Latest / Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries / One Million Satellites, Space Mushrooms & the Search for Martian Shorelines

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One Million Satellites, Space Mushrooms & the Search for Martian Shorelines · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello again, thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: My name is Andrew Duncle. Thanks for joining us. We've
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: got a big program today. It is jam packed. We've
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: got twenty seven at least twenty seven, maybe six stories.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Here's one. I don't know if you've heard the song
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: one million bicycles in Beijing. It probably wasn't a big hit.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: But now we're talking one million satellites in space. Yep,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: it's a possible thing. Some good news out of Chili, though,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about that Artemis two. Not bad news, probably
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: not surprising news or launch delay. Space mushrooms, Yes, they
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: are real and they are very yummy. Apparently perseverance is
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: going AI and they have discovered or confirmed a Martian shoreline.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about all of that on this episode of
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Space Nuts fifteen, Channel ten nine.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Ignition Big on Space Nuts or three two one Space.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Us as when actually bought it, Neils Good and taking
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: a break from a little sojourn to a horrible part
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: of the world in Australia is Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: at Large.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Hello Fred, Hello, Hello Andrew. Greetings from Nelson Bay.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, dreadful, dreadful place I spent much of my youth
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: in Nelson Bay, just north of Newcastle. It's just it
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: was a sleepy little fishing village when I used to
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: go there, but now it's just nothing like that.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Well it's been discovered, hasn't it has? You know, two
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: hours from Sydney, it's half an hour from Newcastle. It's
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: not really it's abound to be a target and it's
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: still got its charm though. I have to say, as
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: we were talking a few minutes ago, I've been coming
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: here for forty three years, nearly in fact is it's
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: forty three years and it's as you exactly as you've said.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: It's very, very different, but it's still geographically it's a
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: lovely spot with Port Stephens, this huge expanse of water
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: with you know, islands in it and hells all around.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Really quite remarkable.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It is lovely. Yeah, I miss it a lot. Last
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: time we were there was for a beach wedding, but
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: that's going back a few years. But even then it
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: didn't look like the you know, the fishing village that
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I grew up Isabel. While we're talking about different places,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I was having a bit of a I don't know
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: what you'd call it a jibe at Colorado's cold weather
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: on a recent episode, and I got a note from
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Michael who said, on the podcast, you were concerned about
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the frigid temperatures in Colorado. Unfortunately, we've just had one
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: of the warmest Decembers on record, with daily highs offen
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: ten to fifteen degrees celsius. That's a winter in Dubbo.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Until this weekend, January was on track to be well
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: above normal with highs around seven to ten. And to
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: add insult to injury, our mountain snow packs the worst
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: on record.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: And while our.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: USB fifty ski industry is getting hurt, the real problem
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: is that they rely on melting snow for water and
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: they didn't get a lot of snow this year. So yeah,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: that's a scary one. And I think a lot of
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: places in the world rely on snow for the spring
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: melt for their water supplies. So hopefully that's just a
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: one off in Colorado. Got a lot to talk about, Fred.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Let's start with this news that we received during the week.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: It's been highly publicized Elon Musk SpaceX has put in
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: an application to launch possibly one million satellites million. This
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: is a completely from Project to that of the Internet
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: service that he's been working on. This this is another
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: kettle of fish.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: It is it's an orbiting data center. So in fact,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: space Access basically teamed up with another company, an AI company,
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: and together there is this plan to launch three, sorry,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: not three hundred thousand, a million satellites between five hundred
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: kilometers and two hundred two thousand kilometers in altitude and
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: probably quite interesting inclinations not far from the equator, and
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: also some which will be in polar orbits. What's the idea, Well,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: you you basically harness the Sun's energy using these these
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: spacecraft in order to how your data center, and you
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: link them by lasers essentially optical links.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: You know, the whole thing then engages with starlink to
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: send the data up and down to the Earth. So
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: it's a it's a wild idea. It fills astronomers with
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: horror because a million satellites in orbit is just going
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: to completely pollute the sky, especially when you have some
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: of them at two thousand kilometers, which means that they're
