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The Challenger... 40 Years Later! · Made of Stars

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Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
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Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon the scientific method, and
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Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 1: that's your own risk. Go ahead.
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Speaker 2: When made of stars, made them stars, mad sizes. When
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Speaker 2: made of stars, you could be from high they would
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Speaker 2: New Mexicomus, where all stars?
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Speaker 3: When we are made of stars? I am Wes Carol,
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Speaker 3: joined by my good friend doctor Sean. He's the executive
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Speaker 3: director at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
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Speaker 3: Hey Sean, Hey Wes.
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Speaker 4: Good to be here today.
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Speaker 3: So we talked a little bit about the way NASA
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Speaker 3: does remembrance events, and we had that date a week ago.
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Speaker 3: And now what's happened? I guess since then yesterday as
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Speaker 3: today as we're recording, but this is we'll release this
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Speaker 3: on Thursday, the twenty eighth, the anniversary fortieth anniversary of
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Speaker 3: the Challenger disaster, one of those events there's like these
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Speaker 3: seminal moments in time in life, and I know it
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Speaker 3: feels like we're getting sadly more of these because of
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Speaker 3: the way that we cover things in media and the
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Speaker 3: way that sort of every person that has a cell phone,
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Speaker 3: which by the way is everyone from six months old
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Speaker 3: and up just to watch Coco Melon or whatever. But
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Speaker 3: the point is everybody with a phone turns into a
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Speaker 3: citizen journalist with you know, no journalist training, but everyone
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Speaker 3: can record every event that takes place and it can
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Speaker 3: suddenly just become this moment in time where we say, oh,
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Speaker 3: I remember that, But there are very specific moments prior
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Speaker 3: to or maybe the brick cell phone days or the
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Speaker 3: bag phones in the car days where you go back
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Speaker 3: and you know, tum and Square or obviously JFK is
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Speaker 3: one of the big ones for you know, the boomer
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Speaker 3: generation of people. But then there's also you know, the
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Speaker 3: moon landing and for Gen X people like me that
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Speaker 3: were really into the shuttle program. Challenger was certainly one
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Speaker 3: of those and for us specifically in for me, like,
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Speaker 3: we were home from school that day and we were
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Speaker 3: watching it, and I know there were some schools talking
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Speaker 3: about that were in school that watched it because there
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Speaker 3: was a very specific reason schools were very interested in this.
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Speaker 3: There was a teacher that was on board, and this
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Speaker 3: was supposed to really draw in sort of that next generation.
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Speaker 3: So obviously, uh, the anniversary is always a big deal,
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Speaker 3: and it is one of those things that people end
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Speaker 3: up talking about from a I remember dot dot dot.
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Speaker 4: It's absolutely true. And you know, there are I think
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Speaker 4: major national tragedies that defined different generations, and you know,
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Speaker 4: the Kennedy assassination was certainly one of those. Nine to
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Speaker 4: eleven was certainly one of those, probably for you and me.
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Speaker 4: I mean, you know we were here during nine to eleven,
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Speaker 4: and of course that that affected us. But I think
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Speaker 4: we were adults, right, we could say we were adults
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Speaker 4: at that time, and the Challenger was different. The Challenger
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Speaker 4: caught both you. I mean, we're not exactly the same age,
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Speaker 4: we're not exactly in the same in sync and in
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Speaker 4: terms of generation, but we both had this in common
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Speaker 4: that we were both young people and so so you
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Speaker 4: you were still in school. I was just out of school.
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Speaker 4: But but we were both young people and this accident,
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Speaker 4: this track that occurred the Challenger, the loss of the
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Speaker 4: Challenger Space Shuttle occurred at a time for you and
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Speaker 4: me that it was one of those you know, I
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Speaker 4: guess when I guess when these accidents or these events
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Speaker 4: happened that are tragic like this, we just kind of
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Speaker 4: feel like, oh, maybe adults don't have everything figured out.
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Speaker 4: You know, when you're a kid, when something like happens,
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Speaker 4: like well, wait a minute, suddenly the world feels less safe.
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Speaker 4: And yeah, you read about even when you're a young person,
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Speaker 4: you read about or hear about other tragedies that took
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Speaker 4: place like Titanic. I think the Titanic, the loss of
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Speaker 4: the Titanic was something that as a child I was
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Speaker 4: aware of. I knew it was a tragedy, but it
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Speaker 4: didn't happen in my lifetime. Challenger did. And it's just
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Speaker 4: one of those moments where I think, again, the world
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Speaker 4: just feels less safe after something like this happens, which
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Speaker 4: is why we all go, oh, yeah, I remember, I
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Speaker 4: remember that day that suddenly the world felt a lot
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Speaker 4: less safe. And and again I would put forth that
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Speaker 4: for you and for me, and for an entire generation
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Speaker 4: of students, the Challenger accident was one of those events.
