Speaker 1: 0:14

Welcome back to Space Week. I'm Paul Miller and I'm Blake Brown. We know it's been a while and we've been handling some personal endeavors. For instance, Blake is no longer one giant leap, but just one small step for becoming a commercial pilot.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Yeah, well, if the weather you know if the weather holds out, bad weather lately and I've had to cancel I don't know how many flights this past month. Oh man, it's been awful.

Speaker 1: 0:36

Yeah, when is the the hard time for pilot training? For sure, yeah, oh well, we'll get there, yep. But we also know this hasn't been our only hiatus, and we want to change that this coming year, for sure. So our New Year's resolution here on the show is to bring you guys more frequent and regular content. We have lots of ideas and plenty more time than we've had previously in 2023. One of those ideas is one y'all been asking about for a while now, which is Patreon. We have certainly made some progress in that regard, and our Patreon account is made and ready for your support.

Speaker 1: 1:07

However, our purpose on this podcast is to make space available for everyone, and we feel locking content behind a paywall is just not the way to go. So instead, our Patreon supporters will gain early access to exclusive episodes that will become available to everyone later on. That means if you want to be the first to hear about the Chinese space program or my trip to Kennedy Space Center, for example, you'll need to be a supporter, but if not, those episodes will still come to you, but you'll have to wait. Anyways, let's get a move on.

Speaker 1: 1:40

This is a very special episode because, instead of Space Week, it's Space Year we're going to talk about all the major events of 2023 to recap an amazing year in the space industry, with things like the 3D printed methane rockets, starship Launch and a bunch of other successes and failures within the industry. We're happy to share our thoughts and some more details right here on Space Year Anyway, so we've got a lot to go over. I'm sure you guys are used to by now the launch segment I start off with. Obviously, we can't cover every successful launch of the year because we had 211 of them across the globe.

Speaker 2: 2:16

Yeah, 200. That's a lot 211 global launches.

Speaker 1: 2:21

So instead I'm going to rat all off some numbers for you guys how exciting I know, and then we'll talk briefly about the most notable launches in spacewalks before moving on into missions. So first off, SpaceX, of course, launched 96 of the 211 flights this year.

Speaker 2: 2:40

Jeez, that's almost half.

Speaker 1: 2:43

Yeah, almost half of all flights was done by SpaceX, narrowly missing that 100 mark after some delays in November and December. So I don't know if they really would have made it. I don't think there were four scheduled launches by December, but it was going to come really close had they stayed on schedule. There were five Falcon Heavy flights, I believe, and the rest were Falcon 9s. They launched about 1900, 1900 Starlink satellites this year alone. I think the total number is somewhere over 5000 now, which is still just barely a dent in the total, like 40,000 or more, that they want to do.

Speaker 2: 3:22

That's insane. Wow. 40,000 just for Starlink would be nuts, but it would be nice to have global internet coverage. That's all.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Yeah, global internet coverage anywhere, I mean literally anywhere in the globe. Now, remember, we're on the V2 mini satellites now. So before, earlier in 2023, we still had the 1.5s. Nothing but V2 minis now, and we're still waiting on Starship for the full size V2s, fingers crossed for 2024. I don't know if it's in the pipeline for this upcoming year, but we'll see. Speaking of which, I'm going to toss the mic to Blake now, real quick for Starship.

Speaker 2: 4:01

So we actually did have a couple of Starship launches last year. I believe the first one was a failure and then the one after that was also a failure. So that was fun. So SpaceX is Starship, and Super Heavy Rocket, which they just bundled together and just called Starship, launched twice last year, facing a couple of failures. The first launch resulted in lift off and climbed to an apogee or a peak altitude of about 39 kilometers. It was ultimately deemed a failed launch when it tried to detonate itself, but instead it just spun rapidly and disintegrated.

Speaker 1: 4:39

Unscheduled disassembly.

Speaker 2: 4:40

Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with those in the Kerbal Space Program. That's happened quite a bit to me, unfortunately, but that's just how it is. The second launch made it much further and through second stage separation, but on the turnaround burn to come back and land. The stage suffered severe engine failures and then exploded. So a few other things too. It's just like it's engine failures, which are obviously a big deal. The first launch, the big failure was the fact that it had a couple of engines failed and then they were like, okay, no, we're not going to make it, let's go ahead and detonate it.

Speaker 2: 5:22

But that didn't happen. So instead, I believe, all of the engines just kept cutting off until it went into that spiral and just lost control.

Speaker 1: 5:31

Yeah, yeah, I think like both incidents were around that second stage separation time.

Speaker 2: 5:39

Yeah, yeah, precisely because I'm pretty sure the first launch it separated and then it was like just it was trying to detonate but it disintegrated instead.

Speaker 1: 5:58

It was still pretty spectacular either way. I mean, of course we talked about it earlier in the year, we talked about the environmental repercussions and all that stuff, but yeah, and how some people down in South Padre Island were pretty mad about it.

Speaker 2: 6:10

Yeah, there was Space Junk watching ashore and all this other stuff.

Speaker 1: 6:15

But you know that's okay, it is what it is. I think they got it mostly settled now and we'll see what happens here next year.

Speaker 2: 6:22

Yeah, I believe the next one's in a couple of months, scheduled to be in a couple of months.

Speaker 1: 6:28

So we'll see what happens.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Yeah, we'll definitely cover that. On the same topic of experimental craft, we didn't get to cover this one. This happened at the end of December. Spacex launched the seventh mission, for Boeing's X-37B. B is in Bravo.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Now everyone is calling this the Air Force's like secret space plane, but information on it's been readily available and you can find details on some of the missions that had commercial cargo and satellites on board actually online. It first launched in 2010. And I think the reason for its reputation is because the Bravo model was first developed for the Air Force to begin with, and then its second mission, as well as this seventh mission, were both classified in regards to trajectory and payload, so all we know is that it went up. We got no idea what orbit it's in and we got no idea what's on board for the second and seventh mission, but other than that, you can find information on it. The X-37B is basically an unmanned space shuttle, but at one fourth the size. Boeing did announce plans for a Charlie model back in 2011, which would be a scaled up version of the Bravo model capable of holding up to six crew, but that was really all we've heard of it. Haven't really heard anything since then, and so that's been no announcements or anything.

Speaker 1: 7:51

No, I mean for shoot. We're looking at 12 years. So I don't know if that's still going to happen or not. We got Starliner coming around, we got the Dragon, so do we really need another space shuttle?

Speaker 2: 8:03

Probably not.

Speaker 1: 8:04

But anyways, there was that and in case you're wondering, that A or Alpha model was used for glide testing before the first orbital flights. So that's all it was. It was just a glide tester for the airframe. I guess you could call it space frame. Besides being just a smaller space shuttle, the X-37 comes with some upgrades.