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: they're visible for in fact some latitudes that be visible
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: all night. So that's yeah, that's the latest shot horror
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: that is a filing that has gone I think I'm
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: right in saying to the Federal Communications Commission, I don't
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: know whether it's been filed with the International Telecommunications Union,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: which is the only international body that can basically regulates
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: space flights. There are many national bodies, but the only
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: international one is the ITU. I would guess they would
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: accept it because they accepted a filing back in twenty
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: twenty for three hundred thousand satellites put in by the
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Ruandan government. But that if it hasn't already, and I
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: don't think it has yet, that will have expired because
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: they've only lost launched one cube SAT rather than three
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand. So it might be a little bit like
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: the Ruandan was something like putting your foot in the
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: door to you know, to stake a claim. But we
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: will see what happens. It's a very interesting development, said
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: one that scares us to death in.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: The It's certainly a divisive issue, and it's not the
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: first time. As you said, the year before last there
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: were complaints about the Starlink network and the blinding of telescopes.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Astronomers got upset about that. Elon Musk has actually rejected
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: those claims and probably rejict these ones too.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, it has to be said, he's not he
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: hasn't really. Of all the Internet supply companies, of course,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Starlink is the one that's most populous. They've got nine thousand,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: a little bit more than nine thousand spacecraft in orbit,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: and SpaceX has worked with the astronomical community to try
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: and minimize their effect. Of all the companies, they've been
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: the most forthcoming. But it's hard to see how when
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: you put it up to a million satellites, how you
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: can reconcile that with astronomy. And I might add, actually,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: as we speak, there is a meeting going on in
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Vienna at which the issue of what we call dark
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: and quiet sky is the idea of satellite consolations, that
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: will be discussed this week and.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Then it's okay, be interesting to see what comes out
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: of that. We'll leave that one there, but I'm sure
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: there'll be more about it going forward. Maybe let's go
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: over to Chile, because we talked about energy project that
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: was being tafted for that part of the world, which
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: was going to be very close to some of the
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: most significant telescopes on Earth. The problem with this energy
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: plant that was going to be basically the size of
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a small city, so the lighting would have been a
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: major issue, but that seems to have all been scrapped.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Indeed it has, so the problem was you're quite right.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: There are two mountains in Chile which are notable for astronomy.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: They've both got optical telescopes. One is Sarah Paranel, which
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: houses the VLT, the four to eight point two meter
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: telescopes of the very large telescope as it's called, and
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: about it's about twenty kilometers away. On the other side
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: of the valley is a mountain called Sera Amazona is
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: where the biggest telescope in the world is being built,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: thirty nine meter ELT, or extremely Large Telescope. And in
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: that valley it's where an energy company aes and Ease
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: They had plans for a factory to use solar and
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: wind energy to make green hydrogen. And as exactly as
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: you've said, it was citicized. It filled astronomers with horror
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: because it threatened to put light pollution into a region
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: which so far has been completely dark and which houses
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: perhaps the world's most productive and efficient telescope. Certainly, when
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: the ELT comes along, there is nothing to touch it
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: anywhere else in the world. It's going to be an
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: extraordinary instrument. But it's been canceled. The company has pulled
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: out of the project, and I think they've taken note
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: of the environmental damage it would do to astronomy. I
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: think that's been the reason why they've done that, And
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: so all credit to people who've used common sense to
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: you know, to progress things. They'll no doubt put it
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: somewhere else where it might be less damaging because it
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: is a you know, it's an environmentally positive staff green
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Hydrogen's a great thing to have. But but we don't
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: want it there.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: No, no, But hopefully they will be able to put
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: it somewhere else because it does sound like a good
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: project moving forward, but just not there, not in that place. Yeah,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: hats off to them for making that decision. It must
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: have been difficult because that's a that's a ten billion
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: US dollar project, that's very big. That's a lot of big.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: I suppose that that's the ultimate nimby, isn't it nimby process?
