WEBVTT
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I'm John Batchelor. I welcome Bob Zimmerman. He keeps the
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website behind the black, watching NASA prepare for the moon.
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Battle plans laid out for Artemis III, Artemis IV, and
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Artemis V. Bob, a very good evening to you. On
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the way to the moon, is this all SLS lift,
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Artemis III, IV, and V? Good evening to you.
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Yes, John, it is. These missions through Artemis V have
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all been budgeted by Congress to use SLS. So Jared
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Eisenman and NASA is using SLS for those three missions.
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Those three missions include an orbital mission next year where
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it's going to be a very ambitious mission. New Glenn
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will launch with its Blue Moon test lander, man lander.
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Then SLS will launch. Orion with a crew of four
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will dock with the test lander Blue Moon. It will
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test it for a while. Then it will undock. And
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then Orion, not Orion, then Starship Super Heavy will launch.
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And then Orion will dock with that and do some
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testing and then stay up for a full 14 days.
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That's the flight plan for the Artemis III mission. It's
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planned for next year, late next year. Um, that's to
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test the oldest technology in orbit before they attempt a
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moon mission. Artemis four and five are both moon missions. Um, um, uh,
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NASA laid out its concepts for, for two different missions,
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one using starship to land on the moon with people
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and the other using blue moon to land on the
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moon with people. Uh, and they have a completely different, uh,
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flight plan in both cases because the rockets for the
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landers are so different starship will be launched with super
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heavy um it's more powerful though so we will take
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orion to lunar orbit where uh starship will then take
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the people down and bring them back up so that
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orion can bring them home blue moon is launched on
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new glen it's not as powerful so it will orion
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will dock uh uh with uh I'm sorry, Orion will
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be taken to lunar orbit by SLS, and then Blue
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Moon will take its land, I'm sorry, New Glenn will
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send the lander to lunar orbit, and they will dock
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there so that the crew can go down on Blue Moon.
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So that's the plan. They outlined this last week, late
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last week. That's their hope. They're very confident the schedule
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for the third mission, late 27, and the two lunar
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missions is, In 28, they're still confident they can meet
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that schedule. I don't think that's realistic, to be honest,
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but we'll see how it can play out. What I
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took from that press conference last week about this whole thing, John,
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was a more significant aspect. NASA keeps describing how it's
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approaching these missions, and they kept using the words iterate
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and build, then iterate again and build again, then do
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it all over. Well, what is that? That's exactly SpaceX's
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approach of build, test, build, test. Failure is a long way,
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but then you use that to build and improve. This
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is completely different how NASA has functioned since Apollo. Up
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to now, NASA has always functioned where it will design
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the final model to death before they fly anything at all.
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They're changing that now. They're going back to the way
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they used to do things in the 60s. For example,
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in one way, They've reworked the contracts for the Axiom
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moon spacesuit. They've simplified the design to make it easier
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to build and save money and wait for the first
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few missions. They say there's no reason to build the
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final spacesuit that will have eight-hour EVAs when we're only
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going to be doing short EVAs in the first few missions.
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So let's make the suits simpler. And that's what NASA
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did in the 60s. And now NASA is trying to
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do that now with its commercial technology. contractors and i
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think this is a good sign john.
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A lot of moving parts bob boy i get a
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little dizzy about the drama that ahead of us okay
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let's go yes behind us vesda what's happened.
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All right so on iss the russians half of the
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station has a it's it's most important module in a
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sense is vesda it's one of the oldest modules on
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the station it's actually almost 30 years old because it
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was built in the 90s um but it wasn't launched
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until like 2000 or so um It's the main docking
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port for Progress Freighters, and Progress Freighters use it because
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that's the aft end of the station along the axis
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of the station, and the Progress Freighters use that location
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to raise the orbit of ISS. It's the most efficient place.
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You know, you put the rocket at the bottom of
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the rocket. You don't put the engines on the side.
