics.
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  Speaker 3: That's going to be relevant mainly in the last story
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  Speaker 3: of the day. Right, we'll get to that later on,
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  Speaker 3: but anyway, go right ahead.
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  Speaker 1: I want to I want to get back to China
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  Speaker 1: since though that our country actually has competitor nations. Yes,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: then it becomes significant now you know, so we and
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  Speaker 1: it's a political issue. You know, it's like, well, should
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  Speaker 1: we be competing? I don't know, Yes, we should. Friends.
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  Speaker 1: That's my humble opinion. There it is. It's not a
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  Speaker 1: news item. It's opinion, my opinion. We the United States
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  Speaker 1: of America should not abdicate our leadership role in space exploration,
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  Speaker 1: both robotic and human. We should be at the forefront
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  Speaker 1: for many reasons, military, political, but just economic. Right, So,
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  Speaker 1: so all of those reasons, America should not abdicate its
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  Speaker 1: leadership in space. There it is my opinion. Okay, Now
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  Speaker 1: here's what's happening. Russia and China are teaming up, as
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  Speaker 1: Wes said earlier, like a couple of WWE wrestlers. They're
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  Speaker 1: doing a team up to beat us to the moon.
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  Speaker 1: And they can't beat us to the moon. We already
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  Speaker 1: won the space race. No, we got their first first,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: but now they're working on permanent settlement. Well wait a minute,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: don't we have the Artemis program here in the United
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: States of America with NASA. Yes, we're going to send
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: people back to the Moon, but we can't even decide
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  Speaker 1: which rocket they're going to write on long term. And
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  Speaker 1: that relates to the last story in today's podcast as well.
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  Speaker 1: All right, So what's happening with China and Russia is
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  Speaker 1: that not only are they working on the actual systems
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  Speaker 1: to take people to the Moon, but they are actually
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  Speaker 1: working on infrastructure for the Moon. And this story from
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  Speaker 1: space dot Com is talking about how they're working together
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  Speaker 1: to build a nuclear power plant on the Moon to
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  Speaker 1: provide electricity for the joint Chinese Russian space laboratory called
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  Speaker 1: the International Lunar Research Station or the ILRS. Now, look,
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  Speaker 1: two countries working together to do research and science in space.
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  Speaker 1: I have no problems with this in principle.
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  Speaker 3: We've done it for a very long time with Russia, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: and other countries involved as well, so.
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  Speaker 1: In Japan and Canada and a lot of European Space Agency.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, it gives each other rides to and from the
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  Speaker 3: International Space Station those sorts of things.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we have, but you know, the tenor of
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  Speaker 1: that relationship has taken a bit of a turn given
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  Speaker 1: recent geopolitical events. All right, So so now Russia's teaming
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  Speaker 1: up with a new friend, China, and yes, they've signed
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  Speaker 1: an agreement where they're going to be building a nuclear
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  Speaker 1: power plant, a reactor system that can function in the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: environment of the Moon, both microgravity and airless environment of
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  Speaker 1: the Moon, and it can be built autonomously, or, according
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: to Yuri Borisov, the director General of the Russian Space Agency,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: called roast Cosmos quote without the presence of humans unquote.
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  Speaker 1: All right, so that's that's Borisov saying, hey, we're we're
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  Speaker 1: gonna build this with drones. We're gonna build this with robots.
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  Speaker 1: So this is a story about robotics as well. It's
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  Speaker 1: a story about robotics, space exploration, geopolitical intrigue. And oh,
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  Speaker 1: by the way, NASA just cut well, NASA just issued
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  Speaker 1: a proposed budget for twenty twenty six where they would
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  Speaker 1: cut plans for a lunar space station that they had
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  Speaker 1: already planned, called Lunar Gateway. So the new NASA budget
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  Speaker 1: no longer has Gateway, which was our planned moon base
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  Speaker 1: in its budget. So this is all happening simultaneously. The China,
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  Speaker 1: Russia Russia complete adventure. Their proposing should be done by
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  Speaker 1: twenty thirty six, a mire eleven years, and by the way,
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  Speaker 1: eleven years can go by really fast. So according to
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  Speaker 1: their memorandum of cooperation, they're going to complete their moon
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  Speaker 1: base with the nuclear power plant by twenty thirty six.