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: But my backyard, we've got a lot of nimbi projects
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: around here. I can do you wind farms, solar farms,
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: the Inland Rail. It's all causing a lot of people
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: who get a bit nimby. This is space Nuts with
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson, open anglit.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Lage space Nuts. Okay, Fred, speaking of the boon, Let's
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: move our attention to Artemis to that mission we talked
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: about last week, which was getting ready for its wet
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: rehearsal and a few other tests and a few checkovers.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Mostly things went well, but they did find a hydrogen
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: leak and that set them back another month.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: It's a bit like groundhog Day, isn't it really, because
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: this is exactly what happened with Artemis one, and in fact,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: at one point I think they took the whole spacecraft
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: back into the vehicle assembly building to try and fix
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: the hydrogen leaks. So yes, the wet the wet dress
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: rehearsal was this past weekend our time as we are
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: speaking today on the recording and the hydrogen leak, I
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: understand it. It's the place where the pipe fits into
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: the tank.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: It's like and your car. It's where you stick your
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: fuel bowser in hose into your petrol tank. Ex It's
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: a little bit more complicated than that. But I think
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: that's where the league has been, and it's sufficiently it's
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: warying enough to the engineers and the administrators who are
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: overlooking Artemists two that what they've done is they said, well,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: actually we need to do another wet dress rehearsal when
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: we fixed this problem. And that means postponing at the
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: artemist too, launch from this month, which was what we
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: hoped to next month, which means March at the earliest.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: So yes, a push back in the you know, in
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: the process.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Will I leave the launch vehicle on the ped at
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: this stage?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: I think at the moment that's the plan. I haven't
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: heard any hints of it being taken back to the
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: vehicle assembly building. That's you know, that's a big process,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: is a major step to have to do that. So
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: they will, certainly, I think, be looking at trying to
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: fix it on the pad forehand.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, and if they can't, yeah, they might have to
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: roll back. Yeah again again, you know, it's all about safety,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: that's the most important thing. And yeah, you know, they
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: want to get this right. So it's better to be
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a month later or even longer than have something go
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: horribly wrong, which we've certainly witnessed in the past. And
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: we talked about the anniversary of Columbia last week, and
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: it's you know, those things are still strong in people's minds.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: You've got to avoid that at all costs. So, yeah,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: hopefully they'll find them find the problem. Maybe it's a
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: proo valve, that's just you know, yeah, it could be.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: The real problem is hydrogen atoms are so small. Yeah,
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: they're the smallest of all atoms, so they fit through
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: any tiny crack we had. At one time when I
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: was working as an astronomer at something Spring Observatory not
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: far from you, one of our telescopes used photographic plates
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: back in the day, and to sensitize them, we called
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: it hyper sensitizing. We actually had to bathe them in
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: hydrogen for a period of something like ten hours before
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: they were used, and that increased their sensitivity by several
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: orders in fact. But the problem was keeping the hydrogen
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: where you wanted it. It tends to leak. It's a
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: very leaky gas because of the small size of the atoms.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll just look at the Hindenburg. Certainly leaked there,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, Although didn't they figure out many many
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: years later that it wasn't the hydrogen leaking that was
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the problem. It was the what do they call it,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the stuff in the fabric that was the problem. Yeah,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: it wasn't. It wasn't actually the hydrogen that was the issue.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: It was it was the static electricity in the fabric.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: But it was the lacquer. I think the lacquer.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: That was my Yeah, that could be it. That was
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: my understanding that it was static electricity.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and story. But yeah, Artemis too, still on the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: launch pad. Probably the schedule is March the sixth at
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: this stage, but maybe that will change depending on how
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: the next test goes or the wet rehearsal or whatever
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: they do. They did want to try and do more
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: than one, so yeah, well I've got an opportunity now
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: they have to. Now this story I find fascinating and
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I think you've got a personal connection with some of
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the people involved in this. But they have basically grown
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: mushrooms in space and then they brought them back and
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: had lunch.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: That's right. This is actually a friend of ours, Sarah Webb,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: who's done in Melbourne. She's an austrophysicist andard science communicator,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: which is how we've worked with her in the past,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: but she runs a project to basically engage with the
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: International Space Station on behalf of school students. And so
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: this particular project was designed by twelve by Sarah and
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: once sorry Sarah and one of her colleagues, plus twelve
