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Why Venus May Have Lost Its Moon Forever · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

0:00
Andrew Dunkley: Hi there. Thanks for joining us. This is
0:02
Space Nuts, where we talk astronomy and space
0:04
science and dogs and cats living together and
0:08
just about anything, really. There's no topic
0:10
that is, uh, ever, um, ignored.
0:14
Even when you don't want us to talk about it,
0:16
we'll talk about it.
0:17
Actually, we've got one of those storeys in
0:19
this episode. Uh, not the first one, though,
0:21
because we're going to discuss Venus. Now, in
0:24
many ways, Venus is just like Earth, except
0:27
for one striking difference. Aside from the
0:30
weather, it doesn't have a moon. Why not?
0:33
Well, um, yeah, there's probably a very
0:35
dark reason for that. Uh, satellite
0:38
pollution. Uh, we're not talking about
0:40
satellites in orbit polluting, uh, our
0:43
skies and making life for astronomers very
0:45
difficult. We're talking about when they come
0:47
back into the atmosphere and literally
0:50
pollute our, uh, atmosphere. We'll see
0:53
what's going on there.
0:54
And the United States Space
0:57
Force uniforms have been unveiled. At
1:00
least one concept, and it's got some tongues
1:02
wagging, some wiggling and some people
1:05
scratching their heads. We'll talk about all
1:07
of that on this episode of space nuts.
1:09
Professor Fred Watson: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
1:12
10, 9. Ignition
1:15
sequence start.
1:16
Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
1:17
Professor Fred Watson: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
1:20
5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
1:22
Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts.
1:23
Professor Fred Watson: Astronauts report it feels good.
1:26
Andrew Dunkley: And he's back. Once again, it's Professor
1:28
Fred Watson Watson, Astronomer at large.
1:29
Hello, Fred Watson.
1:31
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, hello, Andrew. You mean we're not going
1:34
to cover migraines again this week or.
1:36
Andrew Dunkley: Why not? We can do that if you like. We've
1:39
talked about that before.
1:40
Professor Fred Watson: Um, yeah, yeah, we did.
1:42
Andrew Dunkley: I mean, we've reached that age where the
1:44
first topic, because I'm the captain of
1:47
the veteran golfers at our local
1:50
club and, um,
1:53
the first topic, whenever you sit down, is,
1:55
um, your health. And what have you had done
1:58
this week?
2:00
Professor Fred Watson: Well, yes, I'm sure that's right,
2:03
because I'm a little bit older than you, my
2:05
topics are even more interesting. So I was at
2:07
a presentation last night where they were
2:08
talking about coffins, uh, made out of
2:11
mushroom fibre.
2:12
Andrew Dunkley: Oh, my goodness. Yeah,
2:15
okay, that is different.
2:17
Professor Fred Watson: It's different. Yeah, different. But
2:19
apparently it works.
2:20
Andrew Dunkley: Well, it'd be a lot cheaper, wouldn't it?
2:22
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, they don't last very long. Two days, I
2:24
think, is the time it takes to decay.
2:26
Andrew Dunkley: Wow.
2:26
Professor Fred Watson: No, actually, I think it might be a bit
2:28
longer than that.
2:29
Professor Fred Watson: Very.
2:29
Professor Fred Watson: Ah, interesting presentation, though, on, um,
2:33
the. From the Symbioscene
2:36
Institute, uh, which is looking
2:38
at the ways that humankind can live
2:41
more comfortably with its own planet
2:44
rather than being the terrible Colonial
2:48
um, species that we've been to date.
2:50
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. The problem with that is you've got to
2:52
get everyone to agree.
2:54
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, exactly. That was going to be my
2:57
point which I never really got to raise.
3:01
Andrew Dunkley: People come up with all these wonderful ideas
3:03
about how we can do things right. But, and
3:06
you know, some countries will go, well, you
3:08
know, we don't want to do that. So we're not.
3:11
Professor Fred Watson: So I think um, just as, as an idea though and
3:14
as a concept, I think this has
3:17
much to uh, um, approve
3:20
of and it, and the reason what took me
3:23
there was um. Marnie was part of a panel
3:25
discussion yesterday.
