Artemis Adventures, Interstellar Toilets & Unveiling Second Generation Stars

Hello again, thanks for joining us on another episode of Space Nuts. My name is Andrew Unkley. Great to have your company. Hope you're well. Coming up on this episode and by the time you hear this, Artemis two should be on its way to the Moon. But more importantly, we're going to talk about their plumbing. That's very interesting. We'll also talk about CSIRO involvement in the mission and NASA's announcement about a moon base. It'll have toilets too, more. News on the ISS crew evacuation in January, and some real astronomy with the discovery of a second generation star. What is the second generation star? We'll tell you in a second. Fifteen seconds guidance is Internal ten nine ignition sequence Star, Space Nuts NY or three two one spacenutes. As when I reported Bill's good. And he's back for more, he is Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large. Hello Fred, Hello Andrew, and back for more. Yes, and very excited because of where we are in the story of human exploration in the Moon. Yes, it is very exciting, all these years after the Apollo missions, and it looks like systems are go. Touch wood. I've got a wooden table. But yes, by the time people hear this should be well on its way, so we keep our hopes ever positive for Artemis too. Let's get straight into talking about the mission launch aside. There's a lot of cooperation that goes into missions like these, and that was the case with Apollo and many other missions, space Shuttle missions, etc. Since then, and this is no different. There's a lot of involvement and our very own CSIRO, the National Science Agency, is involved. Indeed, it is via NASA's Deep Space Network, which is actually managed by the Jet Propulsional Laboratory in Southern California, part of NASA, but that is going to be responsible for communication with the Orion spacecraft, which is the vehicle that's taking the Artemis. Two crew around the Moon. They will be responsible for that those communications while it's not in lower Earth orbit, in other words, while it's sort of on the way to the Moon, going round the Moon and on the way back, and so it's The Deep Space Network has three facilities, one at Goldstone in California, one near Madrid in Spain, and one near Canberra in Australia, and that's at Tidbinbilla. It's quite a major communications center. The tid Bimbila Deep Space Network Station, a place we've visited several times and has some fantastic equipment, including some very big dishes, that is going to be part and parcel of the Artemis two mission. So it's great that Australia is playing an enabling role in that, because the reason why you have three of these stations more or less equidistant around the Earth is that as the Earth turns, there will always be one of them which can contact any given spacecraft, except if that spacecraft happens to be Voyager two, which can only be communicated with by the Tidbinbilla facility. Because it is in the Southern Hemisphere sky. That is interesting, isn't it. Yeah, it was so far away now you can't really. Yeah, the angles are all wrong. I think that's right. Angles are wrong for them, Yes, it is so that for the other, for the two Northern Hemisphere stations, it's below their horizon permanently. So yes, so we Voyager two, of course carries no humans. It's a robotics. They're doing well if they're still there after microbes. Yeah, there could be microbes, and in fact they almost certainly will be microbes, and it probably playing cards in a corner somewhere, waiting for some suitable solar system to come along in about five billion years time. Yeah, that's something to think about, isn't it. That's right, Yes, it's of colonizing the universe. Yeah, I suppose back to the CSRO involvement, and if you look, if anyone's seen that great Australian movie The Dish, I'll know that the park's radio telescope was very much at the center of communications with the Apollo eleven moonwalk and relaying a lot of that radio traffic from the lunar surface. So we've got a history of it. Indeed, I mean. It's a very funny, very funny feel a lot of creative license. But ye, in fact, you know it really really put Parks on the map, didn't it. Yes, where it should have put Tidbinbiller on the map, because they did most of their work. Apparently it's always been a bone of contention because Tidbinbiller and in fact the dish that they did, in fact, it wasn't at Tidbinbilla then it was a place called Auroral Creek if I remember rightly, which is also near camera. But the dish that was used there for the Apollo missions was actually it's not used anymore, but it was recited to Tidbinbiller so for the Deep Space Network. And yes, I don't think I mentioned in my intro there that the the CSIRO operates. That's that facility on behalf of NASA, the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization. Yeah, terrific people, and yeah, they do a lot of work in silence. They do obviously publish their findings, but or they work or whatever it is they're doing, but people tend not to really notice them much, which is unfortunate. I thought that was I thought that was going to be a pun there because they a lot of them have to do with radio silence, to do with protecting radio astronomy facilities. That's one of the things. But you're absolutely right. They are the unsung heroes in many ways of the Australian scientific world. It's the National Science Agency. Indeed, so that's one aspect of this particular mission with the Australian communications involvement. Let's talk about the