SGU Episode 896: Difference between revisions
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'''E:''' Good evening folks! ''(applause)''--> | '''E:''' Good evening folks! ''(applause)''--> | ||
[00:09.840 --> 00:13.440] Hello and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, | |||
[00:13.440 --> 00:17.360] September 7th, 2022, and this is your host, Stephen Novella. | |||
[00:17.360 --> 00:19.840] Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey, everybody. | |||
[00:19.840 --> 00:21.760] Kara Santamaria. Howdy. | |||
[00:21.760 --> 00:23.280] Jay Novella. Hey, guys. | |||
[00:23.280 --> 00:26.400] And Evan Bernstein. Good evening, everyone. | |||
[00:26.400 --> 00:32.400] So we had this scrubbing of the second launch date for the Artemis 1. | |||
[00:32.400 --> 00:35.120] Why do they keep doing that to us? Frustrating. | |||
[00:35.120 --> 00:39.280] Yeah, so, I mean, the first, you know, this was supposed to fly in 2017. | |||
[00:39.280 --> 00:44.720] This is now a five-year rolling delay in terms of getting this thing off the ground. | |||
[00:44.720 --> 00:49.200] But yeah, so on last Monday or Tuesday, I think it was Monday, | |||
[00:49.200 --> 00:51.120] they were going to try to do a launch. | |||
[00:51.120 --> 00:55.040] They had a temperature problem in the engines, | |||
[00:55.040 --> 00:58.720] and then it turned out they couldn't fix it within the launch window, | |||
[00:58.720 --> 01:01.440] so they had to scrub. Turned out it was a faulty sensor. | |||
[01:01.440 --> 01:04.880] Everything was fine, but whatever, one faulty sensor scrubs a launch. | |||
[01:05.760 --> 01:08.640] So they rescheduled it for Saturday, and then on Saturday, | |||
[01:08.640 --> 01:10.400] they had actually a more serious problem. | |||
[01:10.400 --> 01:12.640] I'm not sure why they didn't have the same problem on Monday. | |||
[01:12.640 --> 01:16.800] They had a hydrogen leak from the liquid hydrogen gassing. | |||
[01:16.800 --> 01:19.120] Now, this is a serious problem because... | |||
[01:19.120 --> 01:21.600] Yeah. You don't f*** around with hydrogen, man. | |||
[01:21.600 --> 01:26.560] If it gets too, if the percentage of hydrogen outside the tank gets too high, | |||
[01:26.560 --> 01:29.520] there's a chance that it could explode, you know, when the ship takes off, | |||
[01:29.520 --> 01:30.880] which would be bad, right? | |||
[01:30.880 --> 01:33.840] You don't want the explosion to be happening outside of the tank. | |||
[01:33.840 --> 01:35.920] Oh, what do they call that? There's a name for that. | |||
[01:35.920 --> 01:37.120] Catastrophic failure? | |||
[01:37.120 --> 01:37.760] No, no, no. | |||
[01:37.760 --> 01:39.280] No, you're right, Bob. There is a name for that. | |||
[01:40.240 --> 01:43.600] And it's hilarious. Explosive disassembly or something. | |||
[01:43.600 --> 01:44.320] Yeah, okay. | |||
[01:44.320 --> 01:46.560] That's so scary. | |||
[01:46.560 --> 01:48.960] Let's disassemble it with explosives, yay. | |||
[01:48.960 --> 01:52.640] So this is interesting. So they had to scrub that because they couldn't fix that in time. | |||
[01:52.640 --> 01:54.160] They tried a couple of things to, like, | |||
[01:54.160 --> 01:57.040] I'll change the temperature to get the seals to work, but it didn't work. | |||
[01:57.040 --> 02:01.200] They could potentially fix this problem on the launch pad, | |||
[02:01.200 --> 02:03.760] but by the time they could do that, | |||
[02:03.760 --> 02:10.640] the batteries that are needed for the abort system to work would have to be recycled. | |||
[02:10.640 --> 02:17.920] So they have to bring the ship back to the building just to swap out the abort batteries. | |||
[02:17.920 --> 02:20.240] But of course, while it's there, they'll fix everything. | |||
[02:20.240 --> 02:21.840] And they got to reset everything. | |||
[02:21.840 --> 02:23.520] It's like outside the window. | |||
[02:23.520 --> 02:26.880] So now it's like you're keeping all these plates spinning, you know? | |||
[02:26.880 --> 02:29.360] And if you don't get it to fly within a certain amount of time, | |||
[02:29.360 --> 02:32.960] you got to bring it back and reset everything, you know, and then try again. | |||
[02:32.960 --> 02:36.800] So now the earliest, they haven't set a new launch date yet as this recording, | |||
[02:36.800 --> 02:38.560] but the earliest would be mid-October. | |||
[02:38.560 --> 02:39.600] It would be like six weeks. | |||
[02:39.600 --> 02:41.360] October 2023. | |||
[02:41.360 --> 02:42.480] Yeah, 2022. | |||
[02:42.480 --> 02:43.680] Oh, okay. | |||
[02:43.680 --> 02:48.160] We did talk about it briefly during the live show, Jane. | |||
[02:48.160 --> 02:51.440] You brought up the fact that you've heard some criticism. | |||
[02:51.440 --> 02:54.160] So I did a deeper dive on it because I've heard some criticism too, | |||
[02:54.160 --> 02:55.520] and I wanted to know where that was. | |||
[02:55.520 --> 02:59.440] The bottom line is that it's just really expensive, you know? | |||
[02:59.440 --> 03:04.160] They're spending, you know, $150 billion to get this thing up. | |||
[03:04.160 --> 03:11.680] It's going to cost a billion dollars or $2 billion a launch just for the launch fees itself. | |||
[03:11.680 --> 03:14.000] If you amortize the development cost, | |||
[03:14.000 --> 03:17.440] it's going to be between four and five billion dollars per launch, | |||
[03:18.400 --> 03:22.720] and they only have the infrastructure to launch one a year. | |||
[03:22.720 --> 03:24.080] That's all we're going to get out of it. | |||
[03:24.080 --> 03:26.080] One launch a year, and at the end of the day, | |||
[03:26.080 --> 03:29.840] it's probably going to be at like four to five billion dollars per launch. | |||
[03:29.840 --> 03:32.160] So that's mainly where the criticism is coming from. | |||
[03:32.160 --> 03:32.880] It's expensive. | |||
[03:33.520 --> 03:37.120] It's not really going to be able to do that many launches. | |||
[03:37.120 --> 03:40.480] But you got to keep in mind that you go back to 2011 | |||
[03:40.480 --> 03:42.960] when they canceled the Constellation program, | |||
[03:42.960 --> 03:47.360] which is the predecessor to the Space Launch System, the SLS, | |||
[03:47.360 --> 03:51.280] and also that was the end of the life of the space shuttle. | |||
[03:51.280 --> 03:54.640] So we had no, basically, no rockets to go up. | |||
[03:54.640 --> 04:00.160] So at that time, the Obama administration basically made a bargain with NASA. | |||
[04:00.160 --> 04:06.480] They said, okay, we will fund the SLS program for deep space, | |||
[04:06.480 --> 04:10.800] but you are going to contract out low Earth orbit to private industry. | |||
[04:10.800 --> 04:11.680] So that's what they did. | |||
[04:12.480 --> 04:15.920] And that's where SpaceX comes from and like Blue Origin, all these companies. | |||
[04:15.920 --> 04:17.040] So that worked out really well. | |||