3:28
Excuse me, I'm sorry, sorry Marnie, I sneezed
3:31
in the middle of your promo there. She was
3:34
part of a panel discussion, uh, which one of
3:36
the other guests was, was an
3:38
advocate, in fact the founder of the
3:40
Symbiosine Institute.
3:43
Andrew Dunkley: Well I think if you go to um,
3:47
try to make those kinds of changes in
3:50
the psyche of humanity, it's going to be
3:52
a multi generational approach.
3:55
It's not going to be something we all just go
3:57
to do the next day. Okay, we're
4:00
now doing this. It just wouldn't
4:03
happen.
4:04
Professor Fred Watson: No, you're right, humans don't work that way.
4:06
But uh, hopefully with
4:09
enough panic from climate
4:12
change, some things will change.
4:15
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, certainly needs to happen that way.
4:18
Professor Fred Watson: Indeed.
4:19
Andrew Dunkley: Shall we get down to business?
4:21
Professor Fred Watson: Well, why not?
4:22
Andrew Dunkley: All right, our very first question uh,
4:25
is focusing um, on our uh,
4:28
twin planet. Um, when we say twin,
4:31
we're the good twin, it's the evil twin.
4:33
We're talking about Venus. Uh, I mean
4:36
size wise it's similar to Earth. In fact
4:39
everything about it is similar to Earth.
4:41
Size, mass, gravity, that kind of thing.
4:43
Except it's got a God awful
4:46
weather pattern and it doesn't have a
4:49
moon. And that's the subject of this
4:51
particular storey because they're trying to
4:53
figure out why.
4:55
Professor Fred Watson: Indeed. That's right. Uh, yes. Often referred
4:58
to as Earth's ugly sister because of all the
5:01
things that you've mentioned, the
5:02
similarities and um, as we're
5:05
recording it's very prominent in our evening
5:07
skies at the moment. Really can't fail to see
5:10
the planet Venus as it uh, approaches its
5:13
greatest distance from the sun. Greatest
5:15
angular distance from the sun. In fact it may
5:17
even have passed it. I've kind of lost track
5:19
with my confinement to hospitals and things
5:22
of that sort recently. Uh, but it is still
5:24
very spectacular in the evening sky. Anyway,
5:26
a planet about the size of ours, uh,
5:29
of which we know a lot um, thanks
5:32
to orbiting spacecraft which have Carried
5:34
with them radar, uh, uh, equipment in
5:37
order to be able to map m the surface.
5:39
Because the atmosphere of course is largely
5:42
opaque, uh you can penetrate the
5:44
atmosphere down to surface in infrared. That
5:47
was done actually by one of my former
5:49
colleagues at the Anglo Australian Telescope,
5:51
David Allen, back in the 1990s I
5:54
think, or maybe 1980s using infrared
5:57
uh radiation managed to see the surface of
5:59
Venus which is quite a uh, spectacular
6:02
outcome. Um, but the best way to do it
6:05
is with radar and from that we can see the
6:06
topography.
6:07
This jury I think is still out on whether
6:10
uh Venus has plate tectonics because we see
6:13
conflicting results. Uh, but
6:16
the one thing that we do know for absolute
6:18
certain uh, is that it doesn't have a moon.
6:21
Um, uh, Mercury and Venus, the only two
6:24
planets in the solar system that do not
6:26
have satellites, at least do not have
6:29
natural satellites. Um
6:33
so the question that you would ask as a
6:36
scientist is that significant is
6:39
that um, you know, is
6:41
it just happen, just the fact that
6:44
the planet happens not to have a moon
6:47
or whether it is a uh,
6:50
situation where Venus once did have a
6:53
moon. Um, given that moons are pretty common
6:56
throughout the solar system, perhaps uh,
6:58
there was a similar formation event to the
7:00
event that formed our moon when uh, Theia,
7:03
the object size of Mars clouted the Earth in
7:06
the early history of the solar system and
7:09
eventually that coalesced to form the moon
7:11
which uh, both way. I read a headline not
7:14
very long ago that looks as though that
7:16
formation of the moon from that debris cloud
7:18
might have happened very very quickly. And I
7:20
can't remember how quickly it was but it was
7:22
surprisingly quickly. You might have seen
7:25
that too I
7:26
Andrew Dunkley: think uh, Jonty and I did actually do that
7:28
Storey.
