Latest / Made of Stars / Ax-3 Mission Set to Take International Crew to ISS

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Ax-3 Mission Set to Take International Crew to ISS · Made of Stars

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  Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics, and
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  space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been known to learn about astronomical
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  phenomenon, the scientific method, and expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism
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  and uranus. Listen, that's your own risk. Go ahead. When made
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  of stars, made them stars, madies. When made of stars, you
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  could be from high they would New Mexicomas. We're all stars when we are
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  made of stars. I'm Wes Carrol, joined by'm my good friend doctor Shawn
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  Cruising from Columbus State Universities Coca Cola Space Science. That are more thing Sean,
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  Hey, Wes, it's great to be here today. We have some
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  cool stories basically about upcoming things. I get well. One is a look
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  back as far as it's exciting because it's being opened, I guess for the
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  first time. But we'll get to the Osiris REX container in a few minutes,
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  and we'll get to Venus eventually. Literally. But we're going to talk
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  about SpaceX and a launch that was supposed to happen yesterday and it is now
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  going to apparently happen today presumably. I mean as much of a chance for
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  certain it happening as I guess yesterday. There's always a chance, right,
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  There's always a chance they're going to have to delay it. There is,
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  especially when they throw out reasons like they have this time, which is that
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  they simply quote had to have time to quote complete pre launch checkouts and data
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  analysis on the view vehicle. Yeah. Now, as Wes and I were
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  discussing just briefly off air right before the start of the show, does it
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  feel like they should have done that before launch day? I mean information that
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  would have been useful yesterday, that kind of thing, you know, where
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  you to quote the wedding singer. I mean, it just feels like something
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  that could have been planned out ahead of time. Yeah. I mean,
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  you have human beings. They're going to get on a rocket and they're going
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  to go to space yep, and you need that rocket to work. So
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  maybe like pre launch checkouts and data analysis on the vehicle should have been completed.
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  I mean, far be it from me to give SpaceX a hard time.
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  I'm just wondering. I'm just curious, is that something that they should
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  have maybe have maybe gone ahead and done. Well, let me ask you
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  this, because this is what what was you know, released in a in
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  a statement, I guess about the postponement. And I'm just going to tell
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  you from my personal experience. And again I don't I don't want to to
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  lay any mistrust in anyone's direction, other than to say that whenever I've been
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  on an airplane and they say, ladies and gentlemen, we were tweaking something
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  mild and the landing gear, we're getting ready to take off, it's gonna
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  be a few minutes, I just assume that that means that one of the
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  engines failed. Like that's what I assumed the problem is. And they're just
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  giving us some real like maybe they needed to, you know, adjust the
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  Johnson rod on the landing gear while they were at it, but that wasn't
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  really the problem. That maybe there was a giant crack in the windshield of
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  the plane or you know, something that would have been significantly a bigger problem.
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  So is there any chance. I don't want to put you down that
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  path, but anyway, I just wonder if this is really what the problem
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  was, if there was something else going on. I was recently at the
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  airport and was delayed for quite some time awaiting a signature. That is when
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  I heard that's what they came on a say hours, we're just needing a
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  signature. Waiting for a signature. Yeah, waiting for a signature means they
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  got a problem with the whole fuel system and they're rerouting the whole fuel line
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  to the right engine or something. So it's like, I got to get
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  a signature on this. Yeah, so the signature says we re routed the
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  fuel line correctly to THEE. That's good, that's all right. Yeah,
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  let's wait for that signature. Then that's all right. Signature that you're looking
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  for. I mean, in my head, I've got a whole series of
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  problems I can come up with, and rarely are they anywhere close to what
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  they're actually telling you. In one of my scenarios, I was pretty certain
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  that the wing had fallen off and they were putting it back on. Hopefully
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  I'm just gonna say, hopefully SpaceX is at a higher stand Yeah, hopefully
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  so, hopefully so. But they just need a couple of signatures and they'll
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  be ready to go. Well, that's what the checklist is, right,
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  it's about signatures. I'm guessing they have to somebody's got to sign off on
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  that check last in that data. Now go all right, So this is
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  we haven't really discussed this. This is the ax three mission Axiom. It's
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  all commercial, it's a fully commercial crew. It is the first all European
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  crew to go to the International Space Station. And so who's on board this
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  all commercial crew from Axiom riding a SpaceX Falcon nine and Dragon capsule up to
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  the International Space Station. Well, it's a name you've probably heard before.