[04:17.040 --> 04:21.120] The low Earth orbit, you know, and SpaceX worked out tremendously well, | |||
[04:21.120 --> 04:25.440] but they're kind of hobbled with this really over budget, delayed, | |||
[04:25.440 --> 04:29.680] really expensive SLS, you know, heavy launch system. | |||
[04:30.400 --> 04:34.400] And, you know, now looking back 11 years later, | |||
[04:34.400 --> 04:37.360] it's like, you know, there's nothing innovative about it. | |||
[04:37.360 --> 04:45.040] It's not reusable, you know, and the SpaceX is basically completely leapfrogged over it. | |||
[04:45.040 --> 04:47.600] So I think that's where a lot of the criticism comes from. | |||
[04:47.600 --> 04:50.560] But still, here we are, you know, it's going to get us to the moon. | |||
[04:50.560 --> 04:53.760] You also have to keep in mind that at the other end of the spectrum, | |||
[04:54.400 --> 04:56.800] the Artemis program, not the SLS, | |||
[04:56.800 --> 05:00.640] but the Artemis program was originally planned for 2028. | |||
[05:00.640 --> 05:04.720] Well, to the moon, right, to be back on the moon in 2028. | |||
[05:04.720 --> 05:08.160] That's Artemis mission, not the SLS system, right? | |||
[05:08.160 --> 05:09.280] So not the rocket. | |||
[05:09.280 --> 05:15.520] But the Artemis mission was moved up from 2028 to 2024 by the Trump administration. | |||
[05:15.520 --> 05:18.400] And then it's now pushed back to 2025. | |||
[05:18.400 --> 05:20.880] That's still three years ahead of schedule. | |||
[05:20.880 --> 05:22.080] Of original schedule, yes. | |||
[05:22.080 --> 05:23.120] Original schedule. | |||
[05:23.120 --> 05:26.320] And nobody ever thought that the 2024 thing was realistic. | |||
[05:26.320 --> 05:28.640] NASA was like, this is just not going to be like, OK, sure, right. | |||
[05:28.640 --> 05:32.560] But they knew politically it sounded good, but never going to happen. | |||
[05:32.560 --> 05:35.120] So, all right, we're still on track to get back to the moon | |||
[05:35.120 --> 05:36.720] by the middle of this decade. | |||
[05:36.720 --> 05:39.360] And hopefully, you know, the SLS will work out. | |||
[05:39.360 --> 05:40.720] Artemis will launch. | |||
[05:40.720 --> 05:43.760] It's obviously I'd rather have them scrub for six weeks | |||
[05:43.760 --> 05:45.200] and have the thing blow up on the pad. | |||
[05:45.200 --> 05:46.800] That would be a disaster. | |||
[05:46.800 --> 05:47.840] My gosh. | |||
[05:47.840 --> 05:51.760] What I do think is that NASA should already be planning | |||
[05:51.760 --> 05:53.760] the successor of the SLS, though. | |||
[05:54.960 --> 05:55.200] Right. | |||
[05:55.200 --> 05:55.920] I mean, they shouldn't. | |||
[05:55.920 --> 05:59.040] Well, the SLS is expensive to fly. | |||
[05:59.040 --> 06:01.600] And it's like, you know, it's not reusable. | |||
[06:01.600 --> 06:03.440] It's not efficient or whatever. | |||
[06:04.000 --> 06:06.000] They should probably just contract out, you know, | |||
[06:06.000 --> 06:09.360] to the private space industry now to develop the next thing | |||
[06:09.360 --> 06:12.320] that's going to be able to get to the moon and to Mars | |||
[06:12.960 --> 06:14.720] and not try to do it themselves. | |||
[06:14.720 --> 06:15.440] You know what I mean? | |||
[06:16.000 --> 06:16.560] Yeah. | |||
[06:16.560 --> 06:19.760] Yeah, I mean, that's a really hard thing to predict, Steve. | |||
[06:19.760 --> 06:22.800] You know, first of all, we don't know how well the SLS is going to work. | |||
[06:22.800 --> 06:26.640] It seems like private industry is going to work out better | |||
[06:26.640 --> 06:28.880] than NASA owning their own rockets at this point. | |||
[06:28.880 --> 06:29.920] Don't you agree? | |||
[06:29.920 --> 06:32.160] I mean, for low Earth orbit, it's worked out really well. | |||
[06:32.800 --> 06:34.720] You know, that was sort of the division of labor. | |||
[06:34.720 --> 06:37.120] They would let private industry handle low Earth orbit | |||
[06:37.120 --> 06:39.040] and then NASA will do deep space, right? | |||
[06:39.040 --> 06:40.720] Go back to the moon and then eventually Mars. | |||
[06:41.280 --> 06:45.360] Orion, which is NASA's capsule, that is the only spaceship | |||
[06:45.360 --> 06:47.760] that can get to the, you know, to the moon now, right? | |||
[06:47.760 --> 06:49.120] That can do deep space missions. | |||
[06:49.120 --> 06:51.680] It's rated for 21 days. | |||
[06:51.680 --> 06:54.240] It's long enough to get to the moon and back, you know what I mean? | |||
[06:54.240 --> 06:56.480] So the Dragon module can't do it? | |||
[06:56.480 --> 06:59.360] Well, according to NASA, it's the only one that's rated for, | |||
[06:59.360 --> 07:00.720] like, moon missions at this point. | |||
[07:00.720 --> 07:05.200] So they would, not that you, you know, I'm sure you could get the Dragon capsule | |||
[07:05.200 --> 07:09.280] or a version of it to the point where it would be rated for deep space, | |||
[07:09.280 --> 07:10.480] but it isn't right now. | |||
[07:11.200 --> 07:15.040] But again, they gave the contract to SpaceX, remember, for the lunar lander | |||
[07:15.040 --> 07:20.240] and Musk wants to convert the Starship into a lunar lander. | |||
[07:20.240 --> 07:22.240] Yeah, that's still on. | |||
[07:22.240 --> 07:23.760] Which is, like, weird in a way. | |||
[07:24.640 --> 07:28.080] Would that ship, Steve, leave from Earth or would it stay? | |||
[07:28.080 --> 07:29.120] Well, it'd have to, right? | |||
[07:29.120 --> 07:31.680] We're not going to build it on Earth, send it to the moon, | |||
[07:31.680 --> 07:34.560] and then it's going to land on, that's the ship that's going to land on the moon. | |||
[07:34.560 --> 07:36.560] But, you know, I think we talked about it at the time, | |||
[07:36.560 --> 07:39.360] it's like, yeah, but it's going all the way to the moon. | |||
[07:39.360 --> 07:41.760] Why don't you just make that your moon ship, you know what I mean? | |||
[07:41.760 --> 07:46.800] Like, why are you going to take the SLS to the moon, then hop on over into the Starship | |||
[07:46.800 --> 07:49.120] to go down, to land down on the moon? | |||
[07:49.120 --> 07:49.680] I don't know. | |||
[07:49.680 --> 07:51.680] I don't know exactly how that's going to work. | |||
[07:51.680 --> 07:56.320] So, okay, so it is that way, that ship is going to basically ferry people | |||
[07:56.320 --> 08:00.400] from low moon orbit to the surface. | |||
[08:00.400 --> 08:01.440] Yes, that's right. | |||
[08:01.440 --> 08:04.480] And it stays out there and they just refuel it and keep reusing it. | |||
[08:04.480 --> 08:05.520] I guess so. | |||
[08:05.520 --> 08:08.560] Steve, I'm hoping that the next thing that will be developed | |||
[08:08.560 --> 08:14.720] will be a deep space nuclear rocket, because they're developing nuclear rockets for cislunar. | |||