7:28
Professor Fred Watson: Okay, great.
7:30
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, um, so uh,
7:33
yeah I was trying to find it actually through
7:35
my notes. M seen my notes.
7:38
These are all past episodes, all my notes.
7:41
Professor Fred Watson: But I could have nicely filed Ye
7:44
Andrew Dunkley: it's just a neat pile. It's not file
7:48
uh, but um, I couldn't find it. But yeah, I
7:50
was trying to remember what we did about
7:52
Venus previously and that was it.
7:54
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, okay. Anyway,
7:57
um, yes, so Venus may have had the same
8:00
experience. Uh what uh,
8:03
would have happened though if uh, Venus had
8:05
had a moon? Why isn't it there now? And
8:08
so this is the uh
8:11
thesis of ah, a group of scientists
8:14
um led by um, Stephen Cain who's at
8:17
the University of California Riverside. Uh
8:20
he uh and his colleagues
8:22
have looked to see you know
8:26
what might have happened had Venus had
8:29
a moon. So it's all done by modelling of
8:31
course, um,
8:34
their Comments more or less, as we've just
8:37
related, uh, this is a comment from Stephen.
8:40
Venus undoubtedly experienced large impacts
8:42
just as as Earth has and so has had
8:45
m as much if not more opportunity to form
8:48
a moon similar to what we see in our own
8:50
skies.
8:51
So, all right, put a moon there in your
8:54
modelling um, and see
8:57
what happens. And this is the
9:00
interesting bit because um,
9:02
there is a really very neat
9:05
explanation for why Venus doesn't have a
9:07
moon. That comes almost straight
9:10
out of the modelling. Uh, and it's all about
9:14
what the they describe as the gravitational
9:16
tug of war between Venus, a
9:18
hypothetical moon and the sun. And
9:21
if you track this over billions of years,
9:25
what you get is a situation
9:29
opposite to what we've got on um,
9:32
planet Earth. And that is that
9:34
the laws of physics dictate uh, that
9:37
because um, there is
9:40
basically an impulse given to the moon
9:43
from the Earth's rotation slowing down,
9:46
uh, it means the moon is drifting away from
9:48
Earth. And that's um, something we've
9:51
talked about, it's well known, well
9:53
established, one of those phenomena that
9:56
we recognise as being scientific facts.
9:59
But uh, what they
10:02
found, what these researchers found when they
10:04
put the same sort of analysis into Venus and
10:07
a moon, uh, the moon would go the other way.
10:10
Uh, it would basically eventually,
10:14
um, it would start to drift
10:17
inwards towards Venus
10:20
and spiral towards the
10:22
planet, eventually passing within the
10:25
Roche limit, which is where you can't have
10:28
something uh, staying together because of the
10:31
competing gravitational pull on one side and
10:33
the other what we call the tidal effect.
10:37
So it would break up, um, and
10:40
uh, even a
10:43
big moon, uh, would not
10:46
necessarily survive.
10:47
Uh, in fact one of the comments that Stephen
10:50
Kane makes is an interesting aspect is that a
10:53
heavier moon is destroyed faster since
10:56
a massive moon would drain Venus's spin so
10:58
efficiently that it hastens its destruction.
11:02
Uh, and so um, that
11:05
is the basic outcome of
11:08
this work. I um, think
11:12
in uh, fact I'm sure that they looked
11:14
at a whole variety these
11:17
researchers of different scenarios. Uh,
11:20
and one of the questions they addressed was
11:23
are there any circumstances under which a
11:25
Venusian m moon could actually survive?
