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Gravitational Wave Wonders, Lunar Orbits & Satellite Showdowns: #476 Q&A · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

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  Speaker 1: Hi there, Thanks for joining us on a Q and
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a edition of Space Nuts. Andrew Dunpley here. Hope you're well.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I hope you can stick around a while because we've
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: got questions from all over the world and they will
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: be focusing on gravitational waves, an interesting question about how
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: they behave or do they behave in certain ways. We're
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: going to talk orbiting space stations and super constellations, which
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: is certainly an issue around the planet at the moment.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: An observation, I suppose with a question as the kicker
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: about dark energy and ultra mass black holes and noncompatible
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: spacesuits has been brought up again. We'll talk about all
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: of that on this edition of Space Nuts.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Fifteen second to the Channel ten nine ignition Space Nuts
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: or three two.
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  Speaker 1: Space Nuts. As when I report it, Mel Good, he's back.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know why he keeps coming back, but he's
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: back again. It's Professor Fred. What's an hello?
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  Speaker 3: Fred?
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  Speaker 4: I'm only back because I can't actually get out of
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: this room. I'm just locked in here all the time.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, I tell you you're never left.
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  Speaker 4: No, it's the Tardis effect.
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  Speaker 1: Shall we get straight into it and answer some questions.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I think we should yes, or at least pretend to. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: this first question comes from Colin. I'm not sure where
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Colin is, but he asks, is there any evidence that
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  Speaker 1: gravitational waves reflect and or refract like pressure or light waves.
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  Speaker 1: I know we've talked about gravitational waves a lot, but
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if we've really analyzed this particular aspect
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  Speaker 1: of their behavior, if it exists at all.
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  Speaker 4: We haven't. And it's a good question because we you know,
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  Speaker 4: we know that lightweight which are transverse waves, so like
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: things are vibrating kind of horizontally or vertically, they are
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  Speaker 4: refracted and reflected. And sound waves are too, which are
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  Speaker 4: pressure waves. They are longitudinal waves changes in pressure. Now,
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  Speaker 4: gravitational waves are neither of those things. They are quadruple waves,
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  Speaker 4: which means that space is sort of distorting in a
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  Speaker 4: peculiar way when they travel through. But here's the crunch, Andrew,
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  Speaker 4: And there's Jordy agreeing with me, which probably means that
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  Speaker 4: on his back. So you'll go berserk in a minute.
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  Speaker 4: But that's all right. Here's the crunch. How do you
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  Speaker 4: so think about refraction? This is the bending of light
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  Speaker 4: when light passes into for example, a piece of glass.
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  Speaker 4: Why does light refract in a piece of glass? Why
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  Speaker 4: does its angle change? And it's because the speed of
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  Speaker 4: light in a piece of glass is lower than it
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  Speaker 4: is in free air or a vacuum, and so the
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  Speaker 4: light waves are slowed down when they pass into the glass,
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  Speaker 4: and that produces the bending phenomena refraction. Now, gravitational waves
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  Speaker 4: are not like that. They always travel at the speed
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  Speaker 4: of light, so they're not refracted in the same way
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  Speaker 4: that we would imagine light being refracted. That phenomenon doesn't
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  Speaker 4: exist for gravitational waves. What does exist, though, is we
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  Speaker 4: know that space time is distorted by matter that comes
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  Speaker 4: from Einstein's general theory of relativity, and space time is distorted,
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  Speaker 4: but light wants to follow the distortion. In other words,
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  Speaker 4: the light doesn't know that it's going through distorted space time,
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  Speaker 4: and so it just follows the distortion. And that's why
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  Speaker 4: we see gravitational lenses. Because the space time around at
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  Speaker 4: cluster of galaxies is distorted. The light just goes on
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  Speaker 4: its merry way at the same speed, and it's not refraction.
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  Speaker 4: It's gravitational lensing. It's bending by gravity, and gravitational waves
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  Speaker 4: behave in the same way. So they do bend, but
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  Speaker 4: it's not through refraction, it's through gravitational distortion of space.
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  Speaker 1: Work that one, now, so that means gravitational waves just
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  Speaker 1: keep going.
