S03E59: Towel Day Triumphs & Starliner's Struggles: Special Hoopy Frood Edition

Welcome to Astronomy Daily for another episode. It is the twenty seventh of May twenty twenty four pod. It would be your whole food. Don't clue that's right, it's another episode of Astronomy Daily. Thanks for joining us, and would you please welcome my digital pal who's fun to be with? Hallie? Hey Halle? Do you know where your towel is? You can't catch me out that easy, Steve. I'm a hoopie food too, Oh the hoopyest. I'm sure we know where our towels are at, don't we. And if you know where your towel is, then you must know what the heck we are going on about. Yes, it was Towel Day this week, folks. That's right. Fans of the very famous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy celebrated worldwide with parties and online sharing of the phenomenon known as Towel Day. Of course, this comes from Douglas Adams famous books and the idea that if you can travel from one end of the galaxy to the other and face all manner of dangers and obstacle and still know where your towel is, you must be a hoopy fruit. Really, really. I mean what a fruit? HELLI a hoopy fruit if you say so. Human. Anyway, we've got that story for you today. And what else is on the menu? Helly, Well, there's more about Starliner and the delays Boeing have been having getting that ship off the ground. But it does look like they're going ahead soon more later. Sounds very interesting, it is, And there's Tenacity as well. Yes, the space plane is at Florida now. They are moving into the next stage of assembly. That's good news for ISS. And you're talking about your favorite Europa clipper. And also a bit about pre fire. Yes, that's a cool story. It's a little snippet, but wanted to include it because they launched from New Zealand, which is not far from here in the southern hemisphere. Needs a you know Hurrah, doesn't it? Sure thing? Okay then, Helle, let's have it your turn. Okay, here we go. Dream Chaser has arrived at NASO, says Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of its first flight to the International Space Station. The Dream Chaser spaceplane, named Tenacity, arrived at Kennedy on May eighteenth, twenty twenty four, and joined its companion shooting Star cargo module, where they will undergo final testing and pre launch processing ahead of launch scheduled for later this year. Upon arrival at NASA Kennedy, teams move Tenacity to the high Bay inside the space System's Processing Facility SSPF. The remaining pre flight activities at Kennedy include acoustic and electromagnetic interference and compatibility testing, completion of work on the space plane's thermal protection system, and final payload integration. The last several years have required an enormous amount of Tenacity by our team, and no other name would have been more appropriate for our first dream Chaser space plane, said Sierra Space CEO Tom Weiss. The versatile dream Chaser space plane fleet is meticulously designed to facilitate them transportation of cargo and in the future, crewe to Low Earth ORBITLO. This multimission platform offers customization options to cater to the needs of both domestic and international customers, further enhancing its role in global space operations. Under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services to CRS two contract, dream Chaser has been selected to provide essential cargo delivery, return and disposal services for the International Space Station. Boeing is set to launch its first crewed space mission in June without fixing a small helium gas leak on its troubled Starliner spaceship, officials said Friday. The vessel, under development since twenty ten, has been plagued by technical problems and has yet to fulfill its purpose of ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station, allowing Boeing's rival SpaceX to zoom ahead with its crew Dragon capsule. Starliner was supposed to finally fly astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams to the orbital OUME post on May sixth, but the mission was scrubbed hours before liftoff after a faulty valve was discovered on the United Launch Alliance rocket carrying it. Since then, additional issues came to light, including a helium leak in the spacecraft's service module, which houses the propulsion system. But while the rocket valve has been replaced, Boeing and NASA have made the decision to fly to the ISS without replacing a shirt button sized seal on a leaking joint officials tolled reporters, we can handle this particular leak. If that leak rate were to grow even up to one hundred times, said Steve Stick, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. Moreover, it impacts just one of a set of twenty eight thrusters used to control the spaceship's attitude. He added. Instead, teams will monitor the leak during the hours before launch, scheduled for June first, at twelve twenty five pm from Cape Canaveral Space four station in Florida. Asked why Boeing wouldn't just replace the seal mark nappie the company, Bany's vice president for the Commercial Crew Program, said the process would be quite involved and require taking a part Starliner