[08:14.720 --> 08:17.920] Now, they won't be really rated for beyond cislunar, right? | |||
[08:17.920 --> 08:20.960] They really won't be designed to go beyond the moon. | |||
[08:20.960 --> 08:25.680] But, and this is why NASA is working with them on this, once they have it, | |||
[08:25.680 --> 08:29.040] then the homework, you know, the foundational homework will be done, | |||
[08:29.040 --> 08:32.880] and then NASA could take that and then extend it and then make it, | |||
[08:32.880 --> 08:34.640] you know, for a much deeper space. | |||
[08:34.640 --> 08:36.320] So that's my hope. | |||
[08:36.320 --> 08:40.400] That's my hope. The question is, is it going to be the next gen deep space, | |||
[08:40.400 --> 08:41.920] or is it going to be the one after that? | |||
[08:42.560 --> 08:48.560] Well, maybe just like let private companies handle just the heavy lift rockets | |||
[08:48.560 --> 08:49.600] that get you to the moon. | |||
[08:50.240 --> 08:54.560] And NASA just completely focuses on developing nuclear rockets. | |||
[08:54.560 --> 08:57.120] Yeah, shit man, I'd be, I'm all for that. | |||
[08:57.120 --> 08:58.400] Because that's the next thing we need. | |||
[08:58.400 --> 09:01.680] And chemical rockets are just so inefficient, you know, | |||
[09:01.680 --> 09:04.560] like it's just not the way to get to Mars and back. | |||
[09:04.560 --> 09:11.760] No, anything beyond the moon, and chemical rockets are just going to be marginalized. | |||
[09:11.760 --> 09:14.080] I mean, of course, now I'm thinking much deeper into the future, | |||
[09:14.080 --> 09:16.880] but as we, as the decades and centuries accrue, | |||
[09:17.760 --> 09:21.360] chemical is really going to be just like maybe for Earth launch. | |||
[09:21.360 --> 09:22.160] And that's it. | |||
[09:22.160 --> 09:25.120] Getting out of Earth's gravity well, that's pretty much going to be it. | |||
[09:25.120 --> 09:28.640] Right. But that's, you know, who knows how long that's going to take, | |||
[09:29.600 --> 09:32.880] you know, when chemical no longer has any role in deep space, | |||
[09:32.880 --> 09:35.600] because, you know, long distance rocket equation says, | |||
[09:35.600 --> 09:37.360] screw you chemical rockets. | |||
[09:37.360 --> 09:38.080] Yeah. | |||
[09:38.080 --> 09:38.640] Yeah. | |||
[09:38.640 --> 09:40.720] And then, and then eventually fusion. | |||
[09:40.720 --> 09:44.480] Once we get to fusion, then we're, that's the, that's the game. | |||
[09:44.480 --> 09:45.440] Started man, that's good. | |||
[09:45.440 --> 09:45.920] Yeah. | |||
[09:45.920 --> 09:46.800] And what's interesting is- | |||
[09:46.800 --> 09:49.200] Especially the hydrogen proton proton fusion engine. | |||
[09:49.200 --> 09:54.640] Once we develop fusion engines, that's going to be our engines forever. | |||
[09:54.640 --> 10:00.080] Like there's the probability that anything will replace it is so remote. | |||
[10:00.080 --> 10:05.200] Like we don't know if it will ever happen and if it does, it will be in the distant far future. | |||
[10:05.200 --> 10:05.600] Right. | |||
[10:05.600 --> 10:08.560] So that's the brass ring right there. | |||
[10:08.560 --> 10:11.360] Well, for reaction rockets, yes. | |||
[10:11.360 --> 10:16.080] I think that's going to be it for quite, for potentially centuries. | |||
[10:16.080 --> 10:18.560] And you could do an amazing amount of things- | |||
[10:18.560 --> 10:19.520] I think thousands of years. | |||
[10:19.520 --> 10:21.920] With, with, that's silly. | |||
[10:21.920 --> 10:22.960] Technically centuries too. | |||
[10:22.960 --> 10:23.840] But that's, yeah. | |||
[10:23.840 --> 10:24.960] But that's, yeah. | |||
[10:24.960 --> 10:28.320] I mean, even the best we can do with that type of reaction rocket, | |||
[10:28.320 --> 10:31.120] say a fusion hydrogen proton proton, which is really efficient, | |||
[10:31.120 --> 10:34.960] like say 11%, 11% speed of light exhaust velocity. | |||
[10:34.960 --> 10:40.400] That is, you could still do, you know, 20% the speed of light with that type of rocket. | |||
[10:40.400 --> 10:45.040] And if you don't care about cargo at all, you can get that rocket up to 50% the speed of light. | |||
[10:45.680 --> 10:49.520] But then cargo of course becomes literally a millionth of the payload, | |||
[10:49.520 --> 10:52.720] but still 10%, 20% the speed of light with a super advanced- | |||
[10:52.720 --> 10:58.560] Give it a bob, you add, add a little bit of light sails and then that'll get you. | |||
[10:58.560 --> 10:58.880] Yes. | |||
[10:58.880 --> 10:59.680] That'll get you there. | |||
[10:59.680 --> 11:01.840] So that's going to be light sails and fusion. | |||
[11:01.840 --> 11:02.720] That's going to be space travel. | |||
[11:02.720 --> 11:06.880] That seems to be, I think that's pretty much where we're going for centuries. | |||
[11:06.880 --> 11:10.960] Unless an ASI, artificial super intelligence, rises and then all bets are off. | |||
[11:10.960 --> 11:16.880] But even then, he or she would be constrained to, to the physics, to physics as we know it. | |||
[11:16.880 --> 11:19.280] And even, even, you know, the ASI might say, | |||
[11:19.280 --> 11:22.640] damn man, this is the best I could do, but it's still going to be cool. | |||
[11:22.640 --> 11:24.560] Yeah. It's almost as if we wrote a whole book about it. | |||
[11:24.560 --> 11:24.720] Yeah. | |||
[11:26.560 --> 11:30.560] It's almost as if I just did a deep dive research on it because I talked about it at Dragon Con. | |||
[11:31.200 --> 11:31.680] Dragon Con. | |||
[11:31.680 --> 11:32.480] How was Dragon Con? | |||
[11:33.040 --> 11:33.920] It was great. | |||
[11:33.920 --> 11:39.360] Liz and I went first time in three years and I know you guys were just so wicked jealous. | |||
[11:39.360 --> 11:40.000] It was great. | |||
[11:40.000 --> 11:40.560] Totally. | |||
[11:40.560 --> 11:42.160] It was pretty much as we remember it. | |||
[11:42.160 --> 11:45.840] Amazing costumes, amazing fun, lots of people. | |||
[11:45.840 --> 11:50.160] And pretty much, I was double masked for like four days in a row | |||
[11:50.160 --> 11:55.680] and I took a, took a test today and totally clean, no, totally negative. | |||
[11:55.680 --> 11:59.360] So I think I totally, you know, got away with it totally. | |||
[12:00.400 --> 12:01.040] I did a talk. | |||
[12:01.040 --> 12:04.480] I called the science, I called, I called the science panel guys and I'm like, | |||
[12:04.480 --> 12:07.840] I want to do the future of rockets. | |||
[12:07.840 --> 12:10.880] And they'd made a panel with like five guys and I was one of them. | |||
[12:10.880 --> 12:12.320] And I just went off. | |||
[12:12.320 --> 12:14.480] I did a deep dive for weeks. | |||
[12:14.480 --> 12:17.840] For weeks I did a deep dive just to refresh my memory and all the research that I had | |||
[12:17.840 --> 12:20.880] done for the chapter of the book about future rockets. | |||