Speaker 1: 8:31

Boeing lists avionics designed for automated deorbit and landing. Shoot, I hope on an unmanned craft that it would have automated deorbit and landing, but that's what they list Flight controls and brakes that use electro mechanical actuation with no hydraulics on board, which is pretty awesome. So to kind of explain it, in large airplanes we'll say in jet aircraft as well as the shuttle you have hydraulic pumps that supply thousands of pounds of hydraulic pressure to actuate things like the rudder, flaps, ailerons, landing gear and the brakes, right, anything that moves, basically pretty much. So they weren't great, but they're heavy systems that are susceptible to leaks If things go wrong. I mean somewhat, you're not really going to get leaks a whole lot on hydraulics, but it can happen. And if it can happen, you definitely don't want it to happen on a space plane and usually temperature isn't an issue, but in the vacuum of space, where it's really cold and then the extreme heat of reentry. I imagine that's one more thing to be concerned about. I'm honestly not too sure, but hey, so not having to rely on hydraulics is a great addition to any spacecraft.

Speaker 1: 9:46

Agreed, the X 37 structure is a lightweight composite rather than an aluminum, so you can just kind of think of you know it could be anything from carbon fiber to some other made up composite that we've come up with. It has next generation ceramic titles on the leading edges. Boeing calls them tough rock, new advanced conformal, reusable insulation or simply CRI blankets and I think those are the white surfaces on the exterior, but don't quote me on that and finally, toughened unipiece fibrous insulation or T U F I silica tiles. So those are the black tiles that you see on the belly that you're used to just from the space shuttle as well. Until now, the X 37 has been launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas Five, but as we know, those are being retired and December's launch came as the first we launched using a Falcon Heavy.

Speaker 2: 10:42

Interesting, Very nice. You know we're pretty much going over rocket launches right now and there's one very exciting rocket launch that we covered last year I believe was it our first episode.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Or was it?

Speaker 2: 10:55

like our second episode.

Speaker 1: 10:56

I cannot remember If you're talking about relativity space. I think that might have been episode one.

Speaker 2: 11:03

Oh, wow I can probably go back over it real quick, because this one's actually super exciting. So, for those of you that don't know, relativity, space designed and 3D printed. Terran one, which is a 3D printed rocket, which is super cool.

Speaker 1: 11:25

I just looked, it was episode one.

Speaker 2: 11:27

Oh, wow. So yeah, anyways, as I said, it's 3D printed, which has a whole host of benefits to it, because, first of all, 3d printing is way faster than the normal manufacturing process. So therefore, you know, it'd be way faster to develop and to turn around times and stuff like that. It's also cheaper.

Speaker 1: 11:48

Yeah, because of that it's cheaper.

Speaker 2: 11:50

Anyways, terran one, on a mission dubbed GLHF or good luck, have fun proved to the world that 3D printed rockets are going to be a major part of the future of cost efficient launch vehicles. It was launched on March 22nd of 2023. Terran one became the first 3D printed rocket to reach space, opening a new avenue for rocket building. This rocket marked a few major milestones it was the first methane field rocket in the West to reach space past the 100 kilometer Karman line. And, as you'll notice I said, in the West there was another methane rocket that made it to orbit last year, the I'm gonna butcher this really hard. I looked up how to pronounce it, but I the the Chinese names man, they're just so tall.

Speaker 2: 12:36

Yeah, jute, key to, I believe which was a Chinese rocket made by land space. And this rocket was also the first methane rocket to launch payloads into space. Not Terran one, but that cheeky two, if I'm saying that right. So Another major milestone for Terran one was the first 3d printed rocket to fly and pass max Q, which is the point of maximum stress on the rocket. It was also the first methane orbital class rocket to successfully complete stage one flight, miko, which is main engine cutoff and second stage separation in the West Terran. One was then subsequently retired to make way for relativity's larger, more capable 3d printed rocket. The Terran are a Reusable medium to heavy launch platform.

Speaker 1: 13:29

I was just about to bring that up. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah we can't forget, terran are.

Speaker 2: 13:34

Yeah, no, no. I I wrote it down here because I was like, well, so they did one launch with Terran one and it went so well that they're like, all right, let's just scrap it and we'll go for just go straight for.

Speaker 1: 13:44

Terran are let's do it all or nothing.

Speaker 2: 13:47

Yeah, and I mean it's great to see that, cuz, well, we won't be able to see any of the launches for Terran are until about 2026. It's still like whoa, this is great, it's super exciting. I'm really happy for relativity space. I remember watching that launch and being like well, it blew up like what, what? What happened here?

Speaker 1: 14:07

Yeah, it was still a big deal. I still went ahead and just like bought the mission patch and a mug. I was so excited for it. It's like all-gug-ho relativity space.

Speaker 2: 14:17

Oh yeah, dude, it's great, and I'm looking forward to see what else they put out in the coming years.

Speaker 1: 14:24

And then, of course, we can't forget about our friends over at Rocket Lab. These guys accomplished a lot this year with their little electron rockets carrying smaller payloads at low cost to consumers. Most notably, their July mission called baby come back was their first success at recovering a first stage after it splashed down the ocean.

Speaker 2: 14:43

Don't worry, guys, I won't sing it this time.

Speaker 1: 14:45

Yeah, please no. You can find pictures online of the rocket being carried on the recovery vessel. Plans for 2024 include testing and integration of their new neutron rocket capable of heavy payloads and long-range missions. So that's exciting. We could see another competitor to SpaceX soon.

Speaker 2: 15:07

Oh yeah, that'd be great because I feel like SpaceX has just been dominating.

Speaker 1: 15:11

They really have 10, 15 years in dominating the market, so it'd be really cool to see another small group come in and try and do something with it, as well as With Rocket Lab, as well as their future haste missions, which are suborbital missions designed for hypersonic and ballistic testing of payloads. We did go over those briefly, I think, but basically they're going to send up an electron rocket on a Suborbital trajectory, meaning it'll come up and come right back down with payloads on board that they want to test under the hypersonic regimes or under ballistic stress.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Yeah, I believe this is going to be a step towards, like those suborbital commercial flights that SpaceX is also trying to do with Starship, where you know they launch you up, say, in Texas, right, and then you're launched in, in like 20, 30 minutes you're on the other side of the world could, could be.

Speaker 1: 16:08

Yeah, I'm not sure if Rocket Lab's looking at doing that, but they very well could be. I mean, haste is definitely a step towards it, that's for sure.

Speaker 2: 16:16

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:17

Next up, there were six commercial cargo missions to the ISS. According to NASA, they carried 28,000 pounds of food and supplies to the station Golly. That's a lot of food.

Speaker 2: 16:31

How do they go through 28 that dude? Okay, no, step back. How much food does the average human eat a year, like in pounds, man?