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: high school students from Hailbury College in Melbourne, and a
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: lot of help from professional mushroom growers. What they did
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: was they packaged up not the mushrooms themselves, but the
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: things that essentially act almost like the roots of the mushrooms,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: which are called massolium, a word I didn't know because
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not a mushroom expert, the small filaments that essentially
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: the root network of mushrooms. So that's what they sent up.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: They were in space for a month on the International
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Space Station. They came back again with a crew change,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: and so what the researchers did was to send take
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: these massolium filaments and plant them and turn them into mushrooms.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: And it works. It works well, and so they've now
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: written a rather nice conversation piece which is entitled We
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Ate Space Mushrooms and Survived to tell the Tale, which
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: is I think quite a nice title.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: It is rather I was just looking up what the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: most expensive mushrooms in the world are, and they're the
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Yatsa gunbu caterpillar fungus, and they cost fifty to sixty
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: three thousand dollars per pound because of their rarity, and
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: apparently they've got medicinal properties and they grow them on
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the Himalayas. I've got a feeling these mushrooms, which are
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: based on the Lion's main mushrooms, would be a bit
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: more expensive than that by the sound of it.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they might be by the time you're figure in
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: the cost of the International Space Station.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: The Lion's main is the one. It's a species that
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: it's actually the one that they ate. And it's just
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: to put this project in context, it's really, you know,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: thinking about how you might grow fresh food for astronauts
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: on long whole space missions. You know, if you've got
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: people going to Mars, you're going to have six, seven,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: eight months in the spacecraft. Can you, as they say
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: in their conversation article, how can you continue to nutritionally
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: support those astronauts? And that is essentially one of the
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: motivations for looking at things like growing things in space,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: giving them the checkout to make sure that they don't
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: turn poisonous by their zero gravity environment, things of that sort,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: and that's what they've done with this so very nice experiment.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been doing a lot of research on how
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: you would feed people on a space for a long
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: haul mission, and that's one of the solutions to have
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: basically small farms on the ship, hydroponics and things like
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: that and grow your vegetables and your fungi and whatever
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: else will grow easily in space, and supplement the other
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: stuff that you have to take with you, which would
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: be the proteins. But yeah, it's a really interesting story
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: what they can do with food. I mean, if you're
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: going to spend a year out in space or whatever,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: you can't just rely on packets of chips and you
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: won't get out of the hatch when you get home.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: But yeah, nutrition is very important, and yeah, they've got
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: to get that right too in time. It's all. It's
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: not an easy thing, is it going into space? When
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: you can consider all the logistics involved in feeding and
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: disposal of waste and you know, all the other things
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: that go with it, quite quite extraordinary. But I wonder
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: what they were like, Like I think the report basically
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: suggests that they were quite yummy.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, exactly, that they were very tasty.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder do you think space changes the taste
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: of well, you know, that might be one of the
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: tests that you do.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: You take my celium that's been to space and my
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: celium that hasn't and try to contrast the two. I'm
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: sure they've done that too. Yeah.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a great story. You can read it at
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the Conversation website. Yes, it's called We Ate Space, Mushrooms
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: and Survive to tell the tale. I love it. This
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: is Space. That's with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: We choose to go to the Moon and this decay
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: and do the other thing because they are easy, but because.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: They are MUDs. Now, Fred, we're going to dedicate the
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: last section of the show to Mars, and this was
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: a story that caught me a little bit by surprise.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about the Perseverance rover and what
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: it's up to. These two stories actually involved perseverance. Baha
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: had this one. Yeah, Perseverance has gone aire. No more
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: human drivers. We've left it up to the computers.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: They've that's right, so it's the story is really about
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: the first ever drive on Mars fully planned by artificial intelligence,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: and it happened actually the end of last year. The
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: two demonstrations carried out on December the eighth and December
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the tenth last year, and it's all about how you
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: plan a route across the terrain of Mars with no
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: manual input, and so it's a process that usually is
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: performed by humans, as you might expect people on Earth,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: pouring over the maps that we've got, the high resolution
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: images that have been taken by Mars Reconnaissance orbiter and
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: things of that sort. So what they've done is given
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: all that to the AI machine and said, okay, we
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: want to get to there, how do we do it?
