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Can NASA predict natural disasters? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the all New Toyota Corolla. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
0:17
Speaker 1: Charles Bryant Chuckers. You might know him. An Sure, there's
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Speaker 1: a w in there somewhere at sure for the Wayne. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: named after Wayne coyn Right, No, we talked about that before. Yeah, John, Wayne,
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Speaker 1: how are you doing. I'm great, man, Um, I am
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Speaker 1: all over this NASA activity. Oh yeah, yeah, good because
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Speaker 1: it seems like i'll we hear about NASA these days
0:45
Speaker 1: is how they're having to shut down uh space programs, Right,
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Speaker 1: that's the other stuff is cool. Well, that's the impression
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Speaker 1: I have is that they're kind of taking their um,
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Speaker 1: their field of vision the mountain to outer space and
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Speaker 1: turning it planet word towards Earth. Why not, That's where
1:02
Speaker 1: all the people are that are buying Big Max. Right. Well,
1:06
Speaker 1: if if space exploration is going private, you got the
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Speaker 1: Elon Musk's and the Richard Branson's of the world saying
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Speaker 1: we got this, NASA, you go do something else with
1:18
Speaker 1: all of your high tech remote sensing equipment, then it
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Speaker 1: makes sense that NASA would say, Okay, we'll become the
1:24
Speaker 1: watchdog guardian of the planet. And that's what they've they've become. Plus, also,
1:29
Speaker 1: if you're the United States using NASA's remote sensing equipment
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Speaker 1: on Earth, is a dynamite cover for intelligence gathering? Well yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean you have all sorts of satellites carrying out
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Speaker 1: different functions, but really all of them are taking pictures
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Speaker 1: of the Earth, highly detailed ones too. You want to
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Speaker 1: know about Russian troops formation as NASA yet of volcano? Sure?
1:58
Speaker 1: If you want to know what kind of sand way? Uh,
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Speaker 1: Julian Assange had today, asked NASA, Well, that's NASA. Everyone
2:07
Speaker 1: knows that what Juna fish is, That what his thing is.
2:10
Speaker 1: Sure every day, that's how he keeps his white main white.
2:14
Speaker 1: Him and Michio Kaku. Yeah, the white mullet. Actually it's
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Speaker 1: not so mellody. It's just more of a main main
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Speaker 1: for sure. Both of them have a main, a big
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Speaker 1: helmet of hair. So chuck um. But I guess the
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Speaker 1: question we've posed today I feel like we need to
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Speaker 1: answer is can NASA predict natural disasters? I think we
2:37
Speaker 1: can go ahead and answer and say not yet. Right,
2:39
Speaker 1: But now that again, they've kind of mothballed space exploration
2:45
Speaker 1: to an extent. I mean we're still hitting Mars. Yeah, yeah,
2:48
Speaker 1: we're not. They're not mothballing it, but they're they're they've
2:50
Speaker 1: reached the point where they're like, Okay, we've got all
2:52
Speaker 1: this really good equipment, let's start monitoring Earth a little
2:55
Speaker 1: more because there's a lot of questions we have. Um. Now,
2:58
Speaker 1: they've reached this point where since the beginning of twenty
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Speaker 1: one century, they've started conducting missions. They have planned ones
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Speaker 1: that are just being started now, some that are coming
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Speaker 1: in the next couple of years, and from all this
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Speaker 1: data they'll be able to analyze it and start to
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Speaker 1: be able to predict natural disasters. So they have this
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Speaker 1: whole like toolbox. I guess if you wanted to go
3:19
Speaker 1: into like corporate buzz speak of of programs and missions
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Speaker 1: that they're carrying out that will help them predict natural
3:26
Speaker 1: disasters pretty soon. That's right, not the low hanging fruit, right,
3:31
Speaker 1: they're just trying to reach out and play together with
3:34
Speaker 1: the Earth in the same in the same space, in
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Speaker 1: the same space. Maybe Java storm boy at the corporate talk, Yeah,
3:42
Speaker 1: we shunned that at all costs here, Um, all right,
3:46
Speaker 1: so let's talk about this. We talked about remote sensing.