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  Michael Lopez Allegria, Michael Lopez Alagrea space Shuttle astronaut. Definitely an American US
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  NASA astronaut, but was born in Madrid, Spain, so he has dual
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  citizenship, so that qualifies. And then Walter Volati from Italy, Alper Gazarovchi
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  from Turkey, and Marcus Vant from Sweden. So this is the crew,
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  all commercial astronauts, all either members of the Axiom staff or people who have
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  paid their way on to the vehicle to go. So this is part of
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  that new era of spaceflight where it's not just NASA and Russian astronauts going to
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  the National Space Station and taking up their European or Japanese partners. Now we
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  have commercial companies sending commercial crews to ISS and they're going up to do experiments.
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  So they have thirty scientific experiments and demonstrations that they're going to do on
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  board while they're up there that are focused on human physiology and technology industrial advancements,
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  according to SpaceX. So this is all supposed to have launched as we're
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  recording our podcast and getting ready to upload it. It was all supposed to
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  go yesterday, but then they decided they needed to do well, they needed
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  to complete a couple of pre launch checkouts and some data analysis apparently, so
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  they shut yesterday's launch down and now we're awaiting a four forty nine pm Eastern
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  Time launch on today, Thursday, the eighteenth of January twenty twenty four.
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  We were hoping to bring you updates on this story, like, hey,
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  they made it to the space station, but we're just saying, well,
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  hey, they're waiting for those pre launch checkouts and data analysis to be done,
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  so maybe they can fly today. Yeah, and hopefully they're able to
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  get through all of that today so that they can successfully launch. So this
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  this crew that's going up you mentioned the international connection for it, and I
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  guess we're hitting that point where anytime they send up a crew like this,
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  it's going to be sort of a unique first and that this is the first
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  time people from these countries have all been there at the same time, and
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  in some cases, I guess for the first time ever. Yeah, that's
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  right. And so it's a new era of commercial commercial space is bringing more
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  of these kinds of firsts to bear. And it's fun, right, it's
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  a it's a really entertaining time for those of us who are space enthusiasts to
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  watch this. Now, I will tell you that it's it can be kind
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  of trying for the NASA insiders because they're used to very well, shall we
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  say, strict procedures and protocols, and when they have basically what they consider
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  to be space tourists going up, it does put a little bit of extra
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  strain on the operation side of things for NASA to have these folks up there.
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  But really this is the future of space in general, but also the
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  future of the International Space Station. And just as a side story, there
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  was a story earlier this week that NASA had put out for bids for companies
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  to apply to de orbit the International Space Station in twenty thirty. So companies
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  are going to be submitting proposals in February for ideas about how they can bring
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  the International Space Station down and basically control crash landed in the ocean. So
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  we're really looking at kind of a time frame now with the International Space Station.
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  Right, if that all comes to pass, it's twenty twenty four.
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  Now that's another six years. Six years can go by very quickly. So
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  the commercial companies are trying to take their best advantage of opportunities to get people
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  up to the International Space Station as quickly as possible, while also working on
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  their own private space stations to expand human lower orbit space exploration into the future.
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  Plus also, I guess give them obviously these different countries showing them the
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  importance of being able to have access to this and that moving forward for them.