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: And basically that's what they've done, and it's there's a
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: very nice report on this on the space dot com
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: website that gives us a map showing the planned and
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: the actual routes that were taken by the Perseverance rover,
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: and it just goes to show how close the actual
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: route was to the plan route, which means that you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: they didn't encounter unexpected obstacles and things of that.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: That's very unlike when I used to go in the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: car with my grandmother. She yeah, I remember one day
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: we turned into the highway and was on the wrong
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: side of the road. Anyway, that's not a problem on Mars.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: You know, there isn't the wrong side of the road
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: on Mars. That's right. I suppose you know getting off
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: that your beaten track is, but there isn't a beaten track.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: That's the other thing, So you're always on virgin territory
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: when you're driving a spacecraft on Mars. I think I
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: think it's a step forward because I think there's quite
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: a lot of you know, work goes in to the
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: human planning of the roots to Mars. It's it's it's
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: a labor intensive process. In fact, I might read a
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: little bit from that space dot com article which is
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: really quite sums up that the whole process. Because Mars
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: is an average one hundred and fifty million miles or
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty five million kilometers from Earth, communication
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: delays make real time control impossible. The decades, mission teams
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: have instead planned daily routes by hand. Human drivers analyze
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: the terrain and rover status data, then map out paths
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: using waypoints. Typically space no more than about one hundred
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: meters three hundred and thirty feet apart to avoid hazards.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: And then these plans are sent to Mars via the
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Deep Space network where the rover executes them. So this
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: is really you know, step forward. If you can get
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: AI to do all that, then the other mission scientists
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: can go and do something else like analyze what the
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: what the sample you know, sample gatherers are telling us
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: about the terrain on Mars.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a big late forward and when you think
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: about it, I mean they've done it pretty tough, trying
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: to make decisions about where to go and how to
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: do it. And if you have to make a direction change,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the time factor is like four minutes up to twenty
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: four minutes to get the message to perseverance, and then
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: you've got to wait that time again for the message
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: to come back saying no we hit a.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Rock, that's right, yes, so yeah, exactly. So you know
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: that's why you've got to upload the instructions beforehand. And
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: if AI can help with that, so much the better.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Incredible. Yeah, I mean you hear a lot of
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: doom and gloom about AI from certain commentators. You know
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: it's going to be the end of humanity. That's the extreme.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: But it's so useful, Like even in general day to
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: day stuff, it is so very useful. I was trying
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: to look something up the other day and I could
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: not get the wording right in my browser for it
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: to look up what I wanted. It doesn't happen often
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: like that, but it was driving me nuts. So I
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: just went to AI mode and went, I want to
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: know this, and it went ding ding ding done. It's
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: truly impressive stuff, really impressive stuff, and we're only at
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the very dawning of it, aren't we. Really, It's only
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: in the early days. And it makes me wonder, Fred
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: what we can use in terms of AI as day
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: to day people. What have they got going in secret
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: in the dark rooms of the military and places like that.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Their AI systems must be amazing.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where it really starts worrying, when you let
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: robots go off and kill people.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it'll happen one day, I don't doubt it. But
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: a fantastic story about perseverance using AI technology to find
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: its way around and maybe it'll miss those rocks now
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: and you can read it at space dot com. Still
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: on Mars and still on the Perseverance River. This is
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: a fabulous story to finish on Fred and this is
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I think we've talked about the potential for a shoreline
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: being suggested for Mars, but now they reckon they've actually
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: uncovered definitive evidence of it.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: That's right, Yes, So you're absolutely right. There's for a
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: long time there have been features in just in the
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: geomorphology of Mars that you know, the layout of the
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: land that suggest shorelines from this hypothetical ocean, which the
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: evidence is building probably covered the northern hemisphere of Mars
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: for a long period. We've talked about several stories recently
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: that seemed to be confirming that it was a large