[12:20.880 --> 12:21.920] And I got it down, man. | |||
[12:21.920 --> 12:26.880] I made an awesome bullet list of all the top, the top things that I needed to keep straight | |||
[12:26.880 --> 12:27.440] in my head. | |||
[12:27.440 --> 12:29.680] And it was so much fun to research. | |||
[12:29.680 --> 12:34.000] And there was a great panel, great panel, great fellow panelists with me. | |||
[12:34.000 --> 12:36.960] They were all very knowledgeable and it was great. | |||
[12:36.960 --> 12:38.880] But also I did some skeptical stuff. | |||
[12:38.880 --> 12:40.240] I talked about the two books. | |||
[12:40.240 --> 12:45.760] I did a, I did a one man show on stage on the skeptical track and I was like, oh boy, | |||
[12:45.760 --> 12:46.960] this is scary. | |||
[12:46.960 --> 12:47.840] But it was fine. | |||
[12:47.840 --> 12:48.640] It was fine. | |||
[12:48.640 --> 12:52.160] I just, I just went off on the books and then I started talking about rockets again. | |||
[12:52.160 --> 12:52.960] And then that was it. | |||
[12:52.960 --> 12:54.400] I was in my happy place. | |||
[12:54.960 --> 12:56.560] And, uh, totally great. | |||
[12:56.560 --> 13:00.160] Bob, totally utterly, absolutely. | |||
[13:00.160 --> 13:04.560] Indubitably your solo talk was basically like a pared down news item for Bob. | |||
[13:04.560 --> 13:06.080] Yeah, that's basically what it was. | |||
[13:06.880 --> 13:07.520] It was great. | |||
[13:07.520 --> 13:13.760] And, uh, so many, as usual, so many great costumes, the talent on display at Dragon | |||
[13:13.760 --> 13:19.840] Con blows me away every time I go and I'm determined next year to have an awesome homemade | |||
[13:19.840 --> 13:21.520] costume, which I didn't have this year. | |||
[13:22.320 --> 13:22.480] Yeah. | |||
[13:22.480 --> 13:24.240] We haven't been, I've been what, in four years now. | |||
[13:24.240 --> 13:26.480] It'll be, we're definitely going to make a plan to go next year. | |||
[13:27.120 --> 13:27.440] Yeah. | |||
[13:27.440 --> 13:28.800] I mean, we were fine. | |||
[13:28.800 --> 13:30.480] Pandemic willing, but I hopefully will. | |||
[13:30.480 --> 13:30.720] Yeah. | |||
[13:30.720 --> 13:31.200] It's time. | |||
[13:31.200 --> 13:33.360] I mean, as long as things are good, we gotta go. | |||
[13:33.360 --> 13:36.960] We were surrounded at times by thousands of people. | |||
[13:36.960 --> 13:39.840] And at a couple of times I was like, this is uncomfortable. | |||
[13:40.560 --> 13:44.080] But I had my double masks, you know, I held my breath a lot. | |||
[13:44.640 --> 13:46.000] And it, and I'm fine. | |||
[13:46.000 --> 13:48.720] Both Liz and I are both, you know, totally testing negative. | |||
[13:48.720 --> 13:50.400] And it's been many, it's been days. | |||
[13:50.400 --> 13:51.200] So it's doable. | |||
[13:51.200 --> 13:53.760] Just, you know, you just, you know, you could take it easy. | |||
[13:53.760 --> 13:57.840] You don't have to go into the big shoulder to shoulder crowds, um, you know? | |||
[13:57.840 --> 13:58.320] And, uh, it's totally doable. | |||
[13:58.320 --> 14:00.400] How about the, uh, the merch room? | |||
[14:00.400 --> 14:00.800] Oh yeah. | |||
[14:00.800 --> 14:02.640] That was, that was, you know, it was Christmas. | |||
[14:02.640 --> 14:04.080] I'm, I'm walking towards it. | |||
[14:04.080 --> 14:04.240] Yeah. | |||
[14:04.240 --> 14:04.720] But how was it? | |||
[14:04.720 --> 14:06.320] Was there a shoulder to shoulder in there? | |||
[14:06.320 --> 14:07.200] No, no. | |||
[14:07.200 --> 14:10.400] The first day, the first day it opened where I was like waiting for it. | |||
[14:10.400 --> 14:13.360] And it was, it was, there's four floors, as you know. | |||
[14:13.360 --> 14:17.680] And, uh, it was not shoulder to shoulder craziness at that, that the first few hours that I was | |||
[14:17.680 --> 14:18.400] there. | |||
[14:18.400 --> 14:20.080] And, uh, so that's, so that was fine too. | |||
[14:20.080 --> 14:21.680] I was worried about that as well. | |||
[14:21.680 --> 14:26.160] By the way, one last detail I've got to mention about the Orion capsule is that it's not just | |||
[14:26.160 --> 14:27.920] that it's rated for 21 days. | |||
[14:27.920 --> 14:32.800] When you come back from the moon, you reenter the atmosphere much faster than when you, | |||
[14:32.800 --> 14:35.520] than when you're just coming down from low earth orbit. | |||
[14:35.520 --> 14:39.360] And so the capsule has to be rated for high speed reentry. | |||
[14:39.360 --> 14:39.680] Yeah. | |||
[14:39.680 --> 14:43.360] And I think the, the Orion capsule is the only one that could do that. | |||
[14:43.360 --> 14:48.400] So like the dragon capsule would really need to be redesigned or refitted to be a high | |||
[14:48.400 --> 14:49.360] speed reentry. | |||
[14:49.360 --> 14:51.520] That's yeah, that's, yeah, that's major. | |||
[14:51.520 --> 14:53.200] You're not going to just slap on duct tape. | |||
[14:53.200 --> 14:56.160] That's like a major event, major redesign. | |||
[14:56.160 --> 14:56.960] I'm sure they could. | |||
[14:56.960 --> 14:57.360] Yeah. | |||
[14:57.360 --> 14:57.520] Yeah. | |||
[14:57.520 --> 14:58.880] But I'm sure they could do it if they wanted to. | |||
[14:58.880 --> 15:02.480] All right, Bob, um, you're going to start us off with a quickie. | |||
[15:02.480 --> 15:05.200] You're going to tell us about Frank Drake. | |||
[15:05.200 --> 15:06.320] Thank you, Steve. | |||
{{anchor|quickie}} <!-- leave this anchor directly above the corresponding section that follows --> | {{anchor|quickie}} <!-- leave this anchor directly above the corresponding section that follows --> | ||
== Quickie with Bob: Frank Drake <small>(15:00)</small> == | == Quickie with Bob: Frank Drake <small>(15:00)</small> == | ||
* Frank Drake passes away [link_URL TITLE]<ref>[url_from_news_item_show_notes PUBLICATION: TITLE]</ref> | * Frank Drake passes away [link_URL TITLE]<ref>[url_from_news_item_show_notes PUBLICATION: TITLE]</ref> |
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SGU Episode 896 |
---|
September 10th 2022 |
depiction of Chicxulub meteor |
Skeptical Rogues |
S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
C: Cara Santa Maria |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
Quote of the Week |
A good ghost story may hold entertainment and even cultural value, but the popular portrayal of pseudoscientific practices as science may be detracting from efforts to cultivate a scientifically literate public. |
Micheal Knees, American engineering psychologist |
Links |
Download Podcast |
Show Notes |
Forum Discussion |
Introduction, another Artemis launch scrubbed
Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
[00:09.840 --> 00:13.440] Hello and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday,
[00:13.440 --> 00:17.360] September 7th, 2022, and this is your host, Stephen Novella.
