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Starliner Astronauts Now Officially Have a Ride Home · 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 3: Go ahead.
• 0:22
  Speaker 4: When made of stars, made them stars, madies. When made
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: us stars, you could be from high they would New
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: Mexicomus where all stars, When.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: We are made of stars.
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  Speaker 5: I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
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  Speaker 5: Cruising from cal State Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center.
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: Hey Sean, Hey, we it's good to be with you
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: this morning, for all the way from Colorado.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, I've been doing a bit of traveling this week
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  Speaker 3: and I'm in the Rocky Mountains enjoying some beautiful night
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  Speaker 3: skies by the way, just incredible views of the night
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  Speaker 3: sky here in Colorado. And there's some pretty interesting things
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  Speaker 3: coming up this month to be able to look at.
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  Speaker 3: They include the Orionid meteor shower, so check out the
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  Speaker 3: Orionids later basically all month. Actually, also a couple of
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  Speaker 3: planets up there in really good position, Venus just after
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  Speaker 3: the sunsets, you'll see Jupiter and Saturn both in the
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  Speaker 3: morning sky. Mars is up there as well, so there's
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  Speaker 3: lots of beautiful stuff to see. But there's one feature
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  Speaker 3: that we're going to talk about a little bit later
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  Speaker 3: in the show that is maybe the coolest thing in
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  Speaker 3: the nighttime.
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  Speaker 5: Sky, and we will before we get to that, begin
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  Speaker 5: with Crew nine because finally the rescue mission has to
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: be gone or is is it rescue?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Is it clickbait? What is it?
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  Speaker 5: Crew nine? The Dragon Crew nine mission has finally left.
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: This is the it was supposed to leave. Now, you know,
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: two months ago, back in August, and this was supposed
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  Speaker 5: to be a crew of four leaving from Earth and
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  Speaker 5: you know, sometime in February that crew of four coming home.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: But that's not the.
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  Speaker 5: Way this all played out, obviously, because we had some
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: astronauts who got left behind. That's the better way to
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: put it to me, and that's the way kind of
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: what you and I've been referring to it is they
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: had to be left behind after the Starliner mission didn't
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: quite go as hoped. So two of the astronauts who
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: were on the International Space Station already joined this crew
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: of the Crew nine. They just happened to be there.
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  Speaker 5: Before Crew nine launched, they were already on the International
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  Speaker 5: Space Station. So they now have two seats to return
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: home in February. Their really short mission has become a
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  Speaker 5: much longer mission. And as we've discussed many times before,
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: astronauts like to astronaut, so if they get a chance
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: to be in space, you know, it's not the original plan,
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: but it's always kind of part of the plan. Like
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  Speaker 5: they know that there's a chance that maybe they could
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: be there longer than expected. So that's what's happened. They're
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: waiting to come home in February, but the rest of
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  Speaker 5: their now crew that they've become a part of has
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  Speaker 5: now successfully launched back on. It's Saturday, and now I
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  Speaker 5: guess we can you know, the clickbait of rescue or
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: they stranded, all those sorts of things. Maybe that can
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  Speaker 5: now stop. I don't know when does that stop when
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: they actually get on the craft and come back home.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: I don't think it will ever stop. I think it
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  Speaker 3: will never stop. Even if they're like in a retirement
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  Speaker 3: home in sunny Arizona.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: You're one of those astronauts. It got stuck up there
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: aren't you.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they'll still be the stranded astronauts forever, even if
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: they returned to space on a different mission. They'll be
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: the stranded astronauts forever. This is this is their fate,
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  Speaker 3: you know. I just think it's true anyway, So well
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: and West mentioned.