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  Speaker 1: This is a statement from Borisov in ros Cosmos. He
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  Speaker 1: says that the new technology is almost ready quote unquote
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  Speaker 1: almost ready and quote the station will conduct fundamental space
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  Speaker 1: research and test technology for long term uncrewed operations of
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  Speaker 1: the ILRS with the prospect of a human being's presence
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  Speaker 1: on the moon unquote. So they're going to say, well,
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  Speaker 1: it's just going to be a robot station, it's an
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  Speaker 1: autonomous station. Oh but we might put humans up there.
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  Speaker 1: We might begin to take control of the lunar surface.
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  Speaker 1: So there it is. You think that, without getting political,
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  Speaker 1: they might. We just need to keep our awareness up,
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  Speaker 1: my friend, and that is happening.
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  Speaker 3: So I have questions. And again I'm not a nuclear physicist.
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  Speaker 3: I know that you're not a nuclear physicist. So I
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  Speaker 3: just feel like there are questions I have about successes
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  Speaker 3: and failures of actually landing craft successfully on the Moon. Right,
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  Speaker 3: and then if we take something that I don't know
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  Speaker 3: involves plutonium or whatever and decide that they're going to
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  Speaker 3: possibly you know, slam it into the surface of the Moon,
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  Speaker 3: should we be concerned.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know how this works. I don't know anything
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  Speaker 3: about what their magic robots are. I just know that
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  Speaker 3: if they start slamming things, that would be you know,
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  Speaker 3: and I understand they're not building a bomb and sending
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  Speaker 3: it up there. However, some of the key components of
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: you know, what you would use to build a bomb
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  Speaker 3: would would be there, and enough of it that they
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  Speaker 3: could run a power station. Should we be concerned at all?
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  Speaker 3: Should we maybe request hey could just show us that
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  Speaker 3: you can successfully you know, have a nice, safe, easy
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  Speaker 3: touchdown landing with some frequency. And then also, are these
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  Speaker 3: launching from Kazakhstan or are these things going to be
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  Speaker 3: launching from China where we've seen a few rockets go
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  Speaker 3: astray and land in villages in random places. Probably not
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  Speaker 3: a good thing for anything plutonium based. So I don't know,
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  Speaker 3: are these all fair questions that we could be asking
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  Speaker 3: between now and twenty thirty six.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I know that if the National Aeronautics and Space
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  Speaker 1: Administration were following these same plans for a nuclear power
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  Speaker 1: plant on the Moon, that yes, one percent, they would
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  Speaker 1: be fair questions, and they would definitely be asked and
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  Speaker 1: they would definitely be pursued hotly.
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  Speaker 3: Now, now, you not being a nuclear physicist doesn't mean
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: that you can't answer because you can't answer this question.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: The Moon is important to us here on Earth, and
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  Speaker 3: I'm not talking about for the purposes of you know,
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  Speaker 3: settling on it. I just mean, you know, since the
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Earth has been here, it's been important as as part
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: of the way that we you know, survive. So yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I just think that there's a few things that we
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: should some questions that we should ask. And I'm not
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  Speaker 3: saying that eventually someone shouldn't have some sort of nuclear
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  Speaker 3: power plant on the Moon. That does seem like eventually
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  Speaker 3: where this will go. I just I just have a
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: lot of questions about this. It really, you know, caused
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: an eyebrow to raise, much like the rock. If we're
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: sticking with our WWE theme, you know, when his eyebrow
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: would go up anyway, all right, just my question.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I like to talk about the things that I know
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  Speaker 1: and that I'm an expert in, and and I'm not
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  Speaker 1: an expert in moon based nuclear power. They've not really
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  Speaker 1: added any technological specificity to their plans. Yep. You know,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: they're just saying, oh, we're we're working on this. Well,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: how does it work? Well, I haven't really said where
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: will it be launched? Well, they haven't really said, you know,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: what would happen if it re entered Earth this atmosphere. Well,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: they haven't really said. So there's not a lot of
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  Speaker 1: technical specificity at this time. I do just understand the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: history of lunar exploration, and the Russian's efforts for lunar
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: exploration have historically been not successful or not very successful. Right.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: They've had a really hard time getting vehicles to them,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: particularly to the surface of the Moon, with any kind
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: of technological repeatability. China, on the other hand, has been
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: as of late, very successful with lunar technology, lunar rovers
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: things like that on the surface of the Moon. They're
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: even performing right now a lunar sample return mission. So
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the notion is that even though Russia's specifically lunar technology
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: is not all that great China is, and from what
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I understand from the story, it's really Russia that's going
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: to build the power plant. So I would guess that
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: China would launch it and get it there, which, okay,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: that's a little bit better for the record on this
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: track record.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: For the record, if you study a history book, no
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: issues with any sort of nuclear power ever in the