Speaker 1: 16:39

I don't know. I mean it also includes, like equipment and stuff. But I mean, even then you can't keep a whole bunch on the station. I mean you've only got so much room.

Speaker 2: 16:48

Yeah, I mean just Interesting, interesting thought.

Speaker 1: 16:53

Yeah, I know that they did bring back Something like 14,000 pounds. So I mean, there is that, so you bring up 28,000, you bring back 14, so you got 14,000 pounds Still to be accounted for oh man, yeah, that's like that's a lot of food.

Speaker 2: 17:11

Where did it all go?

Speaker 1: 17:12

Anyways. Yeah, that was their numbers. There were also 12 spacewalks. Now, for some reason, speaking of numbers that are hard to come up with, I had trouble verifying this number across multiple sources. I don't know why it's so difficult to find details on specific spacewalk numbers by agency, but I pulled them directly from NASA. So, hey, blame them if they're wrong.

Speaker 2: 17:36

Whoa, NASA's never wrong.

Speaker 1: 17:38

NASA's never wrong. Yeah, but yeah, supposedly, I think, 12 spacewalks in 2023. Nasa astronauts primarily worked on the Irosas, or the rollout solar arrays that we've talked about, on the ISS, boosting its power by about 30%. Cosmonauts worked on moving equipment and airlocks across Russian modules you guys probably remember me talking about that as well. That was mainly Sergey and Dimitri, I believe, that did those and and China even had their very first spacewalk aboard their new station.

Speaker 2: 18:11

Yeah, that was. That was Tapped under a locking key until they actually completed it, just in case anything went wrong. Yeah, because we did talk about that and I remember that quite well exactly, I mean rightfully, so I mean yeah. You it's. It's a little scary out there a little bit.

Speaker 1: 18:26

So yeah, frank Rubio became the first American astronaut to spend over a year in space. It wasn't necessarily on purpose, though. Rubio spent 371 days in space after his trip was extended from a mechanical failure on his previous return craft. The overall record is still held by cosmonaut the leery Polikov at 437 days aboard the Russian Mir station, and I'm pretty sure that's how you pronounce his name, I like. Looked it up several times on several different videos.

Speaker 2: 19:02

Russian name and we try.

Speaker 1: 19:03

Russian names and Chinese names. We don't stand a chance.

Speaker 1: 19:06

We really don't, but we had. Let's see three spacex crews go to and from the station in 2023. Crew five launched in October of 22 and was recovered in March of this year. Crew six launched in March and was recovered in de in September almost said December and. And crew seven launched in August and will likely be recovered around February, if I had to guess, following the launch of crew eight. So we don't have an official date yet for crew seven's return, but I'm just gonna kind of throw that out there as a guess. It's about February.

Speaker 1: 19:43

Now, before we get into specific missions and whatnot, let's quickly talk about the craft that didn't make it to space this year Boeing's Starliner. Starliner was riddled with delays this year and I really hate to see that, because I love Boeing and I love this craft, but we can't rush things and not to bring up a store subject have a repeat of early Apollo. Yeah, we're still awaiting the crewed flight test, but Boeing needs a lot of time to fix the issues that came up during the second orbital test. They had software problems a reoccurring theme now, it seems. Propulsion valve problems before an attempted launch in 2021 resulted in an indefinite delay.

Speaker 1: 20:25

Until the issue was fixed, there was a dispute between Boeing and Rocketdyne over who was to blame for that. Two OMAX or Orbital Maneuvering thrusters failed during an orbital insertion burn. So they were already up in space, kind of getting into their final orbit, when two of those failed. Some RCS thrusters used to maneuver during docking failed and they had thermal systems issues. Now I think their problem was things were getting too cold, not too hot. So there was that. Besides the problems that arose from that test, we talked about other problems that came up this year with the parachute harness and flammable tape adhesive.

Speaker 2: 21:08

Yeah, those are the ones that I remember the most about this year.

Speaker 1: 21:12

Yeah, Some good news, though. Boeing has been hard at work addressing the issues and they believe Starliner should be ready by March or April, with NASA limiting launch to at least mid-April because of the ISS schedule.

Speaker 2: 21:26

While Boeing has been failing, virgin has been succeeding, kind of sort of halfway Maybe. Yeah Well, they've been succeeding but they've also been failing. Let's just put it that way. So there's two companies at Virgin in the Virgin Space Group, I guess if you want to call it that, I don't know just Virgin Group. Sure, because they do stuff. There's a distinction to make between these two companies. There is Virgin Orbit and Virgin Galactic. They are two very different companies. They set out to be space companies, of course, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about them, but that's not important. They both flew under the Virgin Group. Like I said, virgin Orbit was a commercial launch platform meant for launching satellites and other various commercial payloads within a reusable launch vehicle. Now, of course, virgin Galactic's launch vehicle is also reusable, but yeah, so Virgin Galactic is the one doing space tourism on its reusable launch vehicle. Anyways, virgin Galactic successfully completed test flights. I believe there were two or three last year before they finally started doing the space tourism flights.

Speaker 1: 22:44

Yeah, don't get me lying. I know that they had at least two tourism flights. I'm trying to remember how many tests there were before that.

Speaker 2: 22:52

Yeah, I can't remember. Off the top of my head I didn't write it down, but that's okay. Anyways, they had their first few commercial flights, which were quite successful. I believe they were up, the people on board the. I forgot what it's called, but it's like the little. The space plane thing yeah the space plane thing that actually goes up into space. I believe they're up in space for about 10, 15 minutes before they, you know, they glide back down, which isn't a very long time, but that's still very cool.

Speaker 1: 23:24

Hey, if I had the money I'd book a seat Same.

Speaker 2: 23:27

I mean you got $100,000,. I think it is.

Speaker 1: 23:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:30

It'd be more than that.

Speaker 1: 23:31

I don't know it's not cheap.

Speaker 2: 23:34

Anyways, let's go back to Virgin Orbit, which unfortunately shuttered its doors for good after failing to secure financial funding after a few different mishaps. My understanding is the reusable part, the part that went up into space that kept having issues, and then also to I don't know if you remember, I think this also affected Virgin Galactic, but the launch vehicle had that failure. It was a pretty serious failure. They grounded themselves for a few years after that, before.

Speaker 2: 24:05

Yup Because there were pilots on board that unfortunately passed away. It was a big deal back then. I can't remember when that was. It might have been 2015, 2014, somewhere around there, it's been a while. Yeah, it's been a really long time. But yeah, so that's Virgin Orbit. Virgin Galactic is still around. Virgin Orbit is the one that went under, unfortunately. It would have been really cool to see that also take off and make money, but you know, that's just how the industry is.

Speaker 1: 24:34

That's how it goes.

Speaker 2: 24:36

All right.