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Speaker 4: And you pointed this out. So CHRISTA mcculloff, the first
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Speaker 4: teacher in space, through a long, prolonged process of trying
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Speaker 4: to select that person was a very well known individual
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Speaker 4: long before the launch of that vehicle. And so my
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Speaker 4: former supervisor here at Space Science Center was a teacher
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Speaker 4: at the time, and she applied for the program. She
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Speaker 4: was one of the finalists for the State of Georgia
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Speaker 4: to go to the next level to compete for being
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Speaker 4: the first teacher in space. So I was able to
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Speaker 4: have conversations with Carol Rutland, my former boss here, about
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Speaker 4: what that program meant to all of these teachers before
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Speaker 4: the accident, and then once the accident occurred, what did
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Speaker 4: that mean for the teachers the students. I just able
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Speaker 4: to hear a lot about that, and it was a
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Speaker 4: monumental event for all of those young kids who were
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Speaker 4: gathered around TV monitors at school by their teachers, because
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Speaker 4: Kristen McCollough represented all of those educators, right, Finally, one
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Speaker 4: of us is going to get to go to space,
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Speaker 4: and it's going to get to be an astronaut, and
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Speaker 4: that teacher is going to bring that perspective back from
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Speaker 4: that mission and share it with all of her colleagues
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Speaker 4: and excite a whole generation to become pioneers, explorers, inventors.
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Speaker 4: And then the accident occurred, and it was such a
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Speaker 4: gut punch because not only did it happened, but it
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Speaker 4: happened with enhanced interest from all of the educators and
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Speaker 4: their students across America. I really think that is a
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Speaker 4: very important part of the story.
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Speaker 3: One thing you can't you certainly can't take away from
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Speaker 3: the magnitude of this because it was a school teacher
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Speaker 3: that was involved. I just always reference because I had
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Speaker 3: a great opportunity to talk with him, Carol Spinney. Now
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Speaker 3: you may go, I don't quite recognize the name Carol Spinny.
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Speaker 3: Carol Spinny was the puppeteer, the muppeteer that was inside
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Speaker 3: Big Bird for so many years with Sesame Street. He
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Speaker 3: was supposed to go. Big Bird was supposed to be
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Speaker 3: part of the cargo, the actual muppet was supposed to go,
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Speaker 3: and it was too big, and they finally made a decision,
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Speaker 3: if we can't actually fit the entire Big Bird costume there,
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Speaker 3: let's move on to someone else. And you think about
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Speaker 3: how much different that could have played out for an
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Speaker 3: even younger generation, because obviously Sesame Street at the time.
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Speaker 3: Sesame Street's not exactly slacked off by any means, but
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Speaker 3: it certainly isn't quite what it used to be when
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Speaker 3: it comes to kids in entertainment, and my kids definitely
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Speaker 3: would have watched it to some degree. They didn't watch
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Speaker 3: it as much as I did, so generationally it's a
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Speaker 3: little different. And I know what it would have done
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Speaker 3: to me. I was ten on January twenty eighth of
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Speaker 3: eighty six, so I know what it would have done
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Speaker 3: to me as a ten year old, and I was
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Speaker 3: past that age.
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Speaker 2: You know.
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Speaker 4: That's part of the interesting kind of undertone should we
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Speaker 4: say of the story, is that space travel was becoming routine,
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Speaker 4: and it really never is right. So the fact that
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Speaker 4: it was becoming routine is a function of how we
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Speaker 4: as human beings think about things, not about the seriousness
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Speaker 4: of the engineering and logistics that take place to get
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Speaker 4: these launches to go right. We get bored because we
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Speaker 4: have a social attention span that tends to be low.
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Speaker 4: Even on Apollo thirteen, think about that they'd only landed
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Speaker 4: on Apollo eleven, and then there was Apollo twelve. This
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Speaker 4: was only going to be the third trip to the Moon,
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Speaker 4: and already networks weren't covering all of the of the
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Speaker 4: pre launch activities and they had kind of moved on
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Speaker 4: to other things even while that vehicle was traveling to
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Speaker 4: the Moon, there wasn't there just wasn't as much coverage.
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Speaker 4: And then the Apollo thirteen accident happened, and of course
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Speaker 4: that did capture everybody's imagination because that's, unfortunately the kind
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Speaker 4: of thing that takes to wake us up from our
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Speaker 4: own lack of attention span.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great point.
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Speaker 4: And in the case of space shuttles, twenty four successful
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Speaker 4: space shuttles had flown before Challenger, so we'd seen shuttles
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Speaker 4: go up twenty four it was like watching an aircraft
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Speaker 4: take off from the airport. It was so common in
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Speaker 4: our collective consciousness. Now, obviously Challenger Space, the Challenger vehicle
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Speaker 4: was not in the kind of engineering commonness that an
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Speaker 4: aircraft taking off from an airport was. But but it's
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Speaker 4: because of our attention span, right, it's because of our
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Speaker 4: social attention span. It's like, oh, yeah, we've seen it.
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Speaker 4: You know, maybe we can send up a teacher. I mean,
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Speaker 4: how about Big Bird? You know who else can go? Right?