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: history of Russia, none whatsoever. There's nothing to be concerned
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: about in all of their history.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's out there, right, go check, you know,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: and you can go check the Russians record for trying
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: to land vehicles on the surface of the Moon too.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Go check that. Yeah, yeah, don't take my word for it.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: It was a long time ago. I'm just pointing out
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: the fact that there's you know, there's maybe something somewhere
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: in the history book worth looking into. But you know, anyway,
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: those are just the questions that I have. So and
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: the Moon is important, and that's that's the other part
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: is we don't we don't valid questions.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Now, it's not like they're going to actually destroy the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: moon throw our tides off, but you know, the indiscriminate
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: spreading of you know, nuclear fissile material is probably not
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: a great mode of operation for them or us, by
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the way. And so yeah, anyway, there you go.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: All right, let's let's let's talk about a couple of
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: wins for the old guys. Can we do that? A
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: couple of positive stories for the old guys. You know,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: there's so much of like, hey, this new piece of
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: technology makes this person obsolete because you know, they're just
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: a dinosaur, if you will. And this first one isn't
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: really so much that. It's just the fact that we've
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: had a sun spot hanging around for a really, really
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: long time.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you know, if you get a certain
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: amount of gray hair, you like stories about longevity. That's
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: right there. I think that's what Wes is getting at.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: And according to spaceweather dot com, which is one of
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: our favorite websites by the way, friends, go visit spaceweather
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: dot com every single day. They have new stuff up
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: every day. They're an international sun monitoring website, so they
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: keep track of activity on the sun. But they have
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: so much more than that, just lots of great stories
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: on spaceweather dot com. A quote that I just read
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: on spaceweather dot com is that one of the sun
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: spots should probably contact the AARP because they're getting really
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: old and they might want to join. So the sunspot's
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: number is forty one hundred, but that's we give we
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: give active regents on the sun catalog numbers, so it's
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: catalog number four thy one hundred. But this is actually
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the third catalog number for the same sunspot, and that's
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: because it keeps rotating around out of view and popping
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: back up again on the other side. Now, it takes
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: the Sun about one month to rotate all the way around,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and so there's two weeks and then two weeks where
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: we can't see it, and then another two weeks and
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: then another two week stor we can't see it. And
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: now it's starting its third two week period crossing the
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: face of the Sun. And it is the largest sunspot
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: group of this year, twenty twenty five. And this year
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: is a year that we're expecting to experience solar maximum,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the maximum amount of sunspot activity. This is a huge,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: gigantic storm that is now making its third pass across
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the face of the Sun facing us. How rare is
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: that that is very rare. It is very rare for
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: a sunspot group to have existed for a minimum now
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: of fifty four days. A study back in nineteen fifty
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: one found that the longest lived sunspots ever at least
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: since human beings have been watching the Sun and observing sunspots,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: were back in the eighteen forties with the sunspot that
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: lasted one hundred and twenty one days, and back in
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the year nineteen nineteen where there was another sunspot that
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: lasted one hundred and thirty one days. This is already
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: about halfway or almost halfway to those record longevity sunspots,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and they just don't happen very often, so this one
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: is particularly notable and we should be watching it now.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Sunspot Group number forty one hundred would have to live
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: for about another two to three months to catch up
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: with those record breaking sunspots. But here's the thing. It
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: might actually do it. And according to space Weather, this
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: has been a very stable sunspot. They call it remarkably
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: stable because for a giant sunspot group like this, usually
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: they're exploding in solar flares on a regular basis. That's
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: what sunspot groups do. They're twists and contortions in the
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Sun's magnetic field, and they pop and flare and produce explosions. Well,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: this one hasn't produced a single significant solar flare, so
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: we haven't had any big flares. And this is the
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: third trip and it's the largest active region of this
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: entire year. So this is weird, right, It's a strange
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: sunspot group. It's making its third pass and could be
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: a contender for one of the longest lived sunspots of
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: all time. Check out the story spaceweather dot com.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Coming up after a quick break, we'll talk about another
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: win for the old guys, or at least one old
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: guy in particular, right after this. So, when you have
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: a piece of equipment, a piece of technology that was
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: launched into very very deep space a really long time ago,