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You want it to point down. Well, in this case,
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it's pointing along the axis. Well, all those engine burns
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and dockings caused stress fractures in the hull of Zvezda
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over the last two decades. Those stress factors have been
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causing a leak for the last, like, six years. They've
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tried to fix those cracks and leaks multiple times. Well,
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it appears this year, sometime in the last few months,
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Roscosmos decided that those leaks are, quote, unstoppable. And they
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decided at this point that there's no point trying to
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fix them. They have permanently closed off the section of
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Zvezda where the leaks are. This is the tunnel and
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its aft section. This means that though they can dock
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with the port, they can no longer unload cargo through Zvezda.
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So Roscosmos' plan is this. They're going to dock with
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that port, use that port to do the engine firings
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to lift the station when it needs to have its
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orbit improved. But then they'll undock and dock the Progress
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freighter at a different port to unload its cargo and
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then to load up garbage onto it before it deorbits.
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This won't increase the number of dockings, I think, to
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the station. It will reduce the risk to the station
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because if those fractures become catastrophic– the section of Zvezda
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will be closed to the rest of the station all
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the time. So that'll reduce the risk to the rest
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of the station. Not eliminate it, but reduce it. But
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the continuing dockings are going to increase the chance of
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that catastrophic collapse. What this tells us is we should de-orbit,
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we should replace ISS as quickly as possible. That's the
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bottom line, John.
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The Russians launched a series of satellites in April of
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this year. It appears from their flight path this is
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a test of anti-satellite behavior. How so Bob?
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Well, this is stuff that's been going on since the seventies.
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I want to make that very clear with a lot
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of the press has misunderstood this. Um, the United States,
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Russia and China later have all been doing what they
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call inspector missions where they send up a swarm of
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satellites actually, and they maneuver them close to other satellites. Uh,
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the test inspection, spying, reconnaissance of those other satellites to
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their ability to do that. We've been doing this since
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the 70s. Everybody has. What makes this mission somewhat different
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is those past tests have always been to either the
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country's own satellites or they've been satellites of military nature
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from other nations. And they've generally not gotten too close
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to the other nations' satellites when they've done this. It's anti-satellite.
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If you get close and you explode your inspector, you
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could destroy both satellites. But a lot of it is
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just reconnaissance and surveillance. This particular mission by the Russians
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is unusual because these satellites, the Russian satellite Cosmos 2612,
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maneuvered within three miles of a radar satellite from a
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constellation that's built and operated by a Finnish company, IceEye.
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This is a commercial constellation. It provides radar data and imagery,
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which can be used by military and commercial people and
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is used by both military and commercial people, including the U.S.
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military in relation to the Ukraine. So obviously, Russia has
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an interest in knowing as much about this as possible.
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That it approached a commercial satellite without permission is what's
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really different here. It is an escalation of.
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Of anti-satellite and reconnaissance stuff in orbit, John, that is
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of interest. And it's part of the whole pattern of
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how the Ukraine war has been expanding out from just
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that regional conflict.
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SpaceX, Starfall, they're testing a recoverable capsule.
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Why, Bob?
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What's the use?
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All right. So we've talked about recoverable capsules. Varda has
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them and has flown seven of them up to now.
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Seventh is in orbit. They do pharmaceuticals. They do manufacturing
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of products. They can do testing. Well, SpaceX signed a
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contract with the Air Force a few years ago to
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develop point-to-point cargo transfer using rockets or space vehicles. And
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we thought at the time this contract was to use Starship. Well, apparently, no.
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It was designed to develop Starfall, which is SpaceX's recoverable capsule.
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They did one test flight of Starfall last year using
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Falcon 9 rocket. What was always puzzling is that SpaceX
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was so secretive about stuff, or they would not release
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any images of it, only an artist's rendering, which wasn't
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very detailed. And I always wondered, why is that? That's
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not usually the way they are with their commercial products.
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And this explains it. They did a second demo test
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recently using a Falcon 9 rocket. And this was a
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test for the Air Force of using Starfall to deliver
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emergency supplies to another location. They recovered the capsule. It
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splashed down. But that was a test to see if
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they can use this to send basically emergency supplies. Let's
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say to you've got a fallen pilot in enemy territory.