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Speaker 4: It was almost to that we were to that level
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Speaker 4: of complacency. And listen, it would it have been cool
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Speaker 4: if Big Bird had gotten to go to space and
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Speaker 4: everything would have worked out great. Sure, but again, I
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Speaker 4: think our complacency leading up to the Challenger accident and
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Speaker 4: then the accident itself with Krista McCullough, first teacher in space,
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Speaker 4: all of that was so jarring that it did kind
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Speaker 4: of shock us back out of our complacency for a
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Speaker 4: period of time. So that that's something that's woven into
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Speaker 4: this story. It's you know, there were there were seven
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Speaker 4: astronauts lost that day, but we all immediately think of Christa,
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Speaker 4: and I think it's because we had gotten so comfortable
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Speaker 4: that we thought, ah, it's no big deal, let's just
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Speaker 4: send a teacher to space, right, I mean, and you know,
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Speaker 4: it's a worthy point as we move into the era
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Speaker 4: of commercial astronautics, where now Katy Perry's gone to space,
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Speaker 4: William Shatner's gone to space, Michael Strahan's gone to space.
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Speaker 4: Nothing wrong with any of these people, but but we're
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Speaker 4: once again in a period of time where we think, Okay,
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Speaker 4: well we can send anybody to space. Okay, well, let's
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Speaker 4: keep being careful and let's keep being diligent on our engineering,
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Speaker 4: and that's ultimately going to lead us to the next story.
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Speaker 4: I kind of want to say just a couple more
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Speaker 4: things about this particular story, which is, first of all,
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Speaker 4: there were seven astronauts, right, so Dick Scobi, Michael Smith,
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Speaker 4: Ellison and Azuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair who, by the way,
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Speaker 4: Carl McNair has been a visitor here at Space Science Center,
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Speaker 4: and Greg Jarvis. Oh, Carl McNair's Ron's brother, by the way,
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Speaker 4: and then Greg Jarvis. All of these people were lost
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Speaker 4: on the day of the Challenger accident. Challenge have exploded
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Speaker 4: seventy three seconds after lift off. People including families of
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Speaker 4: all these astronauts, were in the bleachers watching it go.
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Speaker 4: A large fraction of America's student population were sitting around
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Speaker 4: TVs in schools watching the first teacher go to space.
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Speaker 4: I think a moment of leadership that took place after
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Speaker 4: the accident, regardless of how you feel about Wrong Reagan,
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Speaker 4: Ron Reagan stepped up and showed some extraordinary leadership in
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Speaker 4: the hours after the Challenger accident. He gave one of
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Speaker 4: the best addresses to the nation following this accident. I
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Speaker 4: still remember listening to that live and hearing the words
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Speaker 4: that he had to say, and some of those words
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Speaker 4: have stuck with me all these years later, and one
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Speaker 4: of those sentences that I remember Reagan saying is the
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Speaker 4: future does not belong to the fainthearted, It belongs to
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Speaker 4: the brave. And then he concluded with this moving tribute
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Speaker 4: to the astronauts, the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger
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Speaker 4: honored us by the manner in which they live their lives. Now,
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Speaker 4: that sentence, right now, as we're recording this podcast, all
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Speaker 4: these years later, makes me want to tear up. I
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Speaker 4: feel a lump in my throat because it is exactly true,
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Speaker 4: and it is a perfect commemoration to those human beings
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Speaker 4: that lost their lives that day. The crew of the
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Speaker 4: Space Shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which
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Speaker 4: they live their lives. We will never forget them, nor
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Speaker 4: the last time we saw them this morning, as they
13:34
Speaker 4: prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the
13:38
Speaker 4: surly bonds of Earth to touch the face.
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Speaker 3: Of God more made of stars. Right after this a
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Speaker 3: great transition now into our next couple of stories, because
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Speaker 3: as we now are preparing to watch a crew of
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Speaker 3: astronauts go up and circle the moon and come home,
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Speaker 3: we have some news, some progress that's been made and
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Speaker 3: We've been discussing this for a while now, saying hey,
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Speaker 3: this could happen, you know, in the early part of
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Speaker 3: the month of February, and all signs are kind of
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Speaker 3: starting to point that that might really be a reality,
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Speaker 3: including the fact that they have actually taken the astronauts
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Speaker 3: and the crew and put them into quarantine, which is
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Speaker 3: something that they do when they know they're getting close.
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Speaker 3: So before we really get into the quarantine part, though,
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Speaker 3: first thing they've got to do, I mean, they're in quarantine,
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Speaker 3: but the first thing that they have to do is
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Speaker 3: all of their wet dress rehearsal, and that's all moving forward.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, So the next two stories, as you point out,
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Speaker 4: kind of relate to the era of Challenger in the
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Speaker 4: sense that we really want to believe that the technicians
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Speaker 4: and the engineers and NASA are looking at every detail
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Speaker 4: and making sure everything is good to go, because this
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Speaker 4: is exactly the time of year that NASA has to
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Speaker 4: take a pause and do a day of remembrance for
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Speaker 4: the loss of three different crews, Apollo one, Challenger, and
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Speaker 4: Space Shuttle Columbia. And they all happen within a window
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Speaker 4: of time that's right around this part of the calendar.
