Speaker 1: 0:14

Welcome to Space Week, where we bring you weekly space for everyday people. We're your hosts, paul Miller and Blake Brown. Now I'm super excited because this episode is going to be chock full of news on space flight and rockets. But don't worry, we still have some astronomy topics to go over, including a quick nightmare fuel segment at the end. So stay tuned. Yay nightmare fuel.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Why do we continue to include this episode or include this into our?

Speaker 1: 0:39

episodes. Why do we include this episode in this episode?

Speaker 2: 0:42

Yeah, my bad.

Speaker 1: 0:44

So, kicking things off, first things first. I'd like to clarify some things from our last episode, mainly to do with Starship's second flight test.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Right, yeah, we did get some things wrong on that, didn't we?

Speaker 1: 0:54

I think so. So we were speculating what could have gone wrong during this test, and I don't think we had all our facts quite right.

Speaker 1: 1:04

So, if you remember, both stages exploded after hot staging during Starship's second integrated flight test. I don't know why, but SpaceX Extreme wasn't saved, or at least I couldn't find it. We didn't get to watch it live, so we had to watch replays. Okay, Most replays make it seem like the stages were closer together when they exploded, which led to Blakonize theory that maybe they ignited the venting fuel that caused the explosion, if you guys maybe remember okay.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Yeah, we were wrong.

Speaker 1: 1:38

Yeah, that's actually pretty far from what happened. So instead you have to find someone who re-uploaded the original stream. So I had to go in, look at all the YouTube videos and find which one was a re-upload of the original. First off, all engines were lit and nominal all the way through hot staging. Hot staging simply means the second stage ignites before separating instead of after separation. This is because the rockets on the first stage are still lit during this kind of separation. So, okay, so all engines were good. I think we had confused this with their first launch, where they lost a few.

Speaker 2: 2:16

Okay, you remember that? Yeah, no, I swear dude. I read some things about them having some engine failures on it and that's why I don't think it was about the first launch either. I think it was about the second launch that I read and they said oh yeah, there were some engine failures. But again, this is why we go back and kind of fact check things. Maybe that source that I read they didn't have the facts right here.

Speaker 1: 2:39

Well, you're not completely wrong.

Speaker 2: 2:41

Okay.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Okay, so after hot staging is where things got interesting. All right, okay, what happens is the first stage shuts down all but three engines. Okay, so you got like what? Is it close to 30 Raptor engines on that thing, I forget. Well, they shut down all but three, starship lights off all its engines and separates and flies away. Makes sense. This happened perfectly and was honestly pretty cool to watch.

Speaker 1: 3:13

What happens next is the first stage uses those three engines to turn itself around, like it literally does a somersault. Once it does that, it reignites the inner ring of engines to slow itself and bring itself back to the landing zone. Well, looking at the telemetry, about half of the engines failed to reignite right away, which likely led to an imbalance, and most eventually came back online. But it was probably too late and I'm now guessing it's a come to too much stress on the structure, causing it to deform and explode. I believe they even made comments that they'll be looking into ways in the future to minimize the stresses endured during the somersault maneuver. So we'll see. Maybe they'll throttle back, maybe they'll decrease the rate that they spin the booster around, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 4:05

I believe the solution would probably be decreased the rate of the turn.

Speaker 1: 4:10

Of the rotation.

Speaker 2: 4:11

Because that's that's a lot of torque on it, you know yes.

Speaker 1: 4:15

So yes, you aren't completely wrong. There were definitely engine failures, but they weren't actually during initial ascent. Ok, that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 4:24

It was after staging and when they tried to reignite. So that's pretty much what happened to the first stage. The second stage, aka Starship, almost made it all the way to engine cutoff. They were so close and then it exploded. So Starship was was way, way far away right from the first stage, almost out of view from the cameras on the ground when the explosion occurred, and supposedly the cause of that one was due to the propellant venting. You know, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 4:54

But yeah, and I do remember seeing some tweets or X's, whatever we're calling them nowadays. Yeah, some X's from from Elon saying that if it had a payload it would have made it to orbit.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Yes.

Speaker 2: 5:07

I do believe they had to vent the propellant to get it under a certain weight in order to make it survive reentry or something like that.

Speaker 1: 5:16

Something like that. Yeah, it was something strange, just with the configuration it was in being empty. So yeah, so our original theory for Blake and I was that it had vented fuel and that because the replays we originally saw they look so close together, we thought maybe the venting fuel ignited both stages and they both blew up.

Speaker 1: 5:34

But, in reality. What happened, um, was that first stage separated, it didn't reignite all the engines, it suffered a lot of stress and it blew up. And then, a couple minutes or so later I don't remember how long Starship blew up, literally just before engine cut off. I mean, it was extremely close, um. But yeah, I hope that clears some things up. I definitely want to make sure that we have our facts straight and, if we don't, we correct them as soon as possible. Um, but all right on to the new stuff. Finally, china started things off on January 17th with the launch of Tianzhou 7. We'll say I pronounced that right, sure, okay, it was a resupply vessel.

Speaker 2: 6:22

Close enough, right Right.

Speaker 1: 6:25

And to the Tangang Space Station. It was a six cargo craft for the station and mainly carried a bunch of fresh fruit. It was launched atop a Long March 7 rocket, a medium to heavy lift liquid fueled launch vehicle. Next up was Axiom 3. So Axiom space continues to move forward with their commercial short stage crews on their third mission, now to the ISS.

Speaker 1: 6:50

The launch lifted off right on schedule from pad 39A at KSC on the 18th. If you remember from last episode, the crew was comprised of members from all different countries. It's pretty cool. Mission commander Michael Lopez is a dual nationality, american and Spanish. Mission pilot Walter Ville day, I think, is how he pronounces his name. He's from Italy. Mission specialist Alper Gezerovci from Turkey. He's the first Turkish astronaut. I think I butchered his name last episode too, so I apologize. Yeah, we try it seriously, like we'll look it up and everything and practice it 10 times and we still get it wrong. Yep, mission specialist Marcus Wont from Sweden. They'll be spending two weeks aboard the ISS, so I'm sure we'll have more to cover on them here coming next month.

Speaker 1: 7:40

We had three Starlink launches in a row, so I'm just going to rattle those off. Starlink 7-11, lifted off on the 23rd out of Vandenberg in California. It took 22 satellites to orbit, with the stage landing on the drone ship. Of course, I still love you. It was the 16th flight of this particular booster. I think our record so far is like 18 or something like that.

Speaker 2: 8:00

Yeah, somewhere around there. It's quite a lot for what they do. Yes.