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  All right, let's talk about one of my favorite stories that we've talked
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  about over the years, and it's been a long time coming of this Osyrus
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  REX story. And we its launch. We covered talking about the mission,
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  we covered the landing there, the touchdown, we covered the getting the samples,
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  the samples have been returned to Earth. Well, now finally they've opened
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  the container and out comes the venom symbiate from the Spider Man universe. No,
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  what what what do we know so far about what they have opened up?
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  I mean, I don't know that that didn't happen, that's true.
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  I mean it's not You can't prove a negative, right, yeah, exactly,
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  so, so that could have also happened, But we don't have any
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  We don't have any reporting on that at the moment. So there's a great
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  story on Universe Today and lots of other news outlets talking about this. Basically,
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  the canister called the tag SAM head, it's the top part of this
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  tag SAM instrument. It came home stuck, so they had twelve clamps that
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  clamped it down and it got so cold and outer space that two of the
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  clamps cold welded themselves shut and so they couldn't get the darn lid off.
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  And they've been working on a process now. Obviously they want to do these
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  things carefully because they don't want to contaminate or lose any of the sample,
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  if at all possible, So they've been working on a method to unstick these
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  two cold welded clamps on the top of the tag SAM to get their sample
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  out for several months. Well, they finally they actually had to invent a
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  new tool to do it, and so they invented and built this new tool.
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  The tool was able to go in and free up the stuck clamps and
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  then they were able to at least partially open the lid of the tag SAM
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  and remove the material that had been returned from the asteroid Binu back in September
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  of last year. So it's been a month's long kind of procedure trying to
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  get at the majority of those materials on the inside. And again they had
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  to do it in a very careful way because very valuable stuff, lots of
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  science needs to be perform formed, but it needs to be pristine in order
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  to carry out these scientific experiments. Principal investigator Dante Loretta from University of Arizona
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  says the bulk of the sample is now available and can be distributed to researchers
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  around the world waiting to run their own analysis of rocks and dust from the
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  asteroid called Benu. So good news coming in from the O Cyrus REX team,
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  and we're glad they finally got the lid off. You know, I've
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  had jars like that myself, you know, you know, you tap them,
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  you run the hot water on them. Yeah, you hit them with
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  a knife, you know, all those kinds of things, and it's just
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  hard to get the lid off. So yeah, you get that little rubber
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  thing that's got kind of a little you know, texture to it, and
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  you're trying to really get to the jar, and then eventually somebody opens it,
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  and you just have to convince yourself that you loosened it a little bit,
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  because you know, you were working at so much already and it couldn't
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  have just been them, especially maybe Dante's tool was, you know, the
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  little rubber thing. I'm not really sure. I used to have one that
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  had the name of a politician who ran for office and didn't win the election,
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  so there was like one try and office, and but then I'm stuck
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  with his name on my little rubber jar opener for you know, two decades
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  or something. So yeah, well that's good. At least you're getting some
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  it's recycling at its at its finest. The things that they're they're uh have
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  been working on, I guess with this mission from the beginning, uh,
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  just quickly things like formation of planets. I mean, this is being able
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  to really a time machine back as far as the the actual materials that they
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  were able to gather from this, and a better understanding of asteroids, and
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  then of course the big one. Uh, you know, we don't want
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  to have to go the path of sending Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck up to
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  to blow up an asteroid in space, but being able to protect ourselves and
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  defend ourselves should there be something making a direct path towards us. That particular
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  motion picture was just on again the other day and I just having to catch
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  a piece of it, and it's got really terrible science, but it's darned
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  entertainment. Yeah, it's fun. I wouldn't use it as a as a
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  textbook to teach your kids about space or proper space procedures, but it's really
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  fun. So it's like con Air. You know, it's not a great
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  it's not really a great movie, but it's a great movie. You know.