3:49
Speaker 1: That is UM basically detecting energy reflecting from something UM
3:55
Speaker 1: when it's pointed out in space, like when you're looking
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Speaker 1: for new planets, it's pointed out in space. When you
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Speaker 1: pointed on Earth, it's a heck of a lot closer, right,
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Speaker 1: And to get more detail. And they're they're using different
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Speaker 1: kinds of UM detectors. They're detecting different kinds of energy
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Speaker 1: I should say, like microwave, radiation, X rays. It's not
4:14
Speaker 1: just like using your peepers. That information can be translated
4:19
Speaker 1: into something we use our peepers to look at, but
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Speaker 1: for they can use this equipment to sense all sorts
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Speaker 1: of different stuff. Yeah. And like you said, it's UM.
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Speaker 1: It's like mounted on aircraft or it's part of a
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Speaker 1: satellite or is a satellite and um, yeah, it's all up.
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Speaker 1: They're looking back at you right now, yes, the wave. Yeah,
4:37
Speaker 1: or it's looking at the Earth where we're just the
4:40
Speaker 1: insignificant tiny specs crawling around on the Earth. Yeah. And
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Speaker 1: this is this is a kind of a big deal.
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Speaker 1: You know, it makes sense, it's sensible what they're doing.
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Speaker 1: It's a smart thing. To do with NASA's department, but
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Speaker 1: it also really is, um, we're at the threshold of
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Speaker 1: like a really big change in our understanding of our planet,
5:02
Speaker 1: you know, Like I think there's kind of a lot
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Speaker 1: of assumptions that people make about our understanding of the
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Speaker 1: planet that are just totally incorrect. Like, for example, I
5:09
Speaker 1: would have guessed that meteorologists and climatologists knew how tropical
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Speaker 1: storms form. They do not, uh, And from using things
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Speaker 1: like well, there's actually a project that was carried out
5:22
Speaker 1: in the summer of two thousand ten UM that was
5:25
Speaker 1: dedicated to studying this is called grip genesis and rapid
5:30
Speaker 1: intensification processes. And for a couple of a couple of months,
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Speaker 1: some NASA scientists flew around on a Gulf Stream jet
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Speaker 1: and took really precise measurements of what they believed were
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Speaker 1: the beginnings of tropical storms to see how they form exactly. Yeah,
5:48
Speaker 1: And the goal with pretty much everything that we're going
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Speaker 1: to talk about today is early detection. Because you can't
5:54
Speaker 1: stop a hurricane, you can't stop a volcano or an earthquake.
5:58
Speaker 1: But like the old saying, that's right, but if you
6:01
Speaker 1: know it's coming, then you can get people out of
6:05
Speaker 1: the way. You can thwart some of them to some degree. Yeah,
6:08
Speaker 1: Like anybody can point to a hurricane be like, oh,
6:10
Speaker 1: there's a hurricane. By then it's a little too late.
6:14
Speaker 1: If you can point to the very beginnings the cradle
6:17
Speaker 1: of the hurricane, the formation of a tropical storm. Now
6:21
Speaker 1: you're talking about time that you have to warn people,
6:23
Speaker 1: like you, guys need to get out of here. Yeah.
6:26
Speaker 1: And there is one really cool program they've had going
6:28
Speaker 1: since two thousand two called GRACE. There's gonna be a
6:32
Speaker 1: lot of acronyms today, by the way, the UM the
6:37
Speaker 1: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, this is my favorite one.
6:41
Speaker 1: It's it's really cool basically what they're doing. All right, Well,
6:44
Speaker 1: let's step back a minute. Let's talk about Newton. Okay,
6:48
Speaker 1: gravity depends on the mass of an object. In the
6:51
Speaker 1: case of polar ice caps, the mass is changing. So
6:55
Speaker 1: if the mass is changing, the gravity is changing. Right.