Speaker 1: 8:06

Starlink 6-38 launched January 28th from LC-39A at Kennedy in Florida, taking 23 satellites up and landing on the drone ship. A shortfall of Gravitas. And finally, starlink 7-12 took 22 satellites up after launching from Vandenberg just roughly five hours after 6-38 launched in Florida, landing on the drone ship. Of course I still love you again. So that's pretty cool. They're doing like a bunch of these double headers now, launching one off the West Coast and one off the East Coast, so that's pretty neat.

Speaker 1: 8:40

China had a cargo mission to their station and we had one to the ISS. Ng-20 was the name of the mission launched using Northrock Grumman's Cygnus cargo freighter atop a Falcon 9. January 30th the launch vehicle was changed from Grumman's own Antares 230 rocket to SpaceX's Falcon 9 after the war in Ukraine ceased production for the Antares program. Last but certainly not least, our buddies at Rocket Lab launched a mission out of New Zealand titled Four of a Kind, january 31st with their Electron rocket. It was their first Electron launch of the year and 43rd overall. The mission deployed four space situational awareness satellites for SPIRE Global's customer, north Star. Earth and Space. North Star satellites built and operated by SPIRE will be the first to simultaneously monitor all near Earth orbits from space. This will drastically enhance the level of space situational awareness services to the global community, with precise information for space object detection, tracking, orbit determination, collision avoidance, navigation and proximity alerts. So now, instead of just relying on ground tracking stations, we'll have satellite tracking satellites.

Speaker 2: 10:02

That sounds like some kind of inception type thing. Um, kind of Close enough, right, uh-huh. On the topic of launches, we actually have something really exciting that happened with Virgin Galactic. They've achieved their sixth flight and this sixth flight is one of the final flights of the VSS Unity, which is the little ship that actually drops from the carrier ship and then launches and rockets into space to carry the passengers into space right, the rocket space frame thing that we couldn't think of the name of yes.

Speaker 2: 10:37

I believe it's a VSS Eve, but I could be wrong. Anyways, you heard it right. Final flights yes.

Speaker 1: 10:44

So are they upgrading this thing? Are they changing it? Is it just getting there?

Speaker 2: 10:49

Yeah, so they're going to actually upgrade it. They plan to retire the VSS Unity and upgrade it to what they're calling the Delta Class vehicle.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Oh, I think, we mentioned these, I believe so, yeah, these are like the new ones that they hope to be able to launch more frequently or something.

Speaker 2: 11:06

Exactly so. The key difference between the VSS Unity and the Delta Class ship I don't think they have a name for it just yet is the time between flights is planned to be much shorter, so each Delta vehicle will be able to fly up to twice per week, in which case the Unity vehicle can only fly once a month at most.

Speaker 1: 11:26

Oh.

Speaker 2: 11:27

So huge difference right out the gate. The Delta vehicle is scheduled for test flights in 2025 and hopefully commercial flights beginning in 2026.

Speaker 1: 11:39

Yeah, hopefully we'll see those prices like slashed to 1 eighth.

Speaker 2: 11:43

I highly doubt it actually, just because of how expensive it is to get up there in the first place.

Speaker 1: 11:48

Yeah, operations costs my gosh.

Speaker 2: 11:51

So onboard the Unity for its six flight titled Galactic 06, for four passengers and then the two crew members, of course, including the first Ukrainian woman to ever reach space Lena Borostina, I believe, is how you pronounce it.

Speaker 1: 12:05

That's it Again. We try, we try.

Speaker 2: 12:09

Anyways, hats off to the continued success of Virgin Galactic, and maybe one day I'll be able to afford their steep price of $450,000. I'd love to go to space one day, but I don't know if I can afford that.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Do you mean to tell me, even if we get this thing, like to a quarter, it's still going to be a hundred grand?

Speaker 2: 12:26

Yes.

Speaker 1: 12:27

Oh man.

Speaker 2: 12:29

Which is, ironically, I think, the price for the new Shepard flight.

Speaker 1: 12:32

Really With the origin. Yeah, oh, you know what? Yeah, you might be right. Yeah, Well, one of the two We'll see. That's it Now. I'm sure those of you who have been with us for the past few episodes are eager to finally hear the outcome of Japan's moon sniper lander. Well, I'm happy to say that the slim or smart lander for investigating moon successfully landed upside down.

Speaker 2: 12:58

But yeah, how did that happen? You're gonna find out, okay.

Speaker 1: 13:09

The craft entered lunar orbit on Christmas Day last year and made its landing January 19th. However, controllers weren't able to confirm the status of slim due to issues with solar panel power generation. Other systems were working as intended, though, and the lander was able to deploy its two small rovers, lev1 and Lev2. So power was quickly running down on slim, and luckily they programmed an automatic Hibernate mode to prevent it from an unrecoverable shutdown. That would have been bad.

Speaker 1: 13:41

Days later, slim came back alive and was able to transmit a picture taken by Lev2, Giving hint as to why the solar panels aren't producing power as expected. The picture shows in full color slim standing on its head. The reason for slim stumble, here you go was due to an engine failure during descent. It's honestly pretty comical. Looks like something I do in Kerbal space program. Yeah, you and me both. Yeah. Nonetheless, the landing makes Japan the fifth country to land on the moon following the US Soviet Union. I say that because I don't believe Russia has been since the collapse of the Union, china and India, speaking of which, the US plans to reach the moon again soon with intuitive machines. I am one lander which will cover the launch of in mid-February, so stay tuned.

Speaker 2: 14:37

Many milestones are being reached these days in the space industry, and something that's really cool is China space station, that Xi'an Gong core module named Tianhe. I Don't know.

Speaker 1: 14:51

I'm looking at it, there's no yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:53

I don't know. I kind of wish I knew how, but I don't know. I tried. Anyways, the core module has achieved 1000 days in low Earth orbit. That's pretty impressed, impressive.

Speaker 1: 15:06

Yeah, man, that's what over three years Just over? Yeah, probably just some change from three years?

Speaker 2: 15:15

Yeah, doesn't matter, though that's still pretty cool. Yep, it's a big milestone in a showcase of the engineering behind the module to survive the harshness of space. As we all know, space is very harsh, it's very hard and Well. Making things that don't explode, as we can tell, is quite impressive.

Speaker 1: 15:35

Yes, I was gonna say also just being able to dodge all the international debris too, yeah yeah, from all the satellites and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 15:43

You know just all of the space junk, from Kessler syndrome.

Speaker 1: 15:47

You know Hole or list, list goes on yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:51

There's still a long way to go and achieve, however, as China plans to have the station operating for at least a decade. Wow, in comparison to the ISS, the Xi'an Gong is only 20% the mass of the massive 460 ton ISS station currently.

Speaker 1: 16:08

I didn't know weighed that much. I guess, man, that makes sense, it's huge.