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  It's one of those deals where you're like, this is not what i'd
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  call a good movie, but this is fun. Plus we got that Aerosmith
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  song out of the asteroid one. All right, let's talk about this is
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  another And this is another story that we're kind of revisiting because we talked about
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  this a while back, but NASA getting ready, Well I guess they've taken
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  another step closer towards sending a mission to Venus. Yeah, so the NASA
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  NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Competition program, something we discussed earlier, was was held
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  and the theme of that program was Venus Exploration. Hey, what's your best
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  ideas for going up to Venus? Well, they found they found a winner.
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  And so there's a group led by the NASA Glenn Research Center by Jeffrey
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  Landish, aerospace engineer there, and they've selected one of their concepts for further
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  funding. And so the name of their concept, quite funny, is Sample
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  Return from the Surface of Venus. Okay, so like maybe not the most
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  creative name for a proposal, but anyway, there the proposal involves a lot
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  of platforms, and when exploring Venus, with its hellish like surface and it's
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  acid rain and its atmospheric pressure so so intense that it could crush cans on
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  the surface, you might want to stay in the clouds. And so that's
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  kind of what they're thinking about doing. They're going to put these balloon a
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  balloon platform as kind of a command center in the clouds of US about thirty
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  six miles up something to that effect, and from that high point command center
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  they're going to deploy a solar powered aircraft. And the solar powered aircraft.
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  Now, listen, there's been lessons learned on Mars. Right, aircraft can
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  fly in the atmospheres of other planets, and the Ingenuity helicopter has demonstrated that
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  very effectively on Mars. So now NASA is being more open to the idea
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  of aviation in the atmospheres of alien worlds. So there's a plane, a
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  solar plane. That solar plane can operate at that altitude and receive enough sunlight
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  to that vehicle that's equivalent to about what they would receive flying around on the
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  surface of the Earth, which is pretty cool. And so then they will
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  also deploy a rover to the surface that has abilities to capture samples and put
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  them in sample return containers. Now it's not exactly clear how they're going to
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  retrieve those contains yet. I guess that's what the advanced funding is for,
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  is to finish out that concept. But it's a cool idea to have a
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  balloon based platform as command center, an aircraft that can take off and maneuver
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  from there, and also a rover that goes down to the ground. So
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  this could be the next generation of Venus exploration where samples of the surface might
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  actually be brought back for mineralogical and geological investigations back here on Earth, which
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  is pretty cool. Coming up after a quick break, we'll talk about an
• 17:34
  eerie quiet on the Sun, and then we'll talk about a disappearing sun.
• 17:38
  We'll do all that next. So we've been talking off and on for the
• 18:04
  past several months about solar activity, and we've had these moments where things got
• 18:11
  pretty intense and we didn't know what was happening, and it was, oh
• 18:14
  my gosh, we're gonna have communications problems. There's potential communication problems during football,
• 18:21
  important football games, those kinds of things you know, that come up.
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  And right now though, we're kind of in a weird phase, an
• 18:29
  eerie quiet with the sun. It is, and it's an interesting phase.
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  By the way. This story from spaceweather dot com. Check out spaceweather dot
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  com whenever you can. It's a great website for especially for following the sun
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  and solar activity. So the thing is generally when the Sun is quiet.