[00:17.360 --> 00:19.840] Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey, everybody.
[00:19.840 --> 00:21.760] Kara Santamaria. Howdy.
[00:21.760 --> 00:23.280] Jay Novella. Hey, guys.
[00:23.280 --> 00:26.400] And Evan Bernstein. Good evening, everyone.
[00:26.400 --> 00:32.400] So we had this scrubbing of the second launch date for the Artemis 1.
[00:32.400 --> 00:35.120] Why do they keep doing that to us? Frustrating.
[00:35.120 --> 00:39.280] Yeah, so, I mean, the first, you know, this was supposed to fly in 2017.
[00:39.280 --> 00:44.720] This is now a five-year rolling delay in terms of getting this thing off the ground.
[00:44.720 --> 00:49.200] But yeah, so on last Monday or Tuesday, I think it was Monday,
[00:49.200 --> 00:51.120] they were going to try to do a launch.
[00:51.120 --> 00:55.040] They had a temperature problem in the engines,
[00:55.040 --> 00:58.720] and then it turned out they couldn't fix it within the launch window,
[00:58.720 --> 01:01.440] so they had to scrub. Turned out it was a faulty sensor.
[01:01.440 --> 01:04.880] Everything was fine, but whatever, one faulty sensor scrubs a launch.
[01:05.760 --> 01:08.640] So they rescheduled it for Saturday, and then on Saturday,
[01:08.640 --> 01:10.400] they had actually a more serious problem.
[01:10.400 --> 01:12.640] I'm not sure why they didn't have the same problem on Monday.
[01:12.640 --> 01:16.800] They had a hydrogen leak from the liquid hydrogen gassing.
[01:16.800 --> 01:19.120] Now, this is a serious problem because...
[01:19.120 --> 01:21.600] Yeah. You don't f*** around with hydrogen, man.
[01:21.600 --> 01:26.560] If it gets too, if the percentage of hydrogen outside the tank gets too high,
[01:26.560 --> 01:29.520] there's a chance that it could explode, you know, when the ship takes off,
[01:29.520 --> 01:30.880] which would be bad, right?
[01:30.880 --> 01:33.840] You don't want the explosion to be happening outside of the tank.
[01:33.840 --> 01:35.920] Oh, what do they call that? There's a name for that.
[01:35.920 --> 01:37.120] Catastrophic failure?
[01:37.120 --> 01:37.760] No, no, no.
[01:37.760 --> 01:39.280] No, you're right, Bob. There is a name for that.
[01:40.240 --> 01:43.600] And it's hilarious. Explosive disassembly or something.
[01:43.600 --> 01:44.320] Yeah, okay.
[01:44.320 --> 01:46.560] That's so scary.
[01:46.560 --> 01:48.960] Let's disassemble it with explosives, yay.
[01:48.960 --> 01:52.640] So this is interesting. So they had to scrub that because they couldn't fix that in time.
[01:52.640 --> 01:54.160] They tried a couple of things to, like,
[01:54.160 --> 01:57.040] I'll change the temperature to get the seals to work, but it didn't work.
[01:57.040 --> 02:01.200] They could potentially fix this problem on the launch pad,
[02:01.200 --> 02:03.760] but by the time they could do that,
[02:03.760 --> 02:10.640] the batteries that are needed for the abort system to work would have to be recycled.
[02:10.640 --> 02:17.920] So they have to bring the ship back to the building just to swap out the abort batteries.
[02:17.920 --> 02:20.240] But of course, while it's there, they'll fix everything.
[02:20.240 --> 02:21.840] And they got to reset everything.
[02:21.840 --> 02:23.520] It's like outside the window.
[02:23.520 --> 02:26.880] So now it's like you're keeping all these plates spinning, you know?
[02:26.880 --> 02:29.360] And if you don't get it to fly within a certain amount of time,
[02:29.360 --> 02:32.960] you got to bring it back and reset everything, you know, and then try again.
[02:32.960 --> 02:36.800] So now the earliest, they haven't set a new launch date yet as this recording,
[02:36.800 --> 02:38.560] but the earliest would be mid-October.
[02:38.560 --> 02:39.600] It would be like six weeks.
[02:39.600 --> 02:41.360] October 2023.
[02:41.360 --> 02:42.480] Yeah, 2022.
[02:42.480 --> 02:43.680] Oh, okay.
[02:43.680 --> 02:48.160] We did talk about it briefly during the live show, Jane.
[02:48.160 --> 02:51.440] You brought up the fact that you've heard some criticism.
[02:51.440 --> 02:54.160] So I did a deeper dive on it because I've heard some criticism too,
[02:54.160 --> 02:55.520] and I wanted to know where that was.
[02:55.520 --> 02:59.440] The bottom line is that it's just really expensive, you know?
[02:59.440 --> 03:04.160] They're spending, you know, $150 billion to get this thing up.
[03:04.160 --> 03:11.680] It's going to cost a billion dollars or $2 billion a launch just for the launch fees itself.
[03:11.680 --> 03:14.000] If you amortize the development cost,
[03:14.000 --> 03:17.440] it's going to be between four and five billion dollars per launch,
[03:18.400 --> 03:22.720] and they only have the infrastructure to launch one a year.
[03:22.720 --> 03:24.080] That's all we're going to get out of it.
[03:24.080 --> 03:26.080] One launch a year, and at the end of the day,
[03:26.080 --> 03:29.840] it's probably going to be at like four to five billion dollars per launch.
[03:29.840 --> 03:32.160] So that's mainly where the criticism is coming from.
[03:32.160 --> 03:32.880] It's expensive.
[03:33.520 --> 03:37.120] It's not really going to be able to do that many launches.
[03:37.120 --> 03:40.480] But you got to keep in mind that you go back to 2011
[03:40.480 --> 03:42.960] when they canceled the Constellation program,
[03:42.960 --> 03:47.360] which is the predecessor to the Space Launch System, the SLS,
[03:47.360 --> 03:51.280] and also that was the end of the life of the space shuttle.
[03:51.280 --> 03:54.640] So we had no, basically, no rockets to go up.
[03:54.640 --> 04:00.160] So at that time, the Obama administration basically made a bargain with NASA.
[04:00.160 --> 04:06.480] They said, okay, we will fund the SLS program for deep space,
[04:06.480 --> 04:10.800] but you are going to contract out low Earth orbit to private industry.
[04:10.800 --> 04:11.680] So that's what they did.
[04:12.480 --> 04:15.920] And that's where SpaceX comes from and like Blue Origin, all these companies.
[04:15.920 --> 04:17.040] So that worked out really well.
[04:17.040 --> 04:21.120] The low Earth orbit, you know, and SpaceX worked out tremendously well,
[04:21.120 --> 04:25.440] but they're kind of hobbled with this really over budget, delayed,
[04:25.440 --> 04:29.680] really expensive SLS, you know, heavy launch system.
[04:30.400 --> 04:34.400] And, you know, now looking back 11 years later,
[04:34.400 --> 04:37.360] it's like, you know, there's nothing innovative about it.