Speaker 2: 16:11

I mean, if you remember there were how many space shuttle missions to assemble it. I, I can't remember.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Oh, just on assembly. I have no idea, but it was, yeah, it's a lot. I mean you think about it, god, that's a lot of weight to bring to space.

Speaker 2: 16:24

Oh yeah, 460 tons. You know you're talking. If I remember right, falcon 9 is like a 20 ton payload and Falcon 9 heavy, or the Falcon heavies, oh.

Speaker 1: 16:36

I'm just throwing numbers out there. I think heavy is something like 40 or even 70 ton or something like that, and 9 is Somewhere like between 10 and 20. I don't know, I could be completely wrong, though, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:47

I Actually did look up the Falcon 9 for another segment that we'll talk about here in a minute, and it was like 20. Okay, Well there we go, yeah, anyways. So China's human spaceflight agency wants to expand the Xi'an Gong Beyond its current configuration of three modules, so they'll be building it up kind of like we have the ISS. They're also opening the station to commercial operations and civilian astronauts, whereas previously it was only for Air Force pilots considered For their astronaut selection kind of following our same suit there.

Speaker 2: 17:19

Yeah, yeah, I mean, we started out in our space history, of course, only accepting Air Force pilots, I think, and also just like military pilots. It was?

Speaker 1: 17:29

it was actually it was mostly Navy test pilots and then and then Air Force came on board and, yeah, a lot of the early Air Force guys kind of found themselves or thought to be at a disadvantage to the Navy test pilot guys. But but yeah, we start bringing them on board and we finally started taking civilians too.

Speaker 2: 17:48

Yeah, and you know we're at that point. They were reaching that point too, which is great. Yes, in addition to that, xi'an Gong will be opened up to international experiments and astronauts, which is great news for further Jolly Space cooperation.

Speaker 1: 18:03

That's awesome. I had no idea that they were opening it up internationally. That's gonna be cool.

Speaker 2: 18:07

Yeah, now, when it comes to China, kind of just to bring Major politics, we'll see what they actually allowed as far as international astronauts go, I'm kind of going to assume that they're only going to bring the Russians on board. Basically, they're very close allies.

Speaker 1: 18:25

I could see that. I could see that that's fair, that's a fair assumption.

Speaker 2: 18:30

Not that, that's what I want. I want them to bring on, you know, United States astronauts as well. But we'll see.

Speaker 1: 18:35

We'll see, yeah speaking of stations and space shuttles. This barely made it into the end of the month, but space shuttle endeavor has been lifted into place to complete the space shuttle stack in California.

Speaker 2: 18:47

There's a lot of houses there. Yeah, that's like a tongue twister right there. Say that five times fast. A shuttle stack.

Speaker 1: 18:53

That's it. You could get pretty guard, I don't know. For the first time since 2011, a space shuttle is standing upright Around 9 30 at night. January 29th, two cranes lifted endeavor using the same assembly used to hoist it in the vehicle assembly building back at KSC. The operation took about nine and a half hours and the orbiter now stands mated to its flight rated fuel tank. Next on the list is a steel shell to protect endeavor.

Speaker 1: 19:21

During the remaining 18 months of construction of the science center. There's about 100 other air and spacecraft be put into the building and numerous existing space ships and numerous exhibits to install also. That sounds awesome. We need to go there when it's open. I was just about to say so. The center plans on opening one of endeavors payload doors as well, stuffing a flown module inside and then Constructing a 20-story viewing gantry for the public to see inside, so this is gonna be super cool. Like you said, I'm still a little salty about LA getting this instead of Houston or Florida, but yeah, that definitely won't stop me from making the stop down there.

Speaker 2: 19:57

Yeah, no, definitely on Shuttles in progress. We actually have quite some exciting news about blue origin coming through. Blue origin, or, as I like to call it, amazon space continues to work on their new Glenn rocket. I Believe we've covered some news very briefly about new Glenn in the past related to some blue origin slash Amazon news. I think so. It was about Amazon's new satellite facility, where we mentioned that Amazon plans to launch a few thousand satellites contributing to the whole problem with space junk.

Speaker 2: 20:33

So not only are we getting junk from our Amazon orders being wrong, but we're getting space junk as well. Great shots fire. Anyways, enough of space junk in Amazon junk. Back to new Glenn. So new Glenn is a multi-stage rocket, blue origins first multi-stage rocket, as new shepherd is just a single Suborbital launch vehicle.

Speaker 1: 20:56

Yes.

Speaker 2: 20:56

Blue Origin has attached the two stages of the rocket together for the first time, which is the news for this month. So new chef sorry, new Glenn will only be two stages, from what I can tell, and they plan to launch their first one later this year, very similar to SpaceX's Falcon 9 and in fact plans to be a direct competitor SpaceX's offerings, which is great news, as competition in the space industry is always welcomed.

Speaker 2: 21:23

Oh yeah sure, the two-stage rocket will stand 322 feet or 98 meters tall and be able to haul about 50 tons to low Earth orbit. That's impressive. Yes, exactly, and it's twice the payload capacity of the Falcon 9, which is, you know, like I said, I looked it up for this and also it was in the article too, but I confirmed.

Speaker 1: 21:47

Yeah, that's crazy Okay.

Speaker 2: 21:48

It's also designed to be reusable. Just like the Falcon 9, it's powered by seven of Blue Origin's BE-4 engines, which flew for the first time earlier this month on the debut flight of United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur rocket. Do you remember the Vulcan Centaur? I do Excellent, because that was a great launch. However, the payload failed because that was the peregrine lander.

Speaker 1: 22:15

Yes, that was taken up.

Speaker 2: 22:18

Yeah, so Just real, brief summary. The peregrine lander was supposed to land on the moon, but it had some issues a very major fuel leak.

Speaker 2: 22:27

So it wasn't going to make it too. It wasn't even gonna make it into orbit, I think, was the ultimate problem. So what they did instead is they sent it around the moon and they brought it back and it just burned up in the Atmosphere, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, anyways. So I think, speaking of the engines especially, this will Contribute to the success of the first New Glenn launch, considering the fact that these engines were rock solid and it was a very successful launch on the Vulcan Centaur or Centaur rocket. The first flight of New Glenn is currently scheduled for this coming August. So you know, we're not. We are not far out at all, you know.

Speaker 1: 23:09

Yeah, that's actually happening a lot quicker than.

Speaker 2: 23:11

I thought it would. Yeah, I was thinking Latest or earliest, like late 20, 24.

Speaker 1: 23:17

Yeah, I was thinking maybe early 25. Yeah, that's, that's pretty impressive. I had no idea that it was gonna be such a capable rocket, did they say. I mean, as far as the reusable aspect goes, are they thinking just like splashdown and recovery, or or?

