 Well, hello there friends welcome to tomorrow this week. We've got some exciting news on the docket you voted We listen we are gonna talk about straddle launch And also Blue Origin launched recently and they actually recorded it They are one step closer to sending us flesh bags into space We're gonna talk all about that plus more here on tomorrow orbit 12.04 Real quick introductions, my name is Jade. I am your resident person sitting in a chair talking to you at the camera This here's Jared. He is our astronomer in residence of tomorrow I've got here a carry and and of course she is the voice of the community as well as our resident Ben Wrangler And of course our lovely Lisa our science specialist So we're just gonna go ahead and dive right on into it So you you folks voted about what you'd like us to discuss up here And it looks like straddle launch is something and that's along a lot of people's minds. Yeah So it's it's it's really been a big news item the past couple of weeks With everything going on with it just because there's been like some big shifts and and other things happening with it So what happened? Well, you know straddle launch was announced in December of 2011 And if you don't know what straddle launch is it was a venture by Paul Allen and Burt root 10 That really actually started in 2010 And it's a carrier aircraft and that carrier aircraft is the biggest part of the straddle launch system And if I recall correctly, it's actually the biggest airplane that's ever been made in terms of by wings Yeah, we're not talking about what was the one the the loosey-goosey the sprucey goose the spruce goose, right? That one was like that was huge, right? That was a totally different thing the nice thing is that um, so what Ben did in case you missed it There was actually a news section of like what we would normally do on the show of just presenting and Ben to kind of took that out of the show and put that in its own thing So but you guys voted on it, which is really amazing And so like Jade said we listened to what you said and we have the news that That Ben presented and then we're talking a little bit more about, you know Our opinions on on the straddle launch sort of situation one of the questions that I had specifically was the straddle launch the whole deal was that you have this huge plane, right? Yeah, and then you've got the rocket that essentially like drops down from it and then continues to exactly launch like like yeah, right? Yeah, so Originally in 2011 they actually had a specifically designed SpaceX Falcon rocket that they were going to use called Falcon Air, which is only going to have four engines And it was going to do about 6,000 kilograms to orbit So that was that was their original plan, but then they cut ties in 2012 with SpaceX and said we're going to go do our own thing and They started to work with orbital sciences to develop a new type of rock rocket called the Pegasus 2 And then the sciences which we came over to ATK, which became Space Division of Northrop Grumman. Yeah. Yeah orbital ATK a space division of Northrop Grumman But so like why I would I so like Virgin Galactic or sorry Virgin orbit. Yeah So is this like a is this a viable option for launching small payloads like because I feel like if Straddle Launch was already doing this way back in the day Like why aren't they already doing it now? Exactly saying and or like why isn't virgin orbit already doing it by now then see I mean Well, it's supposed to just timelines, you know virgin orbit starting from scratch with what they had straddle launch was trying to start from scratch But they didn't end up succeeding all that well So now they've actually gone to the Pegasus XL vehicle, which is which is a launch vehicle It's already in it's already flying. They usually attach it to a Lockheed I can't remember the name of it. It's Yeah And they attach it to the bottom and then they release it and it sends its payload off into orbit and you can do Low Earth orbit equatorial or you could do Sun synchronous orbit with it And really the advantage of air launch is that you can hit any launch as myth or any launch direction that you want to Because you don't have to launch from like say Vandenberg You can actually go out over the ocean like a thousand miles to the west the Vandenberg air force base and then launch from there So that's advantage, but that's exactly my question So like actually Daniel Palmer off of YouTube in the chat room says strata is dead It failed it failed the end moving on. Um, it failed the end. Sorry I was trying to like read it and not reading it correctly. Um, yeah But that's the thing like okay, so it sounds like a great idea Why hasn't this happened and why has an orbit like is it money money? Yeah, I mean Didn't have not money though in development time, too You know strata launch tried to develop their own rocket through someone else Mm-hmm, it just didn't end up working out So and that's it's grand plan to not just have one type of rocket, but they they're having multiple types of medium Class launch vehicles that they wanted to do and they even have a plane a plans to do a space plane And so I guess I don't know I don't want to be like Oh, that's their downfall because they decided they wanted to branch out and then once they split their resources over all these different variants Look how cool that is. I mean it's cool, right? But if you can't even develop like, you