6:57
Speaker 1: So when when the polar ice caps melt and turn
7:01
Speaker 1: to water and then flow towards the equator, um they
7:06
Speaker 1: are often so big that they left it in depression
7:10
Speaker 1: on the Earth's surface. Once they're gone, that depression could
7:14
Speaker 1: be filled in the mantle can fill back in in
7:16
Speaker 1: the area, changing the mass in that particular part of
7:20
Speaker 1: Earth and hence changing the gravity. Right, Yeah, it's one
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Speaker 1: estimate has between two thousand and ten and two thousand
7:26
Speaker 1: and eleven UM, the Greenland ice Shield lost two hundred
7:30
Speaker 1: and twenty four giga tons of mats. So not only
7:34
Speaker 1: is that going to change the land formation in the mass,
7:35
Speaker 1: it's gonna make the sea level rise at a rate
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Speaker 1: of about point seven millimeters a year. That's going to
7:42
Speaker 1: change the makeup of the Earth. Um. And so they
7:45
Speaker 1: have a couple of buddies, Tom and Jerry that are
7:50
Speaker 1: in orbit satellites, twin satellites about a hundred and thirty
7:54
Speaker 1: six miles apart from each other. Do you know why
7:56
Speaker 1: they're called Tom and Jerry because they're chasing each other
7:58
Speaker 1: and then only they're on the same orbit exactly a
8:01
Speaker 1: polar orbit. Yeah, it's very cute. So they're constantly going
8:04
Speaker 1: from the North pole to the South Pole um as
8:07
Speaker 1: the Earth spins below them, right, that's right. And um
8:11
Speaker 1: they're taking they're they're taking measurements, two different types of measurements,
8:15
Speaker 1: but they're precisely separated from one another, and they're on
8:18
Speaker 1: precisely the same orbit, so they can. Really what they
8:22
Speaker 1: produce every thirty days is a full map of the
8:25
Speaker 1: gravitational field of Earth. Yeah, and they've Nanasa. They always
8:29
Speaker 1: work with other people, it seems like, which is a
8:30
Speaker 1: good thing to work with people around the world. But
8:32
Speaker 1: they worked with a company in Germany to develop UM
8:35
Speaker 1: an ultra precise distance measuring system that basically can measure
8:41
Speaker 1: within the precision what they say is one tenth of
8:44
Speaker 1: the width of a hair. That's pretty precise. Yeah. So
8:47
Speaker 1: basically these things are flying U and between the two
8:51
Speaker 1: they're measuring the distances and discrepancies between these two identical
8:56
Speaker 1: twin satellites, and that's information is being relaid back analyze. Yeah,
9:00
Speaker 1: because the upside of this is number one, the Earth
9:03
Speaker 1: is not a perfect sphere. We know that. I can't
9:05
Speaker 1: remember what we talked about that in oh maps. Yeah potato. Yeah,
9:09
Speaker 1: in the the the gravitational field is not perfectly round either.
9:14
Speaker 1: It's lower in some places, higher in other places. The
9:18
Speaker 1: force of gravity um. So yeah, it's formed what was
9:23
Speaker 1: coined the Potsdam gravity potato. And if you look it
9:26
Speaker 1: up now there's some pretty cool UM artists rendering of
9:30
Speaker 1: what the Earth's magnetic field looks like and as a
9:32
Speaker 1: three dimensional model. Yeah, it's very cool. Um, so check
9:35
Speaker 1: that out. And that's been updated dramatically in the last
9:39
Speaker 1: couple of years thanks to this GRACE project. Yeah, and
9:42
Speaker 1: the ultimate goal basically is to measure this gravitational field
9:46
Speaker 1: over time see how it's changing with kind of accuracy
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Speaker 1: we've never had before, which will in turn inform us
9:52
Speaker 1: on climate related uh drunk right, I mean and and
9:58
Speaker 1: is it just a correlation between mean, like ice caps
10:00
Speaker 1: melting in a change in a gravitational field, or does
10:03
Speaker 1: that ice cap melting trigger that change in the gravitational field,
10:07
Speaker 1: which in turn has some other effects. So, um, there's
10:12
Speaker 1: a lot of I think understanding we can gain from
10:15
Speaker 1: knowing what the gravitational field is changing, how it's changing. Yeah,
10:19
Speaker 1: do you like using your GPS to get somewhere, Well,
10:23
Speaker 1: then this kind of information can go on to help
10:26
Speaker 1: GPS because basically it's just gonna improve the trajectories of
10:31
Speaker 1: these UH satellites and everything is just more specific. It's
10:35
Speaker 1: like a hundred times um more detailed than they've ever
10:40
Speaker 1: had before. So that's gonna help everything out from detecting
10:43
Speaker 1: climate change or temperature and in like potential hurricanes and
10:47
Speaker 1: stuff too, like getting you to McDonald's, right, you know,
10:53
Speaker 1: which is pretty important by the way, chuck. Um uh,
10:58
Speaker 1: the tropical storms. You want to how they think they form? Now? Um, well,
11:04
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you. So. The speed of waves on
11:06
Speaker 1: an ocean, um, if it matches the speed of the
11:12
Speaker 1: movement of some air above it, and an umbilical cord
11:16
Speaker 1: of warm, humid air can get into this little pillow sandwich.