Speaker 1: 24:36

Well, I think that just about wraps up our major launch stories of 2023. Of course, our missions ahead all involve the launch of some sort, but that isn't necessarily the highlight of the event, right? So I want to start us off with another key player in manned spaceflight and a Houston based company as well.

Speaker 2: 24:54

Axiom yeah, drive by their offices every day.

Speaker 1: 24:57

Yep, we're right there Off by NASA. We've been talking about Axiom for a long time now, really since our beginning, I think. Maybe episode two or three, something like that. Yeah, I know it wasn't the first, but it was there. They've been involved in many ways. They're certainly a major player to keep an eye on. You may remember or saw on the news when NASA announced they'd be using Axiom's space suit for future moon missions.

Speaker 2: 25:24

Yeah, yeah, we also talked about that.

Speaker 1: 25:26

Yep, it took inspiration from NASA's suits, but in my opinion I don't know about you, Blake I think their suit looks better and possibly more comfortable or ergonomic as well.

Speaker 2: 25:36

Yeah, it certainly isn't that bulky space suit that you saw them walking on the moon now, but it looks almost like a race suit, like Axiom's suit. Exactly, it looks like a racing suit.

Speaker 1: 25:49

Well, they put it in the Axiom brand colors right and also that yeah. So it's definitely more stylish, if that matters to you, with your space suits. But the final version will be the typical white, to help reflect radiation from the sun, of course, so they're not going to keep it black, or whatever the color is in blue and orange, but anyways, another big thing that I'm excited for is Axiom's station, so we know that the ISS is nearing the end of its life, set to be retired by 2030, I believe.

Speaker 2: 26:20

Alrighty yeah right.

Speaker 1: 26:23

Well, axiom plans to start a station of its own built-in modules that will attach to the ISS. Once the ISS retires, which essentially means burning it up in the atmosphere, the Axiom station will detach and become its own standalone. So that's pretty cool, and it'll be the first commercial space station Yep. Lastly, axiom's biggest current involvement has been their commercial crew missions so far AX1 and AX2. These missions allow the opportunity for companies and countries without their own manned spaceflight programs to send commercial astronauts up on a short-stay mission to provide data and research from space. Both missions were launched via SpaceX. Now, axiom wasn't the only key player in the realm of spaceflight. I'm sure you all have been eager to know the progress on NASA's Artemis missions.

Speaker 1: 27:15

Artemis 1 took place near the end of 2022, though it's worth mentioning as the first uncrewed integrated flight test of the Orion spacecraft and NASA's new SLS rocket. So, as a reminder, an integrated flight test is just simply a flight test with both the Orion capsule on board the SLS rocket. So you're testing the two of them integrated together. It's really all that means. The mission took Orion on a very interesting flight path around the moon. Just look up the Artemis 1 mission map, you'll see what I mean and return safely to Earth after about 25 and a half days.

Speaker 1: 27:55

But Artemis 2, of course, is the big topic now. Artemis 2 will pave the way to land the next man and first woman on the moon during Artemis 3. So, to be clear, artemis 2 is a flyby mission. We're not landing just yet. It'll serve as a test, similar to Artemis 1, but this time with a crew on board. The Artemis II crew is Commander Reed Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and specialist Christina Cook and Jeremy Hansen. Progress on the mission as of the end of 2023 has been good, with the capsule for Artemis II nearing completion, with its service module and heat shield ready for install. The Artemis III capsule is being fit for interior. Spoiler alert, though as a recording this episode, we've had news of a delay, which we'll cover in our first January episode of 2024. So stay tuned. That'll likely be released in partnership with this one.

Speaker 2: 28:53

So the great news about Artemis is they'll be going up with high speed internet. Our astronauts won't be dealing with dial-up anymore, which is amazing, you know. Do you remember dial-up growing up?

Speaker 2: 29:05

Oh yeah, the dial-up tones are just what's running through my head right now. But yeah, space fiber internet is on its way. So NASA is actually using lasers, which, funnily enough, is how fiber internet works on Earth. They expect to be able to transmit and receive data using a new laser communication system built into the spacecraft. Now, don't quote me on that. I do believe it's completely, 100% integrated into the spacecraft, as well as on the space station and a few other like satellites orbiting Earth, so that they can. You know they have the communication, but it's crazy, it's going to be 200 gigabits per second.

Speaker 1: 29:46

See, that's faster than we get here on Earth.

Speaker 2: 29:49

I know that's insane, but in reality this has been in works for quite a while. There's been a few launches that I think we talked about when we originally covered space fiber internet in a couple episodes ago, but they've been working on it since, I believe, 2021.

Speaker 1: 30:06

Really that long yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:08

I think the first slight communications thing that has gone up was 2021.

Speaker 1: 30:14

Interesting, interesting. Yeah, I mean it'd be great if we could get something like that down here. But I guess when you are in direct line sight of a satellite, yeah, that's kind of what you get when that satellite is completely dedicated to you.

Speaker 2: 30:31

Yeah, and then on top of that, you know now it probably doesn't make a huge difference, but there's no atmosphere up in space, so there's no like particles. There's no interference or anything like that, so it's perfect for it. Like I said, I don't think it makes a big difference.

Speaker 1: 30:49

Look all I'm saying is if I can pay the internet service provider to put a radio tower on top of my house with a giant dish pointing directly at the servers, I mean, I'm all for it, me too.

Speaker 2: 31:00

Just imagine deleting a game because you don't have space and you're just like oh, let me just redowload it real quick, you know.

Speaker 1: 31:06

Oh, my goodness, that's it. Yeah, I'm sure the city in the HOA would love that. But hey, I mean giant radio tower on the roof. Go for it, please, and thank you. But still on the topic of Artemis and the moon, we had four moon lander missions from different countries around the globe. Countries have been racing to the lunar South Pole as evidence of water, ice and other minerals has been on the rise. The first mission was Japan's Hikudo R, which we followed closely on the show, as you remember.

Speaker 2: 31:35

Yeah, I do remember that and unfortunately the thing failed. It essentially, from what I remember is it went over a cliff that they didn't think was there and then it sent a bug into the software which triggered it to land like a hundred meters above the surface and then it cut its engine off and then just smacked into the surface Exactly.

Speaker 1: 31:57

Exactly, it launched in December of 2022 and it made its attempted landing in April. And that's exactly what happened. It went over a crater and the computer had a predetermined altitude on board, where you know this was going to be the expected altitude. And then the craft had another kind of like a radar altimeter on board. It was reading, like you know, reading out a real-time altitude, yeah, and I'm guessing the logic was to compare the two altitudes together, the actual real-time altitude being read out by the craft in the predetermined altitude on the computer. And the problem was is that the computer took precedence. So when the craft flew over that crater and the altitude went from, like you know, just above the surface to over a thousand feet above the moon's surface, the computer was like whoa, you're wrong, we're actually on the ground.