know, your First launch show that you can start putting payloads on and earning money What what's the point of Diverging and trying to build a space plane and a medium class and a heavy class and a like medium and a half class Because you're just spending all these resources to do multiple things and not getting any money for what? So what's the phrase? Jack of all trades means you're a master of none. Yeah That sort of idea and now they've had to compromise by going back to Pegasus XL and the thing about Pegasus XL is that it's expensive I can go 50 million. I can put my payload on a virgin orbit launcher one for one fifth of the cost and still get the Same amount of weight into whatever orbit. I want to put it in right So why would I go to straddle launch and end up doing that? So Beth says look Paul Allen also died and that's a big thing He was funding it personally. Yeah, exactly. So like yeah, like so what's what's happening now? Like what are exactly do we think that this is going to be a thing because they continue to have Like even just last last month. No this month this month, right earlier this month. They were like, yeah Hey, we got the like the fastest. Oh, yeah, they did a taxi test Yeah, a taxi test down the runway that even oh see there you go They even got the the wheels slightly off the ground for a hot minute. It is huge There's like there's no semi truck for you know to see how big it is, but it's big So I mean do we think that that's gonna be do we think that's gonna be a thing see what I'm saying? I mean, I want to believe in straddle launch because I think the plane is really cool And I know this spent many years and a lot of funds trying to make it happen But like I think the fact that they keep you know chopping and changing what they're gonna put underneath, you know and working with different companies and then trying to do their own thing and then going back to the Pegasus XL like When you keep chopping and changing like that, I don't think it bodes well for your company's future Rather than just kind of you know sticking down the one development path because every time you have to restart again Like that's wasted hours wasted time wasted money, you know and wasted talent sure so Lucen grow did I apologize if I'm butchering that name off of YouTube says Why is straddle launch man to couldn't apply higher if it was automated? Actually, I don't know that it is piloted. Um it is piloted One of the things is that I Obviously you are limited in how much weight you can carry and you also have to carry that fuel up as well for your rocket And it's the Pegasus XL a solid or yes Pegasus XL is solid So well, there's a couple of advantages there compared to version orbit then because virgin orbit It's doing our launch as well except its rocket the launcher one is like it's liquid fueled Right, you got to take your cryogenics up there, which you know Then there's a whole other level of complexity there because you know You got to try and keep it cold you got to worry about boil off And I think the way that virgin is doing it is they're gonna fuel on the ground fully fueled with your liquid propellant and oxidizer They're gonna fly up and then anything that boils off. They're just gonna let it boil off on the way, but then as Does it actually get that does the does this plane itself actually get that high? I'm like am I Misunderstanding something like you don't need to get so high right and then the rocket just drops and goes on it's Well, it's only so high you can go before your wings stop generating Especially if you're trying to carry the weight of a rocket up the altitude I think I think with straddle launch and virgin orbit. It's basically 40 to 50,000 feet in that regime there That's a nice regime because it gets you above most of the weather that you would have to worry about So you get a nice smooth deployment and a nice smooth initial launch with it Also, you've got a thinner atmosphere So your rocket has a little bit of an energetic advantage So it doesn't have as much friction to contend with and then also, you know You can get your plane up at a little bit higher of a speed Which means you get that extra oomph of speed from your plane as well So it gives you just a slight advantage in all three of those areas over say like a ground launch but I don't we're very far and away from having like like very like Medium to heavy orbital class rockets being carried by aircraft. Well Andy Cowley in the YouTube chat says just put a space shuttle under it Although John Ellis responds with yeah, you're thinking of launching a dream chaser from straddle launch Andy Cowley. Oh That would be cool. That would be really I think there was actually a plan to potentially use dream Straddle launch is a dream chaser launch are so Interesting yeah, baby's shuttle under a gigantic space plane that would be like the cutest space ever You know, it's really funny because the shuttle one of the transport options that they were developing for it back in the day It was was a two C5 galaxies attached to each other and it looked it looks a lot like the straddle launch carrier It does so really the history repeats itself tape it together So yeah, just do you go to some duct tape? Yes. All right. Really quickly. Nice So, uh, so what's going on with Blue Origin? That was other like big news this week. Yeah, they had their Their 10th flight of New Shepard and it was carrying eight different