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  Speaker 1: And we're also in a minute going to talk about
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  Speaker 1: the Hey you're one of those two astronauts who didn't
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  Speaker 1: get going to go out because of those stranded astronauts,
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  Speaker 1: aren't you. But we'll get to them in a minute.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, there's that consequence as well. So just to summarize
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: what Wes said after the off delayed Crew nine mission,
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  Speaker 3: but most recent delays was due to the hurricane Heleen
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: that came through and they kind of had to batten
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: things down for a few days until that giant tropical
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  Speaker 3: system moved through. Finally they got to launch on Saturday,
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  Speaker 3: September twenty eighth, so the SpaceX two person crew of
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  Speaker 3: Crew nine launched to the International Space Station. They arrived
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  Speaker 3: up there on September twenty ninth, which was Sunday. They
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  Speaker 3: did kind of a one day chase of the space
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: station and caught up with it. Two crew members on
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  Speaker 3: board were Nick Haig, who is a NASA astronaut, and
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  Speaker 3: Alexander Gorbanov, the Russian cosmonaut, and two empty seats. We'll
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  Speaker 3: talk about the empty seats at a moment, but those
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  Speaker 3: empty seats are designed to bring back the Starliner crew
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  Speaker 3: of Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmore, who will ride back
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  Speaker 3: to back to Earth in February aboard that same Dragon
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  Speaker 3: capsule called Freedom that docked with the space station about
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  Speaker 3: five thirty PM on the twenty ninth. Anyway, so the
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: hatch opened about seven to fifteen PM on the twenty ninth,
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  Speaker 3: two astronauts came in instead of four, So basically what
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: happened was there was a crew reassignment. Now listen, I'm
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: in a travel mode myself right now. I'll be traveling
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: through airports here in the next twenty four hours. So
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: it's interesting that you know, anytime you fly, I probably
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: getting to your destination is the thing you're looking forward
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  Speaker 3: to most, not the flight itself. So if you get
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: stranded in an airport like say, oh, I don't know,
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  Speaker 3: Denver International, Hartsfield Jackson in Atlanta, any of these kinds
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: of fascinating airports, if you get stranded in the airport,
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  Speaker 3: you might text your friends and say, hey, I'm stranded,
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  Speaker 3: because the thing that you're waiting for is not to
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  Speaker 3: be in the airport and to be on an airplane.
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  Speaker 3: It's to get home or to get to your destination.
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  Speaker 3: It's a little bit different with astronauts, right, So their
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  Speaker 3: main objective, I mean, sure they want to get home,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: but their main objective is to be in space. So
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  Speaker 3: you mentioned that a moment ago. I'm pretty sure, I'm
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: relatively sure that Study Williams and Butch Wilmore are making
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: the most of it up there aboard the International Space Station. Friends,
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  Speaker 3: they have never been in danger from the moment star
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: Liner docked to the International Space Station, any more danger
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  Speaker 3: than they would have been any other with any other
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  Speaker 3: astronaut going to space. Right. So, sure, space is kind
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  Speaker 3: of a tricky environment no matter what, but it's the
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: very danger that they accepted when they became astronauts. Now,
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: I made that specific point because there was a little
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  Speaker 3: bit of a little bit of a navigational glitch as
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: they were trying to get Doc to the International Space Station.
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  Speaker 3: Starliner didn't behave itself completely, but from the moment they
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  Speaker 3: got safely docked they're fine now in terms of shall
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: we say, emergency measures, like if a micro meteoroid hit
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  Speaker 3: the space station and the space station needed to be evacuated,
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: or some random Russian space debris, just call it what
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: it is. Could be Chinese space debris too. By the way,
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: if random space debris hit the space station and caused
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: some kind of a major gas leak where they had
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: to evacuate, yeah, they would have been a little bit
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  Speaker 3: of a problem because the Dragon capsule that is there,
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: that was their lifeboat, is made to carry four and
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  Speaker 3: so what Butcher and soon he would have had to
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: do is wrap themselves in some padding and basically stuff
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: themselves in the cargo area, which is up under the seats. Now,
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  Speaker 3: you don't want to be in a car crash wrapped
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  Speaker 3: in bubble wrap in the trunk of a car. Correct,
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  Speaker 3: And certainly when SpaceX Dragon comes down to land, it's
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  Speaker 3: a splash down in the ocean, but it's still carrying
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  Speaker 3: enough velocity even with the parachutes that it's a bit
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  Speaker 3: like an auto accident of some speed anyway, And so
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  Speaker 3: could they have been injured. Maybe it's good that they
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  Speaker 3: don't have to come down that way. Other than that
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  Speaker 3: kind of outlier eventuality, they really were safe the whole time.