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Speaker 4: We talked about this last week for NASA's Day of Remembrance,
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Speaker 4: and now we remember on the actual fortieth anniversary day,
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Speaker 4: So we're recording the show a day early, and we're
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Speaker 4: actually recording on the day of the fortieth anniversary of Challenger.
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Speaker 4: We have that kind of fire tower perspective to look
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Speaker 4: out on a broad landscape of what's taking place, and
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Speaker 4: we see a very rapid push to get the Artemis programs,
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Speaker 4: Space Launch System SLS, rocket and Ryan Capsule ready to
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Speaker 4: go so that we can launch astronauts to the Moon,
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Speaker 4: the Artemis two crew, maybe as early as ten days
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Speaker 4: or so from now, right here on the same part
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Speaker 4: of the calendar as NASA's Day of Rememberance. So it
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Speaker 4: offers us an interesting perspective, is what I would say,
16:26
Speaker 4: right and so, yeah, what's going on right now? Read
16:31
Speaker 4: about this story on Scientific American or other places. I
16:35
Speaker 4: use the Scientific American site for my prep for the show. Today,
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Speaker 4: NASA pushes ahead with a wet dress rehearsal for Artemis
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Speaker 4: two Moon mission. Now what does that mean. That means
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Speaker 4: they're fueling up the rocket, so crucial test of NASA's
16:49
Speaker 4: upcoming crude flight to the Moon. Is set to take
16:52
Speaker 4: place as soon as this Saturday, January thirty first, according
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Speaker 4: to NASA, at Florids Kennedy Space Center, engineers will attempt
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Speaker 4: to fuel the SLS rocket and simulate a countdown and launch.
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Speaker 4: This involves loading up that vehicle with seven hundred thousand
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Speaker 4: gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants, and then
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Speaker 4: they run through a sequence that simulates the countdown and
17:22
Speaker 4: the actual launch of the vehicle. They do everything except
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Speaker 4: light the fire. So that's a very important test and
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Speaker 4: depending on you know, whether everything goes well or not,
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Speaker 4: they will have that vehicle ready to go now. Back
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Speaker 4: in twenty twenty two, they did the same thing for
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Speaker 4: the Artemis one. They did a wet test on the
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Speaker 4: launch pad. I was happy. I happened to be sitting
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Speaker 4: in a beach house near Titus Well in the city
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Speaker 4: of Titusville, Florida, waiting for that launch to go up
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Speaker 4: over a Labor Day weekend, and it did not because
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Speaker 4: there were so many laws in that test that they
18:01
Speaker 4: had to roll the vehicle back to the VAB and
18:04
Speaker 4: do some repairs and further testing and make sure all
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Speaker 4: their components were engineering properly, and then they rolled it
18:11
Speaker 4: back out again, so that could be the result of
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Speaker 4: what happens on Saturday. They could potentially have to make
18:20
Speaker 4: sure that things that were found during the wet test
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Speaker 4: and need to be shall we say, tinkered with or
18:27
Speaker 4: repaired or adjusted could happen. So it could result in
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Speaker 4: a wheelback for the SLS rocket. However, if everything goes well,
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Speaker 4: they may be in a position to launch the SLS rocket.
18:43
Speaker 4: From an engineering perspective, right they are still struggling with
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Speaker 4: the Orion spacecraft. They have an issue where the organics
18:52
Speaker 4: in the drinking water, in other words, the carbon and
18:57
Speaker 4: mind you, this water is filtered through carbon filters, so
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Speaker 4: the carbon and the drinking water is above levels that
19:03
Speaker 4: they want to have. That's according to a statement that
19:07
Speaker 4: came up on Monday of this week. But so so
19:11
Speaker 4: they're already looking at, you know, making some adjustments with
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Speaker 4: that water system on the Orion capsule. But if everything
19:18
Speaker 4: goes well on the on the wet test, you could
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Speaker 4: be looking at a launch in very early February of
19:27
Speaker 4: the of the of the Orion spacecraft back to the Moon.
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Speaker 4: And so that kind of segues west into our next story.
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Speaker 4: You had mentioned it earlier. The astronauts for Artemis two
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Speaker 4: are already in quarantine. It's very interesting thing.