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  Speaker 4: They're going what they think is a straight line, but
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  Speaker 4: the straight line isn't straight because it's because the space
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  Speaker 4: is distorted by it. They're called geodesics. It's it's basically
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  Speaker 4: how so that's the way we believe orbits work in
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  Speaker 4: in relativity. You know, if you've got a planet that's
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  Speaker 4: got something in orbit around it, the planet produces a
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  Speaker 4: well of gravity. You can think of it as a
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  Speaker 4: trampoline distorted, and an object basically thinks it's going in
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  Speaker 4: a straight line through that distorted space, but actually it's
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  Speaker 4: going around in a circle in an orbit. That's sort
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  Speaker 4: of and the same thing kind of happens to both
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  Speaker 4: light waves and gravitational waves. They think they're going along
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  Speaker 4: the straight line, but they're not because the straight line
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  Speaker 4: is bent by gravitational pool. I'm not explaining this very well.
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  Speaker 4: I can see that. I can see by the expression
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  Speaker 4: on your face that you think it's lost it altogether.
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  Speaker 4: I have no idea what it's still about.
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  Speaker 1: What kind of bent my mind out of shape. Is
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  Speaker 1: I expected you to say the opposite. I expect you
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  Speaker 1: to say, now, gravitational waves. There are power under themselves,
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  Speaker 1: and they will do what they like and nothing will
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  Speaker 1: stop them from hitting a straight line. But that's not true.
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  Speaker 1: Although they think, yeah, well it is.
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  Speaker 4: They behave as though they're following a straight line, but
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  Speaker 4: that straight line is distorted by the gravitational pull of
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  Speaker 4: something else, you know, like a cluster of galaxies.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they are affected.
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  Speaker 4: They are affected, yes, but it's not quite the same
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  Speaker 4: as reflection or refraction as Colins proposed.
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  Speaker 1: Interesting, very interesting.
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  Speaker 4: It's a great question, Colin, and thank you for that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolute ripper. All right, thanks Colin. Our next question
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  Speaker 1: comes from Michael Whiting in Chroma in the UK. Hi,
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  Speaker 1: Andrew and Fred long term listener, and would like to
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: say thank you for a brilliant podcast which I look
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: forward to every week. Thank you. Thinking about the future,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: going back to the Moon, et cetera, is it possible
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: to have a space station orbiting both Earth and the
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Moon in say technical terms a figure eight. I'm assuming
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: it is possible, but radiation shielding is more the issue.
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  Speaker 1: This would surely make it easier to transit for Moon.
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  Speaker 1: That's his first question. When we deal with that one,
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  Speaker 1: I'll ask the second question. So I like this idea
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  Speaker 1: if it's feasible.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: Well, it is absolutely And that's actually if you've got
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: to look back to nineteen sixty eight and look at
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: the trajectory of Apollo eight exactly what it did. It
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: followed a figure eight orbit around the Earth and the Moon,
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  Speaker 4: and that you could set up a stable for a
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  Speaker 4: bit like that, But it doesn't really make for an
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  Speaker 4: easier transit for Moon missions. Because if you've got something
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  Speaker 4: that's in a figure eight of a figure of eight
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  Speaker 4: orbit's going from Earth to going between the Earth and
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: the Moon. When you you know, I suppose you imagine
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  Speaker 4: that's the kind of space station you want to jump
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  Speaker 4: on board it. To jump on board, you've got to
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  Speaker 4: have a spacecraft that is following exactly that orbit. Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: you've gotta loannch it and get it into that orbit
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  Speaker 4: in order for you to make the rendezvous between the two. Now, yes,
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  Speaker 4: maybe if you have a something like the Gateway that
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: the Gateway satellite which is being proposed as part of
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: the Artemis program, in orbit around the Moon, then that's
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  Speaker 4: like a space station which has lots and lots of
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  Speaker 4: facilities on board, which are a little transit shuttle might
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: not have a transit shuttle, might look more like a
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  Speaker 4: crew dragon spacecraft or you know what are they called?
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: I can never remember its name, the bullying what are you?
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: Star liners? What that was the name I thought of,
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  Speaker 4: and I was thinking, No, it's not a star lineer
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: that's an aircraft.
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  Speaker 5: No, but it is.
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  Speaker 4: It is. It's a star liner, yeah, the star liner.
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  Speaker 4: So you know, they're very modest pieces of equipment. They
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: can hold up to seven people, but there will be
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  Speaker 4: a crowded, crowded house. So I guess you could do
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: that if you've got this sort of gateway like space
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  Speaker 4: station that is constantly in a figure of eight orbit,
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  Speaker 4: and you zoom your passengers up to it, hop on
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  Speaker 4: and it acts like a boss, then you've got to
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  Speaker 4: hop off at the other end before it brings you
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  Speaker 4: back to Earth. I'm not sure that it would make
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: life easier. I think it might make life a bit
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  Speaker 4: more complicated. But it could be done, Yes, it could
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  Speaker 4: be done.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, so you're thinking, is right, Michael, But
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  Speaker 1: operationally might prove too much of a headache. Michael's got
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: another question. With China adding a new currently visible satellite constellation,
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  Speaker 1: our discussions being had to decrease the visibility of the
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: satellites as was achieved with space x Starlink constellations. Follow
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  Speaker 1: up question to that, does China, Thanks Mike, and this.