science payloads for NASA. We got the launch here. Let's check it out. I Love that drone shot. That's so cool. I do any drone shot seems to be just freaking awesome. Well, I mean, yeah, that's true as well So these eight NASA science payloads got to fly because of the NASA flight opportunities program which I feel like I'd heard of before but I didn't actually realize The good thing is is they got to have their payloads back because this is a reusable rocket Gosh, I love that shot that tracking shot of it coming down right at you. It's just so wobbly It's headed right for us That is magnificent be more comfortable like In this capsule because you know, it's kind of like the Soyuz where it has the, you know retro fire thrusters that like Inside of dust to make you touch down like one mile per hour or something Right, right, right, right. I know that this and Soyuz is the kind of the same and they look the same as it coming down But this one just feels like it would be a smoother ride. Yeah, it just looks nicer Yeah compared to Soyuz coming down also more room inside of it too and giant windows. Yes. Yeah, lots of room Lots of room and yeah huge windows those windows are like this. They're gigantic They have the record for like the largest windows That have you know, at least past the common line Yeah, I very much like those windows are bigger than most cars. Yeah, that's very true You know what I'm saying like sincerely the windows are like this big like I you can go on cruise ships with smaller windows Like I they're huge. They're absolutely. Yeah. I mean the windows on the cupola of the international space station are pretty big But but these windows are bigger than those if you can like imagine that I mean we've all seen If you haven't seen the images from the cupola before like google international space station cupola And it's just a beautiful beautiful thing that they added on to it Um, and yeah, those windows are big but compared to blue or the new shepherd windows. They are tiny Like you could literally like go up right into it, you know and look at it So maybe it's like maybe it's like flying a dreamliner, you know Like when you fly a dreamliner for the first time one of the things you notice is like, whoa, this window's big They're bigger than other airplanes windows out there. So yeah, the payloads on board got a fantastic view as well And there are eight they all have acronym names. So like I do have a cheat sheet here. Here we go. Yeah, we're gonna memorize Who's gonna memorize the eight the eight uh acronym. Well, actually, well, we don't do acronyms here Exactly. So I have to explain them all Um My favorite one was uh the They have a modal propellant gorging experiment basically um They're trying to solve a problem here where if you are in space and you've got your propellant in your tank So you need to know how much propellant you have in the tank because if you try to start your engine And maybe all the propellants are not back down at the end where the engine is and you get, you know, uh Not the right amount of propellant flowing into your engine You're gonna have problems and you also need to know how much is left because you don't really have, you know You can't go to a gas station in space and top up yet Yes, we're working on that the way that this experiment works is they take sound and they use sound to try and they Send sound waves into the tank and they get to see whether the fuel is sloshing around everywhere Or whether it's actually settled down at the bottom of the tank where you want it to be That's cool. Yeah They use little piezoelectric sensors on the sides of the tank take multiple measurements And then you know how much is in your tank and where the location of the fuel actually is That's kind of like when we measure when we use earthquakes to measure the interior of the earth So uh where we use the seismic waves traveling through the earth in the different times that they arrive at different places on the earth To figure out the interior structure. So that's really cool. Yeah It was similar to that. Yeah, and you know, that's what insight's doing on mars as well with its single size mom Wow, it's like nature knows what it's doing or something. Yeah, what? It just can't be what they're doing. Yeah, it's like it's like it's like we know physics or something So weird That's funny Um, they also had a vibration isolation platform So I guess if you're doing science, you don't want the vibrations of the rocket to actually Mess up what you think your experiment is doing. So this platform is it stays like bolted to the structure of the spacecraft While it's like taking off and going through the high g parts of launch But as soon as they reach microgravity the platform detaches and then the experiment could just kind of float around in its own little inertial Frame of reference and then you don't have to worry about the Spacecraft vibrations getting in the way. It's an experiment in a box A floating box a floating box. Wow There was another experiment that looked at the electromagnetic magnetic field inside and on the outside of new shepherd Which is just commercial off the shelf sensors to measure the electric and magnetic fields and apparently What they think is cool is if you get everybody starting to do sub orbital or orbital launches and you put these Magnetic field sensors like on the outside of the spacecraft Once the frequency of everyone doing