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  Speaker 3: So anyway, now their lifeboat is there, they're part of
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  Speaker 3: the Crew nine mission. Everything's getting coordinated, and for Butcher
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  Speaker 3: and Sony and for Nick and Alexander, things are great.
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  Speaker 3: Now there are two other astronauts for whom things aren't
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  Speaker 3: maybe quite as great.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, So just quickly before we touch on them, because
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  Speaker 5: we talked about this, I think last week about this
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  Speaker 5: is the first time in a long time that they've
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: just launched with two astronauts. Is this the first time
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  Speaker 5: that we have sent up a one of the crew
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  Speaker 5: Dragon crew missions since Bob and Doug were they the
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  Speaker 5: last time?
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  Speaker 3: It was to Doug. They were the last dynamic duo
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  Speaker 3: to go up aboard a SpaceX Dragon with just two
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: people on board. So that was of course the first
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  Speaker 3: ever human space flight aboard Dragon.
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  Speaker 5: There you go, yeah uh, And and that was of
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  Speaker 5: course the test mission, so that's part of why they
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  Speaker 5: had two on that particular mission going up. So yes,
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  Speaker 5: we have two that trained for this mission, prepared for
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  Speaker 5: this mission, and then got told.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe next time.
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  Speaker 5: Didn't didn't mean to turn into Jay Leno with that,
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: but you know, maybe next time.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: Uh, the next time? Is it really next time?
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
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  Speaker 5: Maybe maybe a future mission. So now they have had
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: some things to say about this mission. Understandably, this is
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: one of those deals where you know, maybe you had
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: the quarterback that was supposed to start, and then the
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: other guy got the start, and then they stuck a
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: microphone in the other guy's face and said, how.
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  Speaker 1: Do you feel to be on the sidelines.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Well, as Russell Wilson would say, I'm just happy to
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: be part of it.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: We just want to get better every week. Sorry, the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: paycheck still clears.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: I'm glad you made the football analogy, because really, the
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Astronaut Corps is the most elite team that you could imagine.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, obviously there's some military teams that are in
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: that category as well, but I would say the Astronaut
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Corps right in there with those elite units, right in
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: there with the Blue Angels, right in there with you know,
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: the Thunderbirds, right in there with the Delta Force, right
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: in there with the Rangers. Anyway, This is not the
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: hockey team, the Rangers, the actual US Army Rangers anyway.
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  Speaker 3: So these are elite teams of human beings, very hard
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: to get selected to and they are very much all
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: about the team once you make it through that process.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: So it's not surprising that Xena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: the two astronauts who did not get to go aboard
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: SpaceX's Crew nine mission, who got left back on the Earth,
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: who are actually working now on the ground team for
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: that mission. They're still part of the mission. They're just
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: running it from the ground. It didn't actually get to fly.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: It's not surprising that they mostly had very supportive things
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: to say, and I should say they really had totally
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: supportive things to say it, but it's a little bit
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: telling that one of the quotes from Xena Carbon was
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: this quote, I think it was hard not to watch
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: that rocket lift off without thinking, that's my rocket and
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: that's my crew. Now, it's understandable to feel that way, right.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: It's understandable for her to feel that way because she's
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: been training with them literally four years getting ready for
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: this mission, and it was right up until just months
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: before the flight that she found out she was gonna
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: get bumped. So how could you not feel that way, right?