11:22
Speaker 1: It forms this protective pouch and from there a convection
11:27
Speaker 1: current can start and form into a tropical storm, which
11:30
Speaker 1: can then form into a hurricane. That's what they learned
11:33
Speaker 1: from the GRIP program. Man, it seems like they would
11:36
Speaker 1: have known this stuff before then, you think, so, you know,
11:38
Speaker 1: but we're talking like two when they're I don't even
11:42
Speaker 1: think it's been proven. I think that that's what they
11:43
Speaker 1: think based on the data from the two thousand ten experiments. Yeah,
11:46
Speaker 1: aren't they still analyzing that stuff? Alright? I imagine like
11:51
Speaker 1: that's got to be a pretty good field to get
11:54
Speaker 1: into now and in the next like five ten years,
11:57
Speaker 1: analyzing NASA data. Yeah, and just anything to do with
12:02
Speaker 1: the climate probably anything, Yeah, things that's changing. It's gonna
12:05
Speaker 1: be gangbusters. There's a lot of money in the weather. Um.
12:10
Speaker 1: All right, so that's tropical storms and hurricanes. We didn't
12:13
Speaker 1: talk about the GPM project. Um. Yeah, that they're working
12:18
Speaker 1: with UM. NASA's working with Japan and they're NASA, which
12:22
Speaker 1: is called the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency or JACKSON, and
12:27
Speaker 1: that is a Global Precipitation measurement and they are using
12:32
Speaker 1: satellites to observe all kinds of participation precipitation patterns all
12:38
Speaker 1: over the world. And basically, like before, we can only
12:43
Speaker 1: place these things in certain spots that were easier to
12:46
Speaker 1: get to, and you can't place them out of the ocean,
12:49
Speaker 1: and you can't place them in the andies because it's
12:50
Speaker 1: too rocky. This allows us to study the entire globe
12:54
Speaker 1: for the first time. So they're following they're basically tracking
12:57
Speaker 1: the movement of water around the planet on like a daily, seasonal,
13:01
Speaker 1: a yearly basis um. And what they hope to be
13:04
Speaker 1: able to gain from this it's a predict when floods happened,
13:06
Speaker 1: because apparently a major flood happens every day around the Earth. Yeah,
13:12
Speaker 1: and a lot of times those floods lead to landslides.
13:15
Speaker 1: We saw firsthand in Guatemala what happens when a landslide
13:18
Speaker 1: comes down. Remember, oh, yeah, we were standing there and
13:21
Speaker 1: they said, this is literally twelve feet higher than it was. Yeah,
13:24
Speaker 1: we were standing on the remains of a village that
13:26
Speaker 1: got caught in the middle of the night and they're like,
13:29
Speaker 1: there are people down there still. Yeah, you could still
13:31
Speaker 1: see the swath that have been cut through the jungle
13:33
Speaker 1: on the mountain side. Right. So they're hoping, okay, well,
13:35
Speaker 1: if we can figure out when a flood's coming, we
13:38
Speaker 1: can predict landslides in turns, So by tracking global precipitation,
13:43
Speaker 1: that's what they're hoping to be able to do with that. Yeah.