[04:37.360 --> 04:45.040] It's not reusable, you know, and the SpaceX is basically completely leapfrogged over it.
[04:45.040 --> 04:47.600] So I think that's where a lot of the criticism comes from.
[04:47.600 --> 04:50.560] But still, here we are, you know, it's going to get us to the moon.
[04:50.560 --> 04:53.760] You also have to keep in mind that at the other end of the spectrum,
[04:54.400 --> 04:56.800] the Artemis program, not the SLS,
[04:56.800 --> 05:00.640] but the Artemis program was originally planned for 2028.
[05:00.640 --> 05:04.720] Well, to the moon, right, to be back on the moon in 2028.
[05:04.720 --> 05:08.160] That's Artemis mission, not the SLS system, right?
[05:08.160 --> 05:09.280] So not the rocket.
[05:09.280 --> 05:15.520] But the Artemis mission was moved up from 2028 to 2024 by the Trump administration.
[05:15.520 --> 05:18.400] And then it's now pushed back to 2025.
[05:18.400 --> 05:20.880] That's still three years ahead of schedule.
[05:20.880 --> 05:22.080] Of original schedule, yes.
[05:22.080 --> 05:23.120] Original schedule.
[05:23.120 --> 05:26.320] And nobody ever thought that the 2024 thing was realistic.
[05:26.320 --> 05:28.640] NASA was like, this is just not going to be like, OK, sure, right.
[05:28.640 --> 05:32.560] But they knew politically it sounded good, but never going to happen.
[05:32.560 --> 05:35.120] So, all right, we're still on track to get back to the moon
[05:35.120 --> 05:36.720] by the middle of this decade.
[05:36.720 --> 05:39.360] And hopefully, you know, the SLS will work out.
[05:39.360 --> 05:40.720] Artemis will launch.
[05:40.720 --> 05:43.760] It's obviously I'd rather have them scrub for six weeks
[05:43.760 --> 05:45.200] and have the thing blow up on the pad.
[05:45.200 --> 05:46.800] That would be a disaster.
[05:46.800 --> 05:47.840] My gosh.
[05:47.840 --> 05:51.760] What I do think is that NASA should already be planning
[05:51.760 --> 05:53.760] the successor of the SLS, though.
[05:54.960 --> 05:55.200] Right.
[05:55.200 --> 05:55.920] I mean, they shouldn't.
[05:55.920 --> 05:59.040] Well, the SLS is expensive to fly.
[05:59.040 --> 06:01.600] And it's like, you know, it's not reusable.
[06:01.600 --> 06:03.440] It's not efficient or whatever.
[06:04.000 --> 06:06.000] They should probably just contract out, you know,
[06:06.000 --> 06:09.360] to the private space industry now to develop the next thing
[06:09.360 --> 06:12.320] that's going to be able to get to the moon and to Mars
[06:12.960 --> 06:14.720] and not try to do it themselves.
[06:14.720 --> 06:15.440] You know what I mean?
[06:16.000 --> 06:16.560] Yeah.
[06:16.560 --> 06:19.760] Yeah, I mean, that's a really hard thing to predict, Steve.
[06:19.760 --> 06:22.800] You know, first of all, we don't know how well the SLS is going to work.
[06:22.800 --> 06:26.640] It seems like private industry is going to work out better
[06:26.640 --> 06:28.880] than NASA owning their own rockets at this point.
[06:28.880 --> 06:29.920] Don't you agree?
[06:29.920 --> 06:32.160] I mean, for low Earth orbit, it's worked out really well.
[06:32.800 --> 06:34.720] You know, that was sort of the division of labor.
[06:34.720 --> 06:37.120] They would let private industry handle low Earth orbit
[06:37.120 --> 06:39.040] and then NASA will do deep space, right?
[06:39.040 --> 06:40.720] Go back to the moon and then eventually Mars.
[06:41.280 --> 06:45.360] Orion, which is NASA's capsule, that is the only spaceship
[06:45.360 --> 06:47.760] that can get to the, you know, to the moon now, right?
[06:47.760 --> 06:49.120] That can do deep space missions.
[06:49.120 --> 06:51.680] It's rated for 21 days.
[06:51.680 --> 06:54.240] It's long enough to get to the moon and back, you know what I mean?
[06:54.240 --> 06:56.480] So the Dragon module can't do it?
[06:56.480 --> 06:59.360] Well, according to NASA, it's the only one that's rated for,
[06:59.360 --> 07:00.720] like, moon missions at this point.
[07:00.720 --> 07:05.200] So they would, not that you, you know, I'm sure you could get the Dragon capsule
[07:05.200 --> 07:09.280] or a version of it to the point where it would be rated for deep space,
[07:09.280 --> 07:10.480] but it isn't right now.
[07:11.200 --> 07:15.040] But again, they gave the contract to SpaceX, remember, for the lunar lander
[07:15.040 --> 07:20.240] and Musk wants to convert the Starship into a lunar lander.
[07:20.240 --> 07:22.240] Yeah, that's still on.
[07:22.240 --> 07:23.760] Which is, like, weird in a way.
[07:24.640 --> 07:28.080] Would that ship, Steve, leave from Earth or would it stay?
[07:28.080 --> 07:29.120] Well, it'd have to, right?
[07:29.120 --> 07:31.680] We're not going to build it on Earth, send it to the moon,
[07:31.680 --> 07:34.560] and then it's going to land on, that's the ship that's going to land on the moon.
[07:34.560 --> 07:36.560] But, you know, I think we talked about it at the time,
[07:36.560 --> 07:39.360] it's like, yeah, but it's going all the way to the moon.
[07:39.360 --> 07:41.760] Why don't you just make that your moon ship, you know what I mean?
[07:41.760 --> 07:46.800] Like, why are you going to take the SLS to the moon, then hop on over into the Starship
[07:46.800 --> 07:49.120] to go down, to land down on the moon?
[07:49.120 --> 07:49.680] I don't know.
[07:49.680 --> 07:51.680] I don't know exactly how that's going to work.
[07:51.680 --> 07:56.320] So, okay, so it is that way, that ship is going to basically ferry people
[07:56.320 --> 08:00.400] from low moon orbit to the surface.
[08:00.400 --> 08:01.440] Yes, that's right.
[08:01.440 --> 08:04.480] And it stays out there and they just refuel it and keep reusing it.
[08:04.480 --> 08:05.520] I guess so.
[08:05.520 --> 08:08.560] Steve, I'm hoping that the next thing that will be developed
[08:08.560 --> 08:14.720] will be a deep space nuclear rocket, because they're developing nuclear rockets for cislunar.
[08:14.720 --> 08:17.920] Now, they won't be really rated for beyond cislunar, right?
[08:17.920 --> 08:20.960] They really won't be designed to go beyond the moon.
[08:20.960 --> 08:25.680] But, and this is why NASA is working with them on this, once they have it,
[08:25.680 --> 08:29.040] then the homework, you know, the foundational homework will be done,
[08:29.040 --> 08:32.880] and then NASA could take that and then extend it and then make it,
[08:32.880 --> 08:34.640] you know, for a much deeper space.
[08:34.640 --> 08:36.320] So that's my hope.
[08:36.320 --> 08:40.400] That's my hope. The question is, is it going to be the next gen deep space,
[08:40.400 --> 08:41.920] or is it going to be the one after that?
[08:42.560 --> 08:48.560] Well, maybe just like let private companies handle just the heavy lift rockets
[08:48.560 --> 08:49.600] that get you to the moon.