11:29
And the comments that Stephen, uh, Kane made
11:32
on this are uh, survival came down to two
11:34
main things. Venus had to be
11:37
spinning fast when the moon formed
11:40
with a day shorter than about 12 hours. And
11:43
the moon couldn't be too massive up to
11:45
roughly the mass of our own moon. In that
11:48
narrow window, the moon migrates outwards and
11:50
stabilises much as the Earth did. Outside
11:53
that range, the moon is unfortunately
11:56
doomed to be consumed by Venus.
11:59
So a Surviving moon would have to be
12:02
modest in size, orbiting a rapidly spinning
12:05
early Venus, which are conditions that don't
12:07
match what we think the early Venus was
12:09
actually like.
12:11
Uh, and so, you know, the
12:14
upshot of this is,
12:16
um, maybe indeed Venus did
12:19
have a moon, which eventually was
12:22
essentially gobbled up by Venus. It was
12:25
drifted inwards, uh, was torn apart and the
12:27
debris essentially rained down on the planet.
12:31
Um, the
12:34
next step would be essentially
12:38
to look for any, what you might
12:41
call geological evidence,
12:44
uh, on Venus that would
12:47
give you some
12:49
hints that this is what happened. Uh,
12:52
forgive me, Andrew, because I think I'm about
12:54
to sneeze.
12:55
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I've been fighting one for the last few
12:57
minutes too.
12:58
Professor Fred Watson: Why are we both sneezing? It's the time of
13:01
year. That's right. Uh, let me, um, quote
13:04
again, uh, Stephen Cain. Uh,
13:06
finding direct observational evidence is
13:09
pretty tough. A moon lost billions
13:12
of years ago would leave little to no direct
13:14
trace we can point a telescope at today
13:17
so we can't observe the event itself.
13:20
However, there are indirect avenues. For
13:22
example, if a moon was destroyed
13:25
and its debris rained down on Venus, it could
13:28
have left a chemical fingerprint in the
13:30
planet's surface or atmosphere. And upcoming
13:33
missions to Venus, including NASA's da
13:35
Vinci, uh, will measure the
13:38
atmospheric composition in detail. So it is
13:41
possible, uh, that we might eventually, um,
13:45
find something. Uh, one other comment from
13:47
Stephen Cain is there's a broader test beyond
13:50
our solar system because our results predict
13:52
that slowly rotating Venus, like planets
13:55
around other stars, should generically
13:58
lack large moons. So as astronomers
14:00
begin searching for moons around exoplanets,
14:03
that's a prediction that can eventually be
14:06
checked against real data. Uh, so, yeah, it's
14:09
very, very nice piece of work. Uh, I think a
14:11
very interesting outcome as well.
14:13
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, and it sort of harps back to a storey
14:16
from a few weeks ago about, uh, how they
14:19
do think they have found continental size
14:24
anomalies, um, deep in our
14:26
crust that suggests parts of Theia
14:29
exist.
14:30
Professor Fred Watson: Might be parts of Theia. That's right, yes,
14:32
indeed. Yeah.
14:33
Andrew Dunkley: So, yeah, then you can draw a similarity
14:35
there. And so, yeah, there probably is
14:37
evidence if that's indeed what happened. But,
14:40
yeah. Ah, how do you find it?
14:43
Professor Fred Watson: Well, um, we're very, uh, resourceful, uh,
14:46
in that regard, I think. I think, um,
14:48
scientists, particularly astronomers, because
14:50
they, you know, they've got.
14:52
All they've got is what comes in, usually on
14:55
electromagnetic radiation, apart from a few
14:57
satellites going here and there. Uh, but,
15:00
yes, um, uh,
15:03
uh, I think we might well
15:06
get some hints as to whether this has
15:08
happened in the past or not.
15:09
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Okay. Uh if you'd like to read up
15:12
on that storey uh great article@spare.com or
15:15
you can uh see the pre peer
15:18
reviewed paper on the repository site
15:21
arXiv. This is space Nuts with Andrew
15:23
Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson Watson.
15:28
Professor Fred Watson: Roger, you're lots Space Nuts.
