We’re back from our summer hiatus. Before we left, we gave you a bunch of stories we thought might be important. Now let’s look back and see how our predictions went. And what surprises did happen?
Transcript
Human transcription provided by GMR Transcription
Fraser Cain:
Astronomy Cast Episode 726: Looking Back Over the Summer. Welcome to Astronomy Cast, our weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know but how we know what we know. I’m Fraser Cain. I’m the publisher of Universe Today with me, as always, is Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the director of CosmoQuest. Hey Pamela. How’re you doing?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
I am doing well. And, uh, our show would be old enough to vote in this year’s presidential elections. Which is your reminder to make sure you are registered to vote no matter what country you’re in. If it’s a democracy, make sure you’re registered and vote. Voting is important.
Fraser Cain:
So what? Eighteen? You’re allowed to vote when you’re 18?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
In the US?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
Okay.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. Can’t drink until you’re 21, but you’re allowed to decide the fate of the nation at 18.
Fraser Cain:
Right. Yeah. Um. Yeah. We’re at – we’re 18 here in, in Canada as well. And then 19 for drinking. But we [laugh] are over our summer hiatus. So, we are back.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
We are.
Fraser Cain:
And, uh, so what did you do with your summer hiatus?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
I went to a whole bunch of different astronomy things. I went to San Diego on vacation and took pictures of gorillas and boats and other things. ‘Cause sometimes you just need a vacation that is nothing but taking pictures outdoors.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And mostly I slowly deteriorated mentally as I watched what’s happening to NASA’s budget.
Fraser Cain:
Oh. Poor NASA.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
The the cancellation of the VIPER mission, uh, led me to learn things that reminded me why I hate economics. Um.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. That – the VIPER mission is an example of something that’s really frustrating, and yet those are the rules.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And I don’t know if we’re gonna talk about this. Was it canceled during hiatus?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. It was.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Okay. We’ll talk about – all right. We’ll talk about this in the – in the episode. Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Okay.
Fraser Cain:
And so for me I, you know – I did my regular stuff which was that I, I went into the forest and I cut down trees and I, um, planted a bunch of stuff and observed nature. Uh. I did a bunch of hikes this summer, uh, with my wife, and it was great. There was a family friend who had expressed that she had never done this hike on Vancouver Island.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Oh.
Fraser Cain:
It’s like, you know – it’s on her bucket list. She’s 80-years-old.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And, and I was like, “That’s easy.” And so we, we did a trip to San Josef Bay, which is just this beautiful beach – considered one of the best beaches in the world. And you can camp out on the beach. It’s amazing.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Ah.
Fraser Cain:
Just one of the most wonderful experiences you can have on Vancouver Island. And so we, we fulfilled her bucket list which was – which was great. A lot of fun. So, um, and then I just – I worked a lot. Like it’s funny ‘cause I think I need a different term. It’s like – hiatus. People think hiatus means I’m not gonna work.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
No.
Fraser Cain:
All it just means is that I’m not livestreaming. I’m still w-working like crazy. And so, we produced a ton of videos, lots of interesting interviews. Some of the best interviews that I’ve done ever. We published in the summer.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
That’s amazing.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Yeah. It was great. So, um, yeah. But anyway, it was – it was a lot of fun and – but I’m glad to be back. And, uh, let’s get into this week’s episode.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
All righty.
Fraser Cain:
We’re back from our summer hiatus. Now before we left, we gave you a bunch of stories that we thought might be important. Now, let’s look back and see how our predictions went and what surprises did happen. All right. So, what were some of the predictions that we made that we nailed?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Uh. Chang’e 6, uh, did land June 26th as, as we said it would. To be fair, it was already on a return trajectory when we recorded.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
So if that one had failed, uh – yeah. That woulda been super bad.
Fraser Cain:
There was no way that wasn’t going to – that, that something wasn’t going to happen.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Exactly.