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He needs supplies. You can rescue him or you can
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send to Starfall immediately. capsule down to them to bring
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the supplies in. That's the idea here. So they tested
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it and it worked. So that's one way SpaceX is
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being very useful to the world. SpaceX is now also
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re-examining its Form Prime Mars landing sites. They hadn't been
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taking any contracted images using Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter since 2019.
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I recently found new images for Starships landing sites on
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the MRO website. So it means SpaceX has probably reinstituted
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a contract asking scientists to take pictures using reconnaissance orbiters
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of these landing sites. They want, very obviously, they're looking
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at these four prime sites to try to pick number one,
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where they're going to send Starship when it goes to Mars.
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And this just indicates, once again, that as much as
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SpaceX is interested in AI and data centers and giant
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constellations in orbit, Elon Musk's goal of going to Mars
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is still very much in the forefront of the company.
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Is there any one of these four have a lead, Bob,
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or are they all neutrally picked?
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At this moment in time, they're all neutral, I think.
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This is what these pictures are about, trying to figure
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out which is number one. I can make a guess
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about which is number one, but I want to hold
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off until we get a little more data comes in.
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But this is SpaceX now not only doing commercial stuff
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for the world, it's also planning projects. The exploration of
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the solar system as a private company. In doing all
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this stuff, of course, SpaceX hires millions of hundreds of
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thousands of people and has brought jobs to millions and
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billions of investment for the entire country and the world. So,
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of course, that means the Democrats are going to hate them, John.
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And I want to talk about Democrat Robert Reich, who
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was the former Secretary of State. of labor for the
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Clinton administration. He's been an academic economic professor for decades,
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but he really knows nothing about economics. He came out
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recently said, let me quote, Democrats ought to start laying
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the groundwork for nationalizing Starlink and SpaceX. It should be
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a public corporation. And he really talks about how evil
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SpaceX and Elon Musk is, that he shouldn't have all
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this power because 75% of his wealth comes from taxpayers
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buying Starlink. Well, so what? They're buying the product. This
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is what capitalism is all about. But somehow this is
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evil to this guy, Reich. He wants to destroy SpaceX, literally,
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because it's a success. I hate to say it. I
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don't want to sound partisan. But to me, the Democrats
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increasingly sound like they hate the United States. It's really sad.
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Musk opened the door, Bob.
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Well, that's true. But Musk... Yeah, absolutely true. And you're
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in a business. You want to be careful about how
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you play politics because you might antagonize people. That's absolutely
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the case. But he is an American. He has the
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right to, you know, support the candidates he believes in.
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It's really sad that we have politicians nowadays who decide
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it's OK to arrest, prosecute and even persecute people because
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they disagree with that.
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Europe lost its recoverable capsule. How'd they do that?
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All right, so this is Space Rider. Space Rider was
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proposed back in 2715. I'm sorry, 2715 by the European
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Space Agency to compete with, be its own recoverable capsule,
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kind of like Starfall and Varda. That was in 2015.
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They said in 2017 they'd be flying commercially by 25.
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A decade later, they had just managed to do drop
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tests of the brain two years ago. And then secondary
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drop tests of a framework last year. This year, they
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tried to do drop tests. These are not flights. These
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are drop tests from a helicopter of a prototype, full-scale prototype. Well,
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when they released the prototype from the helicopter, the parachute
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system did not deploy. And so the thing went crash.
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It crashed. This recover capsule might fly in another two years. Meanwhile,
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you know, private companies will be doing this repeatedly over
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and over again, making millions.
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Bob Zimmerman, he keeps the website behind the black. We're
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going exploring, and then a farewell. I'm John Batchelor.
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I'm John Batchelor.
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I'm John Batchelor with Bob Zimmerman. He keeps the website
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behind the black. Let's start with the farewell. Well-served Swift Observatory.
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What's happened?
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The Gerald Swift Observatory. NASA has officially ended science operations
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on it. There was this telescope was launched 22 years ago.
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It was supposed to have a two year nominal mission.
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It lasted more than two decades. It was originally launched
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to try to help identify what gamma ray bursts are.
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So it was designed to very quickly swing to any
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gamma ray burst location and take imagery and data in
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multiple wavelengths, optical X-rays, and even, I think, ultraviolet. And
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it was the key that discovered what gamma ray bursts are.