sub orbital and orbital launches expands from multiple points around the globe You can use these measurements to take almost like a global snapshot of what the earth's magnetic field is doing And I don't know you guys might have like heard rumors of you know, the earth's magnetic poles are going to like flip over soon We didn't actually understand enough About the global magnetic field structure to be able to predict when or whether that's even going to happen But this might be a way to get enough data to kind of make that decision Yeah, and it might help us figure out things too like the south atlantic anomaly that uh that you know When spacecraft fly through it like Hubble, you know That's an area where the magnetic field really drops down and you get a lot more exposure to cosmic radiation In that area no no real solid explanation for it yet But I mean like when Hubble flies through it, they can't take data Because it just basically overloads the the systems on board. So let me help us figure out that so Interesting cool stuff. Yeah, really cool They had a an experiment that was originally on ISS that take basically just takes photos of Plants that have fluorescent proteins in them So the plants are going to glow a certain color and they have these cameras that automatically take photos of the plants at Certain points over the microgravity flight They just had to fix the timing on those so that they could take the time at the right time Because it's so orbital is a very different environment to being on the ISS So that was pretty cool. We have another one that's like looking at Think about like a pc computer and it gets like really hot And like if you're a gamer potentially, maybe you have a water cooling system in your pc Well, the next step up from that is something called embedded cooling Where instead of like flowing water through your pc to cool it You actually flow a non-conductive fluid Through like the the the boards themselves to cool it down You can't do that with water because if the water leaked everywhere, all your computer boards would like get fried Yeah, it's not good Water and electronics doesn't work very well Well then how do they clean it? Oh, wow The problem with this is that it's a two-phase flow, which means that there is The liquid phase and then it actually changes state to a gas and that's how it removes the heat from the system and keeps the Electronics cool Except we don't know enough about how that happens in microgravity to know if is the gas and the liquid going to flow exactly the same way that you expect So that experiment is is basically Boiling this non-conductive fluid through some electronics that are really warm and seeing like how It actually cools the electronics and whether it flows how it's supposed to and whether we use that to cool down electronics on spacecraft Very cool. Very interesting. And you know, maybe what are we what are we using right now to cool everything down? Um, usually it depends like a lot of spacecraft use radiators to get rid of a lot of that waste heat Um, yeah, the international space station uses, uh, ammonia as their uh, their heat transfer fluid. Got it. Yeah So so they pump ammonia through uh through these massive radiators that then go through Parts of the space station where heat's exchanged and then dumped overboard. Um, although they've been a little Uses water. Yes. Yeah, the Russian side uses water So it's a combo of those two and there's been a couple times Where the ammonia pump on board of the international space station's actually failed and then they have to go out and fix it Yeah, pack away at it. Yeah, you know get your hammers hammer and sozzle and just go outside real quick. So Um, they're also testing a another type of greening propellant. Um, it's called AFM 315e great name Yeah, good name But it's uh 45 denser than hydrazine. It has a greater isp Um, because it's denser and it actually freezes at a lower temperature You don't need to keep it that you don't need to worry about keeping it as cold or something like hydrazine It's also not as like terribly toxic as hydrazine. Yeah, um Yeah, if you if you start breathing the fishy smell of hydrazine, uh You're in danger. It's not safe to really breathe that I've heard I've heard the old joke Which is that they say hydrazine smells like fish, but nobody's lived long enough to confirm it Is that like a true thing though, like once you smell it like that's it like Oh, I don't know I don't really want to be a part of this task That's very sci-fi sort of like it touched me like oh, you're doomed You're done Right interesting. I mean I understand the hydrazine's not good and I also understand that we have like electronic Smellers that can like analyze what you know and be able to tell us what it does smell like Um, but yeah, I'm I'm wondering just said just had a curiosity. Yeah. Well, if you know leave us a comment You know, if you've huffed hydrazine before leave us a comment below No, no I wouldn't recommend it. Oh, yeah tickles up asks what smells like almonds. I don't remember cyanide Right. Is it cyanide? I think it's cyanide. So don't ask me how I know this Nope, Beth answered cyanide. Whoops. Sorry. That was the wrong thing. Don't worry. I'm not pushing that one anymore. Okay, uh, cool So, um, what else do we have? We were talking about, um, I apologize. I totally lost the chat room for a hot minute I'm sure some of you also had some issues