[08:50.240 --> 08:54.560] And NASA just completely focuses on developing nuclear rockets.
[08:54.560 --> 08:57.120] Yeah, shit man, I'd be, I'm all for that.
[08:57.120 --> 08:58.400] Because that's the next thing we need.
[08:58.400 --> 09:01.680] And chemical rockets are just so inefficient, you know,
[09:01.680 --> 09:04.560] like it's just not the way to get to Mars and back.
[09:04.560 --> 09:11.760] No, anything beyond the moon, and chemical rockets are just going to be marginalized.
[09:11.760 --> 09:14.080] I mean, of course, now I'm thinking much deeper into the future,
[09:14.080 --> 09:16.880] but as we, as the decades and centuries accrue,
[09:17.760 --> 09:21.360] chemical is really going to be just like maybe for Earth launch.
[09:21.360 --> 09:22.160] And that's it.
[09:22.160 --> 09:25.120] Getting out of Earth's gravity well, that's pretty much going to be it.
[09:25.120 --> 09:28.640] Right. But that's, you know, who knows how long that's going to take,
[09:29.600 --> 09:32.880] you know, when chemical no longer has any role in deep space,
[09:32.880 --> 09:35.600] because, you know, long distance rocket equation says,
[09:35.600 --> 09:37.360] screw you chemical rockets.
[09:37.360 --> 09:38.080] Yeah.
[09:38.080 --> 09:38.640] Yeah.
[09:38.640 --> 09:40.720] And then, and then eventually fusion.
[09:40.720 --> 09:44.480] Once we get to fusion, then we're, that's the, that's the game.
[09:44.480 --> 09:45.440] Started man, that's good.
[09:45.440 --> 09:45.920] Yeah.
[09:45.920 --> 09:46.800] And what's interesting is-
[09:46.800 --> 09:49.200] Especially the hydrogen proton proton fusion engine.
[09:49.200 --> 09:54.640] Once we develop fusion engines, that's going to be our engines forever.
[09:54.640 --> 10:00.080] Like there's the probability that anything will replace it is so remote.
[10:00.080 --> 10:05.200] Like we don't know if it will ever happen and if it does, it will be in the distant far future.
[10:05.200 --> 10:05.600] Right.
[10:05.600 --> 10:08.560] So that's the brass ring right there.
[10:08.560 --> 10:11.360] Well, for reaction rockets, yes.
[10:11.360 --> 10:16.080] I think that's going to be it for quite, for potentially centuries.
[10:16.080 --> 10:18.560] And you could do an amazing amount of things-
[10:18.560 --> 10:19.520] I think thousands of years.
[10:19.520 --> 10:21.920] With, with, that's silly.
[10:21.920 --> 10:22.960] Technically centuries too.
[10:22.960 --> 10:23.840] But that's, yeah.
[10:23.840 --> 10:24.960] But that's, yeah.
[10:24.960 --> 10:28.320] I mean, even the best we can do with that type of reaction rocket,
[10:28.320 --> 10:31.120] say a fusion hydrogen proton proton, which is really efficient,
[10:31.120 --> 10:34.960] like say 11%, 11% speed of light exhaust velocity.
[10:34.960 --> 10:40.400] That is, you could still do, you know, 20% the speed of light with that type of rocket.
[10:40.400 --> 10:45.040] And if you don't care about cargo at all, you can get that rocket up to 50% the speed of light.
[10:45.680 --> 10:49.520] But then cargo of course becomes literally a millionth of the payload,
[10:49.520 --> 10:52.720] but still 10%, 20% the speed of light with a super advanced-
[10:52.720 --> 10:58.560] Give it a bob, you add, add a little bit of light sails and then that'll get you.
[10:58.560 --> 10:58.880] Yes.
[10:58.880 --> 10:59.680] That'll get you there.
[10:59.680 --> 11:01.840] So that's going to be light sails and fusion.
[11:01.840 --> 11:02.720] That's going to be space travel.
[11:02.720 --> 11:06.880] That seems to be, I think that's pretty much where we're going for centuries.
[11:06.880 --> 11:10.960] Unless an ASI, artificial super intelligence, rises and then all bets are off.
[11:10.960 --> 11:16.880] But even then, he or she would be constrained to, to the physics, to physics as we know it.
[11:16.880 --> 11:19.280] And even, even, you know, the ASI might say,
[11:19.280 --> 11:22.640] damn man, this is the best I could do, but it's still going to be cool.
[11:22.640 --> 11:24.560] Yeah. It's almost as if we wrote a whole book about it.
[11:24.560 --> 11:24.720] Yeah.
[11:26.560 --> 11:30.560] It's almost as if I just did a deep dive research on it because I talked about it at Dragon Con.
[11:31.200 --> 11:31.680] Dragon Con.
[11:31.680 --> 11:32.480] How was Dragon Con?
[11:33.040 --> 11:33.920] It was great.
[11:33.920 --> 11:39.360] Liz and I went first time in three years and I know you guys were just so wicked jealous.
[11:39.360 --> 11:40.000] It was great.
[11:40.000 --> 11:40.560] Totally.
[11:40.560 --> 11:42.160] It was pretty much as we remember it.
[11:42.160 --> 11:45.840] Amazing costumes, amazing fun, lots of people.
[11:45.840 --> 11:50.160] And pretty much, I was double masked for like four days in a row
[11:50.160 --> 11:55.680] and I took a, took a test today and totally clean, no, totally negative.
[11:55.680 --> 11:59.360] So I think I totally, you know, got away with it totally.
[12:00.400 --> 12:01.040] I did a talk.
[12:01.040 --> 12:04.480] I called the science, I called, I called the science panel guys and I'm like,
[12:04.480 --> 12:07.840] I want to do the future of rockets.
[12:07.840 --> 12:10.880] And they'd made a panel with like five guys and I was one of them.
[12:10.880 --> 12:12.320] And I just went off.
[12:12.320 --> 12:14.480] I did a deep dive for weeks.
[12:14.480 --> 12:17.840] For weeks I did a deep dive just to refresh my memory and all the research that I had
[12:17.840 --> 12:20.880] done for the chapter of the book about future rockets.
[12:20.880 --> 12:21.920] And I got it down, man.
[12:21.920 --> 12:26.880] I made an awesome bullet list of all the top, the top things that I needed to keep straight
[12:26.880 --> 12:27.440] in my head.
[12:27.440 --> 12:29.680] And it was so much fun to research.
[12:29.680 --> 12:34.000] And there was a great panel, great panel, great fellow panelists with me.
[12:34.000 --> 12:36.960] They were all very knowledgeable and it was great.
[12:36.960 --> 12:38.880] But also I did some skeptical stuff.
[12:38.880 --> 12:40.240] I talked about the two books.
[12:40.240 --> 12:45.760] I did a, I did a one man show on stage on the skeptical track and I was like, oh boy,
[12:45.760 --> 12:46.960] this is scary.
[12:46.960 --> 12:47.840] But it was fine.
[12:47.840 --> 12:48.640] It was fine.
[12:48.640 --> 12:52.160] I just, I just went off on the books and then I started talking about rockets again.
[12:52.160 --> 12:52.960] And then that was it.
[12:52.960 --> 12:54.400] I was in my happy place.
[12:54.960 --> 12:56.560] And, uh, totally great.
[12:56.560 --> 13:00.160] Bob, totally utterly, absolutely.
[13:00.160 --> 13:04.560] Indubitably your solo talk was basically like a pared down news item for Bob.
[13:04.560 --> 13:06.080] Yeah, that's basically what it was.