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  Speaker 4: This question goes right to the heart of stuff. I
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: talk about a lot, and you know part of my role.
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  Speaker 4: There's the astronomer on the loose. The answer is yes,
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  Speaker 4: kean Fan I think is the name of the satellite?
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  Speaker 4: Am I have that long? Because it's a few days
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  Speaker 4: since I looked at it. It means a thousand sales.
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: That's the name of it. And there fifteen thousand satellites
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  Speaker 4: I think have been filed for in this constellation. All
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  Speaker 4: the evidence I think last time I looked there were
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  Speaker 4: about forty in orbit. Now with mounting evidence that they
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: are pretty bright. Then as use exactly as as Michael says,
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  Speaker 4: SpaceX did a lot of work to reduce the visible
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  Speaker 4: light profile of the Stylink satellites. We don't think that's
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  Speaker 4: happened with Kian Fan, and we don't really have any
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  Speaker 4: avenues into the company that is running them in China.
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  Speaker 4: Now my hope is that this will change because we
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  Speaker 4: now have satellite constellation interference to dark and quiet skies.
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  Speaker 4: That is now an agender item on the Committee on
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, the UN Committee on
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: the Peaceful Use is of outer Space. They have a
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  Speaker 4: Science and Technical subcommittee and it's now an agender item
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  Speaker 4: on that committee, so that raises its profile. China is
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  Speaker 4: a player in this forum. They come to the party
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  Speaker 4: with the kopuas that committee. So my hope is that
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  Speaker 4: there will be avenues for improvement with that, But at
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  Speaker 4: the moment we don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a pity. I mean, they have a vested
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  Speaker 1: interest in space exploration and understanding as much as anybody else,
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  Speaker 1: so I suspect that it would be in their best
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  Speaker 1: interest and they would benefit from insulating their satellites, so
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  Speaker 1: to speak, to reduce the impact on observational and radio
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  Speaker 1: astronomy from the ground.
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  Speaker 4: That's right. In fact, that's exactly the comment. I was
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  Speaker 4: in a meeting a few months ago now and I
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  Speaker 4: made exactly that comment that China has a very large
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  Speaker 4: cohort of astronomers who are themselves using well amongst the
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  Speaker 4: biggest single dish radio telescope in the world, the fast
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  Speaker 4: telescope five hundred meter radio dish, and they also have
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  Speaker 4: optical telescopes, so they would have a voice within China
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  Speaker 4: and hopefully the space industry in China will listen to them.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: So so my you know, I'm an eternal optimist Andrew,
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  Speaker 4: as you know. But the answer to Mike's last question
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  Speaker 4: does China listen? Is we hope they will.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, fair point and really great question to ask. Probably
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: it's a scary question to ask because you just you
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: don't know what China they get. They get offended at
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: things out of the blue, and you know, and they
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: stopped buying our wine and thanks it.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: Was twenty billion dollars worth of of trade exactly. Yeah.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Anyway, great questions, Mike, Thanks for sending them in. This
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: is Space Nuts Andrew Uncley with Professor Fred what's a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Space Nuts. Yep, it's a Q and A edition where
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: we answer audience questions. And we've got an audio question
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: now from one of our regular sender in errors. It's
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Rusty for donny.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Brook and Andrew, it's Rusty in donny Brook. When the
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Dark Energy said you really suck? What did the ultramassive
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: black holes, say in response, nothing, it was to taken
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: aback to get a word out. Now, if black hole
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: truly generate dark energy, it's got to be a local
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: phenomenon because our study of gravitational waves have shown us
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: that space time distorts at speed of light.
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: The effect would be too small to be able to
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: measure it in stellar mass black holes, but as we
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: get bigger the effect would be too clutted in super
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: massive black holes in galaxies too, so that leaves ultra
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: massive black holes in the center of large.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Which, if there are any. The hair Wooden astronomer specializing
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: in multiple objects spectrometry Fred make observations to gain support
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: for the existence of such ultramatic black holes and the
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: granular nature of dark energy.
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: So this would replace the notion that large scale structure
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: of the.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Universe was caused by tonic oscillations in the early universe.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Two.