with that. So I was that's why I was so quiet for a while I was trying to do all of those sorts of things. Um opportunity. That's what we were talking about Um poor oppie our favorite our favorite memories of opportunities So the thing is that like, uh, we were talking a little bit before the show Ben was like, you know, your favorite memories of opportunity and quite frankly I was like, why are we doing this? And he's like, well, because you know, most likely Opportunity is gone. I said sure, but most likely opportunity has been gone for weeks now This feels like months like literally half a year. Yeah, no pun intended. But it feels like a dead story Um, so trying to figure out like why why we were doing it. Um, but uh, yeah, I mean, I'm sure I'm sure Especially my planetary people. Yeah, right? Yeah, you guys have some some fond memories of oppie in general You haven't had like an official goodbye. Yeah Kind of like with Cassini. That's true So they are still trying to get in contact with the opportunity one of the mars explorator The only mars exploration rover that had been operating up until the middle of last year 2018 Now they're looking for signals both an x-band and s-band being transmitted at the same time from From the antennae multiple antennae that are on Opportunity and they're basically doing like what they call a sweep and beef Which is they're basically trying to find it as much as they can at this point They think the internal clocks are so out of sync That that it may not that it may actually have battery power Once it gets once the solar panels get blown off, but the clocks are so out of sync that it's not gonna It's not gonna go. Hey, I should wake up right now So it may actually just stay Like a zombie state on the surface of mars where it's awake, but it's not communicating Is there a way to sync that up? Uh, no, it has to do it itself. So so in theory If we got a human over there, they also could not tinker it Uh, well, no, they should be able to tinker with it to make it happen. So just curious. Uh, yeah, so we could I don't know. I don't have any special plans Can we send Mars 2020 over with like a usb stick and like plug that into like that would be great But that's like that's like a thousand kilometers traverse in order to pull that off. So so that might be a little difficult so But you know that dust storm that killed opportunity or Presumably killed opportunity was the biggest and most vicious dust storm In at least recorded history that we've had so far. These graphics are crazy. Yeah This is the propagation of dust across the surface of mars And you know that dust storms here on earth are rather localized, you know, they you get some dust coming off of this air It may make it over to the amazon But it really doesn't get all that far on mars because of the thin atmosphere Dust is able to get carried all over the place And literally envelop the entire planet in a choking Layer of dust in the atmosphere and that's essentially what happened the dust cut off the Sunlight and then opportunity which runs on solar panels Was not able to generate enough power and it went into a low voltage state and it basically Turned itself off to preserve itself And it would have probably stayed on with its heaters on I also found out about this. I didn't know this until last year Which is that there's actually little pieces of uranium inside of Inside of opportunity that act as like a heat like backup heater In case the actual heaters die. It's not like a lot of heat. It's like just barely enough to keep opportunity above the temperature of death for it And then also some they were hoping Advantagiously that in dust storms because there's material there to actually be Thermally conductive it actually gets a little warmer when a dust storm happens They were hoping that would have kept opportunity a little bit warmer as well, but I haven't heard from it. So got it But say it wakes up, you know with all of the experiments currently going on or all of the kind of Science currently going on mars if it wakes up what data I guess what i'm asking is is it worth the data that it would send back? Yes, absolutely So having a having an operational rover on the surface of mars is super important there Opportunity and curiosity were basically our geologists that were on the surface of mars You know sure a geologist could do what those rovers did in about 15 minutes But at the same time those geologists aren't there right now. So this is what we've got And this is endeavor crater or excuse me endurance crater where opportunity was at And a very large crater You know you could see it's the rim of it the rim of it on the other side far off in the distance And it was basically looking at an area where water had been flowing for very long periods of time before it died But but there's some really great memories that I have of opportunity such as it's landing when it landed in january of 2004 Using that airbag system and it just so happened that it bounced across the surface and then rolled into a crater So we literally launched it from earth it traveled, you know hundreds of millions of kilometers to mars Bounced on the surface and then it rolled right into a crater. That's like that's like the best hole in one Exactly. