S02E45: UFOs, Hot Summers & SpaceX: Space News Unveiled!

[00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon and good evening Steve Dunkley with you for another episode of Astronomy Daily. Thanks for joining us. It is the 18th of September 2023. That's right and with me as always is Hallie our digital reporter. How are you Hallie?

[00:00:23] Fine and dandy Steve. So what's in store today Hallie? Well there's lots of interesting stories coming through on the Astronomy Daily newsletter so let's pick some from the files. Well that's a great place to start. Listeners just head over to

[00:00:36] bites.com that's bitez.com or spacenuts.io and sign up to receive the Astronomy Daily online newsletter. It's full of the latest astronomy, space news and space science stories from around the globe. It sure is, the variety of stories is just unfathomable. It's really covering an

[00:00:55] enormous amount of territory. Your curiosity and space science interests will be satiated every single day. It's really interesting read so get into it everybody. Meanwhile Hallie why don't you start us off with some short takes?

[00:01:11] No worries here we go. Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut docked with the International Space Station on Friday after blasting off amid raging tensions between Moscow and Washington over Ukraine. Earlier Friday Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai

[00:01:34] Chubb and NASA astronaut Laurel O'Hara lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft. The crew docked at the ISS three hours later, the Russian space agency said. At the orbiting station the trio will join three

[00:01:51] Russians, two Americans, a Japanese astronaut and a representative of the European Space Agency. The ISS is a rare venue for cooperation between the United States and Russia, whose ties broke down after Moscow unleashed its offensive in Ukraine last year.

[00:02:08] Kononenko alluded to the tensions during a pre-flight press conference on Thursday, saying that unlike on Earth, cosmonauts and astronauts took care of each other in space. We hear each other there and we understand each other and we are very sensitive to our

[00:02:22] relationships, he said. We always take care of each other. Wow you get a sense of irony from that story don't you? Sure do. Humans try to cooperate in space but still there's conflict. Does anything really

[00:02:34] change Steve? Well Hallie it doesn't look like it has yet. We're hopeful though. NASA is eyeing a privately built Apollo space robot for continued investment and future space missions. NASA has teamed up with a small robotics firm in Texas to continue the space agency's

[00:02:52] decades of work developing humanoid robots. Soon such robots may be sent to orbit or even other planets to help astronauts with their work. Texas based Aptronic Incorporated has long collaborated with NASA under the Small Business Innovation Research SBIR, Contracts Program to

[00:03:11] hone the capabilities of Apollo, a humanoid robot that the company is developing to handle terrestrial tasks like logistics, manufacturing and home healthcare assistance. NASA meanwhile has taken a keen interest in adapting Apollo and robots like it to become

[00:03:27] assistance for astronauts living and working in orbit as well as on the moon and even Mars. They might even one day function as remote controlled avatars on other worlds for Earth based human operators to pilot. Aptronic has put special emphasis on a modularity of

[00:03:44] Apollo's design, specifically its adaptability for logistics tasks. Standing at 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds 73 kilograms, Aptronic says on its website that Apollo will have a run time of about four hours per battery pack and a payload capacity of 55 pounds 25 kilograms.

[00:04:05] As such, even though its main market right now is more earthbound customers, namely retail operations, warehousing and manufacturing, NASA's interest shouldn't be a surprise. It's not hard to see how unloading a lunar lander with a robot rather than a human would

[00:04:20] be a much safer and efficient operation for any crewed landings on the moon or Mars. And given the unforgiving environment on both worlds, robots will almost certainly have to be an integral part of either mission if it is going to succeed long term.