Speaker 2: 23:32

there's no, I wasn't, I wasn't able to, or I didn't. I should say I did not look that far into it.

Speaker 1: 23:38

There's no way they're gonna be able to do it. I Be extremely surprised if they were able to recover them via landing like the nines, considering how long it took SpaceX to perfect that. But I Don't know. I mean, I won't knock it against them, but yeah I I would say maybe splashdown.

Speaker 2: 23:59

It's like it could be like splashdown kind of like.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Rocket lab, rocket labs, doing that now right. Is it rocket lab or yes? Not relativity space rocket lab yeah, it should be rocket lab.

Speaker 2: 24:13

Kind of like that, and then also front the SRB's on the space shuttle reusable.

Speaker 1: 24:20

As far as reusable goes, they splash down and they were able to. Yes, I'm not sure how much they were used, them and stuff.

Speaker 2: 24:27

I'd never really looked into it because no, I just know that of the parts of the space shuttle, the only part that they didn't keep was the massive Orange, blue, orange blue tank, orange fuel tank, I should say yes. Anyways, back to new Glenn. Again, it will launch NASA's to spacecraft escapade Mars mission, which I didn't really look into this as far as I know it's just the name Escape and plasma acceleration and dynamics explorers.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Huh, okay, that sounds complicated. I guess figure that out in August.

Speaker 2: 25:07

But the crazy thing is is this is going to Mars on a new twin, you know. So that just speaks further to the capabilities of this rocket that Amazon Blue Origin is claiming.

Speaker 1: 25:23

Well, we have good news on Starliner. Boeing and NASA have made tremendous progress and Starliner is on track for its mid-April launch date. For anybody new here, starliner has been suffering from several delays ahead of its first crewed flight test, the latest being due to weak parachute links and flammable wiring tape. Well, they've modified the parachute system and proved its worth in a recent drop test in Arizona. Boeing also removed close to 4,300 feet of the flammable tape. Where feasible, and in areas not, they wrapped another non-flammable chafe-resistant tape on top and installed fire brakes on the wiring harness.

Speaker 2: 26:05

That's a solution for sure. Yes, I wonder what made it not possible to get to that tape.

Speaker 1: 26:12

It was it had to do something with. They were going to damage equipment if they attempted to remove it in those areas.

Speaker 2: 26:19

Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 26:21

So yeah, I'm not sure how you damage equipment by removing the tape on the wires, but hey, I'm not a rocket scientist, no, we're not even close.

Speaker 2: 26:31

Sadly, Go to school man.

Speaker 1: 26:35

Right Now, blake and I actually have a buddy, jonathan, whose uncle works at NASA, and he was telling me his uncle was involved in some of their recent ascent simulations at the training center at KSC with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams, who will be the ones going up in this thing in April. So that's pretty cool stuff. He sent me a tweet NASA made and his uncle was standing in the background. Yeah, pretty neat.

Speaker 2: 27:01

Yeah, that's cool. Shout out to Jonathan.

Speaker 1: 27:02

Shout out to Jonathan and his uncle and I have good news on Artemis also. Yes, it's still delayed, but NASA continues to push forward making progress on the space launch system, or SLS rocket that will take astronauts to the moon next year. A test fire was conducted at the RS-25 engine on January 17. The test lasted about as long as the launch would be around eight and a half minutes. As far as I know, the test was successful and I'm sure they'll be looking over the data to find places for improvement and potential errors. For you rocket nerds, yes, the RS-25 is the same engine that was used on the space shuttle. Nasa has reconfigured and upgraded the design to fit the mission requirements of Artemis.

Speaker 2: 27:47

Nerd, thanks. We have in the news a bunch of things available to the public, to us, right? Well, however, nowadays we don't really hear much about the Department of Defense the Pentagon, if you would. The US Department of Defense wants to declassify more space programs, so kind of more like what I've gathered is that they believe this will give the military an edge in space over our current competitors, china and Russia, if you would. Okay, it's believed that some of the programs that remain highly classified can be brought down a level or two in classification, thus bringing in more scientists that can't necessarily get the classification, or just you know there's something holding them back from getting the classification clearance to be able to work with that. I'm not 100% sure how to word it better, just that these guys can't work on it because they don't have the security clearance to do so.

Speaker 2: 28:51

Kathleen Hicks, us Deputy Secretary of Defense, recently approved a new policy that will reduce the classification level of some highly secret space programs and tech, or at least that will be a result of this policy. The old policies surrounding the top secret space programs are outdated and are holding back the US when it comes to superiority in space, like I said, competing with China and Russia, because they're just making great strides right now. The Department of Defense Assistant Secretary for Space Policy, john Plumb, states quote what the classification memo does generally is it overwrites. It really completely rewrites a legacy document that had its roots 20 years ago and it's just no longer applicable to the current environment that involves national security space End quote. This leads us to what we've been seeing a space race in real time. We are living in a space race right now, guys.

Speaker 2: 29:48

It's crazy and to further clarify what I said earlier about bringing down the classification. All these new policies will really do is bring down the classification level so that more scientists can begin working on it without needing to obtain the security clearance necessary. It's going to be brought to such a classification that allows for private industries and international allies to help the US build up its space advantage versus China and Russia. It's super important to note that this does not mean the public will be able to see these top secrets based programs, just that those that need to know can't know, so to speak.

Speaker 1: 30:27

Fair enough. Yeah, I was really hoping that would be good to get more. I don't know, ufo chunk out of Area 51.

Speaker 2: 30:35

Yeah, that's what I'm saying, man. Come on, just show us the aliens already.

Speaker 1: 30:40

Give it to me, come on.

Speaker 2: 30:44

The new policy doesn't appropriately declassify the programs but, moreover, allows each branch of the military to determine how classified they want these programs to be. Oh, so you know, they could take it from whatever the highest classification is called down to a step below that, instead of it generally being like a blanket policy to kind of force it into that way. When it's like this is too top secret, we can't get enough help on it. We need some help to further advance it, you know.

Speaker 1: 31:17

Fair enough. I think that's a decent decision to make.

Speaker 2: 31:22

Well, yeah, me too, because, ultimately, why should one entity decide? Oh hey, all of this is super classified because it's government related and also it relates to our national security and stuff like that. So just allowing the space force or the air force to determine the level of classification for each project or each program independently is quite a step forward, I think.

Speaker 1: 31:57

Yeah, Now, I don't know if you saw this one, Blake, but NASA, in collaboration with Venus Aerospace a Houston based company, by the way have tested a new type of rocket engine. So it's like a rotational engine.

Speaker 2: 32:13

Okay, explain, because we do have gimbled engines, I know that. So the rotational? Okay, what's the difference?