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was in the sixth grade. Mr. Benedetto fantastic teacher He was so just Like he had so much passion for nasa and space exploration, which as a kid I didn't quite appreciate as much as I would have now sure But I remember we watched it we watched simulations on the nasa website in the computer lab And I remember even as a little kid like this can't be real like I thought I was just watching like a This could happen someday in the future. It's like no, no, no, this is gonna happen and it happened Yeah, so yeah, it's like I think we all kind of experienced that when we were kind of well a lot younger obviously And the thing about uh opportunity is that a couple weeks beforehand spirit had landed and those those twin mars exploration rovers The entirety of their mission was basically to go and find evidence that the water had once been there So so journey the first rover in 97 was basically will a rover work So and it did so then they said okay now we want to follow the water Which is sort of nasa's policy on how they do science on the surface of mars So the mars exploration rovers are there to try to find evidence for that water Spirit landed opened up took photos all around itself. It landed in the middle of a volcanic plain The basalt everywhere Basically nothing that would tell you that water had once been there So so spirit basically landed in the worst possible place I don't want to say that there was disappointment from that But spirit ended up having a much harder life than opportunity did because When they opened up the panels and they took all the photos inside of eagle crater, which is where opportunity landed Literally on the other side of the crater bedrock With influence of water in it. Nice. So they literally drove like 15 meters to get the evidence of exactly what they needed So so opportunity was just super lucky and where it landed at, you know That's that that kind of luck is just fantastic And that's kind of what happened with opportunity because you know spirit had a lot of parts break down And it really had to fight for all the science that it did a spirit did end up finding Evidence of hydrothermal activity on the surface of mars, which is really cool So we know that there was water and a source of energy And uh curiosity ended up finding schnapps carbon hydrogen nitrogen oxygen phosphorus sulfur. So uh, so Spirit went to an area where the three things that life needs were present There um, but uh, but you know broke down and then it got stuck and then it died in 2010 But opportunity was able to drive over Literally an entire distance of a marathon. So over 26 miles I mean that's a lot if you think about it. So it really is It's a lot for a mission that was only supposed to last for 90 days Three months and we got 14 years out of opportunity. So that's impressive Like I know people who went through multiple cars in that time period You know, I learned how to drive in that. So if any of us are interested We happen to have some old footage of the launch. Yes, it's not even on 35 millimeter. Although it probably should be And the best part is it ben showed me this last night and I was like, wait, when did this launch again 2003? Yeah, july of 2003 look at that, huh? Did they launch on the same rocket and then they separated later a little bit Or oh no, uh each Mars exploration rover launched on their own rocket. So yeah, they got their own rocket That's a delta-2 in the heavy configuration with the really big solids Not it there big ground start solids, so So the the part that I was freaking out about was that you can see up in the upper right hand corner there I forget if that's the uh Chicklet or the bug, but it's one of those things it says nasa tv But you will notice it is not in the shape of meatball It is also not in the uh 80s fantastic nasa worm logo. It's just very it's probably helvetica honestly Just as nasa tv and I was like Wait, seriously, how old is this? Well, I mean they used helvetica on the space shuttle, so it makes sense. No, it it makes perfect sense I was just really confused. I'm like apparently I was not following any space things during this time period At some point, uh, we also get to see a little bit of their uh, mission control. I believe it is and uh I about died. There's the air starts So and there go the ground starts really is beautiful night. Yeah launches are gorgeous Yeah, I had a friend who was at this launch and he said that uh from the position He was watching it at it took it launched and it arched out and it headed towards mars in the sky So it was rather rather prophetic So with that there All right, I want to see mission control because you said that this is like it's so like 1950s 60s like Is everybody got pocket protectors Just about like you you know It's not the 50s because not every white dude who's in there old white dude, by the way, uh is not wearing a white Shirt button down shirt some of them are wearing a couple of colors, but I'm serious man. Like I looked at that. I was like I clearly have no concept of when this is at all You know this delta two was a three stage delta two So they had the uh, they had the solids and the first stage core and then the second stage with it and then a A solid third stage as well. So uh, so this was about a souped up as a delta two rocket gets Uh and yeah, you know chucking a payload to mars. So just another you know typical thursday Uh, I just got a uh a note in the host chat room. Uh that It's the provider that offered that uh, not the official font Gotcha There go you boosters Wait, so they