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: How could you not feel like, you know, maybe like
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: a certain quarterback that has played all season but is
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: in to write before the playoffs, and then the team
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: goes and wins the Super Bowl. You can imagine that
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: quarterback on the sideline, you know, in a cast or
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: something with a clipboard going, now, how I feel like
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: this is my team and I feel like this is
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: my trophy. But I had to watch some other guy
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: play quarterback, right, Certainly that person still part of the team.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Certainly that quarterback a major part of the effort to
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: get them where they had to be. This is sort
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: of the way it is with these two Crew nine astronauts.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: They were very, very important parts of the team, and
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: now they're having to pass their duties on to Butcher
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: and Sunni, who are the people who are now Crew
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: nine astronauts who are already aboard the space station. They're
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: going to be helping talk those astronauts through all the
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: duties and all the tasks that have to take place,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: along with the rest of the ground team. But you
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: can imagine that they feel that way. Now. It's important
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: to go ahead and read Stephanie Wilson's quote too, which
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: is this quote. Well, of course, we want to be together,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: she said of the Crew nine mission. We have built
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: friendship and camaraderie. But I'm very excited for them. She
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: means Nick Haig and Gorbanov. I'm very excited for them,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: looking forward to hearing their stories from space. Unquote. Check
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: out all these quotes, by the way, on space dot Com.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Great article about this particular effort. You know, it's just
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: unfortunate that it worked out this way. But sometimes you
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: get bumped from your flight, right sometimes even at the airport,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: you get bumped from your flight. You have to go
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: on a later flight. That happened to a lot of
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: people with Hurricane Helen coming through, by the way, and
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: so one can understand how this takes place. Still not
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: that great of a feeling, and is it a rescue mission?
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: So if you read space media out there, they're saying, well,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: these two astronauts gave up their seats for the rescue
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: mission for the stranded astronauts and the rescue mission to
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: get them back home. And whereas that does have, you know,
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: I'm sure a certain appeal from news outlets to refer
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: to things this way. If they turned this into an
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: action adventurer movie, it's probably going to be a fairly
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: boring one because I'm not I'm not trying to prognosticate
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: the future, ladies and gentlemen. But I'm pretty sure those
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: astronauts are going to return to the ground safely, uneventfully,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: and this whole episode will be over for everyone except
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: the Boeing Corporation.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: A couple things, and you talk about them, and then
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: the team aspect of all of it, and maybe some
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: other examples we can give of that are, you know,
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: a crew goes to the Moon and only two of
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: them get to go out on the moon and one
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: of them does not you know that sort of experience
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: that's happened before, or I don't know, maybe you know, Houston,
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: we have a problem and they don't get to go
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: to the moon at all. Ultimately, it's about the big
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: picture for all of it and things that get learned
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: on those missions, whether it's Poll of thirteen or if
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: you know you're Michael Collins or whatever, it's that team
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: aspect of things where you just sort of say, look,
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: this is what we're about, this is what we're what
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: we're trying to do. And then another thing, and I
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: guess because I was saying, you know, oh they get
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: to you know, come on up on a next go around,
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: kind of joking around. But the reason that they're not,
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: you know, because some would say, well, why don't they
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: just get put on the next mission, Well, the next
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: crew is already training, right, The next group is already
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: h you know, the next group of four already training
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: for that mission. So there's some specific things that they're
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: going to be doing while they're there that they're already
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: training for. So you know, you don't just get bumped on.