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: needless to say, there's a there's a life expectancy for it.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: There's a certain amount of like this is about how
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: much science we're going to get out of this thing.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: With Voyager one, we continue to get science out of
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: it and maybe if if only you know, launched in
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: seventy seven, so that's that's almost as old as me.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: So when you look at it this way, this science
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: that we got here recently with this thing is basically
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: a lesson in sometimes the equipment and technology and computers
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: were definitely better built back in the seventies cause they're
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: able to do things that they did not think were possible,
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: and it has happened yet again.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: I think one of the lessons here is that sometimes
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: simple is better and maybe that's maybe that's a lesson.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, it would be a tucked away lesson, you know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: reading between the lines, because the computers aboard the Voyager
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: one spacecraft, by today's standards, are very rudimentary. It launched
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: in the year that Star Wars came out. Yes, I
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: don't mean like the sequels or the prequels or no,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the original motion picture.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: Back before it was even called a New Hope yet
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: it was just called Star Wars.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: And they did have lightsabers, you know, and they could
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: jump to hyperspace you know, speed whatever, but that was
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: in their galaxy, far far away, not in hours. So
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: we had things that are just barely computers that we
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: you know, by today's standards at least, that we put
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: on the spacecraft and launched out into space. And that's
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: what's been controlling the Voyager one spacecraft since that launch
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety or ninety seven. Nineteen seventy seven. Okay,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: so just just get a perspective there. I think Leftoverture
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: came out that year, you know, carry on wayward Sun, right,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: that's right, yes, okay, so computers in that era, thrusters
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: built at that period of time. Technology, material science, are
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: understanding of chemistry and propulsion systems has changed a lot
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: since Left Overture. Okay, So these components have been, you know,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: working semi successfully because the spacecraft is still going, still
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: making measurements, still sending data back to Earth, and it
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: left the Solar System a few years ago. It's an
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: interstellar space all right. Well, one of its main thrusters
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: now they call it a backup thruster system, but it
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: was never really a backup because it was responsible for
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: orienting the spacecraft into the proper orientation to point its
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: radio intended back to Earth to send communications. Okay, so
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: it was called the backup thrusters, but really they had
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: a main job. They had a central job, even though
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the primary thrusters could also do the central job. Well,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: these backup thrusters, responsible for helping to orient the spacecraft,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: stopped working in two thousand and four. Now, I don't
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: know where you were in two thousand and four. Friends.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know what favorite songs of yours
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: came out in the year two thousand and four, but
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that was over twenty years ago. It was, yes, so yeah,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: we're we're I mean, we're were listening to grunge by then.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, we were listening to grunge. You know.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's a post grunt, not much past put
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe grunge still going strong and oh four yeah
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: versions of it. Yeah, that's right. All right. So so
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: these thruster systems that have been dead, actually defined as
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: fully defunct by JPL, designated as completely dead. We're just
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: fired back up again from Earth over a distance of
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: fifteen billion miles. And why did they even try this,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Well because the primary thrusters of the spacecraft, now, after
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: all this time and tide and abuse of outer space,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: they're starting to you know, they're they're starting to go bad.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: That some of the tubes necessary to carry fuel for
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the thrusters are starting to clog up, and so the
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: primary thrusters are starting to die. What makes it worse
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: is that the Voyager one system communicates with a radio
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: telescope in Canberra, Australia and the telescope in Canberra. The
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: antenna in Canberra has to go down for maintenance. It's
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: gonna go offline for several months. And so right at
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: a time when Voyager needed to be talking back to
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the Earth because it's primary thrusters were failing, they have
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: to take Canberra offline to get make sure that antenna
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: can still work. And so so if they were going
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: to do anything to fix Voyager one's situation shall we
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: call it in space, they had to do it right
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: away before the Canberra antenna went offline. So they sent
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: these commands from the Earth through the Canberra antenna in
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Australia to say, hey, Voyager one, you know those systems
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: that have been offline for twenty one years, go ahead
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and fire up the heaters because we're gonna we're gonna
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: fire up those thruster systems. Now. The heaters are there
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: to reheat the fuel so that the fuel can be
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: in a form which can be used by the thruster systems.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: And it was the heaters that were alfunctioning, which is
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: why they decided to shut them down. But one engineer
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: at JPL said, you know, I really think I really
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: think the air we were seeing in those thrusters all