[13:06.880 --> 13:07.520] It was great.
[13:07.520 --> 13:13.760] And, uh, so many, as usual, so many great costumes, the talent on display at Dragon
[13:13.760 --> 13:19.840] Con blows me away every time I go and I'm determined next year to have an awesome homemade
[13:19.840 --> 13:21.520] costume, which I didn't have this year.
[13:22.320 --> 13:22.480] Yeah.
[13:22.480 --> 13:24.240] We haven't been, I've been what, in four years now.
[13:24.240 --> 13:26.480] It'll be, we're definitely going to make a plan to go next year.
[13:27.120 --> 13:27.440] Yeah.
[13:27.440 --> 13:28.800] I mean, we were fine.
[13:28.800 --> 13:30.480] Pandemic willing, but I hopefully will.
[13:30.480 --> 13:30.720] Yeah.
[13:30.720 --> 13:31.200] It's time.
[13:31.200 --> 13:33.360] I mean, as long as things are good, we gotta go.
[13:33.360 --> 13:36.960] We were surrounded at times by thousands of people.
[13:36.960 --> 13:39.840] And at a couple of times I was like, this is uncomfortable.
[13:40.560 --> 13:44.080] But I had my double masks, you know, I held my breath a lot.
[13:44.640 --> 13:46.000] And it, and I'm fine.
[13:46.000 --> 13:48.720] Both Liz and I are both, you know, totally testing negative.
[13:48.720 --> 13:50.400] And it's been many, it's been days.
[13:50.400 --> 13:51.200] So it's doable.
[13:51.200 --> 13:53.760] Just, you know, you just, you know, you could take it easy.
[13:53.760 --> 13:57.840] You don't have to go into the big shoulder to shoulder crowds, um, you know?
[13:57.840 --> 13:58.320] And, uh, it's totally doable.
[13:58.320 --> 14:00.400] How about the, uh, the merch room?
[14:00.400 --> 14:00.800] Oh yeah.
[14:00.800 --> 14:02.640] That was, that was, you know, it was Christmas.
[14:02.640 --> 14:04.080] I'm, I'm walking towards it.
[14:04.080 --> 14:04.240] Yeah.
[14:04.240 --> 14:04.720] But how was it?
[14:04.720 --> 14:06.320] Was there a shoulder to shoulder in there?
[14:06.320 --> 14:07.200] No, no.
[14:07.200 --> 14:10.400] The first day, the first day it opened where I was like waiting for it.
[14:10.400 --> 14:13.360] And it was, it was, there's four floors, as you know.
[14:13.360 --> 14:17.680] And, uh, it was not shoulder to shoulder craziness at that, that the first few hours that I was
[14:17.680 --> 14:18.400] there.
[14:18.400 --> 14:20.080] And, uh, so that's, so that was fine too.
[14:20.080 --> 14:21.680] I was worried about that as well.
[14:21.680 --> 14:26.160] By the way, one last detail I've got to mention about the Orion capsule is that it's not just
[14:26.160 --> 14:27.920] that it's rated for 21 days.
[14:27.920 --> 14:32.800] When you come back from the moon, you reenter the atmosphere much faster than when you,
[14:32.800 --> 14:35.520] than when you're just coming down from low earth orbit.
[14:35.520 --> 14:39.360] And so the capsule has to be rated for high speed reentry.
[14:39.360 --> 14:39.680] Yeah.
[14:39.680 --> 14:43.360] And I think the, the Orion capsule is the only one that could do that.
[14:43.360 --> 14:48.400] So like the dragon capsule would really need to be redesigned or refitted to be a high
[14:48.400 --> 14:49.360] speed reentry.
[14:49.360 --> 14:51.520] That's yeah, that's, yeah, that's major.
[14:51.520 --> 14:53.200] You're not going to just slap on duct tape.
[14:53.200 --> 14:56.160] That's like a major event, major redesign.
[14:56.160 --> 14:56.960] I'm sure they could.
[14:56.960 --> 14:57.360] Yeah.
[14:57.360 --> 14:57.520] Yeah.
[14:57.520 --> 14:58.880] But I'm sure they could do it if they wanted to.
[14:58.880 --> 15:02.480] All right, Bob, um, you're going to start us off with a quickie.
[15:02.480 --> 15:05.200] You're going to tell us about Frank Drake.
[15:05.200 --> 15:06.320] Thank you, Steve.
Quickie with Bob: Frank Drake (15:00)
- Frank Drake passes away [link_URL TITLE][1]
News Items
S:
B:
C:
J:
E:
(laughs) (laughter) (applause) [inaudible]
News_Item_1 (18:51)
- [link_URL TITLE][2]
News_Item_2 (27:16)
- [link_URL TITLE][3]
HALO Effect (33:27)
News_Item_3 (43:45)
- [link_URL TITLE][4]
News_Item_4 (57:14)
- [link_URL TITLE][5]
Special Segment: Death by Pseudoscience (1:02:47)
Who's That Noisy? (1:10:42)
J: ... similar to English's "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo [+ 3 'buffalos']"
...
C: (sing-song) Homonymy![note 1]
New Noisy (1:14:49)
[musical boings and dings]
J: ... If you think you know the answer or you have a cool Noisy you heard this week, you can email me at WTN@theskepticsguide.org.
Announcements (1:15:29)
Science or Fiction (1:18:27)
Theme: Social Psychology
Item #1: A recent study finds that positive fortune-telling results in increased financial risk-taking for men but not for women.[6]
Item #2: A study of 5-years-olds finds that they perceive overweight people to be happier than thin people.[7]
Item #3: A study of college students finds that mask-wearing does not impair social interactions.[8]
Answer | Item |
---|---|
Fiction | Overweight happier than thin |
Science | Risk-taking men vs. women |
Science | Mask-wearing impairs not |
Host | Result |
---|---|
Steve | win |
Rogue | Guess |
---|---|
Bob | Mask-wearing impairs not |
Jay | Mask-wearing impairs not |
Evan | Overweight happier than thin |
Cara | Overweight happier than thin |
Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.
Bob's Response
Jay's Response
Evan's Response
Cara's Response
Steve Explains Item #1
Steve Explains Item #2
Steve Explains Item #3
Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:29:29)
A good ghost story may hold entertainment and even cultural value, but the popular portrayal of pseudoscientific practices as science may be detracting from efforts to cultivate a scientifically literate public.
– Micheal Knees, engineering psychologist
Signoff
S: —and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.
S: Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. And, if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/SkepticsGuide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible.
Today I Learned
- Fact/Description, possibly with an article reference[9]
- Fact/Description
- Fact/Description
Notes
- ↑ The emailer uses the wrong word, homonymy here. The preceding wikilink goes to the disambiguation entry for "Homophony"; the Wikitionary entry shows that "homophony" is the word the emailer should have used.
References
- ↑ [url_from_news_item_show_notes PUBLICATION: TITLE]
- ↑ [url_from_news_item_show_notes PUBLICATION: TITLE]
- ↑ [url_from_news_item_show_notes PUBLICATION: TITLE]
- ↑ [url_from_news_item_show_notes PUBLICATION: TITLE]
- ↑ [url_from_news_item_show_notes PUBLICATION: TITLE]
- ↑ [url_from_SoF_show_notes PUBLICATION: TITLE]
- ↑ [url_from_SoF_show_notes PUBLICATION: TITLE]
- ↑ [url_from_SoF_show_notes PUBLICATION: TITLE]
- ↑ [url_for_TIL publication: title]
Vocabulary