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: You kind of go back into the pool and get
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: pulled up when the mission is suited for you, right, Yeah, And.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: So the statement from NASA, of course is just simply
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: that Wilson and Cartman remain eligible for future NASA space flights.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: And so yeah, you basically have to go maybe not
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: totally to the back of the line, but you've got
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: to get back in line because, as you said, the
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: crew for the next flight crew ten, they're already training,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: they're already working together as a team. There's no sense
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: in breaking up that team. Astronauts probably will get assigned
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: to another flight. It might even be a NASSA priority
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: to try to get them assigned to a new flight,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: but it's not going to be the next flight. So
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: so it does feel unfortunate. Does feel like a little
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: bit like they're you know, maybe not the way they
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: would like to see that go down, But you did
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: mention these command module pilots and then Paula missions. You know,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: you and I had a chance to interview Al Warden
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: from the Paula fifteen, which is a great interview folks.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: You can find that out on YouTube still today, by
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: the way, the West and Shawn interview of Al Warden,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: commander of the Command Module pilot for a Paula fifteen. Anyway,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: so the interesting thing about what Al said was this.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Al said, Hey, I'm an Air Force guy. I'm not
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: trained to walk around on the ground. I don't mind
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: if other people were walking around on the ground. What
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: I get to do. I get to orbit the Moon
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: in very close orbit and do all kinds of aerial
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: photography and cartography from lunar orbit. He said, I don't
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: feel disappointed that I got to do that at all.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: That's what I got to do on that mission. I
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: went into the Air Force because I like to fly,
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: and I got to fly around the Moon. Right. So
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: that's the way these people think of their team assignments
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: in regards to these things. So pretty cool comments from him.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: And you know, I'm sure that both astronauts Wilson and
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Carbon feel similarly about the task that they're getting to
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: do right now, because that's going to better train them
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: for an upcoming mission coming up.
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: After a quick break, we'll talk about SpaceX grounding its
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: Falcon rocket fleet and why that's happened. We'll do that next. Okay,
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: So we talked about the launch for Crew nine. It
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: was fine for the crew, it was fine for the astronauts,
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: It was fine for getting them to the National Space Station. However,
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: it wasn't a completely smooth launch and that's caused a
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: little bit of delays for SpaceX.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: What's going on with that?
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a little complication for SpaceX. And by the way,
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: before I dive too far into the story, do you
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: want to remind our listeners we have something really cool
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: coming up in the nighttime sky, so stick with us
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: on the show here. We'll talk about that in a moment.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: But the FAA is investigating an anomaly that took place
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: on the Crew nine mission. We talked about all the
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: things great and grand with Dragon got up to the
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: International Space Station, delivered astronauts safely. There you know, SpaceX
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: appears to be kind of well handing, handing it to
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Boeing and Starliner and their competition right now is a
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: way to put it. But this story from spacelightnow dot
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: com really points to something that didn't go very well
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: on that flight, which is that the upper stage, the
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: second stage of the Crew nine rocket, had a failure.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: And it happened after it shoved that Dragon spacecraft called
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: Freedom into the planned orbit. So the second stage, well,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: the first stage comes off of a Falcon nine, it
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: comes down and lands back at the airport or I
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: said airport, spaceport or out at sea. You know, we've
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: seen that many times now. So everything went well with
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: the first stage, but the second stage is designed to
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: land in the ocean, and obviously there are specific parts
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: of the ocean that they want to land those second
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: stages in, and they clear the area to make sure
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: it's safe. And what happened was that second stage didn't
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: fire its thrusters properly, and so it didn't land in
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: the previously identified zone within the ocean, and so therefore
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: it became kind of a potentially hazardous piece of space
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: debris coming in in a non planned place, right so
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: according to SpaceX social media, we have this quote Falcon
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: nine second stage was disposed in the ocean as planned,
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: but experienced an off nominal deorbit burn as a result,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: the second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: the targeted area. Okay, so there you have it. So
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: but that's unfortunately now has triggered an FAA investigation into
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: what went wrong with that second stage because the FAA
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: is the one there's a governing agency making sure that
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: these rockets do things in a stafe manner, and the
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: FAA just seems to love to investigate SpaceX whenever possible,
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: So this is another time. So now there's an FAA
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: investigation which could potentially impact a couple of flights for
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: a couple other vehicles. So right now, all Falcon nine
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: rockets are suspended until they figure out what went wrong
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: with this upper stage in the misfire. And the suspension
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: in flight comes as SpaceX prepares to launch two Solar
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: System exploration missions in October this month with very narrow
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: launch windows. So SpaceX obviously wants to get this cleared