Speaker 1: 32:19

So Venus has tested their new rotating detonation engine, or RDRE. Rotating detonation rocket engine. Rdre Okay, it's the longest test of such an engine, at around a four minute burn. Typical tests are only a few seconds. Now, a RDRE ignites fuel and oxidizer in a circular motion in an annulus, which is just a fancy word for circular channel. The fuel and oxidizer are injected through small holes similar to a conventional rocket injector plate, and then an igniter starts the detonation Afterwards. The detonation is self-sustaining and exhausts. Well, let me rephrase that it's self-sustaining and the exhausts expand to supersonic speed and exit through the nozzle. This type of combustion can be up to 25% more efficient than traditional methods. Rdre design is fairly simple, with no moving parts and the nozzle get. This looks like an aerospike.

Speaker 2: 33:22

Interesting Okay.

Speaker 1: 33:24

Yeah, because I was under the impression that the problem with aerospikes were that they got too hot because they don't have the surface area to cool down like a bell nozzle does, and that if you tried using more heat resistant metals they got too heavy. But what I'm seeing is these RDREs are rather small and they're talking about using them on landers and for deep space. So I'm guessing they won't be used in atmosphere and therefore don't need to be all that big. But their high efficiency could mean we could export further with less wasted fuel and smaller engines. Oh, and did I mention they're 3D printed? That's pretty sick, yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:02

So my understanding is just to kind of wrap it all up is that they're being made with some new copper alloy that has got much more heat resistance. I guess it's light enough, it's 3D printable and, yeah, these things have kind of an aerospike. Look to them. No moving parts, they're really just quite small. But yeah, it just ignites the flame continuously in detonation and this fiery tornado thing going on in the combustion chamber that exits out the aerospike. That's very interesting, seriously. Go check out the YouTube video posted by I think it was NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center search RDRE Engine Test and this little thing looks pretty mean.

Speaker 2: 34:51

Yeah, I'll have to check that out now that you mentioned it. All right, y'all, it's time to get real. It brings me great sadness to announce this to our listeners, but the little helicopter that could can no longer.

Speaker 1: 35:10

No more chugga, chugga, woo, woo.

Speaker 2: 35:14

No, no more chugga chugga woo woo. Nasa has announced that after 72 flights, ingenuity won't fly again 72, man. Yeah, geez, I'd like to take a brief moment of silence. Yeah, thanks, paul. Sorry, you're okay. That was actually kind of on the nose. Ultimately, I believe that we knew deep down that it would happen One day. Ingenuity would never fly again. It just sucks that it came so quickly. I say quickly I mean honestly, it was a few years actually, I think two, maybe three years, almost Almost three years. Yeah, I'll give you two minutes.

Speaker 1: 36:08

I'll say don't get me lying, I know you got to write it down.

Speaker 2: 36:14

All of the rovers we've sent to Mars have an end of life plan, so that includes our little helicopter. Ingenuity couldn't have been much different. After all, it was only scheduled to take five test flights. Anyways, let's not reflect too much on why we're sad. Instead, let's make sure we remember why ingenuity is such an accomplishment and a marvel of modern space exploration. Originally launched on July 30th of 2020, ingenuity was first deployed to the Martian surface on April 4th 2021. Like I said, I had the date, so, yeah, just under three years, on the 19th of that April, it became the first aircraft in history to make a powered controlled flight on another planet. Why was this such an accomplishment? I'm glad you asked, paul. You're welcome. According to NASA, flight on Mars is exceptionally difficult, given Mars is significantly lower gravity than Earth and incredibly thin atmosphere.

Speaker 1: 37:22

I was about to say that atmosphere plays a big role.

Speaker 2: 37:26

So, to kind of put it into perspective, we're talking a third of Earth's gravity and an atmosphere so thin that it only amounts to about 1% of Earth's atmospheric pressure at the surface.

Speaker 1: 37:38

I had no idea it was that low. It's extremely thin I'm surprised it got any lift on that thing whatsoever.

Speaker 2: 37:45

Wow, I mean I wonder how fast those rotors were going in order to get enough bite out of the air, in order to get some lift.

Speaker 1: 37:53

Well, when you, when you see ingenuity, it's got what it's got. Twin counter rotating rotors.

Speaker 2: 37:58

That's right.

Speaker 1: 37:59

But it's got a lot of lift on like this little bitty looks like a kind of like foil space foil body, so I guess it's not a whole lot of weight to lift, but yeah, that's really impressive.

Speaker 2: 38:10

That's still quite impressive. Hats off to the team that designed and you know, simulated ingenuity on their computers at home, which of them move into the detector Kudos, woohoo, uh. So, using communications from Perseverance, ingenuity was able to communicate back to Earth, where it would send its data to NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab for analysis. Now, something to remember this helicopter was only supposed to last five test flights, or they only scheduled five test flights. Anything after that was bonus.

Speaker 1: 38:38

Yeah, 72.

Speaker 2: 38:40

Yes. After its fifth flight test on May 7th of 2021, ingenuity embarked on its new purpose exploring how aerial operations would improve the efficiency of future Mars exploration. The data gathered using Ingenuity's flights over its lifetime was huge and allowed NASA to then begin exploring the idea of small helicopters carrying a suite of instruments for science experiments. One of my favorite little factoids for you, and one of the best things about Ingenuity, was its work done with Perseverance. The two work together to further enhance Perseverance's ability to explore the GZERO crater on Mars. On its last flight, ingenuity lost contact with Perseverance, which, as I mentioned earlier, is its communication relay for the rotorcraft. Once communication was finally reestablished, ingenuity transmitted some imagery showing damaged rotor blades, making it unsafe to fly.

Speaker 1: 39:42

Well, at least it's not like in pieces on the Martian surface. That is a condolence, I suppose you know isn't Perseverance dropping off Mars samples that we're supposed to hopefully recover? I'm actually not sure. I think it is, I saw. I want to say I saw a story on that and that they're having issues with that whole program. But if that's the case and we send something to retrieve said sample capsules, we could hopefully retrieve Ingenuity.

Speaker 2: 40:18

Maybe that would be nice. Yeah, that'd be pretty cool, but I don't know, man. Something that I kind of have in my head is there's like we leave Ingenuity right where it is and we build like a little dome over it A little shrine, yeah, and make it like a little shrine. So whenever humans first make it to Mars and we start colonizing Mars in the distant future.

Speaker 1: 40:38

Yeah, like some giant monument, here lies Ingenuity. The first like controlled space flight. Yeah, here lies Ingenuity Sojourner and all the other, like Martian rovers and you know that'd be kind of cool.

Speaker 2: 40:50

I don't know, that's just the sci-fi nerd coming out of me. I think I may have watched a little too much Star Trek or whatever.