13:45
Speaker 1: They're also using uh L I d a R at
13:49
Speaker 1: the light R Surface topography system. This is my second
13:52
Speaker 1: favorite one, the list one UM, and they're hopefully going
13:56
Speaker 1: to be able to attract things like volcanoes, earthquakes, landslide
14:00
Speaker 1: us and erosion. But not wildfires. No, not wildfires. That's
14:04
Speaker 1: crazy talk. That is crazy talk. But it's the same
14:06
Speaker 1: thing as with tracking precipitation. As of two years ago,
14:11
Speaker 1: we had to physically put some sensor somewhere and there
14:14
Speaker 1: are places we just couldn't get to, and now that
14:17
Speaker 1: we have satellites, we can track that stuff. Same goes
14:20
Speaker 1: with this, like we used to have to be able
14:22
Speaker 1: to find a fault line, put sensors there and then
14:26
Speaker 1: monitor that um with with the list program. With leader UM,
14:32
Speaker 1: they're using lasers to monitor fault lines and find new
14:35
Speaker 1: ones that we didn't know were there before, track their movement,
14:38
Speaker 1: and then use those to predict earthquakes and then similarly
14:41
Speaker 1: predict volcanoes. So listen to this. Okay. The resolution now
14:47
Speaker 1: they have is five meter horizontal resolution with a precision
14:51
Speaker 1: of four inches. Previously, the best data we could get
14:55
Speaker 1: was thirty meter resolution with a thirty to foot precision,
15:01
Speaker 1: So went from thirty two to four inches. That's pretty good.
15:05
Speaker 1: They'd be like, give it take thirty two ft. Yeah,
15:07
Speaker 1: now let's give it take four inches with thanks to lasers,
15:12
Speaker 1: so they could possibly detect volcanic activity before it happens. Right,
15:16
Speaker 1: And the way that they're doing that, you would think, well,
15:18
Speaker 1: they're using thermal cameras. You'd be wrong. What they're doing
15:20
Speaker 1: is looking for land deformation. Apparently before a volcano goes off,
15:25
Speaker 1: that land around it literally deforms, it swells due to pressure.
15:31
Speaker 1: And since we are tracking topography now using this UM
15:35
Speaker 1: this program, we can say, oh, well that that crater
15:40
Speaker 1: wasn't three times larger than it is now like a
15:44
Speaker 1: week ago, maybe a volcan is about to go off. Uh.
15:48
Speaker 1: And it's not just volcanoes and natural disasters. They can
15:52
Speaker 1: also monitor erosion and top soil loss, basically anything on
15:56
Speaker 1: the Earth that's interesting they can like really accurately closely monitor.
16:00
Speaker 1: Now and this said two thousand sixteen, is it already underway? Um? No,
16:07
Speaker 1: it's two thousand thirteen. Chuck. Now that says it was
16:11
Speaker 1: gonna launch in two thousand sixteen, but it's already Is
16:13
Speaker 1: it already going Okay? I think it's launching in two
16:16
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen. Okay, so this is just the plan, you're right, Yeah,
16:20
Speaker 1: I know they have a lot of like this just started,
16:23
Speaker 1: like the UM I think it might have been the
16:26
Speaker 1: Grace Program started in two thousand two and it's been
16:29
Speaker 1: going on. It is the Grace Program, the one with
16:32
Speaker 1: Tom and Jerry. Right, Yeah, that was right, and it
16:34
Speaker 1: had its tenth anniversary in two thousand twelve. I think
16:37
Speaker 1: that might have been the first project like this and
16:41
Speaker 1: now NASA's throwing like everything into this stuff, and we're
16:44
Speaker 1: just at the at the forefront, at the very beginning
16:46
Speaker 1: of this kind of thing. This is a very timely episode. Frankly,
16:50
Speaker 1: it's actually um they have. In fact, I think these
16:54
Speaker 1: new probes are even newer than the List program, right
16:58
Speaker 1: that NASA is proposing to launch, the one we were
17:00
Speaker 1: just talking about with the volcano deformation. Yeah, yeah, um
17:04
Speaker 1: this is a pair of satellites that monitor little bitty
17:07
Speaker 1: changes in the surface. And um, I guess it's a
17:11
Speaker 1: funding thing because I don't think these two are even uh,
17:15
Speaker 1: I think they're still just like in the proposition phase.