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: up as quickly as possible. They're working with the FAA
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: to do so so that they can launch the two
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Solar System missions as planned. Anyway, we'll keep an eye
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: on that. We'll talk more about that on next week's
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Made of Stars.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: We often talk about how when an event like an
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: eclipse happens, it gets people excited, you know, gets kids
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: especially excited. They get an opportunity to see something maybe
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: they haven't seen before. Another one of those things it
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: gets people excited is a comet. And we have a
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: comet almost in our sky. It's ready to be seen,
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: I guess, almost a very easy to view in our sky.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: So there's a comet with a funny name. It's sou
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: chin Chan Atlas or Chu chin Chan Atlas. The atlas
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: part is an acronym. We'll talk about that in a second.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Chu chin Chan is Chinese for the Purple Mountain Observatory.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Purple Mountain Chu chin Chan in Chinese was lee discovered
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: by two groups. First the Chinese Observatory Purple Mountain Observatory
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Chu chin Chan. The second group that well, when the
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: Chu Chinchuan Observatory first founded, they thought it was an asteroid.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: They didn't know it was a comet. They reported it
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: as a newly discovered asteroid. Then a group out of
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: South Africa called the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: or we know that as at US. They began investigating
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: that potential asteroid to see where it was heading, to
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: see if it posed the hazard to Earth. And what
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: they realized after some February of twenty twenty three observations
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: is that this was not an asteroid at all, but
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: a comet. So the Chinese discovered it January ninth of
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty three. Atlas confirmed that it was a comet
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: in February of twenty twenty three, and now we have
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: the comet Chu Chin Chan Atlas, two different teams discovering it.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: They get it gets double named. What I've noticed the
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: media in the US has started doing is calling it
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: t Atlas. Obviously an easy shortcut. So the Comet tea
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Atlas is a very interesting comment. For one thing, it's
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: a very large comet. It's also very dusty, so those
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: are two things that make it kind of interesting. This
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Comet tea Atlas had a close encounter with the Sun
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: on September the twenty seventh, so just a few days ago,
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: as we're recording the show, it came to its closest
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: approach to the Sun, which is known as perihelion. Now,
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: when these big icy these big dusty ice balls like
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Comet tiat Let's get close to the Sun, they do
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: a lot of melting or sublimating, but anyway they change
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: from solid to forms of dust and gas. So now
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: this comet has released all manner of gas and dust
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: and it's coming around the Sun and it's going to
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: appear in the very early evening sky beginning around October
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: eighth or ninth. And because of all of the parameters
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: and all the angles and all of the reflectivity that
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: this comet is involved with, those people who watch comets
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: have said, hey, this thing is going to be very
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: very large and very very bright in the sky prior
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: to September twenty seventh, prior to its closest approach around
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: the Sun. It has already been photographed by Southern Hemisphere
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: astrophotographers and they have gotten some amazing shots of Commet Tiallis.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: You can go check those out online right now. But
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: that thing is only going to get better as it
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: comes around the Sun and it's done some extra melting.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: It's heading for a close approach of the Earth on
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: October twelfth. But in the meantime, as it comes around
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: into the daylight sky, it might actually be daylight visible. Now,
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: experienced common observers are saying, well, that's not very likely,
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: but it is at least possible that you could see
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: this thing. Like if you blocked out the sun with
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: a building and looked in the right direction, the comet
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: might actually be at magnitudes between minus four point three
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: and minus four point seven apparent magnitude. If you don't
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: know what that means, means as bright as the planet Venus,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: and sometimes the planet Venus can be seen in the
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: daytime sky, particularly in twilight hours. So we're going to
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: be looking to the western sky. Now you're gonna need
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: a low horizon. It's gonna take a little bit of work.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: You don't have to find a place where you have
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: a clear western horizon and watch just after the sunsets
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: from well basically now the time you're hearing the story,
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: you might already be able to see components of this comet.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: But up through mid October, look to that western sky
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: and you could see Naked Eye visible, one of the
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: best comets potentially in the last ten years or so.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Daylight visible comets don't happen very often. The last comment
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: was January of two thousand and seven. That was comment not,
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: which was daylight visible in the southern hemisphere. So this
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: would be kind of a historic comet if we can
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: see it that way. Why am I hedging my bets well,
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: because comets have two things in common with cats. They
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: have tails, and they do what they want to do.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: So they're rather unpredictable objects, and so we don't know
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: exactly how it's going to behave. But it is definitely
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: worth looking for this comment in the early evening skies
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: for the first half of October and then with telescopes
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: and binoculars throughout the rest of the month because it
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: will still be visible in that early evening sky.