toilet. What's going on with the toilet. I'm glad you asked me about that. The main thing is that believe it or not, there is one on the Apollo Capsule, which is what the artemists two crew will be riding to and around them own in. It's got this private enclosure in the Apollo capsule itself. Apparently it's accessible. Through a hatch in the floor of the spacecraft, but floor doesn't matter when you're when you're in zero gravity. It's not big. Apparently, it's about the size of the restroom on a small passenger jet, and it was actually built by Lockheed Martin, who built passenger jets as. Well, I think. Still unlike the Apollo missions, in which three male astronauts had to virtually improvise over their more or less ten day trips to the Moon and back. This basically this toilet facility has echoes of the toilet facilities on the International Space Station. It's referred to not as about through but as a hygiene bay. It's got a door. There's a hinging door in the floor of the the floor of the Orion capsule through which the astronauts can access this hygiene bay, and you can either shut the door, or if you need a bit more room, there's a curtain that you can use. One of the quotes I love from actually one of the astronauts who's talking about their mission coming up. You would float over to the door, open up the hinging door and float on in the idea of floating. Into your floating in it's okay, But floating out. That's what might float out with you. That's they worry. But that's all taken care of by a fan apparently, so and squishing things down. Okay, I think actually I think it's a I think it's a polythene bag. I think it's a fan on the International Space Station, but not not in the in the Oriyan capsule. As long as you don't have to waffle stomp it. Okay, that sounds like, yes, I can sort of. You know, that countries up a picture in my mind that I'd rather not have. That's what we're doing. That's what you do when you take your dog to the dog park. You end up with something like. Possibly sad. But this is interesting because back in the Apollo era they didn't have anything remotely exotic like this. They had plastic bags apparently yep. And sort of slip on facilities that would only work for a male and yep. So that's all right, Thankfully they've caught up with the times and. Hopefully that all works. Well. Yeah, there is another subtlety, Andrew that might be of interest, and that is, and we've talked about this before, the urine on the International Space Station, which is an everyday product by its inhabitants, is actually recycled in a bid to make the International Space Station as free from as sustainable as possible, I guess is the way to put it. They recycle that and use it for drinking, which is extraordinary. Why don't we do that on Earth? Well, you can do it in space, But I do remember in the early days of the International Space Station they didn't do that. They used to dump the urine into space. And I can't remember which astronautic was who made that famous quote, there's nothing more beautiful in space than a urine dump at dawn, which is when the low angle of the sun catches all these ice crystals, which is what they are now. That is what they're going to do on Orion because the mission is short in that they don't need to go through the recycling process that can carry enough water with them, and so they will they will maybe see a urine dump at Dawn who. Now, okay, could be interesting. I'm not sure that they'll broadcast it. They're broadcasting quite a bit though, which will be fascinating. So we'll be able to keep an eye on things, just certain things we probably don't want to keep an eye on. But while we're talking about the Moon, there is one more story that's that's making headlines, and that is an announcement by NASA for a Moon base. That's correct, really, yeah, they've obviously been behind closed doors making a lot of plans and now they're ready to go public. A lot's changed actually in the last month. We've got Apollo three being the not the first landing on the Moon, but an exercise in low Earth orbit, which will test out the capabilities of both the SpaceX and the Blue Origin versions of the Lunar Lander. And then Artemis four will be the landing process itself, the lunar landing hopefully in twenty twenty eight. But the other big announcement, exactly as you've said from Jared Isaac Munday, NASA Administrator, the boss of NASA, is the idea of an point and appropriation. That's the word of twenty billion dollars over seven years in order to build a permanent moon base on the lunar surface. And that's a change in philosophy because it was not seen as being artemis was seen as more exploratory, with only the very later stages of the Artemist program settling anything like a permanent. Base on the Moon. But it looks as though over the next seven years that money is going to be spent on actually setting up shop on the Moon for perhaps long term, maybe permanent habitation, teaching us how to live on an alien world. One consequence of. This is that the the project to have a mini international space station in orbit around the Moon, which was called the Gateway spacecraft that has been put on pause, which probably means it's dead, I would guess, even though some of the main contractors have put a lot of effort into it, and in fact, I think most of the Gateway already exists, but it's being put on pause. It may one day be re you know, re invigorated to take to be useful for astronauts visiting the Moon, but at the moment it's on hold. Fair enough to. I guess putting a permanent base on the Moon is