17:17
Speaker 1: So I guess we should say, like then they will
17:19
Speaker 1: be doing this, this is coming yeah, and like this
17:21
Speaker 1: particular project. Yeah, and the precipitation when his launches in
17:25
Speaker 1: February of next year. So it sounds as though these
17:28
Speaker 1: things are already happening. But I think it's just like
17:30
Speaker 1: this is how it's gonna work. It sounds as though
17:32
Speaker 1: they're already happening because of us. The tents were using
17:37
Speaker 1: that's right, we're using present, we should be using future perfect.
17:41
Speaker 1: One of the problems with the satellites, though, is um
17:43
Speaker 1: and with lasers, is clouds right? Because clouds get in
17:47
Speaker 1: the way. It's got to be a clear day to
17:49
Speaker 1: use most of this stuff. Hold on, I know you
17:52
Speaker 1: love talking about clouds. I do too. But before we
17:55
Speaker 1: go any further, what do you think about a message break?
17:57
Speaker 1: That's great? Okay, So back to clouds. They caused trouble
18:07
Speaker 1: with lasers and with satellites. Yeah, so that you gotta
18:10
Speaker 1: count on clear days. So it's not like these things
18:13
Speaker 1: are humming seven. Weren't you surprised finding out that clouds
18:18
Speaker 1: are still an impediment to lasers? No, I would have thought, like,
18:22
Speaker 1: I mean, the projects we're talking about, so like, gee, whiz,
18:24
Speaker 1: that can't cloud I thought that. It just seemed kind
18:28
Speaker 1: of like, well, what are you guys gonna do about that?
18:30
Speaker 1: Because that's a pretty big obstacle. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah,
18:34
Speaker 1: maybe they could have an anti seating program, Oh yeah,
18:39
Speaker 1: to disperse clouds. Nice. Um, so, chuck, NASA doesn't need
18:43
Speaker 1: to turn its back fully on space, like we said,
18:45
Speaker 1: it's still carrying out the Mars mission. Um, what was
18:50
Speaker 1: after that? Are they going to Saturn? I don't know,
18:53
Speaker 1: Saturn Uranus? Maybe they're they're exploring some moon I can't remember,
19:00
Speaker 1: remember it's what They haven't turned their back on space,
19:02
Speaker 1: and they don't need to because there's a huge threat
19:04
Speaker 1: from space bearing down on us constantly. That's right near
19:08
Speaker 1: Earth objects, which I feel like we should do a
19:12
Speaker 1: podcast just on near Earth objects. If you want to
19:15
Speaker 1: get here then some medium, go watch the movie Armageddon done.
19:22
Speaker 1: Although that is deep impact in armagedding. We're both um,
19:26
Speaker 1: while fanciful, not too far off, and that there are
19:30
Speaker 1: objects that come near the Earth and we think if
19:33
Speaker 1: we can detect them soon enough, that there is existing
19:35
Speaker 1: technology now that can throw these things off course. Right,
19:38
Speaker 1: and Earth is constantly being bombarded every day about a
19:41
Speaker 1: hundred hundred tons of material like rain down on the Earth.
19:47
Speaker 1: We're talking little particles, things that break up in the atmosphere, um,
19:52
Speaker 1: mostly like comment dust and stuff. Right, Um, But there
19:57
Speaker 1: are uh NASA estimates about a thousand objects that could
20:04
Speaker 1: collide with Earth that are kilometer or more in diameter.
20:08
Speaker 1: It's point six two miles in diameter, and that if
20:12
Speaker 1: any one of these impacted Earth, which they do about
20:15
Speaker 1: every ten thousand years, it would be what's called a
20:18
Speaker 1: global catastrophe. Actually, good news, buddy, that is every several
20:22
Speaker 1: hundred thousand years, So what comes down every ten years?
20:26
Speaker 1: About every ten thousand years, asteroids um larger than about
20:29
Speaker 1: a hundred meters could hit the Earth and that would
20:32
Speaker 1: just be like a local disaster. So it would be
20:34
Speaker 1: like a one the size of a football field. Yeah,
20:37
Speaker 1: and that I mean, that's not great if you're near it,
20:39
Speaker 1: but it's not like a what they would call a
20:42
Speaker 1: global disaster, like the end of the world type scenario.