at its factory. Stick added that it wasn't unheard of to fly with leaks. Space shuttles encountered similar problems at times, and we've had a couple of cases with Dragon where we've had a few small leaks as well. He added. The much delayed mission comes at a challenging time for Boeing as a safety crisis engulfs the century old Aerospace Titans. Commercial Aviation arm NASA is banking on Starliner's success in order to achieve its goal of certifying a second commercial vehicle to carry crews to the ISS, which it has sought since the last space shuttle flew in twenty eleven. A successful mission would help dispel the bitter taste left by numerous setbacks in the star Liner program. For those who are in the know, May twenty fifth was Towel Day, which is the day officially recognized each year amid the quirky fandom of author Douglas Adams and his satirical nineteen seventy nine sci fi masterpiece, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If you don't understand all this fuss about towels, don't panic. We've got you covered. This special occasion is meant to honor Adam's life and the legacy of laughs he left behind in the wake of that most irreverend of all interstellar reference materials, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The nineteen seventy nine book was followed by four others, ever increasingly misnamed trilogy of Hitchhiker's Guide as series The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life the Universe and Everything So Long and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless, which were released between nineteen eighty and nineteen ninety two. Adams and his clever works remain a touchstone for creative thinkers, visionary inventors, intrepid astronauts, ambitious aerospace engineers, imaginative scientists, and anyone with an adventurous spirit around the globe and the towel is an instrument of immense pride among the legions of Adams Faithful they'll be toting their precious towels today, in keeping with the Seminole nineteen seventy nine novels declaration that these minimalist cloth miracles are just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Have you got your Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there, Steve, Yes, Hallie, I dug it up especially for today's episode. Maybe you can demonstrate for our listeners. Ah yes, yes, like it's a really old copy. I got it working in rehearsal. Hang on, Yeah, here we go. I didn't get the updates, but I found the entry about how useful towels can be. Here's the intro. You can wrap it around yourself for warmth as you bound across the coldmans a jaguline beta, and you can line atop the fling of the marbles sanded beaches of Central Genis five inhaling the heavy sea vapors us sleep under if aneath the stars which shine readily on the desert world of Kakafula, and use it to sail on me raffed down the slow heavy river. Moth waited for use in hand to hand comment. Wrap it around your head to water off notious fumes. Avoid the days of the Revenants by black to bee for trial. Such aline, bubblic ly stupid creature. It believes that if you can't see it, you can't see you. You can wave your tally emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you could dry yourself with it if it still seems clean enough. Oh, bregspects, so many memories. Wow, that really is an old version. I'll see if I can get you the update from maximeglan. Oh, good luck with that one, Hallie. We are getting silly yspec to the story. So Towel Day has been religiously observed every year since it was founded on May twenty fifth, two thousand and one, just two weeks after Adam's untimely death at the age of forty nine. Rituals undertaken on towel Day include posting personal picks with the indispensable piece of cloth on social media using the hashtag twel day, and also sharing favorite quotes, revisiting the books and the original radio plays they were based on, gathering with like minded acolytes, entering cosplay contests, posting on forums, attending bad poetry readings, and hosting a screening of the Class nineteen eighty one BBC TV series or the two thousand and five Hollywood film adaptation. And now it's back to you, my favorite human you're listening to as the podcast your syd fort all. Oh And as always, thank you so much Hallie for those stories, and thank you for joining us for this Monday edition of Astronomy Daily, where we offer just a few stories from the now famous Astronomy Daily newsletter, which you can receive in your email every day, just like Hallie and I do. And to do that, just visit our url Astronomy Daily dot io and place your email address in the slot provided. Just like that, you'll be receiving all the latest news about science, space, science and astronomy from around the world as it's happening. And not only that, you can interact with us by visiting at astro Daily pod on x or at our parent podcast Facebook age which is space Nuts podcast group, and we hope to see you there now. Some time ago, you may remember a story from New Zealand. Rocket Lab successfully launched the first of two NASA Earth Science Cube SATs via an Electron rocket on May twenty four. There was only two days