Speaker 1: 41:01

While keeping on the topic of Mars, scientists along ESA or ESA have potentially discovered a massive amount of water ice at Mars's equator.

Speaker 1: 41:11

Esa's Mars Express Orbiter has revisited the Medusae Fossae Formation. I honestly haven't done my research on Mars geology, but we're going to call it the MFF. After an initial discovery made 15 years ago, several observations of the region revealed massive deposits some two and a half kilometers deep. However, it was unclear what these deposits were made of. New data from Mars Express' Marsis radar shows the deposits to be much thicker than once thought upwards of 3.7 kilometers, that's, over two miles, according to Thomas Waters of the Smithsonian Institute. He happens to be the lead author of both the old and new discoveries, by the way, so thank you, thomas. The old data showed to be relatively transparent to radar and low in density, an indication of icy deposits, but at the time, scientists attributed it to large deposits of windblown dust. After all, the MFF is one of Mars's largest contributors to dust storms, having been formed from lava flows billions of years ago and reigned on constantly bivalcanic ash. But the new data tells a different story, according to co-author Andrea Kitchetti.

Speaker 2: 42:33

Kitchetti, I bet that's the only way I can think.

Speaker 1: 42:37

Given how deep the MFF is, it was simply a pile of dust. We'd expect it to become compacted under its own weight. They even tried modeling different ice-free materials and nothing reproduced the properties of the MFF until they introduced ice. So the new result suggests that instead of MFF being one large deposit of dust, it's actually layers of dust and ice covered by a top layer of dust and ash several hundred meters thick, making it the largest deposit found outside of Mars's poles. This could play a significant role as a potential water source for future manned missions, as these missions would aim at zones closer to the equator, but also poses the issue of how to retrieve said ice so pretty neat, like that one Michael Bay movie where he sends drillers up to the moon instead of astronauts and teaching them how to drill.

Speaker 1: 43:28

Yeah, that's pretty much going to be it. We're going to be sitting here trying to drill through dust just to get ice out there.

Speaker 2: 43:37

Yeah, that'd be funny. We mentioned Mars samples, but let's talk about asteroid samples. So the Osiris Rex asteroid sample is kind of finally under investigation. They were able to open it up, but then there was another issue where they couldn't open up part of the capsule.

Speaker 1: 43:57

that came back, Anyways so they're trying to open up a space pickle jar.

Speaker 2: 44:01

Yes, I mean, I'm telling you, man, just grab, like you know, the grippy thing and then open it firmly grasp it.

Speaker 2: 44:11

Anyway, brief reminder, Osiris Rex is the first American asteroid mission to return back to Earth. There's been a few others. One that I'm going to talk about after this one is actually the Japanese one, which is pretty cool. Anyways, there for a minute, the team working on Osiris Rex was unable to open the canister that held the precious cargo. A couple of stuck fasteners have finally been loosened enough to open it and get to the samples. They'll be sent off for analysis and used to discover more about where our solar system came from, as for Osiris Rex. Osiris Rex, as for Osiris Rex's mission, it was actually sent to the astronaut Bennu, astronaut asteroid Bennu, which is a primitive space rock believed to be around since the beginning of our solar system.

Speaker 1: 45:00

We're taking samples out of astronauts. Now I'll sit in the back.

Speaker 2: 45:03

Jesus Christ, that's not a good thing. Oh man, don't these astronauts know that they have a family? They have a life? I don't know. Anyway, we're hoping to learn more about where we came from, specifically the origins of the solar system, and more about how solar systems might form. So you know, more universal mysteries to unravel and more fun stuff to learn. The more the merrier. I did mention earlier that I was going to talk about a Japanese asteroid sample, and this one's a bit older, but it has been analyzed and might even hold some key answers to what we're doing here, like here on Earth. Detailed investigation of these asteroid samples from asteroid Ryugu I think I put that right has provided further evidence that the organic molecules which began life on earth were originally brought here by ancient comments. These samples were carried on Japan's Hayabusa II mission, which visited Ryugu back in 2018 and returned back to earth in 2020. So why are we just now talking about it? Well, they just released it, the news press conference thing. So that's why we're talking about it.

Speaker 1: 46:18

Usually they hold these things for a while before the story ever gets out.

Speaker 2: 46:21

Yeah, so when we actually get to talk about a cyrus, right? So it's gonna be like three years from now. Yeah there, hayabusa. Ii spent 18 months studying Ryugu for answers, collecting surface material for analysis back here on earth. Ryugu was previously known as 1-6-2-1-7-3 Ryugu, which is a 2,850 foot wide, or 870 meters near earth asteroid. It lacks a protective atmosphere which exposes its surface to space so that it can gather whatever there might be out in space. This is beneficial to the study, as it allows the asteroid to gather space dust, which then changes the surface of the asteroid. Thanks, spacecom, kind of clarified that a little bit for me.

Speaker 1: 47:07

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 47:09

Analysis of the asteroid surface allowed scientists to discover small carbonaceous materials, similar to primitive organic matter, inside of what they're calling melt splashes. These melt splashes were created when commentary dust pelted the surface of Ryugu, and we'll get to what a melt splash is here in a second.

Speaker 1: 47:31

Yeah, I was just about to ask.

Speaker 2: 47:33

A note on comets, real quick. Comets are space objects that usually exist on wide orbits around the Sun.

Speaker 2: 47:41

They'll go, they'll swing way out and they'll come back around the Sun and then, you know, they'll burn up, where the Sun will more accurately burn the outside of the comet off, creating what's known as the tail of the comet. Anyways, comets will orbit super far out into the deep reaches of space, freeze up and then return back near the Sun, then heats the comet up to the point where its surface is instantly vaporized in a process known as sublimation, or simply put, when a solid becomes a gas, skipping the liquid stage entirely. Yes, this gaseous material carries with it some parts of the comet's surface, which then get launched into outer space. An object such as asteroid Ryugu then collides with this gaseous material, creating the melt splashes I mentioned earlier.

Speaker 1: 48:36

So basically, ryugu is a space sponge.

Speaker 2: 48:40

Yeah, something like that. So researchers on this project are kind of throwing out theory and inferring that this is one way that life might spread across the universe via these what they're calling messenger comets. Pretty neat stuff. That's actually quite a solid theory and honestly, it is the most easily comprehensible theory in my head that that's how we got here.

Speaker 1: 49:11

Yes, Now you know, religion aside, of course.

Speaker 2: 49:15

Right, but yeah.

Speaker 1: 49:17

Now, scientifically speaking, yeah, that sounds most correct, to me at least.

Speaker 2: 49:24

Yeah, yeah, all right listeners Once again. We need to get serious. It's time for nightmare fuel.