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Speaker 3: So this is one of those aspects of all of
19:42
Speaker 3: this that really obviously anybody in the know is aware
19:47
Speaker 3: of this as far as something that they do. It
19:50
Speaker 3: came up for us during COVID because we were discussing
19:53
Speaker 3: the fact that, you know, it's a very different thing
19:56
Speaker 3: then and they were having to take extra precautions so
19:59
Speaker 3: that they weren't you know, taking anything with them up
20:01
Speaker 3: to the International Space Station. And now that we've just
20:05
Speaker 3: had our first emergency on the International Space Station, you
20:10
Speaker 3: got to figure is there a chance that they did
20:12
Speaker 3: this now? I mean it's easy to say, yes, they
20:15
Speaker 3: want to prepare and they're doing everything they can to
20:18
Speaker 3: move forward with this mission. We know that this current
20:21
Speaker 3: administration has been pushing for this mission to take place
20:26
Speaker 3: and the next mission to take place and get boots
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Speaker 3: back on the Moon during this administration, which has three
20:32
Speaker 3: years left, so putting a time crunch on that. But
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Speaker 3: is there a chance they went a little earlier just
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Speaker 3: because they don't want any complications or is this just
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Speaker 3: you think they're just going with the plan as scheduled.
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Speaker 3: I know, you don't know the inside answer to that.
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Speaker 3: But is there a possibility maybe that they're doing this
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Speaker 3: a little early, just so that they are, you know,
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Speaker 3: checking all the boxes and making sure that they are
20:54
Speaker 3: really and truly ready to go.
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Speaker 4: I mean, sure, right, of course there's a possibility, right. So,
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Speaker 4: but the thing is that they could very well be
21:04
Speaker 4: legitimately pushing for a launch by Valentine's Day, right, So.
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Speaker 3: And why don't I do believe that?
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Speaker 4: Well, yeah, their quarantine is fourteen days, right, so after
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Speaker 4: their fourteen day quarantine period they would be ready to launch.
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Speaker 4: That's roughly middle of February, right, So, so yeah, both
21:25
Speaker 4: both things could be true, right They want to be
21:29
Speaker 4: positioned and poised and have gone through all the right
21:33
Speaker 4: protocols to be ready for a mid February launch. It
21:36
Speaker 4: also could be true that they're just trying to make sure,
21:39
Speaker 4: given the recent medical situation aboard International Space Station, that
21:43
Speaker 4: they do have a good look at the health of
21:45
Speaker 4: these astronauts that will be on the mission to the Moon.
21:49
Speaker 4: So the astronauts themselves are Read Weisman, Victor Glover, and
21:53
Speaker 4: Christina Cook from NASA and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian
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Speaker 4: Space Agency. Those four astronauts went into quarantine on Friday,
22:02
Speaker 4: so late Friday, so they spent the weekend in quarantine.
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Speaker 4: They're still the they watched the NFL playoffs. Apparently, I
22:07
Speaker 4: don't know something in quarantine.
22:09
Speaker 3: And it's interesting that you say that because you're talking
22:11
Speaker 3: about that by mid February. In reality, they would be
22:14
Speaker 3: ready to go by the Super Bowl. I mean it's
22:17
Speaker 3: kind of like a week deep. I mean they did.
22:20
Speaker 3: They went in with a week left in January, so
22:22
Speaker 3: you know, by the Super bowls on the ninth, So
22:25
Speaker 3: I mean they could potentially be sitting there waiting, Hey,
22:27
Speaker 3: maybe the Patriots win another super Bowl, let's take off
22:30
Speaker 3: right then. That would be star spangled and everything on
22:33
Speaker 3: the anniversary year of America's birthday.
22:36
Speaker 1: It would be all that.
22:37
Speaker 4: Right in unofficial challenge channels, I have heard the date
22:42
Speaker 4: February eighth tossed around, which.
22:44
Speaker 3: Would be the day before yeah, so.
22:47
Speaker 4: So so yeah, we're looking if they went in on Friday,
22:51
Speaker 4: which was January twenty third, they could potentially be ready
22:56
Speaker 4: for a February eighth launch. That would be the Super
23:01
Speaker 4: Bowl preview of all time.
23:04
Speaker 3: It definitely would. People would be talking about it at
23:07
Speaker 3: Super Bowl parties. So I don't think that's an accident.
23:10
Speaker 3: I think that could possibly all play out perfectly for
23:14
Speaker 3: all the people who want the positivity from this, including
23:17
Speaker 3: everyone at NASA, every astronaut, and you know the current
23:21
Speaker 3: administration that wants to be able to go look what
23:23
Speaker 3: we did. So yeah, it's not the first administration.
23:27
Speaker 4: I will tell you that. The thing that concerns me
23:29
Speaker 4: is we don't want optics to get ahead of safety.
23:34
Speaker 3: Sure, we do not.
23:36
Speaker 4: I think if there was one lesson of Challenger, when
23:39
Speaker 4: they really wanted to launch this teacher into space, and
23:42
Speaker 4: they really wanted everybody's eyes to be on it, and
23:45
Speaker 4: they launched it on a day that the weather was
23:47
Speaker 4: out of spec, which caused a brittleness in the O
23:51
Speaker 4: rings and the solid rocket boosters, and that was ultimately
23:54
Speaker 4: the destruction of that vehicle. History has borne that out.