had solids that lay on the ground and then solids that live in the air. Yes Crazy, right, huh? Does anyone else do that? I don't think so If I recall correctly, I don't think anybody else did that at that time I want to say but that was back. This was back in 2003. So Um And dada, correct me if i'm wrong uh with this version of the delta delta two almost a delta four heavy With this version of the delta two it had nine solids three start on the ground and then six start in the air If I remember correctly or is it six on the ground six in the air six start on the ground three start in the air This one used the gem 46 which is a 46 inch solid Spirit only had wasn't the heavy configuration. It only had 40 inch boosters All right. Well, there you go. Thank you dada. Also, you will notice like way back in the day Look at these cameras that are on the freaking vehicle Yeah, yeah, that's fair, right like Pretty much the whole way up. Yeah, like that's gorgeous. Yeah, it's 480p, but I mean it still looks great Whatever that looks great back in the day. That was the thing It's some on-screen graphics, so that'll be fine. Oh wow, maybe like a vertical timeline. Yeah, I heard that's the right to this day Yeah, it's nice to see cameras that don't cut out. I'm getting another note in the host room. Uh, it's 480i Oh 480i, excuse me interlaced. Well, I'm just gonna say it's nice to see cameras during a launch that don't cut out It's nice to see about anything honestly Wow, no, there was static you can you can shush your mouth with that one. Shut down on stage one See static Not saying just saying. Yeah, but I mean, you know Yeah Oh my gosh, this is what i'm talking about. Holy moly. What is this? What is happening right now? Wow, dude Santa Claus is running that stuff like I don't know what's happening anymore all the way from the north pole Dude In in july It was like they're flipping switches like don't even scream in there That's why it was like wait, when did this go? Quick, we need to switch these cables That's how it felt Throw the third switch Press the red button dude They don't know what out is they do it loopy dragon says, uh, that's lc or launch complex 17 block house Delta 2 was controlled from building just a few hundred feet from the pad Okay, so block house which typically means that they're uh concrete reinforced Sometimes underground a bunker basically. Yeah a bunker a bunker that can take the hit dude crazy though, right? I was looking at that like we need the code 13 34 dude You know Amazing absolutely amazing. That was a nice blast from the past there totally totally totally cool vintage It's vintage dated amazing amazing and I bet the block house still looks like that It's probably sealed because of asbestos To be fair so, uh, so switching gears a little bit ultimatouille. Yes, right so, uh, Right around uh new years, right? Miss lisa here did an awesome M. Well jared joined didn't like we had a lot of people. Athena was calling in I know somebody earlier was asking about Athena. She'll be back next week by the way Um, uh, did it really amazing like overnight sensation of the ultimatouille fly by This lovely snowman in the sky. Yeah, there you go. Look at that Wow, um, so here it is now jan 26 or 26 of jan. Yes 2019 as it's where Uh, and we're starting to get some stuff back, right? We're starting to get some pictures some data Some something but like only something Yeah, so the images in which I believe that's the one up there are getting pretty crispy And we're starting to discern some really interesting surface features Um, so that's what we started with and uh, it's a little bit reddish, you know and natural color Exactly by the way, absolutely. Yeah, so jared you want to explain perhaps where that reddish color is coming from or oxidation, right? So it's kind of oxidation. It's from what we from what we understand with these these kind-propelled objects Especially what we learned from Pluto and the fly by of Pluto, which New Horizons did You know three and a half years before this Is that if you expose certain ices to ultraviolet radiation, it'll redden them. Exactly. And that's basically what we're looking at So, uh, so yeah, uh, we don't we we don't know if it is tholens or not yet because they haven't released any data about the composition of So Guess upon I mean this is like this is similar to one of the reasons we call mars the red planet, right? Like it's the same No Iron oxide, which is like similar to rust. Uh, this is just this uh in dead lighting It's like a byproduct of the reaction of um What is it in the what is it that? On Pluto, it's methane reacting with the ultraviolet Light and then the particulates that kind of yeah, and then it rains out as like acetylene and ethane and other things like that down to the surface It's really weird how all this carbon and hydrogen just like snaps together and well, it's not weird. It's science And then it just rains down sometimes science is weird. Yeah, but but it's uh, it's bizarre because uh, You know, we don't we don't know what type of ices it's made out of yet. Um, if we look at Pluto You know Pluto had a lot of nitrogen ice methane ice Carbon monoxide ice carbon dioxide ice and water ice on its surface But this is significantly smaller than Pluto Exactly from basically tip to tip of the lobes there. It's about 34 kilometers in size. So not particularly big But uh, but large enough that it's gonna yield