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: those decades ago, I don't really think it was because
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the fuel heaters were malfunctioning. I think they're okay, and
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: they realized, well, if they're not okay and we fire
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: them back up again, we could explode Voyager one. It'm
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I just blow up. This might be the explosion that
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: actually kills the spacecraft. But they had one engineer that
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: was saying, no, I think you're gonna be all right.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: And so they solved the puzzle, they sent the command,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: they held their breath, and guess what happened. Voyager one
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: did not explode. The heaters worked, the thrusters worked, they're
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: back online, and according to Todd Barber, the mission's propulsion
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: lead at JPL, quote, it was such a glorious moment.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Team morale was very high that day. These thrusters were
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: considered dead, and that was a legitimate conclusion. It's just
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: that one of our engineers had this insight that maybe
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: there was this other possible cause and it was fixable.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: It was yet another miracle save for Voyager unquote. So
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: there you go. From Todd Barber, the propulsion lead at
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: JPL for the Voyager mission miracle. The word miracle, friends,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: now listen, I want to just say that quickly. Engineers
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: don't use that word much because they're engineers, don't. They
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: don't do miraculous. They do engineering things, right, They.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Fixed stuff, They solve problems, that's right.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: They they know how things work.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: Please tell me the engineer who said it's not going
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: to blow up, just fire It was like one of
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: the seventy year old guys that worked on it way
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: back in the day. Because that's what that's my dream
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: is that it would be that guy and he's sitting
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: over in the corner and they're like, oh, what does
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: he know, and he's like, launch that, than firing up,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: do it? And then it worked and then they were like, Okay,
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: well maybe he knows what he's talking about.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: So so the story on space dot com it is
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: an excellent story, but it didn't exactly have that detail.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: But I just envisioned the guy you know from Armageddon, right,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: it was this is how we fixed eggs, oh the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Russian space station. He's just like beating things, you know.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: It's one of those guys like American parts Russian parts. Anyway,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: So so Yeah, that guy was probably the guy that
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: said fire up the engine. It'll work. It's not the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: heaters anyway, anyway, something like that. All right, just a.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: Couple of loose ends here. First of all, maybe one
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: of the more significant pop culture song moments in two
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: thousand and four was Ashley Simpson getting caught lip syncing
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: pieces of me on Saturday Night Live. Uh if you
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: remember that, so that'll date approximately when these were last used.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: And then another thing, And I just wanted to point
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: this out because I'm in that weird hybrid world where
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: both of these things exist for me, and while here
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: in America we say things like Melbourne and we say
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: things like Canberra for our Australian contingency listening. Uh, just
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: want to make sure they know we're referring to what
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: they would call Canberra. It's a little it's a little
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: bit different in the in Melbourne. So it's between Melbourne
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: and Sydney. It's Canberra, it's the capital. So anyway, just
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: wanted to it's no knock on what you said, because
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: that's the way we say it, much the way that
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: we'll say, you know, we'll call them Aussie's and it's
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: a U s s I E s. But that's clearly
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: pronounced Aussie's. I don't know what. Americans have a hard
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: time with that on, especially in sports. Uh, So there
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: you go. I'm just gonna and I'm going to be
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: down there soon, right, so I gotta make sure I
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: got it straight for them, so I don't get a
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: whole lot of grief from them about that.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: So good on you mate.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: There you go, there you get and and there's there
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: and they don't say shrimp on the barbie. They say
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: prawns on the barbie. But that's also that's another conversation
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: for another time coming up. After one more quick break,
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: we're gonna finally get to it. We're gonna talk about
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: the latest successes and failures of Starship. Okay, so we've
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: had a another launch of SpaceX Starship. Uh and I
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: forgot we just had the story recently where they've up
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: the number.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: They're allowed to do it a year.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: So is this the first one in the new count
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I don't know where we're at on all this anyway. Uh,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: they've had a launch and it's basically pretty universally being
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: reported as well. It's another big failure for the Starship.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: But in reality.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: As we've discussed before many times, this is the way
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: SpaceX does business. This is their method for figuring things out.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: They will have things that look like failures to some
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: and meanwhile they're taking away a lot of information that
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: will help them on the next launch. So we did
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: our digging, and you can't really find a lot of
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: the success stories and a lot of the big media
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: outlets for some reason, they're focused on that political stuff
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: we talked about at the beginning of the show, which