[00:04:35] Robots in the form of special purpose landers, rovers and even an aerial drone are already operating on other worlds, but general purpose robots are a whole other matter entirely. Such robots would be able to tackle tedious or perilous tasks on the lunar or Martian surface

[00:04:51] far more easily and safely than a human could and in principle should be able to be reprogrammed as needed to carry out a new task whenever it was required, even those its designers hadn't

[00:05:01] conceived of when they built it. Hey Hallie maybe you should consider a new career as an astronaut. They can't afford me Steve. Besides have you seen the legs on those things? I've got standards

[00:05:11] you know. Oh I'm not sure fashion's high on their list of priorities Hallie. If they want this girl then they'll need to work on the chassis. Oh okay yeah maybe I'll have to have

[00:05:21] a word to the boffins in the basement about that. Hey here's one from your neck of the wood Steve. According to a report in the Lismore City news this week, a chunk of space rock fell to earth

[00:05:34] in spectacular fashion on Saturday night, prompting calls for videos and observations to help pinpoint its resting place. Reports from across New South Wales and Victoria spoke of a green fireball low in the sky around 6 30 p.m and traveling slowly and brightly enough to be clearly

[00:05:50] seen by many. David Finley is a keen observer of astronomical events and administrator of the Australian media reports Facebook group. He said he was extremely confident given the various reports coming in that Saturday's meteor had survived the entry to earth's atmosphere.

[00:06:08] The best observation we have is from Phil at tourist heads who watched it go pretty much right over his head crossing the coast between tourists and maruia Mr Finley told Fairfax media on Monday. It not only confirmed it crossed the coastline but an important observation he made

[00:06:24] was to say he saw it change from bright green to bright orange to a dull red before disappearing. Mr Finley said that was the perfect description of a meteor entering dark flight when a meteor was

[00:06:36] traveling through the denser atmosphere slow enough to allow it to cool down as opposed to a really bright flare before disintegrating. That gives it a great chance of surviving to hit the ground. As for where it landed we first thought somewhere in the Kuma region but with some

[00:06:53] new observations were thinking a bit further north perhaps between Michellego and breadbow Mr Finley said we're really hoping it crossed over the Dua national park it's rough country so if it landed in there it's going to be nearly impossible to find we really need more footage of

[00:07:10] it dash cam footage security cameras police cars that have cameras running all the time the more we have and preferably from outside Sydney the better chance we have to triangulate its position anyone with observations or footage of Saturday's event can post it to Australian media reports on

[00:07:27] Facebook where Mr Finley and his team can collate it all another of the pages admins is geologist Ray Picard who can identify and classify the meteorite once it is uncovered. Finley says the meteorite thought to have touched down on Saturday night could be

[00:07:43] about the size of a football however despite what Hollywood would have us believe it won't have started wildfires or created a huge crater perhaps surprisingly meteorites make a divot or punch a little into the ground depending on the surface but they don't create huge craters he said

[00:08:01] and because they fall to the ground a dark they don't start fires in fact you could likely pick them up straight away they may be a little warm to the touch Hollywood has a lot

[00:08:12] to answer for it's more like dropping a rock out of the window of a 747 and it landing with a thud for those out looking for the resting place of Saturday's fireball be on the lookout for

[00:08:23] something resembling a large charcoal briquette for your barbecue Mr Finley said imagine that deep black from being burned not shiny black it will also be rounded off like a briquette but

[00:08:36] it will be heavy like a rock the way it blazed and the light given off we think it fragmented so there may be dozens of smaller pieces but the final larger mass could be about the size of a grapefruit

[00:08:48] or a football we're extremely confident this landed the Australian media reports group now has more than 3,500 members with Mr Finley first alerted to Saturday's spectacular event by a rush of people asking to join and sharing their experiences that's a great story I really like that part about

[00:09:07] the changing of colors as it re as it enters the atmosphere and and cools down and you can tell if it's broken up and and so on I've never heard that description before that's excellent observation

[00:09:20] and Steve NASA is sounding quite apocalyptic when they released this statement this week NASA confirms summer 2023 was Earth's hottest on record things that we said would come to pass are coming to pass scorching heat waves in North America Europe Asia and elsewhere have deemed

[00:09:38] this year's summer as Earth's hottest since at least 1880 NASA confirmed yesterday September 14th referring to when global record keeping of temperatures began 2023's record setting heat is a result of human driven global warming and is compounded by a brewing recurring climate

[00:09:56] known as El Nino according to the space agency a statement outlining the analysis says August alone was 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than an average summer blanketing a record 57 million people in the southern and southwest US under a heat wave of the most severe category

[00:10:15] temperatures in June July and August combined were 0.41 degrees Fahrenheit 0.23 degrees Celsius warmer than all previous summers according to the latest report in another NASA conference on the planet's climate emergency last month scientists confirmed July of this year to be the hottest