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: One other quick note about Venus. A lot of you
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: have wasted your wishes on the first star you see
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: of the night on Venus because it wasn't a star
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: at all. You know, more often than not, it's probably
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: been Venus. Sorry to break the news to you if
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: you're wondering why those wishes didn't come true.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: I actually think it's doing that to people right now
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: because it will be the first star they see. Be careful, friends, Yes,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: the first star you see is actually a planet. More
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: comment for that matter.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: More made of stars.
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: Right after this, let's talk about this latest X class
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: solar flare, because it's happened again.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: When you wish on a comm and I don't know
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: what happens, by the way, maybe you get an X
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: class solar flare. I don't know. You've got to watch that.
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of things that could possibly happen. But
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: wishing on venus, I don't know. I mean, I don't
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: know what that Maybe just people going man, the lottery
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: didn't go my way.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Hey, there's a lot going on in the Sun right now.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: I have an alert from spaceweather dot com that I
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: signed up for where I get text messages every time
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: a flare goes off of significant size. And I have
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: just been getting popped by all the text alerts from
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: spaceweather dot com because there are a couple of giant
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: sunspots on the Sun that are just blasting material off
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: into space every few minutes.
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: Let me ask you this, when you get an alert
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: about a flare going off, does the alert go whoo.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Like does it at least do that?
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: Or like, how does this work, because that's how I
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: would set it up.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Can you can you set it up that way?
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, I could probably customize my ring tone, you know,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Throw a little nature boy in there. You know, that's
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: all you need, Just just a little nature boy. Sorry,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: go ahead.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: Maybe maybe I just set that up for the X
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: class flares, Like if there's an X class flair, then
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: it's rick flair.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that would make more sense.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: Friends. If I'm speaking in a foreign language to you,
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: there are classifications for the strength of eruptions on the
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: surface of the Sun based on letters, and they go
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: like this, don't ask me why ABC M X. So
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: the ABC class fairly mundane, low powered flares don't really
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: cause much problem here on the Earth. But when we
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: get to the M class flares, those M class flares
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: are strong enough to cause potential effects here. Geomagnetic storms
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: is what we call them here on Earth, where those
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: charged particles from the Sun are interacting with our magnetic field.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: And we had back on May tenth of this year,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: one of the strongest auroral displays in the last one
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: hundred years. That was not an X class flare, that
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: was an M class flare that took place, there were
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: just other factors that were favorable for the production of
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: Aurora borealis or northern lights. Well, this time, friends, we've
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: had an X class flare. And remember these classes that
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: I'm discussing are kind of like what we discussed with
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: the earthquake scale. They're a logarithmic scale, right, So an
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: X one class flare is ten times more powerful than
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: an M one class flare. Well, what we had in
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: the last twenty four hours was an X seven point
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: one class flare, which is almost one hundred times more
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: powerful than an M one class flare. So this is
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: the second strongest solar flare of the current solar cycle,
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: which is cycle twenty five. It occurred from active region
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: number thirty eight forty two on the surface of the
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: Sun at about six twenty pm last night. That would
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: have been October first, as we're recording the show here
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: a day early because of my crazy travel schedule. Anyway,
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: So this blast of energetic particles leaving the Sun and
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: actually the X rays from that storm actually caused a
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: shortwave radio blackout over Hawaii, and that's because the light
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: traveling from this gets here first, so there was enough