15:31
Andrew Dunkley: Okay, let's uh get close to
15:34
home. In fact uh, we're getting right down
15:37
and dirty into our own atmosphere with this
15:39
storey and it's got to do with satellite
15:41
pollution. Now the number of satellites that
15:44
are starting to appear in our sky is
15:47
somewhat um, disturbing when it comes to
15:50
um optical astronomy. In fact I
15:52
saw a photo the other day where this problem
15:55
was exhibited. Uh where they'd done a little
15:58
bit of time lapse and the
16:01
satellite that image were
16:04
horrifying. Uh if you're an astronomer they
16:07
were probably really interesting for
16:09
other people. But uh, it looked the same as
16:12
um the contrails that you see
16:15
airliners leaving the sky. Um
16:19
but it was actually the light reflection
16:21
images of the uh satellites. But the
16:24
other problem with them is when they come
16:26
back down uh, they burn up and
16:29
what happens to all that stuff? And that's
16:31
the nuts and bolts of this storey.
16:34
They've chased a couple down to try and
16:36
figure out what happens to you know
16:39
everything that burns off them.
16:42
Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. So and um, it is a
16:45
um. This uh essentially
16:47
experiment is very well timed because at the
16:49
moment we're with the Starlink
16:52
constellation which I think is kind of
16:54
already past 12,000 spacecraft. Uh
16:58
not all of them functioning. Um
17:01
those are re entering at about one a day.
17:04
That's the current rate. And every time one
17:06
of those re uh enters the atmosphere it burns
17:09
up at about 90 kilometres or thereabouts
17:12
above the Earth's surface and its
17:15
contents, its metallic contents become part
17:18
of the upper atmosphere. Uh and we
17:21
already are seeing um, higher levels of
17:24
certain oxides of aluminium and things of
17:26
that sort.
17:26
Uh uh that are probably the result of
17:29
these uh reentering satellites. So
17:33
uh, the European Space
17:36
Agency uh has
17:39
I uh think uh in
17:41
collaboration with a number of other
17:44
organisations. Uh what they've done
17:46
is they have decided that they're going to
17:49
cheque this out directly. And the way they've
17:52
done that is by hiring a private jet as
17:55
you do. Um and it's
17:59
using uh, that uh private jet. They've
18:01
basically chased a pair of reentering
18:04
satellites. Um both were due to re
18:07
enter uh at about the same um
18:10
place I think a day apart. Um and so
18:13
what they've done is um, actually
18:16
basically followed these In a jet which
18:18
is festooned with uh
18:21
spectrometers, images, uh and
18:23
all of the equipment that we use to try
18:26
and learn about what's happening when
18:29
things burn up in space. Uh and
18:32
so uh, um essentially
18:35
uh the satellites tracked
18:38
uh in detail uh I like
18:41
um the spacecraft that
18:44
they chose because there was a constellation
18:47
called Cluster which I think we might have
18:49
talked about many years ago. A European Space
18:51
Agency constellation which had four
18:54
individual spacecraft uh which
18:57
were named after well known
18:59
dances, Tango, samba, rumba and
19:02
Salsa.
19:03
Uh were the quartet of uh the Cluster
19:06
spacecraft and they actually were studying
19:09
the way the Earth's magnetic field uh
19:12
interacts with the solar wind. And they were
19:15
launched back in I think back in the 90s.
19:17
It's a long, long time ago. But their
19:20
orbits um were
19:23
decaying and in fact uh, Rumba and Salsa
19:26
I think decayed quite some time ago. So what
19:29
was uh in question here was since
19:32
they you know these spacecraft are still
19:34
sending telemetry back so you know what their
19:36
velocity is, you when and where these things
19:39
are going to re. Enter the atmosphere. Uh and
19:41
it was Tango and Samba which
19:44
were basically uh,
19:47
um they had controlled RE entry and
19:50
it was basically that re entry that was uh
19:53
observed by this mission using ah
19:56
a chaser jet, if I can put it that way
19:59
uh over the South Pacific Ocean. So
20:02
uh, what we've seen I think is that this was
20:05
successful. There's been um
20:09
a bit of a report saying that um
20:12
the outcome of the experiment was successful
20:14
and that they got the data that they wanted.