Fraser Cain:
It was going to return.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And it did it healthy, and we’ve already started to get early science results back. One of my favorite things is looking at the glass spheres in the sample they brought back.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
They’ve been able to identify that vulcanism has occurred on the Moon, at least on the far side, uh, since dinosaurs roamed the Earth within the past hundred million years. And, and this means that, that theoretically if the same thing happened on the near side of the Moon – and they’re very geologically different. So, we can’t assume that that occurred. Um. It-it’s possible that dinosaurs could see the unilluminated side of the Moon with, uh, volcanism going off, which is kind of cool to think about.
Fraser Cain:
Wow. Now, this was a bit of a, uh – we sort of knew this, but didn’t know this.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
But China announced their, uh, schedule for their upcoming missions. So we’ve got, um, Tianwen. Th-they’ve got the Tianwen series as well. So, Tianwen-1 was the Mars lander orbiter rover that they launched that has since failed. The solar panels are, are dead. But they gave us some more details about the next coming missions. So, Tianwen-2 is gonna be doing a sample return mission from an asteroid – from a near-Earth asteroid, which is really interesting.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yes.
Fraser Cain:
That’s probably launching 2026. And then they’re gonna be launching their Mars sample return mission in 2028. So, we’re only four years away from them sending their Mars sample return mission. And that – like, that’s gonna be mind-blowing.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
We’re gonna have the first samples of Mars. Fresh samples, not from an asteroid that landed on Earth 10,000 years ago or 100,000 years ago. But actually, just a fresh sample from the most interesting place. You know, it’s not gonna be as, as useful scientifically as the Mars sample return mission from NASA, which would have brought back 2-25, 30 samples perfectly chosen and, and –
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. But it won’t be back by the time the Chinese get back.
Fraser Cain:
That’s right. Or it won’t even launch. We don’t know what’s gonna happen with the Mars sample return mission.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And then for 2030, they’re gonna be sending a mission to Jupiter. So, they’re gonna be sending uh, uh, an orbiter that’s going to go into the, the Jovian system, which is super cool. So. And not a sample return. But that’s, that’s –
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And they’re, they’re also planning their own rovers to the South Polar region that they’re going to use to do in situ resource utilization sampling.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
So, basically figure out where are the resources that can be used. And those rovers are going to inform where in nominally 2030 they put human beings on the surface of the Moon.
Fraser Cain:
Exactly. So by 2030, China should have humans on the surface of the Moon and samples from Mars returned to Earth. Which is, you know, pretty impressive levels of accomplishment for –
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. Or at least on their way back. I don’t know if they’ll have landed by 2030.
Fraser Cain:
Twenty – yeah. I don’t know. ‘28. And then – and then nine months to come back. It’s like a year to come back. So I – probably before 2030, they’ll have the samples in the hands in the lab.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Okay.
Fraser Cain:
So, that’s a big one.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
Okay. Now, the other one that we predicted and that came true was we get the launch of the Ariane 6.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yes.
Fraser Cain:
And that’s a – that was less assured because, you know, rockets get delayed and it’s not a surprise. We could see a rocket get delayed for month after month after month whether –
Dr. Pamela Gay:
It’s true.
Fraser Cain:
Testing the first launch of the Ariane 6. But no. It went off without a hitch. Well, not without a hitch. But right away.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Well, gases are hard.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And, and everyone has been learning hydrogen, helium – they just escape from everything.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Yeah. So, so but, but it’s great. And so now, Europe has their heavy-lift rocket capability returned after the Ariane 5 was wrapped up. So that was July 9th. And so, that one went off.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And, and then something else that actually worked was Chandrayaan 3 successfully took off July 14th.
Fraser Cain:
Yes.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And, uh, it lasted until August 22nd, which is pretty cool. So, India was the fourth country to successfully land on the Moon.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you say took off, but the point here is that it landed on the Moon.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Which was key. Um, Now speaking of landers on the Moon, the Japanese SLIM lander finally went offline over the summer. So it, it had landed, surprised the controllers in Japan that it was still alive after two months.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Right.
Fraser Cain:
Two months of darkness.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Basically being upside down too.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, it wasn’t really in a – in the perfect position. And, and yet it still survived through the lunar night three times, and then they weren’t able to restore contact with it. So, um, the Moon is tough.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
It, it is. And, and Astrobotic was supposed to be launching their next rover in September. And over the summer, we found out that is not happening. They are now looking at no earlier than end of next year. And, uh, that delay probably cost us the VIPER mission.