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: X rays coming off this blast arriving at our upper atmosphere,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: that it changed the ionosphere a little bit and caused
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: shortwave radio blackouts. But the particles that were thrown off
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: this big storm, which by the way enough charge radiation
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: that it's equivalent to the mass of Mount Everest something
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: like that, those particles are still flying out through the
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: Solar System at a slower speed. NASA's preliminary models are
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: showing that that wave of charged particles will reach the
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Earth on about October fifth. Well what does this mean. Well,
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: that means when that coronal mass ejection, the particles thrown
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: off the Sun that are going to arrive on October fifth,
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: when that reaches our geomagnetic area around the Earth, our
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: magnetic field and the magnetopause and the magneto sphere, which
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: is our Earth being protected by its own magnetic field,
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: it will disrupt the Earth's magnetic field to some degree. Now,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: if that disruption is strong enough, it may cause widespread
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: Aurora borealis. It may cause additional complications like problems with satellites,
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: like problems with power grids. These kinds of things have
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: happened in the past. We don't know what's going to happen.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: If this intrigues you, which it should to some level,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: check out spaceweather dot com. Friends, you can follow spaceweather
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: dot com as I do, by the way, with my
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: text message service. Can follo space weather dot com. Sign
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: up for that text message service yourself, and you can
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: watch this evolving geomagnetic storm forecast over the next several
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: days to see if this very powerful Earth directed flare
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: causing an Earth directed coronal mass ejection will have a
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: significant interaction with the Earth's geomagnetic field.
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: On October fifth, the new season of Music under the
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: Dome got underway this week, and if you miss the
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: first one, that's okay, because there's going to be plenty more,
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: including one next month before taking a little break over
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: the holidays and getting started again in twenty twenty five.
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: But your next chance coming up in November.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: By all accounts, last night's concert was fantastic at the
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Space Science Center. If you don't know what Music under
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: the Dome is, the SHWUB School of Music at Columbus
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: State University comes into the Coca Cola Space Science Center,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: also a part of Columbus State University, and performs live
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: music the Planetarium this month. The custom graphics that were
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: shown on the Planetarium dome choreograph to that music were
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: produced by our own planetarium director, mister Lance Tankersley. Next
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: month there'll be new musical artists, new visual artists, but
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: yet another fantastic concert under our planetarium Dome. And then,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: as Wes alluded to, two more of those in the
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: spring of twenty twenty five. That makes up the concert
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: series of Music and of the Dome for this year.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: We do have a special additional show that will occur
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: in May of twenty twenty five where we're going to
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: have a visual artist who actually will interface our beautiful
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: disc lavie piano to actually control visuals on the dome.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: His name is Dan Tepfer. He'll be performing in May
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: a special edition of Music and of the Dome. You
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: can still get tickets for all of these concerts, friend,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: and if you're not in the area, well just fly
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: on in, you know, just jump on an airplane, fly
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: or see one of these concerts. It will not disappoint you.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: I promise. These are as good as concerts I have
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: seen anywhere. And I've seen some concerts friends, I have,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: but the experience of the visuals combined with fantastic musicianship
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: is just amazing. So come see a music End of
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: the Dome concert at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: Science Center. If you want to know more about ticketing information,
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: check us out of the website www dot cc SSC
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: dot org, Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org, or just
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: find us on that thing called Facebook and we'll give
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: you updates of all the programming taking place at our
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: facility at Columbus State the Coca Cola Space Science Center.
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
• 36:54
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• 36:58
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