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: body of water rather than just a few lakes that
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: came and went with the climate. So but the you know,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: we've it's one thing identifying possible shorelines from orbit, but
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: it's quite another to have definitive evidence on the ground.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: And that's what Perseverance seems to have found now with
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: an analysis of rocks. And we're still talking about Jesuro Crater,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: which is where the spacecraft is. Remember it's this crater
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: that we believe was once full of water, and there's
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: a river delta on one side of it, which is
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: what perseverance is looking at. But the shoreline hypothesis comes about,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: and this is actually from studies carried out by scientists
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: and Imperial College in London. What they've done is they've
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: looked at it's an area which is called the margin unit. Interesting,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: it sounds a bit more like a jazz combo to me,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: but it's the margin unit. That's the that's the name
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: of this geological feature. And it's got a double whammy
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: in terms of the way it's history has evolved, because
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: there's there's signs of what's been called subsurface water activity,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: where you've got water that is changing the characteristics of rock.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: And I think the thinking summarizing it very quickly, and
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: I hope I'm doing the scientist justice in doing this.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: What you've got is basically starts off with volcanic rock,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: but that rock is then altered by water and turns
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: out to have, you know, to be sort of carbonaceous.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: After that carbon dioxide rich water underground circulating underground, it
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: gives the chemical alteration to the to the to the
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: landscape underground. And so that's one of the things that
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: this study has reveal field that that is almost certainly
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: what happened. But the other thing is the fact that
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: they now see evidence of a shoreline. In terms of
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: that basically the layers there are structures in the sandstone,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: which is kind of what it is. It's this altered
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: rock which match structures, as they say, typically formed by
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: wave action on the shoreline. And a lovely comment from
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: one of the one of the researchers, we are looking
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: at what was once a beach. That's Alex Jones, who
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: is a PhD student at Imperial College and he's the
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: lead author of this study.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating. So I think for me, Fred, the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: most exciting part of this story is that they are
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: suggesting this discovery pushes back the timeline for conditions that
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: would support life on Mars. So does that mean that
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the time frame is much larger than they originally thought.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's the bottom line that you know,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: you're giving yourself a bigger window in which life could
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: form on Mars. So, yes, it is a very nice
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: piece of work. Once again, it's just adding to the
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: growing body of evidence that we are amassing that yes,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Mars once had a climate very like the Earth.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and may may well have had life as a
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: consequence of that, and now that the window is bigger. Yeah,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: it's my brain is saying it's only a matter of
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: time before we find the evidence and whether or not
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: there's still life on Mars. No one's dismissing that possibility either.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: No, that's right, exactly.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Fascinating story. You can read it at Daily Galaxy dot com,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: or you can do the geeky thing and read the
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: paper at the Journal of Geophysical Research Planets. Gosh, Fred,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: we've covered a lot of territory and we're all done.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: For the day.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Pleasure and great to revisit Mars again, your favorite plavort. Yeah.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Well, it's got a lot to tell, hasn't it. That's
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: what makes it exciting. Yeah, we've got so much going
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: on there and there's always news almost every day coming
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: out of Mars.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Here.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Fascinating. Thanks reg We catch you real soon.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: That sounds great.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: See yeah, and don't forget to visit our website between episodes.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: You can do that at Space Nuts podcast dot com,
• 32:34
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• 32:37
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• 32:42
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• 32:44
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• 32:50
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• 32:52
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• 32:56
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• 33:00
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• 33:02
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• 33:06
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• 33:10
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• 33:14
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• 33:17
  Speaker 1: who couldn't be with us today because he's in Brisbane.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: That's funny for a lot of reasons that no one
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: will understand, but anyway, we'll leave it there and from
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: me Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company. We'll catch you
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye byepats. You'll
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