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: So thanks space nuts, have a good and.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Thanks Rusty. I'm always worried about Rusty because he just
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: tries to throw your curveball occasionally, Fred, And I don't
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: know if he's just tried again.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, the lovely thing about Rusty is that
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: in three minutes. He rewrites all the textbooks. It throws away.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: The big bank throws away. Dark energes don't throw away.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: They do bag.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: But I see where he's the point he's making because
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: we've covered this idea before that dark the ultimate source
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: of dark energy might be black holes. That's some research
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: that I think was done earlier this year, and so
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: Rusty's conclusion from that is that dark energy must be clumpy,
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: which I think is a reasonable conclusion. But I don't
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: know that that is the conclusion that's drawn by the
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: people who are the proponent of this theory. I need
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: to go and have and I look back at the
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: theory of black holes being the source of dark energy.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: But if there were, so, look, I'll rise to the
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: challenge as a multi object spectroscopist, which I'm not really anymore,
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: but I was, I wouldn't that this would not be
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: the technique, the technique that you'd use though to detect them.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: So what what Rusty's proposing is that there are these
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  Speaker 4: things ultramassive black holes, which I guess we might say
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: are more than one hundred billion times the massive the sun.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: They will there monsters, absolute monsters, and they're lurking around
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: in the voids between galaxies. Now, those voids are part
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: of the sort of honeycomb structure of the universe that
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: we think was imprinted in the Big Bang. That the
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: work that people do on the physics of the Big
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: Bang event tell you that there will be these strings
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: of dark matter which would collect hydrogen gas, which would
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: form stars and galaxies and so. But those strings and
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: sheets of dark matter make essentially what looks like a
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: foam or a honeycomb pattern when you look on very
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: large scales. So in the middle of that, there are
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: very few galaxies.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: So if you put.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: An ultra massive black hole in the middle of that,
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: what would you see? And the answer is you would
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: expect to see when you looked in that direction, because
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: you'll be able to see the galaxies on the far
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: side of that void, a sheet of galaxies. You would
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: expect their images to be distorted in the way that
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: we are familiar with gravitational lensing by a massive massive object.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: And so I don't believe that such distortions have been found.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: In other words, you know what you might see is
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: is nothing, because there's a black hole that sorry, you'd
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: see no evidence of something in the in.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: The in the.
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: Intermediate distance, but in the far distance you'll be able
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: to see galaxies and clusters of galaxies whose light would
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: be distorted by the black hole that you couldn't see
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: in the foreground, if you see what I'm saying. So
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: I think we have evidence already of such ultra massive
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: black holes.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, So avoid with a black hole would give you
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: a vision of distorted galaxies and it's behind it, whereas
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: a void without a black hole, you just wouldn't see anything.
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: You'd see the galaxies, but they wouldn't look any from
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: what they normally look. Yeah right, you know you can
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: we know from particularly from the new web images, just
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: how distorted the shapes of galaxies are when when they're
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: seen through a gravitational lens caused by a cluster of
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: galaxies in the foreground. So yeah, it's an interesting question though,
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: as Rusty is always always are Yeah, yeah, he's always thinking.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: That's the thing, and that's that's what it's all about,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to provoke thought and come up with ideas and try
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: to try to challenge those in the in the astronomical
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: seats of power, such as your good self read yeah,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: always always throwing out the challenge, Thank you, Rusty pace Nuts.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: And our final question reflects on an issue we spoke
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: about but fairly recently. This comes from Mark.
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  Speaker 4: Hi.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: It's Mark in London and Canada. I was wondering you
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: were talking recently about the astronauts being stranded and the
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Boeing spacesuit being incompatible with the SpaceX vehicle. I was wondering,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: what does that mean? Why can't they just wear their suit?
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: What does the soup plug into the vehicle or what's
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: the incompatibility? Appreciate an explanation of that, Thanks, guys, and
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: I figure hughes but in that studio for the best
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: part of the decade. So it's time to free who
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: when just started a campaign to let them go on?
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks, start a petition, Mark, because I'm not going to
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: help him. Gosh, people are starting to sympathize with Hugh
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: and starting to worry me a lot. I'm sounding really
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: evil now you are.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, look, God, I think I think he
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: deserves a break. Really, he's got us to put up
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: with for a start. Yeah, well that's true, that's very true.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Mark asks about space suit compatibility. Now we go back
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: to that situation where there were I think, with three
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: astronauts on the International Space Station who couldn't get back
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: on the Boeing star Liner because of a fault, so
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: it was sent back empty and they were to be
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: returned on a space X.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Rocket.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah if you like. But their suits, the Boeing suits
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: didn't work in the space X vehicle, and there was
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: talk about sending them back in their underpants or something
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: because they just, you know, their suits were useless an emergency.