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that they have very distant formation of a black hole,
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an explosion, either new... Anyway, it discovered that. But it
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continued to function because its ability to swing to an
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object and take multiple wavelength observations was priceless. And so
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astronomers used it, and they kept it up there for decades.
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It was conceived by Neil Gerrold. When he passed away,
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they added his name to the name of the telescope.
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That's why it's the Gerrold-Swift Telescope. They tried to do
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a rescue. Its orbit is decaying and it's running out
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of fuel. And so they tried this spring to do
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a rescue mission. And unfortunately, there were technical issues, so
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it didn't succeed. And so NASA has stopped observations. They
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expect the telescope to burn up in the atmosphere sometime
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in the next few weeks and it'll be gone. And
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that's a tragedy. They just have to replace it. That's
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what I say.
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And Bob, did they deliberately de-orbit it or was it
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naturally planned?
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It's not been deorbited. It's still in orbit, but it's
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no longer science operations. It will not be a controlled deorbit.
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And it's not really big enough, I think, to be
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any threat to anyone on the ground. But they have
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no way to control its deorbit.
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261 million years ago. I was just thinking about that
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the other day, Bob. What happened?
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What happened? Well, they have now found data in China
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that suggests that the Earth's magnetic field which flips periodically
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its polarity and has done so many, many times over
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the eons.
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But it seems that it did it 29 times in
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only a four million year period, multiple times in a
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very short period of time. And that period of time
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corresponded to the end Guadalupean extinction event. It's an extinction
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event that occurred 261 million years ago.
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They think these flips might have had something to do
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with the extinction, because when the magnetic field flips, it
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disappears essentially for several thousand years, which isn't long in
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geological time, but it's very long in the terms of life.
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And so every time it flips in a million years,
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multiple times, you have no magnetic field, which means the
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Earth has no protection from the solar wind or cosmic rays,
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and that might have contributed to it. Why it flips,
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we have no idea, John. uh it's the same question
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that comes up with the the sunspot cycle we really
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don't know why the sun's magnetic field flips so we
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don't know why the earth's magnetic field flips this has
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to do with the dynamo in the center of both
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and we really don't understand it completely.
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This bob this is a delete button that's what flipping
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is uh well it.
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Flips it's like it goes from what it goes like
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in um Binary, it goes from zero to one and
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then goes from one to zero.
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It deletes all living creatures.
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Well, I don't think when the flip occurs, it will
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delete everything, but it will cause extinction events. There's no
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doubt about that.
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Van Gogh was a painter. What has he got to
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do with modern astronomy?
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One of his most famous paintings is called The Starry Night.
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I've actually posted it because it kind of looks like
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the storms on Jupiter. It's a really beautiful painting and
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very evocative and emotional, which is Van Gogh. astronomers, scientists,
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researchers have been trying to figure out whether or not
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this corresponds to an actual star thing that he saw
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in the sky, or is it just his imagination? Well,
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there was a paper recently that said they think they
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have pinned down the actual sky that he was using
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in late July 1889, a specific night, July 22nd, 1889.
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There's great uncertainty about this, but it's kind of interesting
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because that would also correspond to a time period where
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he had a seizure. And of course, the emotional nature
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of the painting kind of fits with Van Gogh's seizures.
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So it's a really interesting research and intriguing, to put
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it mildly, John.
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And Andromeda's true size on the night sky. How so, Bob?
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All right.
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So this was a NASA astronomy picture of the day
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that I posted on Behind the Black, because If you
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get into a very dark sky situation, let your eyes
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adapt really well to the darkness, and you know where
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to look in the sky at the right time of year,
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and you will see Andromeda. And what you will discover
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when you look at Andromeda is it's six times longer
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than the moon. It's gigantic on the sky. And this
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picture really gives that sense. It's been processed so it's brighter.
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You won't see it with your eye this way. But nonetheless,
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it's a big object in the sky, and it's worth
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looking at, John.
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Bob Zimmerman, watching SpaceX very carefully and the Steps Towards
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the Moon podcast of our conversation, always available at Amazon,
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at Apple, Spotify, Spreaker and other distinguished venues. I'm John Batchelor.