[00:10:34] on record with the previous five hottest Julys all in the past five years just look around you and you'll see what's happened NASA administrator Bill Nelson said during the conference we have

[00:10:46] record flooding in Vermont we have record heat in Phoenix and in Miami we have major parts of the country that have been blanketed by wildfire smoke and of course what we are watching in real time

[00:10:58] is the disaster that has occurred in Hawaii with wildfires July's searing heat directly contributed to the deadliest wildfire season on record for both Canada and Hawaii as well as to severe rainfall and flash floods across the Mediterranean including in Greece and Italy

[00:11:14] scientists say they attribute this record heat in part to El Nino which occurs about every two to seven years when winds above the Pacific Ocean which normally blow to the west along the equator

[00:11:26] from South America towards Asia break their routine and drift east and toward the US west coast as a result Canada and the US witness much warmer conditions than usual exceptionally high sea surface temperatures fueled in part by the return of El Nino were largely responsible

[00:11:43] for the summer's record warmth Josh Willis who is a climate scientist and oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said in a statement his team predicts the biggest impacts from this climate pattern will unfold February through April next year the new analysis done by

[00:12:02] Willis and his team at the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies GISS in New York comes just a day after a different team of scientists warned human activity has taken the world beyond a safe operating zone six of the nine so-called planetary constraints of the global environment

[00:12:19] which assess how much humans have deviated from the pre-industrial world have been breached the team had found the latest update from NASA also comes at the heels of another report by the world meteorological organizations stating nations are not on track to meet the long-term

[00:12:34] goals previously agreed upon in the Paris Agreement to cap rising temperatures worldwide unfortunately climate change is happening things that we said would come to pass are coming to pass Schmidt said and it will get worse if we continue to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases

[00:12:53] into our atmosphere oh boy Hallie I hope we can find some good news soon well I guess that's up to you humans yes you're right maybe I could talk to my uncle Skynet for some help um I'm sure

[00:13:05] he'd know what to do Hallie and that's the short takes from the astronomy daily newsletter online back to you we're listening to astronomy daily thanks for staying with us Steve Dunkley here

[00:13:22] with astronomy daily on the 18th of the 9th 2023 nice to have you with us space x which is tasked to bring the Artemis 3 crew to the surface of the moon with Starship in 2025 or

[00:13:38] 2026 successfully wrapped up a cold engine start in August the test aimed to show that the company's wrapped engine can restart in space after leaving earth to safely carry astronauts to the moon's surface space x also posted a video on x formerly twitter showing a steaming cold raptor firing

[00:13:59] for about three seconds at nasa's marshall space flight center in alabama starship is the next generation system that space x plans to use for deep space missions starship hasn't made it to space

[00:14:10] yet in april space x launched a fully stacked starship the biggest most powerful rocket ever built for the first time but the system suffered serious problems starship spun out of control and was remotely detonated and caused a debris shower in the surrounding area now of course the

[00:14:29] US federal aviation administration supervised a space x led investigation of the launch mishap on september 8 the agency announced the conclusion of that investigation which identified 63 corrective actions for the hawthorne californium based company to take two days later space x

[00:14:48] founder Elon musk said the company has finished all 57 corrections required for an upcoming second launched with the remaining remedies only needed for future flights muska suggested that the starship could go up again very quickly while recent comments by the f a a suggest that space x

[00:15:07] could get a license for a new starship launch attempt in october meanwhile space x and the f a a are seeking to dismiss a lawsuit by environmental groups filed after the starship launch in april as for the raptor engine test nasa officials said its success gives the agency

[00:15:26] more confidence that space x is progressing toward the artemous three obligations this test provides early and mission-like validation of the systems necessary for carrying astronauts to and from the lunar surface agency officials wrote in the blog post recently data reviews following these

[00:15:45] tests provide nasa with continual increasing confidence in us industry's readiness for the mission they said space x also finished a milestone effort for raptor in november 2021 nasa wrote showing that the engine can fire for 281 seconds that's 4.5 minutes the duration needed for the