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: we're not necessarily going to get into, but I think
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: that's probably the reasoning behind not wanting to give credit
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: for some of the successes. But so let's talk about
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: this latest launch for Starship.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so this would be the third launch of twenty
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: twenty five. It was flight seven back in January, flight
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: eight back in March, and this is flight nine for SpaceX.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Starship happened on Tuesday, May twenty seventh, twenty twenty five,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: from their test site at Star Based, Texas, which we
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: stay Bocachica. Now it's just Star Based, it's its own town.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: So that's I guess that's something new. Happened at seven
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: thirty six pm Eastern time. Okay, So friends. Before we
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: jump in, let's just remind ourselves this is the largest
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: rocket in human history, and it's being engineered in a
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: different kind of process. The process is called agile development.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: That's the method that SpaceX uses for all of their
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: space development, which is a little bit, as we've described
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: on previous shows, a little bit like what are you
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: still doing at the whiteboard? Why don't we go outside
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and just fly the thing? See if it blows up.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: If it does, let's fix what blew up and go
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: again as fast as possible. Agile development, Okay, the way
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: SpaceX does things. Okay, so yeah, it's the ninth flight
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: of this rocket system, not of the specific rocket, but
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: the rocket system. They have several more of them, kind
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of like the Borg from the Star Trek next generation.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: They just have several more Borg in the warehouse ready
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: to go. You know, they're going to roll them out
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: and stack them and launch them. They just have more ready. Now.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: They may be making modifications to those based on what
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: happened with this flight, but okay, let's just know that
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: it's not like, oh darned, we blew up our only
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: starship rocket. Now, what are we going to do? No,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: they have many other systems ready to go. Okay, because
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: why that's the way they do things. Okay, now, like
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: just paving the road, wes, just paving the driveway. Oh,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: you're making sure we can back out of the garage. Okay, yep,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: so here we go. The successes of this mission were
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: as follows. This is the first time they reused the
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: super heavy booster, which means they already successfully brought back
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: one of the super heavy boosters on a previous flight.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: And not only did they bring it back, they caught
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: it out of mid air with a giant set of chopsticks,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: never done before in the history of humanity. Okay, so
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: the super heavy booster number B fourteen was reused for
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: this flight successfully.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: Just for a perspective on this, the rest of human society,
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: mister Miagi with the chopsticks at the table, failing SpaceX,
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Danny LaRusso with the chopsticks catching a fly in the
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: first like eight seconds, just for perspective.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: And yes, moreover, this is a Moon class rocket, and
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: every other main stage booster for every other Moon class
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: rocket is sitting at the bottom of the ocean because
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: they were not reusable. So let's just let that all
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: sink in. This was a reused booster second time, flown
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: already as success because they got it back last time
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: and were able to reuse it. Okay, there's one. Here
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: comes another success. Sorry, but there are some and yeah,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about the failures too. We're gonna talk
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: about what went wrong because we need to to be fair.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: But they did this thing called a directional flip. Okay,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: what does that mean. Well, it means that as the
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: second stage, which is known as ship, it's the vehicle
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: part where payloads or humans might actually righte someday as
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: the ship separates from the main stage booster. In the
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: past flights, they've just let physics take its effect and
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: that booster kind of flips around and goes to a
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: semi horizontal position as it begins to fall back to
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Earth in any old which direction it chose. But this
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: time they actually wanted to see if they can control it.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: So when venting the fuel of the hot stage separation
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: of the starship ship from the main stage booster, they
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: wanted to control the direction of flip of this skyscraper
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: sized first stage booster check the box. Friends. They did
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: that successfully also, so they had a first ever directional
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: flip where the thing flipped in the direction that they
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: chose for it to do, not just randomly selected by
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: physical forces. Okay, there's two successes. Number three, the starship
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: itself actually reached space. This vehicle, now this is not
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the main stage booster, it's not the big rocket engines.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: It's the vehicle riding on top now designated Ship thirty five,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: successfully reached its planned velocity. It didn't reach orbit because
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: it wasn't designed to orbit. It's a suborbital flight. But
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: it did reach the altitude and speed necessary for space.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: This is a new version of the ship. It's called
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: the Version two so or Block two. So this is
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: the Block two design. But this Block V two ship
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: reached space for the first time for that particular series. Okay,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: so there is another success all right, Now, what else happened?