Speaker 2: 32:52

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Speaker 1: 32:55

And exactly, it cuts the engines and down it went. So hey, there you go, bye, bye, hakudo.

Speaker 2: 33:03

Yeah, oh man, that's unfortunate. I was actually really excited for that one, because iSpace was actually a commercial company. It wasn't like they were tied to a country specifically, like yeah, they were Japanese, I believe, but they were still like their own entity rather than be like NASA or Israel or like ESA, you know.

Speaker 1: 33:26

Yeah, yeah, it would have been like a. It was a commercial contractor that did the craft, and that was iSpace, that's what Blake's talking about Now.

Speaker 1: 33:33

Next up was India's Chandra and three, launching in July and becoming the first to successfully land in August. Its primary goal was to demonstrate landing and roving capabilities on the lunar surface, both its lander and rover sitting in an idle sleep state now. So you guys probably remember that one as well. It had the little bitty rover. It's just gonna go down there, just kind of like a test out phase. You know, hey, can we make it there? Cool, we made it. Now let's put out this little bitty rover. Do some science go to sleep? So I'm not really sure what the purpose of the sleep state is. I'm guessing they're waiting until a period in the future where they're gonna do more science. I don't know, but that's where it's at now.

Speaker 1: 34:14

Now there was also Russia's Luna 25. It launched in August, but it failed to land due to a fault and a setting during its descent, leading to an unexpected shutdown. So still kind of similar to Hukudo R, not in the exact cause but kind of in the effect. So it had. I think all they said was it was some temporary setting that was left on or something like that, and it just shut down and down it went.

Speaker 2: 34:43

That sounds funny because that sounds exactly what happened to that, that drone that I crashed at one time.

Speaker 1: 34:48

Yeah, blake, yeah so.

Speaker 2: 34:50

I'll tell you the story I got. So just real, briefly. I was a drone contractor there for a little bit. I flew drones for a living and I got sent out on a contract and they had me fly this drone that I've never flown before. The company that sent them the drone accidentally left a kill switch where normally on a standard drone controller there's the picture button. So I had it about 15-20 feet above the ground and I was like, okay, the gimbal is not working, let me see if it takes a picture. So I clicked the picture button and the motor shut down and it just crashed into the ground and I'm just like well, that's not normal.

Speaker 1: 35:35

Unexpected shutdown. So the look on your face was probably the same look that was on the Russian space controller's face.

Speaker 2: 35:42

Yeah, and I'm sure they. They screamed a few expletives as well. I'm not saying that I did, but it probably happened, not exactly how you remember it. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 35:58

Oh man, but anyways. Last we had Japan again with their moon sniper. So now we're literally shooting spacecraft at the moon with high-power rifles. Just moon rail guns, baby yeah. If only it was that easy so this launched in September and aims to land with a precision of less than 100 meters, hence the name. When you're talking launching a spacecraft off to another celestial body in space and landing it within a hundred meter mark, that's pretty darn good.

Speaker 2: 36:28

That's almost incredible. I mean, that's that's like a bull's-eye.

Speaker 1: 36:31

I mean, I dream of the day where that becomes like 50 meters and then 10 meters, you know, but a hundred meters is awesome. Yeah, it has a planned landing in January, so stay tuned for that.

Speaker 2: 36:45

We're looking forward to that one. I really want to know how they do. Yeah, speaking of landers and like really incredible things that are going on this year or happened last year, I should say ingenuity. Our little Martian helicopter that has seriously shattered all of our expectations. We've talked about ingenuity quite a lot just because it just kept making headlines. It's like oh hey, it has accomplished its 25th flight, it's 50th flight and we're up to like 71 now.

Speaker 1: 37:17

That's crazy, wasn't it? Gonna make like just a couple flights and then just be done the number was five. Five, but then they pushed it and they were like you know what?

Speaker 2: 37:25

let's just keep doing it.

Speaker 1: 37:26

Let's just keep going, why not?

Speaker 2: 37:27

Yeah, we talked about, I believe it being a scout for perseverance, I think. Perseverance, I believe. I just keep thinking curiosity, but that's the one that's resting pieces, you know. Anyways back to ingenuity. Well, we lost communication with it and then we gained it back and then lost it again there for a little while and then gained it back and once again lost communication and we're back. It's just up to its old antics you know yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:07

I know it's just like all right, I'm not gonna talk to you anymore, and then I'm gonna talk to you again. And then you know, it's like a cat really you funny little space helicopter you. But yeah, anyways, as of recording this, nasa has announced that ingenuity has achieved 71 flights, like I said earlier, and that is just insane. We said that it's only ever. It plan was only to ever do five, and I mean 71 flights. That's. That's more than I'll ever do on Mars, probably.

Speaker 1: 38:43

Yeah yeah, I'd love for you know, just to have one shoot.

Speaker 2: 38:47

Right, but yeah, I mean ingenuity. I really am looking forward to see what they come up with this year. What happens with perseverance and ingenuity this year, just to see what more can we do with Mars, you know, yeah exactly scout out some more places for us.

Speaker 1: 39:07

Nasa and Lockheed Martin were hard at work on the X-59 experimental aircraft this year, scheduled for debut in early 2024. Hint, hint. The supersonic airplane aims to pave the way for the next generation of commercial aircraft by lowering the sound of a sonic boom to that of a loud thud. They often compare the X-59's theoretical boom to the sound of a car door slamming. So yeah, we're waiting for that thing to roll out. We've seen pictures of it so far, and yeah next month, I guarantee you we're going to see more.

Speaker 2: 39:42

I sure hope so. Yeah, we have plenty of missions still to cover and I've got quite a few laid out right here right in front of me, and I'd like to talk about the cyrus rags. So we've kind of thought for a while now, or maybe even theorized it, but we believe that asteroids could hold the key to the evolution of our solar system, how planets form and how life began and our galaxy even began, which is crazy to think about. It's like all of that information inside of an asteroid. That's crazy.

Speaker 1: 40:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:14

Osiris Rex aimed to bring back a sample from an asteroid, bennu, which was formerly named 1999 RQ 36. So last year in September, osiris Rex delivered the sample to Earth by a parachute to the Department of Defense's Utah test and training range where a team of scientists were waiting to retrieve it. Super exciting this. I didn't exactly do more research on the asteroid. I should have just so we had a little bit more information. My fault, but essentially I believe it went out to the asteroid belt, came back and dropped off the sample and is going back out. So the sample is now being analyzed and we're hoping to hear back from the team very soon, hopefully this year, maybe in a month we'll see.

Speaker 1: 41:03

Did you really put a trademark logo next to soon? I did. Is that a star citizen reference?