Fraser Cain:
All right. And so, I guess the last thing that, that we predicted would happen and did happen was the IAU had its meeting in August.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
[Laugh] Yes.
Fraser Cain:
So, yes.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yes. Everything else we predicted – we were so wrong.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Astronomers from around the world met and, uh, decided on a bunch of things, presented a bunch of space research, and that all went fine – in South Africa, which is cool.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. It was actually – I, I wanna take a moment and say kudos to the team that pulled that off. Kevin Govender especially. Um. This was a conference where they leveraged every possible thing they could from the conference to do education throughout Southern Africa.
Fraser Cain:
Mm.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
They were taking the astronomers, uh, out into the school systems day after day. They were bringing other school systems into the conference to experience the booths. This was seen as a way to get STEM into as many brains as, as possible. And they really did an excellent job. The conference also just was extremely responsive to the situation they were dealing with. Both in terms of being very commutative anytime there was, uh, COVID, making sure – trying to test here, were you exposed, let us know. And, um, when you have 5,000 people from around the world, many of whom are Europeans and Westerners, uh, descending on Cape Town, the pickpockets and such also descend.
Fraser Cain:
Right.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And they did a lot of efforts to try and keep people safe when they realized what was going on. So, it was just very well done. I’ve been to a bunch of IAUs. This one I watched remotely.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Extremely well done. Kudos to the team.
Fraser Cain:
Very cool. Um. Okay. So next, we’re gonna shift to the things that we predicted that didn’t happen or were changed. All right. So, I guess let’s start with the big one which was Starliner. And so, Starliner had docked in June to the ISS.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And the – and w-we knew there were problems with its thrusters. There were helium leaks internally.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Mm-hmm.
Fraser Cain:
And this was of major concern.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And Boeing and NASA were troubleshooting the problem. They were seeing some results. They were able to get thrusters firing and th-there didn’t seem like the leaks were happening. But after a very intensive review all through the summer, Starliner remained on board the International Space Station.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. I went back and I looked at our last episode, and we predicted that it would be coming down with its astronauts the second week of July.
Fraser Cain:
Correct. That was the plan. Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And [sigh] yeah. So, so two different things happened this summer. The, the first was there, there were extensive tests done. They both were doing a bunch of firing tests out at White Sands to see if they could reproduce problems, see if they could predict what could happen. Uh. Boeing was very assured that the mission was safe. Most of the people at NASA were assuring everyone that the mission was safe. Um. There was one journalist leading the charge that it was not safe with unnamed sources within NASA. And their coverage was picked up extremely broadly, parroted just about everywhere.
And this led to a really awkward situation where the majority of the press coming out was saying, “Starliner’s not safe. The astronauts are stranded. It’s not safe. The astronauts are stranded.” There is this constant cadence of astronauts will die if they come back on Starliner. Who trusts Boeing? What – and, and it, it really was one person with unnamed sources at the root of all of this.
Fraser Cain:
Right. But in the end, it turned out to be correct that, that NASA made the call to, to not bring home the astronauts on Starliner.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
What I’m hearing is most of NASA was like, “It’s totally safe.” And there were a couple of holdouts, and they trusted the couple of holdouts. So it was – it was a difficult situation and the complexity of what’s going to occur is something I don’t think a lot of people have realized. The, the astronaut, uh, plan of who goes up when is thought out well in advance. The astronauts get extensive training for months at a time on the experiments they’re going to be running, the spacewalks are going to be running. Butch and Suni don’t have that training. They are test pilots. They are excellent astronauts. They can do work, but there’s a difference between having the abilities and having spent all of the time doing the training.
So, so on one hand, you have two people up there now who don’t have the training to do all the experiments that were planned. The next Dragon Crew capsule that’s going to be launching is going to be carrying, uh, not the full company of astronauts that were planned.