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: Now, just to be clear, if Katie Perry was on board,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: she'd be an astronaut. That's what we're saying.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I've said that all along. Go back can review previous episodes.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm on Katie's side on this whole.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: I'm just making sure we know how high the thing got.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: That's all. Yeah, so important, Maybe commercial. Maybe we need
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: the one word in their commercial astronaut, but astronaut none
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: the lest Yeah, okay, that's just me whatever. All right,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: So here's what else SpaceX was able to do. They
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: got all kinds of data, because that's how you do
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: agile development. You get a bunch of data and then
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: you go fix all the stuff. So they got data
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: on a reused booster and heat shield. Okay, so it
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: had already flown and now it's flowing again a second
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: time for the first time in humanity, and they were
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: able to get data on it. All right. Here's the
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: last thing, engine reignition that super heavy booster after it
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: fired all of its engines and got to a high
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: enough altitude that starship could shove off from the booster
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: and head to an even higher altitude all the way
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: to SPA. All of that worked successfully the big now
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: first stage of the boosters falling back into the atmosphere.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: SpaceX was able to successfully reignite all thirty three of
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: those wrapped or engines during what they called the boost
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: back burn, marking a significant step toward reasonability reusable rocket friends,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: changing history. Now, did it blow up shortly after that? Yes,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: it did? Speaking of which, what were some of the failures,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: So let's just get right to the failure showing. Yeah, well,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: one of the failures was they were hoping to have
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: a booster splash down. Now, they were never bringing this
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: thing back to the launch pad. That was never the plan.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: They were going to lose this vehicle in the ocean.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: This is the booster, right, They were going to lose
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the main stage booster in the ocean. It was never
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: scheduled to come back and be recaptured and use again
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: from Texas. No, no, no. So what didn't happen though,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: was a nice splash down in a controlled manner. What
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: instead happened was what SpaceX has termed a rapid unscheduled
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: disassembly or a RUD. So. Yeah, during its descent, they
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: were making various adjustments to the engine, trying to they
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: were going to bring it in a sharper angle of
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: attack than ever before, I should say, a flatter angle,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: giving the stress on the vehicle, more stress than ever
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: before because they were trying to slow it down through
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere. But anyway, they think there were gases possibly
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: that were leaking in the rocket chamber when the engines refired,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: rapid unscheduled disassembly occurred. It blew up, all right, that's
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: one failure. Number two failure. They also lost Starship. They
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: lost the vehicle too. Now now again it was never
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: going to come back, It was never going to be reused.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: This still in the test phase, but they were hoping
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: to get a few more things done with it before
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: they lost control of the vehicle. And unfortunately for Starship
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: or some kind of propellant link and subsequent loss of
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: attitude control led to the Starship itself experiencing a rapid
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: unscheduled dissembly, so a pair of ruds for both halves
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: of this giant vehicle that certainly wasn't planned. That led
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: to also a failed set of suborbital objectives Starship. The
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: vehicle wasn't able to achieve most of its in space
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: objectives due to this loss of control. Also, they had
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: put some satellites on board. They had some Starlink satellites
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: that they were going to deploy and that was not
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: able to happen either, So they lost the Starlink satellites.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: They were basically in their just as test payloads and
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: if they got into space that'd be nice, but anyway. So, yes,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: some failures, but it is not fair to talk about
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: these failures without talking about the fantastic successes of this program. Friends.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: And if we are the only media outlet out there
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: leading with the successes, so be it. I'm okay. And
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: if I never talk to you know, European news agencies
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: because they just don't want to interview me because I
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: go with the SpaceX successes first, so be it. Friends,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: I'm okay with that too.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: Sometimes that's just the cost of doing business, my friend.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna sleep well tonight, I think. So.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: I just want to be honest, just being honest and
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: reporting it for what it is and understanding this concept
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: of agile development that you know, if they just understood,
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: this is how they do business.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: This is what they do uh.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: And it's just the way that they're going to continue
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: to do things, uh, at least for the foreseeable future.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: And I can't imagine that they'll ever stop doing things
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: that way.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: All Right, I neither hate nor love Elon Musk. Can
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: I just say that except in the way that I
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: of all humanity as described by my faith. So there
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: you go. It's not an Elon Musk. Thank I'm not