Speaker 2: 41:09

No, it's just an internet meme. Okay, and that's all for now. Psyche, alright, that was bad, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 41:20

God, these puns play. I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 41:23

I spent way too long coming up with that to not say it. Nasa and their asteroids got to know everything about all of them, right? Psyche? The correct pronunciation actually is an asteroid mission which is headed to an asteroid by the same name. So Psyche, the asteroid, is a unique, metal-rich asteroid orbiting the Sun between Jupiter and Mars. So NASA is especially interested in this asteroid because it has a high metal content and I believe it's also rather large for that asteroid. So they theorized that this asteroid may be the core of a planetesimal, a building block up an early planet, which would be really cool to see a new planet in the solar system in 10 million years, when I'm not even gonna be here.

Speaker 1: 42:09

So hey, it's like Saturn's rings falling that we talked about. Yeah, they're falling, but they'll be gone after we're gone.

Speaker 2: 42:18

so so enjoy it while it lasts, people, yep. So another exciting asteroid mission is NASA's Lucy, which brings us a surprise in the form of a giant rock. So, first off, lucy is a mission to explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, which are asteroids located in one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange points. Sorry, lagrange Lagrange Points. Paul put it best for me earlier, but a Lagrange point is a point of gravitational equilibrium between the planet and the suns.

Speaker 1: 42:55

Suns. If you're in a binary star system, sure.

Speaker 2: 42:59

Yeah, true. So just to kind of put it into perspective, the James Webb Space Telescope is located at one of Earth's Lagrange points and I believe, generally speaking, there's four.

Speaker 1: 43:14

Three, three, I think three.

Speaker 2: 43:17

I thought there were two really close to the planet and then two further out. I could. We're looking at all. Give us one second Five.

Speaker 1: 43:31

Wow, we're both stupid. That's a surprise, surprise, yeah. So there's yeah, it's interesting, there's three, in the way that I think about it, which is kind of within the planet's orbit itself. They kind of line in line with the planet's orbit.

Speaker 2: 43:51

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1: 43:52

There's one kind of directly between the planet and the sun, as well as for Earth. It looks like one, I guess, between Earth and the moon.

Speaker 2: 44:03

That would make sense.

Speaker 1: 44:05

Yes, yeah. So we got L1 between Earth and the sun. L2 is sort of that's not the moon, that's the moon, that's no moon. And then we got L3, 4, and 5, which I and I think I'm I can't remember- but anyways, either way back to NASA's Lucy.

Speaker 2: 44:32

So NASA's Lucy, like I said, is going to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, which are a group of asteroids in the Lagrange point on the Trojan Lagrange point, I think is actually what it's called. It's going there and on its way it's taking very many pictures of other asteroids as well, and this is why this is really cool is the surprise of a giant rock was not in the form of an engagement ring, but rather an unnamed satellite around an asteroid that we weren't aware had a satellite. Dinkinesh has a contact binary which is like the moon in that they orbit the asteroid, but the contact binary is two smaller objects touching each other rather than a single object.

Speaker 1: 45:22

So, okay, I'm trying to paint this picture in my head. We have the asteroid. And then we have the moon around the asteroid, and then the moon that is around the asteroid is actually made of two smaller objects that are connected to one another.

Speaker 2: 45:36

Yes, okay, exactly.

Speaker 1: 45:38

Got it. So think of it like the moon, but two moons that are touching each other.

Speaker 2: 45:42

Got it, Got it. Well, yeah, that was pretty cool. I mean, the picture is really interesting. I really wish I could get that quality of images out of my telescope. But you know, that's neither here nor there.

Speaker 1: 45:55

So, yeah, right, esa. Esa had a couple of big missions this year, namely juice and Euclid. Juice, or the Jupiter icy moons Explorer, was launched in April and is aimed at making detailed observations of Jupiter and its three icy moons Solisto, ganymede and Europa Juice will be the first spacecraft to orbit a moon in the outer solar system, specifically Ganymede, so I'm really looking forward to this. Following the images of Jupiter we got back from the Juno space probe, I think it's really cool to see more of these celestial bodies from the outer solar system up close. Definitely, if you haven't seen them, if you've kind of been under a rock, no offense, look up the Jupiter Juno images. They're awesome. They are artificially colored yes, I think they originally came back in black and white, but they are true to life up close images of Jupiter and they're absolutely amazing.

Speaker 1: 46:56

Euclid Now, I really don't think much can come close to my excitement for Euclid. Seriously, if you have any interest in dark energy or dark matter and the creation of our universe, euclid is like the modern day Holy Grail. Just in July, it's designed to create a 3D map of more than one third of the sky. That's huge and it could lead to models showing the expansion and formation of structure in our universe. Because if you look at trajectories, amongst other things, you can trace objects' origins and perhaps what they looked like before, as well as how they may look in the future.

Speaker 1: 47:35

And from that, euclid could also look at the empty voids and determine properties of dark energy and matter and how they interact. So not only could you look at the bright things, the stars, the galaxies, where they originated and where they're going, but also the empty space in between. Is it pushing, is it pulling, is it expanding or contracting All these things? So really, really cool stuff. Because of the vast amount of data and research potential of Euclid its mission is a worldwide effort of more than 2,000 scientists from 300 institutes in 13 European countries, the US, canada and Japan. This thing is like the anti-hubble Hubble's dark matter twin. You could say I compare it more to web, but seriously, it looks like Hubble. They just look it up. It looks like Hubble.

Speaker 2: 48:29

Yeah, yeah, I believe it. And I mean, you just mentioned that James Webb told us go. Don't you have more about that?

Speaker 1: 48:35

I sure do so. Let's take a look at web and what web has captured in 2023. Web to help make tons of discoveries this year. We literally can't list them all, but some big takeaways were images within our own solar system. Web to help us see our gas giants through new eyes, finding storms and jet streams on Jupiter not previously seen. We saw Saturn's rings in new detail and an image of Uranus like no other. Blake he's trying so hard to hold it in guys.

Speaker 2: 49:09

Well, I guess that's payback for the really bad psyche pun.

Speaker 1: 49:14

Someone had to do it, but it highlighted Uranus's faint and dusty rings. I'll go ahead and say it that way. Webb found massive galaxies that formed just 500 or so million years after the Big Bang, which, according to current models, would be impossible and quite literally creates problems for our current understanding of our universe and galaxy formation, inter-euclid. By the way, webb furthered our debates over the rate of expansion of our universe Thought to help solve the problem. It turns out new numbers on the Hubble constant disagree even more now. The Hubble constant is simply just kind of like an arbitrary number that we've come up with that represents the rate of expansion of our universe. By the way, if you're interested, I recommend you look up the Hubble constant. It's insanely fast, so much so it's kind of scary to think about.