23:58
Speaker 4: Why did they push the parameters when they knew that
24:01
Speaker 4: they were launching out a spec Optics in part, and
24:06
Speaker 4: so I personally, as a space you know, sideline observer,
24:11
Speaker 4: I'm just up here in the cheap seats watching space
24:13
Speaker 4: go by. I from my vantage point up here in
24:16
Speaker 4: the nosebleed seats of you know, the space industry, I
24:20
Speaker 4: really do not want to see them put optics ahead
24:22
Speaker 4: of safety for this very important crucial mission for the
24:27
Speaker 4: American space program. And I just really hope that that's
24:30
Speaker 4: not happening.
24:31
Speaker 3: I would think that the hope would certainly be that
24:36
Speaker 3: safety and optics can all be you know, observed properly.
24:40
Speaker 3: And because this is this is a huge win. This
24:44
Speaker 3: mission happens and they're able to successfully go and come
24:47
Speaker 3: back and then move forward with putting boots on the ground,
24:50
Speaker 3: it definitely paves the way for you know, colonizing the
24:53
Speaker 3: Moon and then eventually going to Mars. So I think
24:55
Speaker 3: everybody is everybody needs this to go well.
25:00
Speaker 4: Jared, Jared Isaacman. I know you can't listen to our
25:02
Speaker 4: podcast every week. We appreciate the times.
25:05
Speaker 3: That you do listen shows that's right.
25:09
Speaker 4: Whenever you can tune in, we appreciate it.
25:11
Speaker 3: Whatever he googles his name, our podcast should be popping
25:14
Speaker 3: up a few times.
25:15
Speaker 4: We try to get Jared Isaacman into every podcast. So, Jared,
25:22
Speaker 4: if you're happening to catch us, please please don't let
25:25
Speaker 4: optics get ahead of engineering. Please don't let politics exceed safety.
25:32
Speaker 4: We want to see this happen too. We're really excited
25:35
Speaker 4: about the Artemis program and the SLS launch, but we
25:40
Speaker 4: want it all to go well. So that's that's what
25:44
Speaker 4: I would say. And if that means you can't get
25:47
Speaker 4: off before the Super Bowl, well that's that's gonna be
25:49
Speaker 4: all right.
25:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just can't.
25:51
Speaker 4: If you have to roll it back to the V
25:52
Speaker 4: A B because you found some stuff, roll that baby back.
25:56
Speaker 3: I think I think they will. I think they will
25:58
Speaker 3: do that. More made of stars right after this planet,
26:21
Speaker 3: let's kind of shift away from Artemis and talk exoplanets.
26:26
Speaker 3: We've got a cool exoplanet story.
26:28
Speaker 4: This is a good one. So exoplanets, what are they? Well,
26:31
Speaker 4: first of all, the term exoplanet means planets around other stars.
26:36
Speaker 4: We call them extra solar planets. But apparently we just
26:39
Speaker 4: get fatigued saying the word solar, so we want shortcuts
26:42
Speaker 4: to everything, so just call it exoplanet. Exoplanet means exo
26:45
Speaker 4: extra solar planet. Okay, So there you go. So that's
26:47
Speaker 4: what it is. Now. If planets are around other stars,
26:51
Speaker 4: which we know they are, now we should be able
26:53
Speaker 4: to look out there into the galaxy the Milky Way
26:56
Speaker 4: and find places in our galaxy where planet systems are
27:01
Speaker 4: in formation, and we actually see these baby planets before
27:05
Speaker 4: their planets and friends. We have found a lot of those,
27:09
Speaker 4: and we typically call those proto planetary discs around very
27:13
Speaker 4: young stars. So very young stars act with their own
27:16
Speaker 4: bad behavior and they kind of point themselves out, so
27:19
Speaker 4: we can find their locations in the Milky Way based
27:21
Speaker 4: on their unusual behaviors. And so once we pin down
27:24
Speaker 4: those stars, then we can say, well, let's take a
27:27
Speaker 4: closer look and see if protoplanetary discs are surrounding those stars. Now,
27:31
Speaker 4: that would be the swirling material that would one day
27:35
Speaker 4: form into planets in orbit around those stars, and that
27:37
Speaker 4: material is being lit up by those kind of hyperactive
27:41
Speaker 4: young stars. And they're fairly easy to photograph. So that's
27:45
Speaker 4: kind of you know, baby or infant stars or the
27:48
Speaker 4: you know, my weird analogy, the pregnant mothers of stars
27:52
Speaker 4: of future planets rather that are that are these young stars,
27:56
Speaker 4: so they're very they're easier to find in that stage.