They’re coming up with two space suits that will fit Suni and Butch that are compatible with the Dragon capsule and not their full astronaut host. Suni and Butch are gonna have to fill in for those two folks being left behind. And, and so now we have to figure out do those two fly on a later mission. Do we rejigger the entire astronaut schedule? Do we rejigger all of the experiment schedule? Do we try and train them in real-time while they’re in space? It’s a whole lot of open questions. It’s complete chaos. And yeah. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. And this is your reminder. ISS only has until roughly 2033 I think was the last –
Fraser Cain:
2030.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
2030. Okay. It’s been brought forward.
Fraser Cain:
2030 is when they’re bringing it down. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so the implications of this –
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
I mean, I think you’re exactly right that, that it – and, and Starliner was detached and it landed and everything was fine.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
It was fine. Totally fine.
Fraser Cain:
It was fine. But, we always think back to the Challenger. We always think back to Columbia.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And Columbia.
Fraser Cain:
What if it wasn’t fine?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
What if there was a problem and there was a catastrophic damage and the crew was lost? Like that is not a risk that NASA is willing to take, and they didn’t have to take it.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
Like, it’s not like there was no other way to get those astronauts back down. And so, I think they made absolutely the right call which was we know that Crew Dragon works. Yes, we’re gonna have to shuffle the schedule. Yes, we’re gonna lose some science, but we’re not going to lose astronauts. And that’s the most important thing here.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And, and I’m grateful that Starliner landed safely because now they can take this thing apart, study every nook and cranny of it, and really get a sense of, of where the problems were. And Boeing can attempt to address them. They’ve gotta deliver six launches before the end of 2030. There’s probably not time and yet they’re contracted to build those – build spacecrafts.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
So they’re running out of time to begin their first – yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Complete their contract.
Fraser Cain:
Complete their contract. Because probably they’re gonna have to do another test flight.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
Maybe with people on board. Maybe without people on board to demonstrate that it doesn’t have the leaks.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
It doesn’t have the thruster problems. It doesn’t have the weird sound coming out of the speaker system, which is a totally separate thing.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
So, it is definitely, uh, uh – it’s a rough situation. And, you know, and Boeing is eating a lot of this cost. They’re just – they’re just taking it on the chin. Um.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And, and this, this is where I, I wish the story was everyone listened to NASA going along, trusted them to make the right decision. NASA trusted the two minority, uh, voices that, that expressed caution. And the story wasn’t there was all of this bad press, and in the end NASA didn’t bring Boeing home. Because it’s, it’s now hard to know the full nuances of the story and to know how much the, the bad press influenced it. And I hate thinking that we as journalists can influence what’s happening at NASA.
Fraser Cain:
I don’t think there’s any amount of people saying it’s probably gonna be fine that would have made NASA be willing to put the astronauts on board and have them return. That it’s just – that Columbia and Challenger cast such a long shadow.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And that the downside of bringing the astronauts home on another vehicle are so minor. Yeah. They can’t do as efficient science as the other astronauts could. Yeah. That they need to set up new spacesuits, but they don’t die.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. I, I just don’t know. That’s the thing.
Fraser Cain:
I think that it doesn’t matter. I don’t – I don’t think it matters. Like I think that was – that would – that would always be the answer was that there’s no way you’re gonna bring those astronauts home on the – on Starliner.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
I hope you’re right.
Fraser Cain:
That, that if it’s not working in 100% perfection, then it’s not worth the risk. And we have a – and, and they have options. So, you know, they didn’t have options for Columbia.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
No. That’s true.
Fraser Cain:
Like, how could you save the crew on Columbia?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
You didn’t have options for, for Challenger.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
What if there was no flight abort vehicle? There’s no way to get away from Challenger when it launched.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Right.
Fraser Cain:
There’s no way to get away from Columbia when it was breaking up as it was returning to the atmosphere. They have options and, and they’re always going to go with let’s keep our crew safe over anything. And so, I think if there was like, like – maybe if the speaker was malfunctioning, they would have [laugh] still come home with the crew. But if either of those problems – the helium leak, the thruster problem, or even I can imagine less potentially catastrophic issues, they still would brought them home on a Crew Dragon. Like it just – like, what if someone said it was fine? And then later on, there’s – and the – and the – and they died.