Speaker 1: 50:08

To be honest, webb found the oldest supermassive black hole, as well as other black holes of both incredibly large and incredibly small sizes. We also potentially found mythical dark stars, stars powered by dark matter. I'm going to be honest, the explanation on these is rather confusing, so I suggest you just look them up. They are different than the dark stars referred to under Newtonian mechanics, so you can see already we're kind of exiting the scope of the podcast here. Yeah, so if you do look them up, you can look up both. Look up dark stars in regards to dark matter. That's the ones I'm referring to. You can also look up dark stars in regards to Newtonian mechanics. Those ones are kind of, let's just say, old and obsolete now, but, yeah, you can look those up, check them out. They're kind of neat. Anyways, those are most of the big discoveries, and there's a lot more of them, for sure. So, way to go, webb, you're awesome.

Speaker 2: 51:08

Yeah, thanks Webb. You keep reminding me how scary it is out there.

Speaker 1: 51:12

Yeah, speaking of which. So, of course, when it comes to the scariest things and the endless void that is our universe which is scary in and of itself the first thing that comes to mind is black holes, and I know we talk about them a lot and they're probably going to come up next year as well. But come on, I mean the sheer power, the gravity of these things literally is just incomprehensible. You can think of anything the largest planets, stars, neutron stars, I mean really the densest objects that we know. Anything you throw at one of these is done, just complete, it's gone. I mean, it's like a cosmic trash can per se. They make entire galaxies go around and, the best part, we know nothing about them.

Speaker 2: 52:02

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty scary to think about. Anyways, let me remind us all about the things that we do know about.

Speaker 1: 52:13

Blake's just over here mortified, just loving to go over this subject.

Speaker 2: 52:18

It's great, yeah. So on the topic of black holes, we made a few discoveries this year. Well, one wasn't really exactly a discovery, but more like they pose a theory about another structure in space called topological solitons. This isn't, in theory, a new type of black hole, to give you more of the heebie-jeebies if you haven't gotten them already. So topological solitons is a whole new type of space structure coming from string theory, which is way too complicated for us to put in the short terms. Absolutely, these are black holes, but not question mark. They behave like black holes, and that they bend light around them just like one, but then they look completely different up close is kind of what I was. Reading. More about them, interesting, okay.

Speaker 1: 53:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 53:12

So imagine like the interstellar black hole and like the pictures of the black holes that we've seen, but then imagine even fuzzier is kind of what they've been talking about. Huh, okay, I don't know. Anyways, let me try to kind of put it into words and how they explained it would look, but the best way to put it is it would look fuzzy or blurry. So initially sorry.

Speaker 1: 53:41

So it's like a black hole with cataracts.

Speaker 2: 53:44

Yeah, something like that. Well, I'd like to remind everyone that this is all theoretical right now, but so we're black holes at one point and we've discovered them since. So, yeah, it's. Let me just hammer that point home, because I don't know if this is a real thing yet, but they're able to mathematically prove that these things exist, just the way that Einstein was able to mathematically prove that black holes exist.

Speaker 1: 54:11

So got it. We've seen them yet, but we've proven that they can't exist. Yes, got it, got it.

Speaker 2: 54:17

So these objects in theoretical space been light around them, but then just allow the light to escape its gravity, just like barely, I believe. It just comes right back out. Anyways, it's not enough to have like an event horizon, I think, but it's enough for something moving incredibly fast, such as light, to be able to get out.

Speaker 1: 54:37

Huh, okay.

Speaker 2: 54:39

So it's something that you can maybe go back into or go into and then, with enough, speak it right back out.

Speaker 1: 54:44

Interesting. I wonder if you could use that to like just slingshot insanely quick.

Speaker 2: 54:50

Yeah, true.

Speaker 1: 54:51

You know what I mean. That's a random thought, but I mean you're talking about just kind of entering and exiting right back out again. You know, it's kind of what comes to mind.

Speaker 2: 54:58

Yeah, some kind of crazy gravity assist or something like that, that'd be insane. But yeah, they kind of explained it as like okay, imagine like a black hole, but just like a black hole, and then in the middle it looks like the outside of a black hole, kind of.

Speaker 1: 55:13

So it's just one giant lens, so you kind of it's not like a black hole or it's just like pitch black, it's just one distorted lens.

Speaker 2: 55:20

But from far away it would look like a black hole, and then you get close to it you would be able to see the light that's coming back out of it.

Speaker 1: 55:28

Oh man, that's weird.

Speaker 2: 55:30

That is insane to think about, right, that's anyways. That's why this is in nightmare fuel segment. But yeah, speaking of real black holes once that we've actually discovered, but how long has it been? Like a few, like 50 years or so, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 55:50

Oh, since the first black holes, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 55:54

Anyways, we're adding up the tally. Esa this year has actually documented and discovered two very close to home black holes, so the European Space Agency discovered a new type of black hole. These two that I'm talking about they just simply don't have an emission of light Now, the very famous black hole photographs that we saw back in, I believe, 2017 or something like that that has an emission of light around it, whereas these black holes, they just simply don't.

Speaker 1: 56:29

Fair.

Speaker 2: 56:30

There's nothing there. It's like, wow, what the heck that's.

Speaker 1: 56:34

I guess. I mean they're just out there in empty space. You know, there's nothing.

Speaker 2: 56:38

Sort of yeah.

Speaker 1: 56:39

Nothing there, to where we can easily observe them, I guess.

Speaker 2: 56:42

So they're using Gaia, which is an ambitious project, to map our galaxy in the first place. So a team of astronomers using Gaia discovered these black holes that are extremely close to home Gaia, bh1 and BH2. And, funny note, I just realized while I was taking my notes that they named these so simply. It's not even funny. Bh1 or black hole one and black hole two.

Speaker 1: 57:11

It's better than some of the other names we've had on there that use like half the alphabet and you know half the numbers from one to 10.

Speaker 2: 57:17

So yeah, no. Anyways, these two black holes were discovered by studying the movement of their companion stars. The strange wobble in the movement in the stars in the sky indicated that they were orbiting a very massive object or something with a lot of gravitational force on it. So that means that these black holes are truly black and can only be detected via their gravitational effects, which is very scary to think about. Like we can't see it coming, kind of like that. The way that they were able to see it in interstellar, the way that we were able to image it back in 2017 or whenever it was, and also really recently, kind of side note they were able to image the black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Speaker 1: 58:06

Really.

Speaker 2: 58:07

Yeah, oh, that's awesome. You got to look it up. It's incredible.

Speaker 1: 58:10

Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2: 58:12

It looks like the first black hole that we ever image, but it's got something different about it. There's like four points around it. I think it was like four stars, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1: 58:19

Interesting, interesting, but yeah. So, in regards to the ones that you're talking about, you could basically be George Jetson that's flying along, you know, minding your own business, listening to your tunes and your little spacecraft, and all of a sudden you enter a black hole and it's like oh, what's this feeling? Oh, look at me, I'm a spaghetti noodle now.