28:00
Speaker 4: The hard stage to discover protoplanetary systems is in their
28:05
Speaker 4: teenage years. So these teenage young systems are having all
28:10
Speaker 4: manner of violent collisions between between protoplanets that don't have
28:17
Speaker 4: nice circular orbits between cometary material that's still swirling around
28:24
Speaker 4: in unusual orbits in the inner part of the Solar System,
28:27
Speaker 4: between young asteroids and protoplanets. All of these things are
28:31
Speaker 4: still colliding. But you see, because a lot of a
28:34
Speaker 4: gas has been captured into the dust, into the ice,
28:40
Speaker 4: all of these things are now frozen down into chunks
28:42
Speaker 4: of material that just simply don't reflect the light of
28:45
Speaker 4: those young stars as well anymore. So it's harder to
28:48
Speaker 4: see and actually it's better to even look at a
28:51
Speaker 4: different wavelength. Well, that's what astronomers have done. They've used
28:55
Speaker 4: the autocomma large millimeter array ALMA to look for the
29:03
Speaker 4: existence of these teenage years of planetary systems forming around
29:07
Speaker 4: young stars where all of these violent processes are still
29:11
Speaker 4: shaping the systems. So they're not looking in the bright
29:14
Speaker 4: glow of visible light. They're looking in the millimeter wavelengths
29:19
Speaker 4: of objects that are both cooler and have a lot
29:21
Speaker 4: less free gas floating around. Well, it turns out that
29:26
Speaker 4: after identifying twenty four young stars with the potential of
29:30
Speaker 4: having these kind of evolved protoplanetary discs around them, they
29:35
Speaker 4: were able to study this exact period of time the
29:39
Speaker 4: turbulent as we might refer to teenage years or certainly
29:44
Speaker 4: not infant years anymore, but not adult years either. So
29:47
Speaker 4: somewhere in the in between of these developing solar systems
29:51
Speaker 4: around other stars. And what that study has revealed by
29:56
Speaker 4: this group who have used this material to look for
30:00
Speaker 4: these protoplanetary discs at the certain evolution evolutionary stage that
30:06
Speaker 4: by the way, that group is called Resolve Exo Kuiper
30:09
Speaker 4: Belt Substructures. That's the name of their group. They shorten
30:13
Speaker 4: that to a RKSH. You figured out whatever anyway, it's
30:18
Speaker 4: a strained acronym. But all right, So the ARS group,
30:21
Speaker 4: the ARCS group, using the submillimeter array at ALMAH, have
30:25
Speaker 4: identified twenty four of these what they call debris discs,
30:30
Speaker 4: and that's important. Even their description is important because what
30:32
Speaker 4: it infers is that it's not just a nice disc
30:36
Speaker 4: of primordial material anymore. It's objects that have formed, collided, shattered,
30:42
Speaker 4: and thrown debris around. So now they're referring to it
30:45
Speaker 4: as a debris disc. And what they're finding in these
30:48
Speaker 4: debris discs are very complex structures that reveal multiple rings,
30:53
Speaker 4: wide and smooth outer halos and unexpected arcs and clumps
30:58
Speaker 4: throughout that forming soul system. This is exactly the kind
31:03
Speaker 4: of structures that we believe existed during a certain period
31:08
Speaker 4: of time in the evolution of our own solar system.
31:11
Speaker 4: All right, let me give a quote from a few
31:13
Speaker 4: of the ARC's team members. This is Sebastian Marino at
31:17
Speaker 4: the University of Exeter, and he has this to say,
31:20
Speaker 4: We're seeing real diversity, not just simple rings, but multiple
31:25
Speaker 4: ring belts, halos and strong asymmetries, revealing a dynamic and
31:29
Speaker 4: violent chapter in planetary histories. Unquote, Sebastian Marino, University of Exeter.
31:37
Speaker 4: Going on, we have another team member, Meredith Hughes from
31:39
Speaker 4: Wesleyan University, Connecticut, had this to say, quote, We've often
31:44
Speaker 4: seen these baby pictures of planets in formation, but until now,
31:48
Speaker 4: the teenage years have been a missing link. This project
31:52
Speaker 4: gives us a new lens for interpreting the craters on
31:56
Speaker 4: the Moon, the dynamics of our own Kuiper Belt, and
31:59
Speaker 4: the growth of plan And it's big and small, and
32:02
Speaker 4: Meredith means in our own solar system, it's like adding
32:05
Speaker 4: the missing pages of the Solar system's family album unquote.
32:09
Speaker 4: So yeah, I enhance her quote there a couple of times,
32:11
Speaker 4: but anyway, just by way of explanation, so this is
32:14
Speaker 4: a really interesting thing that we're finding because we infer
32:20
Speaker 4: by minute evidence in our own solar systems, this period
32:23
Speaker 4: of time must have taken place. But now we're actually
32:26
Speaker 4: able to look out and see that process taking place
32:30
Speaker 4: in other forming solar systems, and this bolsters the story
32:34
Speaker 4: that we tell based on our own scientific data from
32:36
Speaker 4: our own solar system, which is friends, that's just a
32:39
Speaker 4: really awesome thing. Right. If you use really minute and
32:43
Speaker 4: hard to piece together evidence to come up with a
32:46
Speaker 4: scientific story about the way something is evolving or changing,
32:50
Speaker 4: and then you can actually look out and see it
32:52
Speaker 4: taking place somewhere else in no uncertain terms, it's such
32:57
Speaker 4: a staggering confirmation. It's just a really cool story. So
33:01
Speaker 4: congratulations to the ARCS team using the Alma telescope to
33:05
Speaker 4: piece together the histories of baby solar systems. It's just well,
33:10
Speaker 4: or in this case, teenage solar systems. It's just a
33:12
Speaker 4: really cool story.