Like, no way. No way. No way. I think it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I think the media had no impact whatsoever on what the final result was gonna be. It just brought it to light earlier and got people more engaged with it is, is, is my perspective on this.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. And there I’m just not, not as sure. I hope you’re right. But…
Fraser Cain:
I guess. Yeah. I mean, like, w-what would you, like – what would you do? Right. You’re there. And, and if someone said, “Well, it’s probably fine. It’s probably safe.”
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Well – [sigh]
Fraser Cain:
But – or we can bring the home on a – on another vehicle that’s – that we know is safe.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
The helium leaks were in the trunk and the thruster issues were in the trunk.
Fraser Cain:
Still.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
So.
Fraser Cain:
But right. But, but if someone di-didn’t say, “It’s 100% safe,” then, then –
Dr. Pamela Gay:
I don’t know.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
It’s never 100% safe is the issue.
Fraser Cain:
Well, sure. But. You know, if you’ve got problems that you know are on the – on it. Anyway, let’s move on.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
Um. [Laugh] So I guess the last thing that we thought was gonna happen that didn’t happen was that we would see a flight of Polaris Dawn.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And that might happen Tuesday.
Fraser Cain:
Right. Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Weather is, is – who knows right now? It’s climate change and the predictions seem to hold. Um. Yeah. It was supposed to go up again that second week in July. This is a mission that scares the bejesus out of me as we’ve discussed at least twice in the past.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay: ‘
Cause they’re going to have civilians doing spacewalks in, uh, suits.
Fraser Cain:
Untested spacesuits by evacuating the atmosphere from the capsule.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
Like there’s a lot talk about risks. But NASA, you know, isn’t involved at all on this one.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Right. Right.
Fraser Cain:
Which is kinda cool.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yes.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. So, so who knows? So, maybe the time you hear this, Polaris Dawn did launch. But.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
So the, the other thing that, that we thought was gonna be happening back in July was Starship 5. And, and I’m willing to admit, I hallucinated that one actually happening. It did not.
Fraser Cain:
Nothing happened. Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
We are still waiting for Starship 5.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Theoretically, they’re going to catch it. Uh. There are a lot of EPA issues – Environmental Protection Agency issues with the Boca Chica facility where, um, over the summer we learned that, uh, the water being released is not as clean as thought. Not all of the paperwork was filled out as, um, earnestly as thought.
Fraser Cain:
Mm.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And so we’re waiting to see if Boca Chica gets to keep its launch license and when and if Starship 5 will get to launch and get caught.
Fraser Cain:
All right. Well, next we’re going to move to the surprises. The stuff that happened this summer that we hadn’t planned for, and there was a bunch of them. All right. So I think, you know, talking about s-spacecraft one more time – and that is that just a couple of days ago, we got the announcement that Blue Origin, hm – I’m trying to describe this. NASA agrees with Blue Origins plans to delay the launch of New Glenn for the ESCAPADE mission to 2025.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yes.
Fraser Cain:
So the, the original plan was that the first launch ever of the New Glenn rocket, which is Blue Origin’s new mega-rocket, would go in October of 2024 which is like a month away.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. Yes.
Fraser Cain:
And yet we haven’t seen a hot fire test.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
We haven’t seen a wet test rehearsal. We haven’t seen anything. And in fact, they had problems with two of their upper stages of the rocket. And so, things were looking pretty dicey. But the problem is is that Mars doesn’t wait.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
There’s a launch window in 2024 that you have to hit.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And it looks like they were not going to hit that. Now, there’s a second launch window in 2025, but it is not optimal because you don’t have that really nice alignment of the two planets.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
You’ve gotta ex-expend more fuel to get there, higher Delta-V to do it, or you wait until 2026. And so, the folks at Blue Origin decided that they weren’t going to be ready for the 2024 launch window. They wanted to push it to 2025. NASA said, “That makes sense. We agree with, with that as long as you still get us to Mars.”