20:16
I'm uh not sure whether we yet have the
20:19
details of what that
20:21
analysis was, you know in terms of
20:24
what the exact uh effects on the
20:27
atmosphere and the byproducts that
20:30
came from uh the reentry of these two
20:32
spacecraft.
20:33
So I think those results are still yet
20:36
uh to be described but at least the
20:38
experiments are worked. Uh apparently there
20:40
were eight scientists on board this aircraft
20:43
and they um observed
20:46
the satellites from about 90 kilometres
20:49
down to something like 65 to
20:52
70 kilometres when they stopped, basically
20:54
stopped burning up. Uh so
20:58
they were then completely vaporised. Uh so
21:00
these details uh as I said we hope we will
21:03
find a little bit more uh as the results
21:06
come from that group of
21:09
scient, they've
21:11
Andrew Dunkley: finished analysing the data and
21:14
start uh publishing uh it could
21:16
turn into something quite controversial
21:18
because if they reveal that there's some
21:21
really nasty stuff coming out of all of this,
21:24
you know a handful of satellites doing this
21:26
probably no big deal but we're going to be
21:29
talking over decades to come
21:32
tens of thousands burning up,
21:35
probably more.
21:36
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. When it's one a day, uh, which it is
21:39
now, then, uh, you're potentially in trouble.
21:41
And you're absolutely right, Andrew, because
21:44
one of the possibilities is something
21:47
we thought we'd licked back in the 1980s, and
21:50
that's ozone depletion. Um, that's one
21:53
of the possible outcomes of this. And that
21:56
would then become a really hot political
22:00
hot potato politically. Uh, given
22:02
that you've now got people saying, well,
22:04
we've got all these pollutants that are
22:06
actually starting to affect the behaviour of
22:08
the upper atmosphere. And on the other side
22:10
of the coin, you've got people saying, well,
22:11
we need Starlink because it's actually a
22:13
vital, uh, service, it's vital
22:15
infrastructure now on so many fronts. You've
22:18
got a really quite interesting situation
22:20
emerging, I think.
22:21
Andrew Dunkley: Sure have.
22:22
Professor Fred Watson: And,
22:24
Andrew Dunkley: yeah,
22:28
where do you point the finger, if you want to
22:30
put it that way? Uh, how do you, um,
22:33
curtail these effects and whose
22:35
responsibility does it become?
22:38
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, you start looking, I think, at, um,
22:40
what you make your spacecraft out of. The
22:42
Japanese have demonstrated that you can make
22:44
wooden spacecraft and operate them
22:46
successfully. Uh, and I think wood
22:48
is one of the more benign, uh,
22:51
materials, um, that would burn up. Of
22:54
course, you still got soot and carbon coming
22:56
off that. But, um, it might not be the
22:59
aluminium that, um, is
23:01
certainly the biggest constituent of, of what
23:04
is coming from present satellite reentries.
23:07
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, indeed. M. So, yeah, it's a case of,
23:10
watch this. Space.
23:11
Uh, we will probably learn more about this
23:14
and, uh, we'll tell you all about it when
23:17
that day comes. Um, but they'll be analysing
23:19
the data at the moment and,
23:22
uh, we hope it's good news, but I've got a
23:24
feeling it won't be, Fred Watson.
23:26
Professor Fred Watson: M. Yeah, I think you're right.
23:28
Andrew Dunkley: Okay. Uh, that is a storey you can Also
23:31
read@spare.com this is Space
23:34
Nuts. Andrew Dunc, frankly, here with
23:36
Fred Watson Watson,
23:41
Professor Fred Watson: Tranquilly Base here. The Eagle has landed.
23:44
Space Nuts.
23:46
Andrew Dunkley: Our final storey. Uh, Fred Watson,
23:48
takes us into the realm of science fiction,
23:51
at least in part. Uh, they have just
23:54
unveiled what might be
23:56
the new United, uh, States
23:59
Space Force uniforms.
24:02
And they've got tongues wagging
24:05
because they've drawn some similarities
24:07
between the uniforms. And when I first saw
24:10
them, my mind immediately went to,
24:13
um, SS uniforms of World War II.