going to be divisive to a lot of people don't think that's a good idea, But if Nessa doesn't do it, somebody will. That's correct, yes, and we know who it will be, probably probably, Yeah, all right. Those stories are all available via the NASA website. You can also read about the CSIRO through their own website c csiro dot au and the Space Toilet. Well, I think that's probably on every website of the popular press, but you can read about it on space dot com as well. There's a Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. Space Nuts. Now, some time ago. We did a story about a crew evacuation on the International Space Stations Station involving an astronaut, fifty nine year old Mike Finkey. At the time, it was pretty scary, but they got him back to E pronto, and there's been a bit more information released about what transpired. However, we still don't know exactly what happened to him. That's right. We really only found out very recently that that's the identity of the astronaut who caused that evacuation back in January. Might think he as you've said, or think he apparently suffered some kind of seizure. We're not sure what I might just quote. This is actually a fizz dot org article. It's probably quoting NASA material. He was just eating dinner on January the seventh, after getting ready for a space walk the next day. When he could not talk. Suddenly lost the ability to talk and said he remembers no pain, but his anxious crewmates of quoting here jumped into action after seeing him in distress and requested help from flight surgeons on the ground. Fink said it was completely out of the blue. It was just amazingly quick, and said he the episode. Sorry, The episode lasted about twenty minutes. He felt perfectly okay afterwards and still does. Has never experienced anything like that before or since. Things that have been ruled. Out are a heart attack and probably some other, you know, stroke type symptoms, things of that kind. Yeah, they ruled out choking, Yes, yes, but yeah. There's a lot of theory going around as to what it could have been, Whether it was something to do with his physiological response to being in space for so long because he's been up there a few times. One of the suspicions is a clotting issue. One of the other. Suggestions is some kind of issue in the spine that might have affected him, but it's all theory. They don't actually know at this point what happened. One thing that is being done is checking NASA, checking the as thoroughly checking the astronauts. Oh sorry, the medical records of other astronauts who've flown on the International Space Station, because it's the total number now is probably five hundred or so. I can't the number of people have been into space, just to see whether there's any other related instances, anything similar to. This in any way. The you know, the there is an issue here, and once again quoting from fizz dot org, the astronauts said he can't provide any more details about his medical episode. The Space agency wants to make sure that other astronauts do not feel that their medical privacy will be compromised if something happens to them, which is completely fair enough. Yeah, he's apparently he's stopped apologizing to everybody after he was ordered to stop by Jonah Isaacman, the NASA boss. This wasn't you, this was space, right, His colleagues assured him. You didn't let anybody down. No, we're human. These things happen, and you've got to remember what a hostile environment space is it's not friendly, and it won't be the last time something happens to somebody in space, I don't doubt, because more and more and more and more people are going to end up in space doing whatever. There'll probably be a McDonald's up there one day. But things will happen. It's just whenever you expose yourself to a hostile environment, something's got to give occasionally. And the good news is he's alive and well and it seems to be okay now. But what happened, how it happened. I suppose they'll just keep investigating and maybe come up with an answer at some stage. I think the sad part for him is that he may well be grounded now. Yeah, it's apparently it's still hopeful of flowing again, as I'm sure all astronauts are, but yes, he might be grounded. That's right. It might just be seen as a step too far. What surprises me, Andrew, is that we've found out anything about this at all, because NASA was completely silent about who was involved and what the issue was. It wasn't an emergency, but it was something that they felt they needed to get the astronauts onto the ground quickly. What I didn't know. As well is that there's a portable ultrasell machine on the PlayStation. Yeah, they've got some gear upby got some gear up there, that's right. Yeah, which probably was handy, so it would have ruled out a few things immediately. But yeah, the good news is he's back in the land of the living. Well, he never left, but we still don't know what happened. But if you want to read about it, you can find that story at fizz dot org. This is space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. Space Nuts. All right, our final story, Fred, is a real astronomical story with the discovery of what they're claiming is the second generation star. So look straight up, what is the second generation star? Well, the first generation star will be one of the first generation of stars formed in the universe. So after the Big Bang, the universe was well, it was a hot plasma for quite a while, cooled off, leaving basically called hydrogen and some helium and a few other trace elements. But it was the hydrogen