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And so now we’re, we’re waiting for Blue Origin to be able to be ready in 2025 to have a launch New Glenn. Uh. But – a-and if that doesn’t work, then 2026 for the next launch window which will be very frustrating for people.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
‘Cause, you know, this is the customer.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And one of the things that we’re starting to see is the new commercial, uh, fixed-fee contracts are consistently coming in very late. Um. The NASA inspector general has actually expressed concern about the commercial program. And, um, you have to wonder how long these companies are going to stay motivated to do some of these different things. Now, now I’m confident that at some point in time we will have a New Glenn flying. There are many different things, including Blue Moon, which is their lander for the Moon that has multiple contracts already in place that need, uh, this new large rocket.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
But in general, VIPER, uh – NASA’s come flat out and said during presentations that its Astrobotic’s failure to be able to get it into space on time – that is one of the primary reasons that that mission is currently facing cancellation.
Fraser Cain:
Hm.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And, and so when we’re looking at how do we trust these commercial carriers with – VIPER was a half-billion dollar mission. I don’t know ESCAPADE’s cost, but it’s not cheap. We are essentially saying, “Hey. Run this experiment with this super expensive science that we have no other way to do.”
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And so, we’re suddenly seeing this putting the brakes on. Okay. Maybe flying on the second [laugh] massive brand-new rocket might be good. We’re seeing – well, Astrobotic’s first mission didn’t go so well. Let’s maybe watch and see how the second one goes without us. Um. Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
It’s, it’s a weird day for commercial space right now.
Fraser Cain:
Okay. So, let’s move on to then a bunch of other stuff that was sort of random and happened over the summer that we weren’t planning for it.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Okay.
Fraser Cain:
And why don’t you hit us with one?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
We found an intermediate-mass black hole.
Fraser Cain:
So cool.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. It’s, it’s sitting there right in the core of one of the largest globular clusters, one that actually had multiple epics of star formation, which is super weird anyways. Um. And it was able to be seen because Hubble’s images were so good that we could see the stars moving in the inner core of the cluster.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And, and over the decades catch their orbits and measure the mass of what had to be hiding in the whole of the core of this cluster.
Fraser Cain:
That’s amazing. So, you sort of imagine the wake of this – of this intermediate-mass black hole as it’s passing through the cluster, causing stars to, to get perturbed as it’s going by. So interesting. Um. We got an amazing flyby of Earth and Moon by ESA’s Juice mission. And this is the first time that a spacecraft has done both a gravitational assist past the Moon and then by the Earth.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
It got, like, a 0.5 km per second boost from the Moon. And then like a 3.5 from – or 4.5 from the Earth. So, it got a combined boost of 5 km per second. Also changes trajectory. This isn’t gonna be the last time. It’s gonna be coming back a couple more times before it finally makes its way out to, to Jupiter.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
BepiColombo is the little mission that’s trying really hard and will, I believe – I want to believe ultimately succeed.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
They had to change its orbital plan ‘cause one of its thrusters is just like, “No. I’m lazy. I shall not.”
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And so, they weren’t able to go into orbit. Well, they weren’t going to go into orbit this summer anyways. They weren’t able to do their, their planned flight this summer. And as a result they, they flew closer to Mercury than any spacecraft has so far.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
But these absolutely amazing images that weren’t part of the plan – but are now part of the plan.