[00:16:05] long descent to the moon raptor also changed its power level during the test to meet agency requirements space x released footage of that test on thursday as well looking ahead artemous three

[00:16:17] will be the third mission of the nasa led artemous program nasa and a set of international partners are working together on the missions under the artemous accords the accords are both a set of commitments for lunar exploration and an agreement to perform peaceful exploration

[00:16:34] norms in space with nasa interestingly not all signatories have committed to work directly on artemous and i think this is always going to be controversial nasa on thursday officially joined the search for UFOs but reflecting on the stigma attached to the field u.s space agency kept

[00:16:58] secret for hours the identity of the person heading a new program tracking the mystery flying objects the official's appointment is a result of a year-long nasa fact finding report into what

[00:17:11] it calls undidentified anomalous phenomena or uap at this is a quote at nasa it is our dna to explore and to ask why things are the way they are agency chief bill nelson said he's been quite

[00:17:25] vocal on the on the subject and a little dignified if you might if you forgive me for saying so a independent team of 16 researchers concluded in the report that the search for uap's quote demands a rigorous evidence-based approach and that's probably the right way to go

[00:17:43] if you're going to be scientific about it nasa is well positioned to play an a prominent role thanks to the satellite capabilities and other technical assets but the agency stressed in its report that any findings of possible extraterrestrial origin must be the hypothesis of last resort

[00:18:03] the answer we turn to only after ruling out all other possibilities it's fair enough we don't want to shift the conversation about uap from sensationalism to science named nelson said sounds a little backwards that statement but i know what he's trying to say well initially

[00:18:20] withholding the program leader's name nasa ultimately relented thursday evening saying in an updated press conference uh release sorry updated press release it had appointed mark mcconnerney as the director of uap research in a government position since 1996 mcconnerney

[00:18:40] has served as nasa's liaison to the pentagon on uap issues even if nasa has long explored the heavens hunting for the origin identity and purpose of a growing number of unexplained objects over earth is bringing unprecedented unprecedented challenges military and civilian pilots keep

[00:19:01] offering a multitude of reports on strange sightings but dedicate decades of movies and science fiction books about aliens mean the topic is mostly laughed off by a public as the territory of cranks that atmosphere explaining the unusual decision by nasa to initially withhold the lead a uap

[00:19:19] officials identity we need to ensure that the scientific process and methods are free said daniel evans who worked on nasa's report leading to the announcement saying some of the threats and the harassment have been beyond the pale quite frankly he said he goes on to say there

[00:19:37] have been more than 800 events collected over 27 years which two to five percent are thought to be possibly anomalous the report's authors said in may these are defined as anything that is not readily understandable by the operator or the person sensing it or something that is not something

[00:19:54] that is doing something weird said team member nadia drake u.s government has begun taking uap issues more seriously in recent years in part due to the concerns that they are related to foreign surveillance one example of a still unexplained phenomenon was a flying metallic metallic orb

[00:20:12] spotted by an mq9 drone at a undisclosed location in the middle east footage of the uap was shown into congress in april nasa's work which relies on unclassified material is separate from a parallel pentagon investigation though the two are coordinating on how to apply scientific tools

[00:20:32] and methods now you may have seen this on news services earlier this week the alleged bodies of two non-human beings were presented during a congressional hearing in mexico generating a mixture of responses disbelief and ridicule on social media my response of course was supply samples to

[00:20:49] the scientific community and let it go at that that should prove conclusively what we're looking at or not the purported mummified remains in which which had a grayish color and human like body

[00:21:02] form were brought by uh jaymey moison a controversial mexican journalist that should say it all and researcher who reported finding them in peru in 2017 and just like that another episode ends just like that thanks for sticking with us it's been astronomy daily for yet another day

[00:21:23] we'll see you again next week and as always a reminder that you can always find back episodes of astronomy daily and our parent podcast space nuts with andrew dunkley and professor fred watson at bites.com that's b-i-t-e-s-z.com and also space nuts dot i-o and one more thing

[00:21:43] once again i'll remind you don't forget to sign up for the astronomy daily newsletter at that same address that's bites.com and also space nuts dot i-o i'm your host steve dunkley catch you next time on astronomy daily see you next time