24:15
Professor Fred Watson: Exactly.
24:17
Andrew Dunkley: And, uh, that is the controversy because they
24:19
do not sort of. I mean, it's the first
24:22
thing that comes to mind when you look at
24:24
these designs which have just been unveiled.
24:28
Professor Fred Watson: Um, and Just to clarify where this has come
24:30
from. It's come from Truth Social. Uh, it's
24:33
one of uh, President Trump's
24:37
basically, uh, uh, one of his posts on Truth
24:39
Social. The um, as yet
24:42
unconfirmed design is how it's being
24:44
described.
24:45
But yes, um, that was my thought too
24:48
when I looked at this. I thought, wait a
24:49
minute, I've seen that sort of thing before.
24:52
Um, but you are ah, probably aware as well of
24:55
the sort of science fiction links that there
24:58
are with uh, with this, where this
25:00
uniform is said to have come from.
25:02
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, this, uh, back in the
25:05
90s, the late 90s, uh, 1997, there was a
25:08
movie released based on a book called
25:10
Starship Troopers. And
25:13
anybody who's watched that film, and I've
25:14
watched it multiple times, it's a bit
25:17
tongue in cheek. Um, there's a lot of,
25:20
um, to use the Australian vernacular,
25:23
Jingo is a m. Minute. Um, but it
25:26
portrays a, ah, human society that is
25:29
very, very authoritari, very,
25:33
very super aggressive, very um,
25:36
competitive. Uh, lots of.
25:39
It would be a very tense place to live
25:42
if Earth as we know it,
25:45
um, was the way Starship Troopers
25:48
portrays human life. And they're at war
25:51
against the bugs, um, who live
25:54
on a planet called Clandathu. You know what's
25:57
sad about this, Fred Watson? I'm doing it all
25:58
from memory. And they have been shooting
26:01
asteroids at ear. And um, in the
26:04
movie they destroy the city of Buenos Aires.
26:06
And that sort of causes um,
26:09
the humans to up the ante in terms of
26:12
trying to eliminate the bugs. Uh, and
26:15
so it goes on. But what's striking about it,
26:18
not only the authoritarian,
26:21
um, nature of the military in
26:25
this film, is the uniforms.
26:28
They are dead set. Um, just
26:31
like the uniforms that have been
26:33
suggested as the new U.S. space Force
26:36
uniforms. I did a bit of research on this,
26:38
Fred Watson.
26:39
Um, uh, the uniforms in
26:42
um, the 1997 film
26:45
Starship Troopers were deliberately designed
26:48
by a costume designer, Ellen
26:50
mirojink, uh, to evoke
26:53
fascist aesthetics.
26:55
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, so.
26:56
Andrew Dunkley: So they're basically designed
26:59
around the Nazi military uniform.
27:02
That was deliberate. That was done on
27:04
purpose. And now we're seeing These new
27:06
uniforms, 2026,
27:09
um, being unveiled, um, based
27:12
on the uniforms from Starship Troopers
27:15
and um,
27:18
Star Wars. If you remember, um, the Empire
27:21
uniforms were of a similar ilk. They
27:24
are, look, don't get me wrong, they're quite
27:26
striking, quite striking. But
27:30
they immediately put you in um,
27:33
a mindset of going, whoa.
27:36
Professor Fred Watson: What?
27:39
Andrew Dunkley: You're not impressed? You're just going,
27:43
hello. What are we thinking here? Why are we
27:46
doing it this way. That's kind of the
27:49
reaction I had head.
27:51
Professor Fred Watson: And me too. Um, when, when I saw
27:54
it was the boots, I noticed first I thought,
27:56
wait a minute, I've seen that sort of thing
27:57
before.
27:58
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, Jack Boots.
27:59
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, exactly.