Fraser Cain:
Right.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
They’re starting to get downloaded. This week is the European Planetary Sciences Conference. I expect to see, uh, images getting released later this week. Um. They’re stunning from what we’ve seen so far.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Yeah. L-Look them up.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
Like, do a search for BepiColombo Mercury images, and you will be blown away.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
These are the nicest pictures of mercury that have ever been taken and it’s – it was a stunning flyby.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And you know, we’re still – there’s more flybys planned. So, this is great. Um. So, Curiosity Rover was driving on Mars and was – and crunched over a rock accidentally.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And when they looked back at the pictures, they saw this bright yellow substance in the rock. And they did further analysis, and it turns out that it was elemental sulfur on the surface of Mars. And there’s a bunch of these rocks surrounding Curiosity. And I could sort of imagine it then running around and crunching a bunch more just to see if they pop open with yellow. And this is evidence of volcanism where you’ve got, uh, volcanic vents that are exposed to the surface that are producing pure elemental sulfur. Which is a thing that’s never been seen on the surface of Mars before. So, uh, just a really exciting discovery for volcanism for geologists and they’re really beautiful.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And so again, if you wanna look up something, look up an image of these. Looks like gold on the surface of, of Mars, which was really cool.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
It’s – there – the images are kind of surreal because the surface had just been covered with, like, your normal rusty-colored sand. It looks like the terracotta sand in Minecraft. And, and because it was slightly hollow in the sulfury bits, it just crumbled down. And it’s like you’re getting to peer inside of, of – it wasn’t a geode. But that’s, like, what my brain thinks of every time I see this image.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Yeah. And, and I love just this accidental discovery where they just drive over something.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And you’re like, “Oh. That’s interesting.” Um. H-Have you got another one?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
The Wow! signal was, was maybe figured out.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Solved.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
We, we hope.
Fraser Cain:
The announcement that was made this summer for the explanation for the Wow! signal was actually a quasar. So, what happened was a – there was a quasar or a gamma-ray burst that was blasting through a cloud of hydrogen and produced – as, as the, the blast was going through the cloud of hydrogen, it produced a very bright radio signal. And so, what makes – clinches this as the explanation is that the researchers went back and looked through old data from Arecibo and found several examples of the same kind of, of sort of the bell curve that you saw of the buildup of the signal and then the fall down of the signal.
They found, like, four of them in archival Arecibo data, just not as strong as the Wow! signal. And so, now it looks like those were all the same thing. And they knew that the original ones were linked to bursts from quasars. And so, now it really feels like okay, the Wow! signal was almost certainly the same thing just more powerful than the other ones.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And, and so now, now we’re waiting to figure out exactly, um, – what happens is the paper goes through peer review. What additional details get added. Um. Yeah. It’s, it’s looking like a, a flare caused a cloud to incandesce in a radio wavelength. So, our sky keeps literally going flicker and flare in the night and trying to figure out what’s going on.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
All of these different craziness is fast radio bursts or another one that we’re trying to figure out. Magnetars seem to be the key to a lot of crazy stuff out there. So blame neutron stars, I think, is going to be a recurring theme in the next decade.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. All right. I got a couple of just really quick ones, and then we should probably wrap things up.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Okay.
Fraser Cain:
So, we got a predicted asteroid striking exactly when and where astronomers were guessing.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yes.
Fraser Cain:
So, it’s like a 1 m asteroid. It’s tiny, but it was produced a very bright fireball.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
And they knew that it was gonna strike the Philippines at exactly the right time. And so, people went outside and they pointed their cameras to the sky and they got the fireball. So, this is the ninth time that this has ever happened. Uh. We’ve got the secondary mirror installed on the Vera Rubin Observatory, which is telling us that we’re getting closer and closer to first light of Vera Rubin in 2025. Um. And we got these amazing flyby fly around images from the ADRAS-J spacecraft, which is a, uh, Japanese spacecraft designed to analyze and eventually teach people how to remove space junk. And so, this thing got really close to a, uh, spent upper stage rocket of a Japanese rocket, flew around examined, it from all angles. It gave us just incredible pictures. You can’t believe you’re looking at this actual piece of hardware in space that was taken from another satellite. Just absolutely incredible So, it was a – it was a fun summer. There was a lot of really great news that did break over the – over the summer. Just stuff that we hadn’t been predicting.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And it-it’s all stuff that we’re gonna keep hearing about. We’re getting ready to launch the Hera mission out to, uh, uh, the, the Didymos system to, to see what chaos we have created there.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
There’s now predictions that there will ultimately be a meteor shower caused by what we did.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Uh. It [sigh] it looks like the dinosaur-killing asteroid came from the outer part of the solar system. And we now have a way to look at craters and figure out w-what caused them or at least where what caused them came from.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
So much news.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. So much news.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Check out Universe Today. Check out evsn.tv. Um. He has a lot more than I do. Um. So much science happened as well as spacecraft.
Fraser Cain:
Awesome. Well, thank you Pamela.