20:45
Speaker 1: And that's one that's like a kilometer in diameter. Yeah,
20:48
Speaker 1: And it says every several hundred thousand years or so.
20:50
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, what are the chances that that's
20:54
Speaker 1: going to happen the next like forty years? I don't know,
20:56
Speaker 1: aren't we like on a when was the last one?
20:59
Speaker 1: It was about a quarter of a million years ago,
21:02
Speaker 1: wasn't it. I don't know. Was it the one that
21:05
Speaker 1: formed the chit club creator? I don't think I've pronounced
21:09
Speaker 1: that correctly, but you know what I'm talking about people
21:11
Speaker 1: who are familiar with that or they do. But the
21:14
Speaker 1: point is we need a lead time on the stuff.
21:17
Speaker 1: Chee Club, the Chicken Club. It's a there's an X
21:21
Speaker 1: in there, but it's a. It's it's in Mesoamerica. So
21:24
Speaker 1: the X is like a hawk. Oh, it's pronounced cutulu. No,
21:29
Speaker 1: it was close oak, it's like that. But there's a
21:35
Speaker 1: chi and I believe a club afterwards. So I'm just
21:38
Speaker 1: gonna say, chee club creator. But I think that was
21:41
Speaker 1: longer ago than a hundred thousand years ago, that extinction event. Yes, okay, Well,
21:48
Speaker 1: the good news is if we have a little bit
21:50
Speaker 1: of lead time, like a few years, supposedly there are
21:54
Speaker 1: things that we can do to knock these asteroids off course,
21:58
Speaker 1: like what one is. Using nuclear fission weapons, you set
22:04
Speaker 1: it off and the trick is you don't want to
22:06
Speaker 1: blow this thing up, no, because then you might have
22:08
Speaker 1: a lot of problems. Yeah, that's even worse. But um,
22:12
Speaker 1: it would just set it off course. And even if
22:14
Speaker 1: you set something off course by a few millimeters over
22:17
Speaker 1: the course of years, that could be enough. So it's
22:19
Speaker 1: not like they're looking to knock at miles away or anything,
22:22
Speaker 1: although in the movies that's how they do it. Yeah,
22:24
Speaker 1: and the movies that's how they did do it. I think,
22:26
Speaker 1: of course, we may mind them, which we talked about. Yeah,
22:29
Speaker 1: asteroid mining, um and tracking these things has actually become
22:34
Speaker 1: something of a crowdsource thing. There's NASA has this um
22:39
Speaker 1: All Sky Fireball Network that sounds so not real, yeah,
22:43
Speaker 1: but it is. It's a real program they have where
22:46
Speaker 1: they have cameras that are connected to the Internet that
22:49
Speaker 1: are constantly filming the night sky. Most of them are
22:52
Speaker 1: along the Eastern Seaboard. We got one here in Georgia, yeah,
22:55
Speaker 1: and Alabama, HASM, Tennessee. Um. They're they're grouped in clusters. Um.
23:00
Speaker 1: And actually, if you want to propose your location as
23:04
Speaker 1: a place to host one of these cameras, typically they're
23:08
Speaker 1: like on schools or things like that, Yeah, you can.
23:12
Speaker 1: You can submit an application and if there's there's really
23:15
Speaker 1: just like four criteria. It's like there can't be a
23:18
Speaker 1: lot of light pollution or a light nearby, and that
23:20
Speaker 1: rules me out. You have to be able to um,
23:23
Speaker 1: you have to be connected to the internet, like a
23:26
Speaker 1: couple of a couple of other things. Um. But it's
23:30
Speaker 1: it's like you can get a camera set up and
23:32
Speaker 1: be part of the All Sky Fireball Network. That's pretty cool.
23:35
Speaker 1: I think the plan is to eventually have fifteen of
23:38
Speaker 1: these in place, and um, I guess tracking fireballs, Yeah,
23:44
Speaker 1: which were good, good things to keep TAM's on for sure,
23:48
Speaker 1: you got anything else? No, that's all the news about NASA.