28:00
Andrew Dunkley: More or less. Yeah, yeah, they're quite,
28:02
um, I mean, I, I think
28:05
uniforms are an amazing thing. Uh, I, I don't
28:08
know where they originated. I, I did look it
28:10
up once and I, I, I think it was the British
28:13
or no, the Romans. The Romans, um, that
28:16
invented uniforms. But, um,
28:19
everybody has them now and, and some of them
28:21
are incredible. I mean, uniforms for some
28:23
reason make human beings look better
28:27
somehow. Um, and
28:31
these ones, I don't know if you're going to
28:33
get the right kind of psychological
28:36
reaction when, if they
28:39
go down this road. And that's a, that's a big
28:41
if, I guess.
28:43
Professor Fred Watson: I don't know where this storey's going
28:46
really, Andrew. And, um, you know, what
28:49
we are likely to see coming out of the Space
28:52
Force itself rather than just coming from the
28:54
President's fertile, uh, mind.
28:58
But, um, yes, I didn't find it
29:00
something that cheered me up particularly.
29:03
Uh, I thought it was very much along
29:06
the lines that you've described something
29:08
that we could probably well do with that.
29:10
Uniformly so.
29:11
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. But what I would say to, uh, Space
29:14
Nuts listeners is have a look for yourself
29:17
and be your own judge. Don't, you don't have
29:19
to believe what we think. Um, we're just.
29:23
As soon as I opened the storey that
29:25
Fred Watson sent me, I went, what is this?
29:29
Before I read a thing, I saw the picture and
29:31
went, what are we looking at here? And then I
29:34
read the caption and went, no,
29:38
seriously. Ah, anyway, have a look.
29:41
Uh, you can see it@, uh,
29:43
spaceconnectonline.com
29:46
it's um. Yeah, or just do
29:49
a search through your favourite search engine
29:51
of United States Space Force Service
29:54
dress uniform, I think is what it's called.
29:57
Um, and. Yeah, well,
30:01
we'll leave it to you to decide what you
30:03
think. Uh, ah, it's a
30:06
difficult one because, uh, it's so divisive.
30:09
Just that look in
30:11
itself without saying anything, um, would
30:14
be instantly divisive, I venture to
30:17
say.
30:18
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, you're probably right.
30:21
Um, yeah, to me
30:24
it just portrays arrogance of a kind that,
30:26
um, we could do without.
30:28
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, possibly so.
30:30
Professor Fred Watson: All right.
30:31
Andrew Dunkley: Uh, yeah, As I said, spaceconnectonline.com
30:34
if you want to cheque that out. And I think
30:36
we are just about done.
30:38
Fred Watson, thank you so much.
30:39
Professor Fred Watson: It's a pleasure, Andrew. Always interesting
30:41
to chew the fat over these issues, no matter
30:43
what they are. We did get away from our
30:46
normal stocking trade there, uh, with the
30:48
uniforms. It's not often we talk about, uh,
30:51
fashion in terms of, um, you know, space
30:53
fashion, if I can put it that way.
30:55
Andrew Dunkley: Well, that's what it is, isn't it, really?
30:57
Space fashion.
30:58
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
30:58
Andrew Dunkley: Well, we've talked about the flight
31:01
suits, certainly.
31:02
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, we have.
31:03
Andrew Dunkley: When they've done major upgrades on those and
31:05
their incompatibility between space agencies,
31:08
so.
31:08
Professor Fred Watson: That's right.
31:09
Andrew Dunkley: There's always controversy somewhere, even in
31:12
fashion. Uh, thanks, Fred Watson. We'll catch
31:14
you on the next episode.
31:15
Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great.
31:16
Andrew Dunkley: Thank you, Professor Fred Watson Watson,
31:18
astronomer at large. And don't forget to
31:20
visit us online between
31:21
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31:24
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Ask me anything link up the top, or you can
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31:42
thanks to all our supporters, uh, for, uh,
31:44
getting behind us with a cup of coffee and a
31:47
cream bun.
31:49
Uh, and thanks to Huw in the studio, uh, who
31:51
couldn't, uh, be with us today. He wanted,
31:53
uh, to be the first in line for a Space Force
31:56
uniform. And he's still waiting.
31:59
And from me, Andrew Dunkley, we'll catch you
32:01
on the next episode of Space Nuts. Until
32:03
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32:06
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