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: an Elon Musk fan boy. I wish you would shut
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: up sometimes. But this company SpaceX, and let's not forget
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Chief operating Officer Gwinn shotwell, this company SpaceX, with a
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: lot of other really talented engineers and rocket professionals, they
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: are accomplishing amazing things like or love or hate or
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: whatever you feel about Elon Musk.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: There you go, more made of stars right after this.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: All right, So let's talk about a cool opportunity here
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: in the Chattahoochee Valley area. We know we have listeners
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: around the world. Thank you for that, God bless you
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: for that. I mean all around the world. I was
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: just going through some of the I mean most countries.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: I know we have listeners in every state and we
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: have listeners in many countries. So we appreciate all of
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: you for that. But we have to talk about this
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: cool thing that's happening here in our hometown at the
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: bo Bartlett Center. And I'll just tee you up on that.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: And let's for folks in the Chattahoochee Valley area or
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: who are a reasonable short trip away, some cool stuff
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: that you'll get an opportunity to see here for a while, yeah.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I work at an organization that the first name that
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: you're going to hear is a famous soft drink. Yeah,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: but I don't work for the soft drink company. Okay,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: So I work for an organization called Columbus State University.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: We are the Coca Cola Space Science Center because the
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the folks at the Coke Foundation gave us a very
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: generous donation to help get our building established. Okay, so
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: we are part of Columbus State University. The bo Bartlett
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Art Gallery is also part of Columbus State University, and
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: physically they're located about three blocks down the street from
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: US Front Avenue, Columbus, Georgia. My good friend Mike mcfall's,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the director of the Bo Bartlett Art Gallery, has allowed
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: us to put up an exhibit in his art gallery
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: space of some really amazing artifacts and memorabilia from the
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: collection of the first human being to ever drive a
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: car on the service of the Moon. General David R. Scott,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: commander of Apollo fifteen, a astronaut not a spaceflight participant,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: an astronaut aboard Apollo nine, and also Gemini eight. All
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: three of those missions were historic for a variety of reasons.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Dave Scott got to be part of the first ever
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: docking of two spacecraft the board Gemini eight. He got
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: to be part of a very important dress rehearsal with
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: many firsts in Apollo nine, just three months before Buzz
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: and Neil walked on the surface of the Moon and
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Mike Collins orbited up there. And then he got to
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: be the first human being to ever drive a car
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: on the surface of the Earth or on the serface
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: of the Earth, on the surface of the Moon, on
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: the surface of another planet besides Earth, as commander of
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Apollo fifteen. James Irwin and Al Warden both on that mission.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: By the way, Gemini eight, Neil Armstrong, this guy named
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Neil Armstrong flew with Dave Scott all right. Dave's brother
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Tom actually lived in our city for a number of years.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: We got to be very good friends with Tom Scott,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: and Tom has arranged the donation to our facility of
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: a number of artifacts and memorabilia from the collection of
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: David Scott. And now we have actual pieces from this
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: very famous astronauts collection, so many of them in fact,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: that we can't hang them up in our own exhibit
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: gallery at the Cooke call a space Science Center. That's
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: why we are giving folks a rare opportunity to see
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: the majority of this collection on display together at the
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: bo Bartlett Art Gallery just down the street from the
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Space Science Center all summer long, June third through August second,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: and it is for free. Friends, you can go there
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: and visit for free. Not only that, when you go there,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: we're going to have a little astronaut on display, and
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: if you take a selfie with the astronaut and come
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: show that selfie at our front desk at the Space
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Science Center, you're going to get a discounted admission to
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: our facility. So you can do a double visit Space
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: day where you go over to the Bow Bartlett Gallery
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: and see this amazing collection from David Scott from Apollo fifteen,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: and then walk down the street come to the Space
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Science Center and enjoy all of the things that we
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: have to offer, including the rest of that artifact collection
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: from David Scott, our Omosphere Theater, planetarium, our Ride to Space,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: a boarder, Space Shuttle Otyssey, and many artifacts that have
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: actually been in space as part of NASA's Space Shuttle
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: program right here on display at Columbus cit University's Coca
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Cola Space Science Center. Want more information, of course you
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: do visit the website of the Space Science Center www
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: dot cc SSC dot org, Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: or follow us on Facebook and you'll get live updates
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: as we go through this summer exhibiting really cool artifacts
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: from the David Scott collection.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
• 49:46
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