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I'm John Batchelor. I welcome Bob Zimmerman. He keeps the
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website behind the black, watching NASA prepare for the moon.
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Battle plans laid out for Artemis III, Artemis IV, and
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Artemis V. Bob, a very good evening to you. On
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the way to the moon, is this all SLS lift,
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Artemis III, IV, and V? Good evening to you.
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Yes, John, it is. These missions through Artemis V have
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all been budgeted by Congress to use SLS. So Jared
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Eisenman and NASA is using SLS for those three missions.
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Those three missions include an orbital mission next year where
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it's going to be a very ambitious mission. New Glenn
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will launch with its Blue Moon test lander, man lander.
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Then SLS will launch. Orion with a crew of four
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will dock with the test lander Blue Moon. It will
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test it for a while. Then it will undock. And
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then Orion, not Orion, then Starship Super Heavy will launch.
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And then Orion will dock with that and do some
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testing and then stay up for a full 14 days.
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That's the flight plan for the Artemis III mission. It's
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planned for next year, late next year. Um, that's to
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test the oldest technology in orbit before they attempt a
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moon mission. Artemis four and five are both moon missions. Um, um, uh,
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NASA laid out its concepts for, for two different missions,
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one using starship to land on the moon with people
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and the other using blue moon to land on the
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moon with people. Uh, and they have a completely different, uh,
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flight plan in both cases because the rockets for the
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landers are so different starship will be launched with super
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heavy um it's more powerful though so we will take
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orion to lunar orbit where uh starship will then take
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the people down and bring them back up so that
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orion can bring them home blue moon is launched on
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new glen it's not as powerful so it will orion
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will dock uh uh with uh I'm sorry, Orion will
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be taken to lunar orbit by SLS, and then Blue
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Moon will take its land, I'm sorry, New Glenn will
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send the lander to lunar orbit, and they will dock
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there so that the crew can go down on Blue Moon.
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So that's the plan. They outlined this last week, late
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last week. That's their hope. They're very confident the schedule
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for the third mission, late 27, and the two lunar
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missions is, In 28, they're still confident they can meet
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that schedule. I don't think that's realistic, to be honest,
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but we'll see how it can play out. What I
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took from that press conference last week about this whole thing, John,
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was a more significant aspect. NASA keeps describing how it's
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approaching these missions, and they kept using the words iterate
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and build, then iterate again and build again, then do
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it all over. Well, what is that? That's exactly SpaceX's
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approach of build, test, build, test. Failure is a long way,
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but then you use that to build and improve. This
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is completely different how NASA has functioned since Apollo. Up
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to now, NASA has always functioned where it will design
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the final model to death before they fly anything at all.
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They're changing that now. They're going back to the way
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they used to do things in the 60s. For example,
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in one way, They've reworked the contracts for the Axiom
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moon spacesuit. They've simplified the design to make it easier
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to build and save money and wait for the first
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few missions. They say there's no reason to build the
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final spacesuit that will have eight-hour EVAs when we're only
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going to be doing short EVAs in the first few missions.
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So let's make the suits simpler. And that's what NASA
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did in the 60s. And now NASA is trying to
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do that now with its commercial technology. contractors and i
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think this is a good sign john.
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A lot of moving parts bob boy i get a
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little dizzy about the drama that ahead of us okay
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let's go yes behind us vesda what's happened.
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All right so on iss the russians half of the
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station has a it's it's most important module in a
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sense is vesda it's one of the oldest modules on
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the station it's actually almost 30 years old because it
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was built in the 90s um but it wasn't launched
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until like 2000 or so um It's the main docking
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port for Progress Freighters, and Progress Freighters use it because
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that's the aft end of the station along the axis
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of the station, and the Progress Freighters use that location
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to raise the orbit of ISS. It's the most efficient place.
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You know, you put the rocket at the bottom of
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the rocket. You don't put the engines on the side.