Speaker 1: 49:33

Oh, it ain't that serious, come on.

Speaker 2: 49:36

No, I'm kidding, there's nothing like an asteroid. It's going to hit the planet Earth, or like hey, this giant asteroid near missed Earth by a million miles.

Speaker 1: 49:47

Even if it did, I wouldn't tell you guys.

Speaker 2: 49:50

Well, that's the whole plot point of the look up movie, or whatever it was called. I forgot, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 49:57

If you see an asteroid hurtling in the sky, just just accept it Basically. Yeah, All right, this first one's nothing really, but it will help us get the ball rolling. The second picture of the supermassive black hole. Here we go. The image of M87 has been released. The image was taken on April 21st 2018.

Speaker 2: 50:23

Here we go again with you know it's just now being released. Hey, yeah, we now get to see it five years later, no, six years later.

Speaker 1: 50:27

Yeah, uh-huh, it was taken by the Event Horizon Telescope just over a year after the first image of 2017. The image looks a lot like the first, except, you'll notice, the bright spot has moved about 30 degrees around the black hole. Yeah, it still looks like a blurry orange space donut, but it's a cool orange space donut.

Speaker 2: 50:48

It's what it's about, what the orange space donut represents.

Speaker 1: 50:52

It's abstract art guys Come on. Appreciate it. Please Appreciate the space donut.

Speaker 2: 51:04

That's an idea for Merck.

Speaker 1: 51:06

Appreciate the space donut.

Speaker 2: 51:08

It's just a picture of the. There we go.

Speaker 1: 51:15

Oh man, the do-no-de-no-de-no, the do-de-no, the new donut. I mean. The new picture has confirmed the theory that a black hole radius is simply dependent on its mass. If the mass doesn't change, the radius won't shrink or grow. You can find the image all over Google. I'll actually be getting our Instagram going soon so we can start sharing things like this when we see them, but until then, search up new black hole image and it will come right up. You can also find the first image, enhanced by x-ray data, like we talked about in our last episode, so you can see the effects of x-rays, or the effects that x-rays have on clarity. It's actually pretty cool. You get kind of like a spiral effect on the blurry donut.

Speaker 2: 52:05

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 52:08

And continuing on with the topic of imaging and black holes, of course, James Webb sets another record. You may remember us talking about the oldest and largest black holes known to man last year. Blake's already going. Oh God, no, please, here we go, Please don't. Well, astronomers, with Webb, have discovered the new, oldest black hole ever seen. It also happens to be the furthest away, Located more than 13 billion light years away.

Speaker 1: 52:43

A black hole at the center of a galaxy called GN-Z11, or Z11, is thought to have formed just 400 million years after the Big Bang. Just 400 million years, All right, it's pretty, pretty young. The crazy thing isn't just its age, but also its size. It's 1.6 million solar masses, which isn't too crazy in terms of supermassive black holes, but it is when you consider that size in the early universe. Under current theories, black holes simply can't grow that large in the span of 400 million years. In fact, it would take over twice as long at a minimum. This could happen if the black hole formed from the rapid collapse of a giant gas cloud rather than a singular star. The problem is, all the gas still surrounds it, or well, this particular black hole and it's behaving like it originated in smaller form. Not only that, but it's feeding at rates way higher than previously thought possible.

Speaker 1: 53:59

There's a mathematical limit known as the Eddington limit. The Eddington limit is the limit at which the outer pressure of a star or black holes radiation balances the inward gravitational force. So its force outward from its own radiating we'll call it energy balances the inward force of gravity. Beyond that limit you start to push material away, resulting in supernovae and quasars. If you're a black hole, Well, this black hole is a creating material from its galaxy at a rate 5 times the Eddington limit.

Speaker 1: 54:44

Essentially, it's dooming at toast galaxy because it's not allowing stars to form by pushing all the dust and gas away. Eventually, this is thought to cease, as material the black hole can feed on, gets pushed away and slowly runs out, thus allowing it to fall back inward and potentially start in the cycle all over again. But that's just all hypothetical and may never happen if the gases are pushed far enough away. So, essentially, we have a super far, super old or young, depending on how you look at it black hole that's bigger than it should be, blasting away things faster than it should be, eating things quicker than it should be and dooming its host galaxy all at the same time.

Speaker 2: 55:34

So there you go, blake, I'm crying. I'm crying just like these solar flares I'm about to talk about. Okay, sorry, bad joke. Anyways, so I have in my notes, because I like to make little fun, little headlines for-.

Speaker 1: 55:52

In case you guys haven't noticed Blake's puns my gosh, sorry it's just a way to lighten up, I guess.

Speaker 2: 56:00

Anyways, I called this topic crying solar flares because they're sympathetic solar flares, so bad joke. Anyway, moving on.

Speaker 1: 56:09

What kind of sympathy does a solar flare have?

Speaker 2: 56:13

We'll get to that, okay. So more on the topic of nightmare fuel. We have a pair of solar flares recently exploded almost simultaneously, so I guess that's where they're getting the sympathetic ones, you know, whenever you see someone vomit, and you vomit in sympathy what You've never seen, that, no, okay. Well, I don't do that actually, but I've heard of it.

Speaker 1: 56:41

You had to pick that as your example for sympathy.

Speaker 2: 56:46

You couldn't pick anything else to sympathize with. No, like the imagery, the imagery man. Yes, that's wonderful.

Speaker 1: 56:52

That's like your snake star swallowing things haul before you go to bed, yeah.

Speaker 2: 57:00

You need some help. Not really. I think I'm okay, anyways. So moving on. So the solar flare has recently exploded almost simultaneously from two different sunspots on the opposite hemispheres of the sun, and an extremely rare phenomenon known as the talked about sympathetic solar flares, just goes to show that we're fast approaching solar maximum in the sun solar cycle which we talked about previously. So if you haven't check out our previous episodes, on January 22nd, the pair of flares known as AR 3559 and AR 3561 erupted at around 1030pm Eastern time.

Speaker 1: 57:49

Okay.

Speaker 2: 57:52

They were separated by around 310,000 miles, or about 500,000 kilometers, which is further than the average distance between the moon and the earth. This eruption triggered a 30 minute radio blackout above Indonesia and parts of Australia. There's a magnitude 5.1, which is the second most powerful class of flare the sun can produce. So, yeah, more solar flares. I swear, we talk about solar flares every week.

Speaker 1: 58:23

Sympathetic vomiting solar flares.

Speaker 2: 58:25

Well, yes, that was just an example, because it wasn't right. At the same time, it's just like you know, that moment where someone sees someone throw up and then they do. I can't believe. We're still. I'm committed to it now dude.