Speaker 2: 58:35

Yeah, you just got a spaghetti fight. Yeah, awesome.

Speaker 1: 58:38

Awesome, great to think about. Well, my personal favorite on the topic of black holes this year was our ultra massive black hole from episode four. Blake Blake remembers this very well for other reasons yeah, because it was larger than your mom. God, our terrible jokes. I'm so sorry y'all, but long story short.

Speaker 1: 59:04

Astronomers found this black hole at the center of the galactic cluster, a bell 12 01. And it's estimated to be around 30 billion with a B solar masses. So for reference, typical black holes are about five to 10 solar masses in supermassive black holes like those in the center of galaxies range from several hundred thousand to millions of solar masses. Yet still, a bell 12 01's monster is still dwarfed by our largest measured black hole, ton six one eight at 40 billion solar masses, and even more still by Phoenix a sitting at an estimated 100 billion solar masses. Ton six one eights diameter would be more than 40 times the distance from the sun to Neptune, and Phoenix a's would be 100 times the distance from the sun to Pluto. So yeah, just kind of sit on that one tonight.

Speaker 2: 1:00:09

You can think about just how small we really are how small we are, how unimportant everything is, and you know that one day we're all going to die and nothing else matters.

Speaker 1: 1:00:21

Welcome to depression 101. Paul in place.

Speaker 2: 1:00:27

Yeah, cheese, sorry about the darkness there. We've just been talking about black holes for so long is probably time to move on to something else. Something is equally terrifying. Maybe, like you know, stars following planets, like we discovered this past year. So no, for the first time ever and we did cover this a couple episodes ago we've observed a star unhinging its jaw Like a snake and swallowing a planet hole, not literally, more like a painting, a picture kind of thing, but I like to picture it that way just because it's funny and it helps me sleep at night.

Speaker 1: 1:01:05

Dark sense of humor there. I just love man. You know what gets me to bed each night when I just I'm staying up late and I just can't fall asleep. I think about a star looking like the face of a snake swallowing its planet hole. Yeah, man.

Speaker 2: 1:01:21

It's much easier to think about than the actual thing, like God. But really the star just sucked the planet completely into its body, consuming the materials of the planet to continue its bright burn. Now, initially, the team of astronomers thought it was just a giant planet orbiting its star, causing some wobbling in its image, but it turns out the wobble was just a star swallowing the planet. But yeah, this highlights how terrifying the entire universe is and why we have this segment called nightmare fuel.

Speaker 1: 1:01:56

Now, as we wrap up this year's nightmare fuel recap, we did have some honorable mentions I'd like to list out real quick For one iron and titanium rain. We remember that planets hotter than they should have been. We had stars colder than they should have been. We had kilonovas and the sheer amount of solar activity we had this year. If you remember, it was quite a lot, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:02:18

I feel like every couple episodes we had a new solar flare.

Speaker 1: 1:02:22

Yeah, solar flare we had more sunspots. Yeah, this solar maximum that we've had within the solar cycle is just been kind of a crazy one.

Speaker 2: 1:02:31

Yeah, for sure, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:02:34

And then there was one that one topic everyone asked us so much to talk about the aliens. The congressional hearing on UAPs, or unidentified aerial phenomena, was held this year and brought things both expected and well not. I'll be honest, if you've been following the mainstream news of UFOs, the hearing really offered nothing new. I watched everything with the last 20 minutes because I fell asleep, yeah it was pretty boring yeah but for many, hey, it was a big deal.

Speaker 1: 1:03:09

It was the first time we had a serious and open conversation, for the most part involving the government and UFOs. The three witnesses gave first hand accounts of UFO sightings, like the famous Tic Tac, and swore to having known the whereabouts of organic matter not Earth like in origin as well as fallen craft technologies. But oddly enough, that wasn't the key topic that was being called for. Most of the hearing involved members of Congress, along with the witnesses, discussing ways to report credible UAP sightings and furthering government transparency on the topic. A good point was brought up that there has been overclassification of such sightings and that unless the knowledge poses a risk against the nation or exposes weaknesses in its defenses, there's really no reason it shouldn't be publicly known.

Speaker 2: 1:04:01

Yeah 100%. So I mean again, you and I both believe in aliens. We don't know Now we're not 100% sure if they visited us. I like to think that they have. Whether or not there's actual alien abductees and stuff like that, I don't know. Yeah, I'm kind of up in the air on that one, like there are some people that have really credible stories and then there are other people that are just like there's no way, that's real right.

Speaker 1: 1:04:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:04:28

Anyway, this whole congressional hearing, I kind of had a spark notes over it, right, and I was just like, well, yeah, these are things we knew. It was just more of things that we've seen, like the tic-tac that was declassified and leaked to the public or released to the public, one of the things. But ultimately, at the end of the day, what I wanted out of that was for the government to admit that they knew.

Speaker 2: 1:04:55

Yeah just to acknowledge, right, yeah, they knew that something was going on and that it is very highly likely that aliens have visited us, but we're not 100% sure.

Speaker 1: 1:05:10

Yeah, exactly, you know it's like to what degree. And again, you know the whole transparency thing. Unless this stuff poses a risk to the national defense, there's no reason people can't know about it. Yeah, you know, come on. And finally, let's not forget, before we go, that NASA released their new website and their streaming service, nasa Plus, this year. Finding the new website is easy, of course. Just go to nasagov. You'll find a much more modern, updated look that I got, to be honest, takes some getting used to if you're accustomed to the old site, but in the age of smartphones and simplified appearances, this new site is much more mobile friendly and is a great step forward. Their streaming service, nasa Plus, is completely free and full of all new original content, as well as a live launch coverage, kids content, spanish language programming and more. You can find it on all major platforms, including the updated NASA app, roku, apple TV, fire TV, and online across desktop and mobile devices.

Speaker 2: 1:06:10

That's pretty incredible. I just like the fact that it's free and it's this day and age where you know you got to pay for every single streaming service.

Speaker 1: 1:06:18

Exactly. There's a subscription for everything. It's like okay, you don't want ads, it's this cost. You know you want ads, it's going to be that cost and it's just. It just keeps piling on.

Speaker 2: 1:06:28

Yeah, one thing people, one thing. Yeah, you had one job. Anyway, that wraps it up for us, this space here. If you're tuning in and listening to us tell you all about the exciting things that happened in the aerospace industry and in space last year, if you like what you're hearing, leave us a comment, a review and a rating. It helps us spread the word and reach more people. We'd really appreciate all of your kind words. Be sure to check out our website, spaceweekco, where you can find out more about Space Week and keep up to date with our latest episodes.

Speaker 1: 1:07:03

Well, keep your eyes on the skies Until next year. This is Paul and Blake signing off.