• 18:48
  It means that it's because there's not very many storms on the Sun, or
• 18:52
  in other words, sunspot groups. But right now there are lots of sunspot
• 18:56
  groups on the Sun. It's just that all the sunspot groups are not actually
• 19:03
  erupting in flares, which for this particular period of time in the Sun's cycle
• 19:10
  is a little bit unusual because we are moving towards solar maximum. That is
• 19:15
  the period of time where the Sun's magnetic field is the most disturbed and usually
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  results in the most solar flares and particularly large violent solar flares. So to
• 19:26
  be nearing solar maximum, to have the Sun loaded up with sunspots and active
• 19:32
  regions and just not have any big solar flares or almost any solar flares going
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  off for over a week is a little weird. Now, there is one
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  group on the Sun today, active region number thirty five fifty five. That's
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  just a catalog number for the storms on the Sun. So there's a big
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  storm on the Sun that has a disturbed magnetic field, they can tell that
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  it contains the energy for at least an M class solar flare, which is
• 20:02
  the second most powerful group of solar flares. Whether it will actually unleash that
• 20:07
  energy. Whether a solar flare will actually happen very unpredictable, but the solar
• 20:11
  astronomers are keeping an eye on that. It's just interesting to see how long
• 20:15
  this quiet period is going to last. Now we know it's not going to
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  last forever. We know that it's just a temporary period of time, and
• 20:22
  that these sun spots will begin to erupt again because they always do. These
• 20:26
  quiet periods have been noticed in previous solar cycles. But studying this kind of
• 20:33
  these kinds of variability in the Sun's activity allows astronomers, and particularly solar astronomers,
• 20:38
  to get a better idea of the mechanics at work that generate these solar
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  storms in the first place. All right, let's talk about the Great American
• 20:48
  Solar eclipse. It is coming in April. Hey, it's January now,
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  I know, And it's already almost February. It's coming up faster than I
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  can even imagine already. Right, And so if you haven't made plans,
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  friends, it's time to make plans. You got to get in totality.
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  I mean, don't let somebody tell you that an eighty eight percent solar eclipse
• 21:10
  is going to be good enough. No friends, You need to travel.
• 21:14
  You need to pack up the family and the dogs and the kids and cats
• 21:17
  and get right under the path of totality. That's what I'm going to be
• 21:21
  doing somewhere on the plains of Texas. I'm going to be in the path
• 21:25
  of totality. I know where it is. I'm just not telling people because
• 21:27
  I don't want you to chase me out there. So I've already got my
• 21:30
  house reserved. But if you don't, space dot com has put out an
• 21:36
  article about the best places in the path of totality to go and hang out,
• 21:42
  and it's a pretty cool list. It talks about venues and events,
• 21:48
  including concerts and other kinds of public events, and lots of cool venues like
• 21:52
  state parks and other attractions that are hosting eclipse related to events and activities that
• 22:00
  you can join in on. And that list goes from Texas all the way
• 22:04
  up to Maine and all the states in between through which the path of totality
• 22:08
  travels. So this is a really cool article to help you plan your last
• 22:14
  minute trip to go out and see the total eclipse of twenty twenty four,
• 22:18
  the Great American Solar eclipse of twenty twenty four, friends, So check out
• 22:22
  that article on space dot com. And we're taking a couple of really cool
• 22:26
  concerts in the state of Texas. I would say, pretty neat stuff.
• 22:30
  Speaking of events, the Events tab is where folks can learn about everything coming
• 22:36
  up at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center, including I mean,
• 22:40
  this isn't one of the concerts you're talking about, but there's a very special
• 22:44
  concert event that happens on March the fifth, the latest the next I guess
• 22:51
  Music under the Dome and that's when that one will take place, and tickets
• 22:56
  that are available now. Music out of the Dome of Events are great events.
• 23:00
  They are held in conjunction with our Schwob School of Music here at Columbus
• 23:04
  State University. The artists, both faculty and students from the Shob School of
• 23:10
  Music come in and perform live inside of our planetarium, and while they are
• 23:15
  performing, graphics are being shown on the dome that were specially produced for the
• 23:19
  concert. So it's custom graphics for this concert, produced by local artists.
• 23:25
  It's a really neat event. If you want to know more about that concert
• 23:29
  or all of the activities that happen here at CSU's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
• 23:33
  Log onto our website www dot cc SSC dot org, Charlie Charlie SamSam
• 23:41
  Charlie dot org, or another good thing to do follow us on Facebook.
• 23:48
  I hear that's a new technology that people are using to communicate with each other
• 23:51
  lately. Find us on Facebook and follow us and we'll be posting up all
• 23:55
  kinds of news and other events there on our Facebook side as well. Well.
• 24:00
  Thank you for listening, and we'll do this again next week. Plas
• 24:03
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