collapsing on itself in clouds that led to the first stars being formed. So that will be the first generation of stars. The second generation would form as a result of the first generation of stars coming to an end or more gas clouds collapsing. But the trace thing is, and this is how astronomers are suspicious that this object. By the way, it's called pick two five zero three, which I quite like. It's in a what's called an ultra faint dwarf galaxy, one of the galaxies in orbit around our own Milky Way galaxy, and it's a very faint galaxy. Indeed, it's what gives away its second generationness, if I can put it that way, is elements which are found in its atmosphere which would have been produced by super and over explosions of first generation stars. So a super and over explosion is when a star collapses at the end of its short life. It's burned up all its hydrogen fuel, it's been generating other elements. It collapses, there's an explosion, and a lot of debris spread into space. Some of that forms the next generation of stars. This is a process that's still going on today, this process of enrichment of the what's called the interstellar medium, the gas between the stars. So that enrichment of that, you know, of that second generation star formation region included chemicals that could only have been produced in a first generation star explosion, and it's all about the ratios of iron and calcium and things of that sort. Okay, well that answers my next question. So I guess the question that follows that is this has made news obviously because this is not something we find every day. Is it a rare find? It is very rare. Yes, it's not unprecedented. I think there's at least one more hypothesized second generation star in a dwarf galaxy. This, however, is particularly old. So the second generation probably you know, went over a period of time, a few hundred million years perhaps, but what we're seeing here is something that happened right at the beginning of that process. So the observations were well, the star itself was discovered in Chile on a telescope not that different from our angle Australian telescope here in Australia. And it's something that people who do stellar astronomy astronomy looking at stars and studying the stars, they are always interested in looking out for these what are called very metal poor stars. Now, a metal two an astronomer is anything other than hydrogen and helium. It's all the heavier elements. So you know, carbons are metal, and silicons are metal, oxygen things of that, So oxygen's are metal too. Yes, sounds completely counterintuitive, but it's an old terminology that came at the beginning of spectroscopy astronomical spectroscopy in the eighteen eighteen sixties seventies. We've called them metals ever since, even though by you know, our normal terminology, they're not metals. But so stars which don't have much of iron or calcium or oxygen or anything like that are called metal poor and the search for metal poor stars is a very active area of stellar astronomers, involving some of the scientists I know very well because I used to work with on work with them on similar projects. So what general star would our sun be? Yeah, that's a great question. We don't know the answer to that, but it's it's the Sun's atmosphere is at a fairly high level of enrichment in terms of you know, what it's telling us about the gas climate when it was born four point six billion years ago, so it would be a late generation of stars, and I guess I don't know. It's a good question. Andrew, we're probably talking about dozens of generations rather than just four or five or something like that, since the Big Bang amazing. We don't want to be too old, because if it's too old, then you know, it might give up the ghost sooner than we want. No, that's right, it's already doing quite well. It's at an earlier stage in it's life than I am in mine. I think that's probably the way to put it. I think for most of us, if that's the case. Yes, that's right, all right, very interesting news a second generation star. You can read all about it at Sciencenews dot org, or you can find the paper which is available at Nature Astronomy. It's called Pick two five oh three if you want to check it out. That just about brings us to the end. Fred, Thank you so much. That's very exciting show this week. We might have a little more exciting one next week. Lots and lots and lots of things to talk about, and lots of amazing things happening yes here and beyond. So yeah, good one, real good one. Thanks Fred. We'll catch you on the next episode coming soon. Thank you, Andrew, See you then, Professor Fred. Wat's an astronomer at large and not forget to visit us online. Or on social media. We're on Instagram, We're on Facebook, We're on something else. I can't remember. Oh that X thing near We're on that. Or you can visit our website space nuts dot io and have a look around. Visit the shop, click on the supporter link, or send us a question or a comment through the Ask Me Anything tab at the top. Yes. All available at Space nuts podcast dot com or space nuts dot io. And thanks to here in the studio. Who couldn't be with us today Being an ex radio man, he thinks he's a first generation star. It just makes him very slow. He couldn't get here in time. And from me Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company. We'll see you on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye Byepacenuts. You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream on demand at bides dot com. This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.