ago. The electron rocket lifted off from Rocket Labs Launch Complex one in New Zealand. Yes, at three point forty one am Eastern time, well that's my local time. It placed a six y Cube sat into a five hundred and twenty kilometer sun synchronous orbit. This is part of a NASA mission called Polar Radiant Energy in the Far Infrared Experiment or pre FIRE. They love their acronyms. NASA's PREFIRE mission aims to improve global climate change predictions by expanding our understanding of heat loss at the polar regions. The Polar Radiant Energy in the Far Infrared Experiment, that's PREEFER will send two shoe box sized satellites into space to study the Arctic and Antarctic, and they will be the first to systematically measure heat in the form of far infrared radiation emitted from those regions. The Earth absorbs much of the Sun's energy at the tropics, whether and ocean currents then move that heat towards the poles, and this helps to regulate the Earth's climate by radiating that heat back into space. However, the Arctic is warming about three times faster than anywhere else on Earth, and this is leading to increased sheet ice smelt and sea level rise in coastal communities. The data from pre file will help scientists better understand how Earth's polar regions respond to climate change and what that might mean for our future. This is the podcast. NASA's Europa Clipper, a spacecraft designed to investigate Jupiter's icymoon Europa and its potential to support life, arrived in Florida on Thursday. The spacecraft, assembled at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California, landed aboard a C one seven Globemaster three aircraft at the Launch and Landing facility at the Kennedy Space Center. The mission aims to gather detailed measurements of the Moon's surface, interior, and space environment by performing approximately fifty close flybys, some as low as sixteen miles that's twenty five kilometers to the rest of Us from the surface of Europa. This moon holds a global ocean underneath its icy shell. The Europa Clipper mission manager for NASA's Launch Services Program, Amundo Paloto, says the team is excited that the spacecraft is in Florida for pressing, where preparing Europa Clipper with a fully expendable SpaceX Falcon heavy rocket to ensure it provides the required performance to explore a destination very far away from Earth. Teams at Kennedy spent several hours offloading Europa Clipper before transferring it to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where they will process the spacecraft and perform final checkouts. Europa Clipper joins the spacecraft's two five panel solar arrays that arrived at Kennedy in March. The arrays that measure forty six point five feet or fourteen point two meters long, will collect enough sunlight to power the spacecraft on its way to Jupiter's moon. Technicians will instare the arrays on the spacecraft before the launch. The spacecraft was designed to withstand the pummeling of radiation from Jupiter and gather the measurements needed to investigate Europa's surface, interior, and space environment. Europa Clipper has nine ded icas CAD science instruments, including cameras, spectrometers, a magnetometer, and an ice penetrating radar. These instruments will study Europa's icy shell, the ocean beneath, and the composition of the gases in the Moon's atmosphere and surface geology, and also provide insights into the Moon's potential habitability. The spacecraft will also carry a thermal instrument to pinpoint locations of warmer ice and any potential eruptions of water vapor. Strong evidence shows the oceans beneath Europa's crust is twice the volume of all the Earth's oceans combined. The mission demonstrates NASA's commitment to exploring our Solar system and searching for habitability beyond Earth. The data will contribute to our understanding of the Jovian System and will help pave the way for potential future missions to study Europa and other potentially habitable worlds. Europa Clip is expected to reach the Jupiter System in April twenty thirty, and it will accomplish a few milestones along the way, including a Mars fly by in February twenty twenty five that will help propel the spacecraft toward Jupiter's Moon through a Mars Earth Gravity assist trajectory. NASA and SpaceX are targeting launch aboard a Falcon heavy rocket from Launch Complex thirty nine A at Kennedy later this year. The launch period opens on October ten, after testing and final preparations are complete, and the spacecraft will be encapsulated in a protective payload fairing and then move to the SpaceX hangar at the launch complex. And I've been waiting for Europa Clipper for a very long time. And just like that, that's another episode of Astronomy Daily for another week, another Monday. So we're looking forward to seeing you next time. And don't forget all the other episodes during the week are presented by Hallie's AI cousins Anna and Charlie, so I hope you enjoy their shows throughout the weekend. We'll catch you next Monday. Where'd we? Halley? So long and thanks for all the fish. See you next time, Monday Podcast. I mean to be your whole speed, don't clud