23:52
Speaker 1: I wish NASA would sponsor US man, that'd be awesome. Yeah,
23:55
Speaker 1: talk talk about someone we could stump for NASA. Yeah, sure,
24:01
Speaker 1: let's let's do it. NASA. What's your problem? You guys
24:04
Speaker 1: have deep pockets? Yeah? Uh, let's see. If you want
24:07
Speaker 1: to know more about NASA, you can type that word
24:11
Speaker 1: into the handy search bar how stuff works. That comment
24:14
Speaker 1: will bring up a bunch of articles we love NASA here,
24:17
Speaker 1: how stuff works and stuff you should know. Um, and
24:19
Speaker 1: since I said handy search bar, Chuck, it's time for
24:23
Speaker 1: listener mail. Straight to listener mail. Yeah. Oh do you
24:28
Speaker 1: hear that chime? Man, it's like two thousand nine? All right,
24:34
Speaker 1: dear guys and Jerry. It just got home from another
24:36
Speaker 1: eight hour car trip with my hobby, during which we
24:38
Speaker 1: binge listened to the stuff you should know. Yeah, this
24:41
Speaker 1: has been our car trip ritual for about a year now.
24:43
Speaker 1: We actually moved to Atlanta, Kenna saw last August, and
24:48
Speaker 1: we make pretty frequent trips to our hometown of St. Louis.
24:51
Speaker 1: That's a long car trip, Yeah, it sure is. I
24:54
Speaker 1: wonder if they know that you can fly there really quickly. Um.
24:58
Speaker 1: He introduced me to the Podcas asked on her first
25:00
Speaker 1: trip down here, and I have to admit I didn't
25:02
Speaker 1: have much hope. I'm a ballet teacher who loves arts
25:05
Speaker 1: and fiction in long hours with Netflix, and he is
25:07
Speaker 1: a self tart programmer who loves biographies and doing math
25:10
Speaker 1: for fun in its free time. So when he told
25:13
Speaker 1: me what the show was, I was thinking, great, I'm
25:15
Speaker 1: gonna feel dumb and bored. But we gave it a try. Anyway.
25:18
Speaker 1: I also have to admit, and this one is kind
25:20
Speaker 1: of funny. After listening to one or two episodes, I
25:23
Speaker 1: told him I didn't like it. He not understanding how
25:26
Speaker 1: that was possible, ask me why not, and I said, dude,
25:29
Speaker 1: it's so condescending that the way they ask each other
25:31
Speaker 1: questions and converse as if they don't already know what
25:34
Speaker 1: the other person is gonna say, as if he sniffed
25:37
Speaker 1: me off the case right away. She says, So she's
25:40
Speaker 1: a true fan by saying, I don't think that's fake.
25:42
Speaker 1: I think they're really right. Don't write out a full
25:45
Speaker 1: script ahead of time, I believe it or not. He's right,
25:49
Speaker 1: believe or not. That changed everything, which might seem silly,
25:52
Speaker 1: but I bet you listened to a past episode and
25:54
Speaker 1: imagine it was totally scripted and rehearse she'd see what
25:56
Speaker 1: I mean now, I recommended everyone. I can't even conceive
26:00
Speaker 1: of how we would be able to generate the level
26:04
Speaker 1: of clumsiness that we rise to every episode. You couldn't
26:07
Speaker 1: write that. Yeah, So thanks guys for putting out a
26:09
Speaker 1: very entertaining program for people of all ages to enjoy,
26:12
Speaker 1: and for being less sad than this American life, which
26:16
Speaker 1: we also love, but sometimes we just don't have enough
26:19
Speaker 1: tissue and emotional resolve to listen to it. That is
26:22
Speaker 1: from Amber and Ben Studive Baker. Thanks to you guys.
26:26
Speaker 1: Thanks Amber and Ben. Hey there, if you're on one
26:28
Speaker 1: of your road trips, drive safe and drive safe to
26:31
Speaker 1: everybody out there who's listening on a road trip or
26:35
Speaker 1: on a long haul or on an airplane whatever. If
26:39
Speaker 1: you're listening to us right now and you're traveling, I
26:42
Speaker 1: hope it's a nice time, agreed. Uh. If you want
26:44
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26:52
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