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You want it to point down. Well, in this case,
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it's pointing along the axis. Well, all those engine burns
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and dockings caused stress fractures in the hull of Zvezda
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over the last two decades. Those stress factors have been
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causing a leak for the last, like, six years. They've
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tried to fix those cracks and leaks multiple times. Well,
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it appears this year, sometime in the last few months,
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Roscosmos decided that those leaks are, quote, unstoppable. And they
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decided at this point that there's no point trying to
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fix them. They have permanently closed off the section of
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Zvezda where the leaks are. This is the tunnel and
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its aft section. This means that though they can dock
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with the port, they can no longer unload cargo through Zvezda.
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So Roscosmos' plan is this. They're going to dock with
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that port, use that port to do the engine firings
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to lift the station when it needs to have its
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orbit improved. But then they'll undock and dock the Progress
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freighter at a different port to unload its cargo and
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then to load up garbage onto it before it deorbits.
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This won't increase the number of dockings, I think, to
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the station. It will reduce the risk to the station
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because if those fractures become catastrophic– the section of Zvezda
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will be closed to the rest of the station all
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the time. So that'll reduce the risk to the rest
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of the station. Not eliminate it, but reduce it. But
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the continuing dockings are going to increase the chance of
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that catastrophic collapse. What this tells us is we should de-orbit,
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we should replace ISS as quickly as possible. That's the
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bottom line, John.
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The Russians launched a series of satellites in April of
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this year. It appears from their flight path this is
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a test of anti-satellite behavior. How so Bob?
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Well, this is stuff that's been going on since the seventies.
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I want to make that very clear with a lot
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of the press has misunderstood this. Um, the United States,
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Russia and China later have all been doing what they
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call inspector missions where they send up a swarm of
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satellites actually, and they maneuver them close to other satellites. Uh,
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the test inspection, spying, reconnaissance of those other satellites to
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their ability to do that. We've been doing this since
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the 70s. Everybody has. What makes this mission somewhat different
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is those past tests have always been to either the
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country's own satellites or they've been satellites of military nature
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from other nations. And they've generally not gotten too close
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to the other nations' satellites when they've done this. It's anti-satellite.
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If you get close and you explode your inspector, you
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could destroy both satellites. But a lot of it is
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just reconnaissance and surveillance. This particular mission by the Russians
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is unusual because these satellites, the Russian satellite Cosmos 2612,
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maneuvered within three miles of a radar satellite from a
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constellation that's built and operated by a Finnish company, IceEye.
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This is a commercial constellation. It provides radar data and imagery,
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which can be used by military and commercial people and
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is used by both military and commercial people, including the U.S.
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military in relation to the Ukraine. So obviously, Russia has
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an interest in knowing as much about this as possible.
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That it approached a commercial satellite without permission is what's
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really different here. It is an escalation of.
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Of anti-satellite and reconnaissance stuff in orbit, John, that is
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of interest. And it's part of the whole pattern of
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how the Ukraine war has been expanding out from just
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that regional conflict.
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SpaceX, Starfall, they're testing a recoverable capsule.
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Why, Bob?
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What's the use?
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All right. So we've talked about recoverable capsules. Varda has
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them and has flown seven of them up to now.
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Seventh is in orbit. They do pharmaceuticals. They do manufacturing
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of products. They can do testing. Well, SpaceX signed a
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contract with the Air Force a few years ago to
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develop point-to-point cargo transfer using rockets or space vehicles. And
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we thought at the time this contract was to use Starship. Well, apparently, no.
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It was designed to develop Starfall, which is SpaceX's recoverable capsule.
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They did one test flight of Starfall last year using
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Falcon 9 rocket. What was always puzzling is that SpaceX
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was so secretive about stuff, or they would not release
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any images of it, only an artist's rendering, which wasn't
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very detailed. And I always wondered, why is that? That's
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not usually the way they are with their commercial products.
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And this explains it. They did a second demo test
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recently using a Falcon 9 rocket. And this was a
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test for the Air Force of using Starfall to deliver
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emergency supplies to another location. They recovered the capsule. It
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splashed down. But that was a test to see if
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they can use this to send basically emergency supplies. Let's
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say to you've got a fallen pilot in enemy territory.
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He needs supplies. You can rescue him or you can
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send to Starfall immediately. capsule down to them to bring
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the supplies in. That's the idea here. So they tested
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it and it worked. So that's one way SpaceX is
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being very useful to the world. SpaceX is now also
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re-examining its Form Prime Mars landing sites. They hadn't been
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taking any contracted images using Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter since 2019.