33:14
Speaker 3: So one of my very close, very dear friends sent
33:17
Speaker 3: me a message recently and it had attached in it
33:21
Speaker 3: all of the upcoming astronomy nights for Columbus State University's
33:24
Speaker 3: co Cola Space Science Center, And I thought, who are
33:26
Speaker 3: you sending this to? Don't you think I am aware?
33:31
Speaker 3: And I say that, And just now as I thought, hey,
33:34
Speaker 3: let's talk about some of the upcoming events, I thought, oh,
33:36
Speaker 3: I can quickly get my hands on the schedule thanks
33:38
Speaker 3: to her. So I'm not going to complain about her
33:40
Speaker 3: sending it to me anymore. That is not a complaint.
33:43
Speaker 3: That is a hey, thanks for the handy guide so
33:46
Speaker 3: we can talk about it. And we were talking about
33:49
Speaker 3: that Super Bowl weekend and coming up on that particular weekend,
33:55
Speaker 3: there's an FDR State Park Astronomy Night coming up scheduled
34:00
Speaker 3: at least, and then the March the third is a
34:04
Speaker 3: big one because the lunaric clips and you got some
34:07
Speaker 3: big stuff coming up for those.
34:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's that's great. We do get we have.
34:10
Speaker 4: You know. This time of the year is great too,
34:12
Speaker 4: by the way, because here in Georgia we do suffer
34:16
Speaker 4: from some high humidity in the in the warm months
34:19
Speaker 4: where it's very nice to go outside, but but the
34:22
Speaker 4: humidity is high. But this time of year, even though
34:25
Speaker 4: we're currently kind of freezing our rumps off, we've been
34:27
Speaker 4: having these uh well, these dips in the jet stream,
34:31
Speaker 4: these arctic winds move down and ice up our roads.
34:35
Speaker 3: And don't you try to convince me that you've been cold.
34:38
Speaker 3: I know you've been sleeping with a window open. I
34:40
Speaker 3: know how you guys work.
34:42
Speaker 4: It's just actually true, even though we have an open
34:46
Speaker 4: window anyway, So you Colorado people, I grew up with
34:51
Speaker 4: that rocky mountain blood. I can't help myself a little less.
34:55
Speaker 4: I'm a little less thick blooded that I used to be, though,
34:57
Speaker 4: because I've lived here for so many years. So it's
34:59
Speaker 4: jet guinely cold. I mean it's it's you know, in
35:02
Speaker 4: the teens, and in the teens, it's it's genuinely cold, right,
35:06
Speaker 4: So it is. But here's the fun byproduct of the
35:11
Speaker 4: cold weather this time of year, even in Georgia, which
35:14
Speaker 4: is it makes the sky really clear. And so I've
35:17
Speaker 4: been out a couple of times. I'm gone ahead and
35:18
Speaker 4: bundled up and put on my hat and gloves as
35:20
Speaker 4: if I were in the great State of Colorado. And
35:22
Speaker 4: I've wandered out into the nighttime sky, and those skies
35:25
Speaker 4: are super clear, and that's the beautiful thing. So the
35:28
Speaker 4: astronomy nights coming up for Space Science Center. Hopefully we'll
35:32
Speaker 4: have those nice clear skies. You might want to go
35:35
Speaker 4: ahead and layer up if you're coming out, but join
35:38
Speaker 4: us for the upcoming astronomy nights both at FDR State
35:41
Speaker 4: Park on February seventh, as West mentioned, and then here
35:43
Speaker 4: at Space Science Center on February twenty first, and come
35:46
Speaker 4: out and see the nighttime sky in that beautiful, pristine condition. Now.
35:50
Speaker 4: Wes did also mention a special event on the early
35:53
Speaker 4: morning hours of March the third, here in Columbus, Georgia,
35:57
Speaker 4: there will be a lunar eclipse as the moon is
36:00
Speaker 4: setting and the sun is rising. We're still working on
36:03
Speaker 4: the proper location to hold that. And let me just say,
36:07
Speaker 4: the reason we're not just having it here at Space
36:08
Speaker 4: Science Center is because our western horizon view is blocked
36:12
Speaker 4: by the lovely arboretum that surrounds the river walk that
36:18
Speaker 4: we're adjacent to. We don't mind trees, We like trees.
36:22
Speaker 4: We don't want to cut down the trees. But you
36:24
Speaker 4: block the western horizon from our location, so we can't
36:27
Speaker 4: have the event at our location. We're looking at a
36:30
Speaker 4: couple of partner organizations. We'll be letting you know, so
36:33
Speaker 4: check out upcoming podcasts for this and we will tell
36:36
Speaker 4: you the location of our astronomy team as we present
36:40
Speaker 4: the upcoming literary eclipse on March the third.
36:43
Speaker 3: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we will
36:45
Speaker 3: do this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus
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