Speaker 1: 58:40

No, I hope none of you are eating while you listen to this.

Speaker 2: 58:47

Yeah, sorry Way to go. I apologize and therefore it's over, it's done, we're moving on. That wraps it up for the news this week. Let's go ahead and move on to our listener questions.

Speaker 1: 59:09

Alright, so we had two I think I wanted to go over here for this episode. Our first one was when something happens in a launch, how do they go back and figure out what went wrong? The answer is fairly simple and I think we kind of went over this a little bit way, way back. But bottom line is is that they have like real time telemetry on board these things?

Speaker 2: 59:34

Yeah, so they have hundreds, if not thousands, of sensors on board just to kind of look at the data, right, yes, so if you look at Mission Control, you've got all those different stations.

Speaker 1: 59:46

They're all monitoring something different. You know from engines to life support systems to you know fuel pressures, communications, electronics, avionics and navigation. You know all that stuff. So it's all monitored in real time and then, I'm sure, all recorded as it's sent back. So basically, I mean that's pretty much it. Now, if you recover your vessel, if you have a way of recovering it, I'm sure that you can look into things after the fact, especially like a good example would be when they recover a capsule, when they look at stuff like the heat shield and check thicknesses of the heat shield and conditions in certain areas, they can look at how to improve it. You know, check the parachute, harnesses and things like that, like physical things. Once you recover a craft you can look at all kinds of stuff like that. But really, to go back to the main question, you know when something happens in a launch you may not be recovering it. So it really relies a lot on that real time telemetry coming back.

Speaker 2: 1:00:44

So yeah, and it's a lot of data and they're able to kind of like run simulations that you know could replicate it. Yeah, replicate it and like, if it's a math equation, OK, so we have the solution to the math equation, let's solve it on the other side to get that solution. You know, kind of something like that.

Speaker 1: 1:01:02

Yes, let's see. And then I think that wraps that up. But our second question was something I keep meaning to mention and I don't know why I haven't for so darn long. Are y'all excited for the solar eclipse coming up?

Speaker 2: 1:01:17

And the answer is definitely yeah, I mean honestly, just the fact that we live relatively close to the path of totality is really cool. We are planning on traveling out to West Texas in order to hopefully take some images.

Speaker 1: 1:01:35

Yes, and if we do, like I said, we're trying to get that Instagram up, so you will probably see them there if we're successful, fingers crossed. But yeah, that eclipses on April 8. It's going to go basically across the US and I think it exits North America somewhere north of Maine, I want to say and then as it travels out into the ocean, you kind of reach like the nighttime part of Earth and whatnot, and so it's just no longer visible. But yeah, blake and I are going to be making the trek out and go out to West Texas and try and get a look at this thing.

Speaker 1: 1:02:11

I took a flight down to Kerville recently and the guys there at the airport were telling me that they've got literally like hundreds of aircraft reserved already to fly in. They've got NASA is going to, I think, come down to Kerville and do coverage from Kerville. They got to shut down an entire runway. They're going to park like 100 aircraft on it. So it's going to be pretty crazy. If you plan on seeing it and you haven't made any sort of reservations or plans, time's really running out for you.

Speaker 2: 1:02:46

If you're lucky, you'll be able to get something.

Speaker 1: 1:02:48

But if you haven't.

Speaker 2: 1:02:49

at this point, I think you're out of luck, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:02:52

I mean, if, well, if I were you, what I would do if you don't have any like hotel reservations or anything, right, you know, stay somewhere as close as you can get to the path. And then you know you got to like drive in it's going to have to be like early morning or the night before and get yourself within that path. You know, somewhere, even if it's like outside of a town, somewhere you know, find somewhere away from people, away from the traffic. But yeah, because this is the last one.

Speaker 1: 1:03:22

I think America, I think in North America for I want to say like 20, maybe even 30 years or something like that 20 or 30. And I want to say one of the like longest that we've had, like totality will be like the longest, and I want to say in the middle it's something like four and a half minutes long of totality. But yeah, hopefully that answers your question. We're we're super stoked.

Speaker 2: 1:03:43

Yeah, we are. And also, another thing to mention get your solar eclipse glasses now.

Speaker 1: 1:03:49

Don't wait.

Speaker 2: 1:03:50

Yes, get them now.

Speaker 1: 1:03:52

You can look at. If you can't get them at a local store somewhere, look at Amazon. You can look at all the major like telescope distributors. You got like a Gina Astro, high Point Scientific. Let's see.

Speaker 2: 1:04:05

Well, you got Celestron sells them directly which is, and then you probably also buy some from Orion, which is telescopecom.

Speaker 1: 1:04:12

Telescopescom or telescopecom.

Speaker 2: 1:04:14

I think it's just telescope, but either way, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:04:18

Any one of those guys go ahead and put them on order. You can usually get like boxes of them, multiples, so yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:04:24

Yeah, so this is just a Texas thing, but our local local grocery store H-E-B, I actually saw them start putting them out.

Speaker 1: 1:04:34

Oh really.

Speaker 2: 1:04:35

Yeah, and I think also I've seen the Macroger, which is a national chain. They have different names elsewhere, but I did see the Macroger, I think. So they were full, but they won't be full in, probably a matter of a week or two.

Speaker 1: 1:04:51

Yeah, once it I mean once it really starts being covered on the news. You know, in the couple of weeks leaning up to it, you know they'll probably say you know every day hey you know, here's the countdown to the eclipse.

Speaker 2: 1:04:59

And so you better you better get ready.

Speaker 1: 1:05:01

As a reminder, you only need the glasses before. But you know, before and after totality, during totality, you can take the glasses off, you can use your binoculars, no filters, you know. Whatever you know, you can look at it. Just be careful, you got to get those darn things back on. You know, before totality ends yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:05:19

So, you know you can't put yourself a good solid, maybe minute or two, if you play a risky game.

Speaker 1: 1:05:25

I wouldn't say necessarily that long, but yeah, I mean, if you start to see like the marbles or something again, you know, just just be ready, just be safe, that's all we're saying.

Speaker 2: 1:05:32

Be safe, protect your eyes. You only have to. That wraps it up for us this week. Thanks for tuning in and listening to us tell you all about the exciting things that are happening in the aerospace industry and in space, and also the nightmare fuel stuff, because we keep doing that.

Speaker 1: 1:05:51

Can't help it.

Speaker 2: 1:05:52

Yeah, I know. If you like what you're hearing, leave us a comment or review and rating. It helps to 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, where you can keep up to date with our latest episodes. You'll also be able to find links to all of our social media, including Facebook and the upcoming Instagram. It's in the works.

Speaker 1: 1:06:18

Well, that's about it. Keep your eyes on the skies. This is Paul and Blake signing off.