enough data that we should have a good understanding of it Okay, and we're getting some of that data back now or no. Yes Yeah, so right after the flyby there was a solar conjunction Which basically means that that it went on the other side of the sun and we couldn't talk to new horizons because there's this big ball of plasma In the way So uh, so we had to wait until it came out on the other side of the sun Uh, just a couple weeks ago, uh, and then start getting the data down So but it's taking a really long time. It takes a very long time. In fact, um much slower than the old internet connections and uh But uh similar to new horizons, you know once this data starts pouring in the revelations are probably going to be pretty exciting This is the furthest most distant object. We have flew past. Yes, and um What's going to be really interesting is kind of studying how bodies like this Basically exist out there in the far reaches of the solar system so far away from the sun's influence in terms of For instance, when you get a comet that ends up flying not flying but ends up coming along by the sun You get a lot of outgassing you get a lot of um ice is subliming and whatnot However, this is so far out that this is literally kind of like a snapshot of what the solar system might have been like In its earliest days of formation It's basically like a time capsule because it really hasn't changed since the beginning of the solar system because it's been preserved Basically cryogenically Yeah, and um, you know, uh with pluto you can't do that because pluto is not the right kind of object for us to understand The origin of the solar system with and same you know to kind of piggyback on the comments with the with with comets Um, so, um, you know, we've studied a lot of comets like viltu temple one heartly Uh braily landed on them to remove get a cemento like a whole bunch of comets Have been studied but the chemical interactions with the sun basically doesn't Completely ruin all of the things that have been there since the formation of the solar system But it changes them enough that we don't have a we can't like definitively say whether that was there or not We could say this is what happened in the evolutionary history of this comet in its nucleus here But but nothing like ultimatuli, which is what's called what's known as a classical cold kuiper belt object So what does that mean? That basically means that it orbits in the ecliptic of the solar system So there's a plane that most of the material of the solar system formed in in this disc of material And some of the some of the objects went out of that plane like pluto pluto is not a classical cold kuiper belt object Because it is it is tilted quite significantly compared to the ecliptic of the solar system and These classical cold kuiper belt objects are, you know, within the plane of the solar system And they've interacted with Neptune's gravity enough that they basically stay far enough away from the sun that they're never touched by by the solar winds Being the primary influence the ultraviolet radiation. Sure. Yeah, that's very clearly done some work on the surface there But that's that's not enough to ruin the preservation of the material that's there So yeah, so this is this is unbelievably exciting You know to really kind of get this snapshot of What the solar system was like in its infancy when it was that nebulous cloud before before everything formed fully and and You know with new horizons, they're hoping to find an even further out Kuiper belt object to try to study that as well And they're going to hopefully get that mission proposal in this summer And and as far as I understand Even though new horizons is is sending data in its downlinks When they have to take breaks because the deep space network, you can't hog the deep space network Exactly other missions want to talk and get their data down during these periods when they're not Downloading they're aiming their long Long-range imager. I think it's lore called lorry. They're aiming in the direction that they're flying to try to find objects So they're already working on trying to find something else to fly past even further out Well, they gotta I mean that thing is traveling so fast now. I'm read of uh What is it now? It's it's up to how many kilometers per second Uh, I think it's somewhere along the order order of 12 kilometers per second. I was gonna say things up to 12 It's cooking. It's not my notes. I can't tell you. Yeah, it's moving really quick. So fast enough that a dust grain would basically obliterate vaporize it Essentially, so yeah, and that's another thing that they're doing out there too They're it's not just the flyby of ultimatilli that they're working on They're also taking in like radiation data dust count data and other things like that in an area that that This level of resolution in these instruments has never been done before like sure the two voyagers Set data from this area But you know, that's 1970s technology. That's not early. It's not early 2000s technology like new horizons is so And you know, what was it lc-17? That was really really amazing awesome. Well, okay, so for those of you who may have forgotten We this is our space show, but we also have a science show today We do so which is really which is why we're wearing the science shirts So what we're gonna do now is i'm going to give a huge. 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