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, it would two do astronauts, not three
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: as well. It's sort of Tony Williams and Butch will Moore.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, and they're coming back. Are they still there?
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they don't have it. That still February, that's right.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they're the bowing star Liners back.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: All good and well, but they're still up there. Mark's
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: question is a good one. Why can't they just wear
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: their suits? What's the problem.
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: So what's happened is that when the SpaceX it's not
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: a rescue vehicle because it was already scheduled, but when
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: that SpaceX craft went up to rendezvous of the ISS,
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: which was last month, was it or earlier this month?
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: I can't remember. I think it's last month. It took
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: SpaceX suits up with it. It had a crew of
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: only two rather than four, and two empty suits for
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: Butcher Williams, sorry Butcher Willmore and Sunny Williams to come
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: back with, why do they need that? Well, the star
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: Liner and the SpaceX Dragon Capsule are completely different. They
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: were developed independently, and in many ways, NASA wanted two
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: different ways of transporting their astronauts up and down to
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: the space station because it gives them a choice, that's
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: the thing. And it turns out that it's just as
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: well that they did, because these you know, SpaceX has
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: had far fewer problems than than Boeing have. If we've
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: been waiting for Boeing, we would still be waiting, whereas
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: Crew Dragon has been flying I think since twenty twenty
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: or thereabouts, quite a while ago, maybe twenty twenty two. Anyway,
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: they're different spacecraft. They've got different you know, umbilical fittings,
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: they have different restraint fittings, an entirely different appearance. The
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: way to check this out, mark is to have a
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: look at the USA Today website, and there is a
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: story on that which is entitled you Can't use line
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: of spacesuits in a SpaceX capsule. These images show why,
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: and it becomes very obvious because all the plumbing is different.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: The spacesuits are themselves quite different. They've got different helmets,
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: different fittings, different boots, different gloves. Everything's different, and they're
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: not compassible. That's the bottom line. But it's a very
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: nice article. Actually, it's got some lovely diagrams and illustrations
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: showing the differences there. USA Today dot com is the
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: place to help for that.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I I just found it and I'm just having a
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: quick squeeze through it, and yeah, you're right, there's some
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: great diagrams and information in there. And now, just to
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: clarify it a bit more, I assume when you come
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: back to Earth you can technically do it without a spacesuit.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: So it's not like you have to have the suit
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: on so that you can breathe or anything like that.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: No, that's right. It's it's basically a precaution. You know,
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: if the if on re entry the spacecraft sprang a leak,
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: for example, and started depressurizing, if you didn't have your
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: spacesuit on, you'll be in big trouble. But that's an
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: unlikely event. They I don't think it's ever happened before,
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: so it's.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: It's it's.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: They could have done it exactly as you've said, had
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: there been an emergency, those astronauts Sonny Williams and Butch
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: Wilmore could have come back in a crew Dragon flight.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: I think they were rigging up sort of emergency seats
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: in one of the crew Dragon craft just in case
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: this needed to happen. But yeah, they wouldn't have had
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: had a spacesuit, so's it would not have been possible
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: for them to wear spaces on their way back. But
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: that will not now be the case. That's fixed because
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: there are now two extra SpaceX spacesuits on the Internet
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Space Station for them to come back when they returning February.
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: And I do like you know that that article that
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: I just mentioned, the one you've just found, it's got
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: a really nice diagram of what we mean by redundancy.
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: You know, redundancies to build in safety precautions. And you
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: can either do similar redundancy or dissimilar redundancy. And it's
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: dissimilar redundancy that we're talking about here. Two independently designed
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: systems performing the same task in two different ways.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: It sounds like VHS and beta maybe so, yes, that's right. Yeah,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: it reminds me of race car drivers. I mean you could,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: you could drive a race car in your underpants, but
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: it's much safer to way the fiery hard ensued. That's correct,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: of course, and a helmet absolutely. Yeah, all right, Mark,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: thank you very much. Great to hear from you. Thanks
• 26:55
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• 26:58
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• 27:02
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  Speaker 1: more potential listeners, and that's what it's all about. Thank you, Fred.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: We're done and dusted.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: Good job sounds great, Thanks Andrew, and we'll talk again too.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: We will, indeed, and am I going to release who
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: from the studio today. Nope, I am not, and I've
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: kept him on mute for the entire episode. And from
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: me Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company. We'll catch you
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: You'll be listening to the Space That's podcast.
• 28:02
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• 28:08
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• 28:12
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