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I recently found new images for Starships landing sites on
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the MRO website. So it means SpaceX has probably reinstituted
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a contract asking scientists to take pictures using reconnaissance orbiters
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of these landing sites. They want, very obviously, they're looking
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at these four prime sites to try to pick number one,
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where they're going to send Starship when it goes to Mars.
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And this just indicates, once again, that as much as
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SpaceX is interested in AI and data centers and giant
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constellations in orbit, Elon Musk's goal of going to Mars
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is still very much in the forefront of the company.
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Is there any one of these four have a lead, Bob,
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or are they all neutrally picked?
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At this moment in time, they're all neutral, I think.
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This is what these pictures are about, trying to figure
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out which is number one. I can make a guess
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about which is number one, but I want to hold
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off until we get a little more data comes in.
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But this is SpaceX now not only doing commercial stuff
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for the world, it's also planning projects. The exploration of
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the solar system as a private company. In doing all
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this stuff, of course, SpaceX hires millions of hundreds of
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thousands of people and has brought jobs to millions and
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billions of investment for the entire country and the world. So,
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of course, that means the Democrats are going to hate them, John.
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And I want to talk about Democrat Robert Reich, who
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was the former Secretary of State. of labor for the
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Clinton administration. He's been an academic economic professor for decades,
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but he really knows nothing about economics. He came out
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recently said, let me quote, Democrats ought to start laying
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the groundwork for nationalizing Starlink and SpaceX. It should be
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a public corporation. And he really talks about how evil
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SpaceX and Elon Musk is, that he shouldn't have all
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this power because 75% of his wealth comes from taxpayers
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buying Starlink. Well, so what? They're buying the product. This
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is what capitalism is all about. But somehow this is
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evil to this guy, Reich. He wants to destroy SpaceX, literally,
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because it's a success. I hate to say it. I
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don't want to sound partisan. But to me, the Democrats
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increasingly sound like they hate the United States. It's really sad.
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Musk opened the door, Bob.
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Well, that's true. But Musk... Yeah, absolutely true. And you're
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in a business. You want to be careful about how
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you play politics because you might antagonize people. That's absolutely
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the case. But he is an American. He has the
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right to, you know, support the candidates he believes in.
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It's really sad that we have politicians nowadays who decide
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it's OK to arrest, prosecute and even persecute people because
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they disagree with that.
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Europe lost its recoverable capsule. How'd they do that?
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All right, so this is Space Rider. Space Rider was
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proposed back in 2715. I'm sorry, 2715 by the European
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Space Agency to compete with, be its own recoverable capsule,
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kind of like Starfall and Varda. That was in 2015.
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They said in 2017 they'd be flying commercially by 25.
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A decade later, they had just managed to do drop
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tests of the brain two years ago. And then secondary
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drop tests of a framework last year. This year, they
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tried to do drop tests. These are not flights. These
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are drop tests from a helicopter of a prototype, full-scale prototype. Well,
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when they released the prototype from the helicopter, the parachute
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system did not deploy. And so the thing went crash.
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It crashed. This recover capsule might fly in another two years. Meanwhile,
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you know, private companies will be doing this repeatedly over
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and over again, making millions.
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Bob Zimmerman, he keeps the website behind the black. We're
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going exploring, and then a farewell. I'm John Batchelor.
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I'm John Batchelor.
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I'm John Batchelor with Bob Zimmerman. He keeps the website
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behind the black. Let's start with the farewell. Well-served Swift Observatory.
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What's happened?
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The Gerald Swift Observatory. NASA has officially ended science operations
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on it. There was this telescope was launched 22 years ago.
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It was supposed to have a two year nominal mission.
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It lasted more than two decades. It was originally launched
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to try to help identify what gamma ray bursts are.
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So it was designed to very quickly swing to any
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gamma ray burst location and take imagery and data in
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multiple wavelengths, optical X-rays, and even, I think, ultraviolet. And
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it was the key that discovered what gamma ray bursts are.
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that they have very distant formation of a black hole,
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an explosion, either new... Anyway, it discovered that. But it
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continued to function because its ability to swing to an
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object and take multiple wavelength observations was priceless. And so
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astronomers used it, and they kept it up there for decades.
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It was conceived by Neil Gerrold. When he passed away,
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they added his name to the name of the telescope.
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That's why it's the Gerrold-Swift Telescope. They tried to do
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a rescue. Its orbit is decaying and it's running out
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of fuel. And so they tried this spring to do
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a rescue mission. And unfortunately, there were technical issues, so
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it didn't succeed. And so NASA has stopped observations. They
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expect the telescope to burn up in the atmosphere sometime
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in the next few weeks and it'll be gone. And
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that's a tragedy. They just have to replace it. That's
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what I say.
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And Bob, did they deliberately de-orbit it or was it
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naturally planned?
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It's not been deorbited. It's still in orbit, but it's
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no longer science operations. It will not be a controlled deorbit.
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And it's not really big enough, I think, to be
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any threat to anyone on the ground. But they have
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no way to control its deorbit.
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261 million years ago. I was just thinking about that
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the other day, Bob. What happened?
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What happened? Well, they have now found data in China
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that suggests that the Earth's magnetic field which flips periodically
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its polarity and has done so many, many times over
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the eons.
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But it seems that it did it 29 times in
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only a four million year period, multiple times in a
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very short period of time. And that period of time
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corresponded to the end Guadalupean extinction event. It's an extinction
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event that occurred 261 million years ago.
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They think these flips might have had something to do
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with the extinction, because when the magnetic field flips, it
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disappears essentially for several thousand years, which isn't long in
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geological time, but it's very long in the terms of life.
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And so every time it flips in a million years,
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multiple times, you have no magnetic field, which means the
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Earth has no protection from the solar wind or cosmic rays,
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and that might have contributed to it. Why it flips,
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we have no idea, John. uh it's the same question
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that comes up with the the sunspot cycle we really
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don't know why the sun's magnetic field flips so we
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don't know why the earth's magnetic field flips this has
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to do with the dynamo in the center of both
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and we really don't understand it completely.
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This bob this is a delete button that's what flipping
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is uh well it.
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Flips it's like it goes from what it goes like
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in um Binary, it goes from zero to one and
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then goes from one to zero.
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It deletes all living creatures.
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Well, I don't think when the flip occurs, it will
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delete everything, but it will cause extinction events. There's no
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doubt about that.
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Van Gogh was a painter. What has he got to
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do with modern astronomy?
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One of his most famous paintings is called The Starry Night.
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I've actually posted it because it kind of looks like
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the storms on Jupiter. It's a really beautiful painting and
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very evocative and emotional, which is Van Gogh. astronomers, scientists,
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researchers have been trying to figure out whether or not
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this corresponds to an actual star thing that he saw
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in the sky, or is it just his imagination? Well,
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there was a paper recently that said they think they
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have pinned down the actual sky that he was using
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in late July 1889, a specific night, July 22nd, 1889.
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There's great uncertainty about this, but it's kind of interesting
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because that would also correspond to a time period where
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he had a seizure. And of course, the emotional nature
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of the painting kind of fits with Van Gogh's seizures.
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So it's a really interesting research and intriguing, to put
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it mildly, John.
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And Andromeda's true size on the night sky. How so, Bob?
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All right.
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So this was a NASA astronomy picture of the day
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that I posted on Behind the Black, because If you
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get into a very dark sky situation, let your eyes
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adapt really well to the darkness, and you know where
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to look in the sky at the right time of year,
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and you will see Andromeda. And what you will discover
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when you look at Andromeda is it's six times longer
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than the moon. It's gigantic on the sky. And this
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picture really gives that sense. It's been processed so it's brighter.
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You won't see it with your eye this way. But nonetheless,
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it's a big object in the sky, and it's worth
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looking at, John.
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Bob Zimmerman, watching SpaceX very carefully and the Steps Towards
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the Moon podcast of our conversation, always available at Amazon,
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at Apple, Spotify, Spreaker and other distinguished venues. I'm John Batchelor.
