AS02E08: 600th Person in Orbit: Celebrating a Milestone in Space Exploration

WEBVTT

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Hello and welcome again to Astronomy Daily. I'm Steve Dunkley, your host.

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It is the twenty second of May
twenty and twenty three. Today we'll be

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looking at the six hundredth person in
orbit, another way to measure the expansion

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of the universe, and a launch
from New Zealand of all places, your

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whole big dunkle. Yes, that's
right. There's been some big happenings in

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the sky and our launch pads and
in the space industry all over the world

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today, but especially in New Zealand. They've sent a few bits and pieces

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into orbit, although they were going
to anyway. We'll get to that later,

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but would you welcome my fabulous digital
sleuth, Hallie. Thank you for

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joining us again. Hallie, Hi
again, my favorite human. Of course,

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it's not the New Zealand launch that's
got everybody's attention today, is it.

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Everyone is talking about the launch today. That's right, the six hundredth

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person into orbit. That's a new
milestone. That's funny. In Australia you

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still say milestone when you use the
metric system. Oh. I know,

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it's just old habits. But this
is an exciting event, it sure is.

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Hallie humanity is inching its way into
space, not centimetering. There's no

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such thing, Steve, Don't be
silly, Okay, I'll try to be

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sensible. From nan one, What
did you go for us? Okay?

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Time for the short takes. As
stars up to eight times heavier than our

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Sun start to run out of nuclear
fuel in their core, they puff off

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their outer layers. This process gives
rise to the colorful clouds of gas misleadingly

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known as planetary nebuli, and leaves
behind a dense, compact hot core known

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as a white dwarf. Our own
son will undergo this transition in five billion

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years or so, then slowly cool
and fade away. However, if a

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white dwarf somehow puts on weight,
a self destruct mechanism kicks in when it

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gets heavier than about one point four
times the mass of our Sun. The

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subsequent thermonuclear detonation destroys the star in
a distinctive kind of explosion called the type

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IA supernova. But where would the
extra mass come from to fuel such a

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bang. We used to think it
could be gas being stripped off a bigger

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companion star in a close orbit,
but stars tend to be messy eaters spilling

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gas everywhere. Supernova twenty twenty EIG
was discovered by a telescope in Hawaii on

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March twenty third, twenty twenty.
For the first seven weeks or so,

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it behaved in much the same way
as any other Type IA supernova, but

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for the next five months it stopped
fading in brightness. It also began to

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show features indicating gas that was unusually
rich in helium. Astronomers began to suspect

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supernova twenty twenty EICH belonged to a
rare subclass of type IA supernovy, in

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which the blast wave, moving at
more than ten thousand kilometers per second,

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sweeps past gas that could only have
been stripped off the outer layers of a

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surviving companion star. One of the
more remarkable properties of Type IA supernovy is

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that they all seem to reach pretty
much the same peak brightness. This is

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consistent with them all having reached a
similar critical mass before exploding. This very

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attribute allowed astronomer Brian Schmidt and colleagues
to reach their Nobel Prize winning conclusion in

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the late nineteen nineties that the universe's
expansion since the Big Bang is not slowing

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down under gravity as everyone had expected, but is accelerating due to the effects

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of what we now call dark energy. So type ia supernovy are important cosmic

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objects, and the fact we still
don't know exactly how and when these stellar

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explosions occur or what makes them so
consistent has been a worry to astronomers.

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Our hypothesis and radio confirmation that supernova
twenty twenty EIJ occurred when enough helium gas

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was stripped off the companion star and
onto the surface of the white dwarf to

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push it just over the mass limit
provides a natural explanation for this consistency.

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A new pair of NASA weather satellites
was scheduled for launch today, but according

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to rocket Lab's Twitter page, the
mission, which is called Coming to a

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Storm Near You, has been delayed
by you guessed it a storm. The

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company is now looking at May twenty
fifth as a proposed launch date. The

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numbers five and six Tropic satellites are
part of a constellation of extreme weather observatories,

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also known as cube SATs because of
their small size and low weight.

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This launch will send two more Tropic
satellites to join two previously launched SATs NASA

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chose rocket Lab, a company that
launches from New Zealand, for the missions.

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The launch site makes it possible to
achieve low earth orbital paths for the

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majority of missions the satellite industry needs. Nass's main goal is to keep an

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eye on the formation of sudden weather
phenomena, mainly hurricanes and cyclones, to

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improve forecasts given the severe impact they
can have on the regions they hit.

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Each tropic satellite carries a high performance
radiometer monitor that scans across the satellite track

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at thirty revolutions per minute. This
observing system provides a combination of horizontal resolution

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related to time while measuring environmental conditions
in the cores of tropical cyclones in a

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nearly global scale. According to company
officials, operating a private orbital launch site

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alongside its own range and mission control
centers helps rocket Lab to contain mission costs,

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which makes affordable and effect dev launch
services. Two years after awarding Elon

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Musk's SpaceX a contract to faery astronauts
to the surface of the Moon, NASA

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on Friday announced it had chosen Blue
Origin, a rival space company founded by

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billionaire Jeff Bezos, to build a
second lunar lander. Blue Origins Lander was

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selected for the Artemis five mission,
currently scheduled to take place in twenty twenty

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nine. The company will first have
to demonstrate it can safely land on the

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Moon without a crew. The contract
amounts to three point four billion dollars,

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but John kulery's vice president in charge
of lunar transport at Blue Origin, said

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during a press conference that the company
would itself contribute well north of that amount

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to develop the craft. The Artemis
program marks NASA's return to the Moon after

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more than fifty years, and is
made up of several missions, each with

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increasing complexity. In twenty twenty one, the US agency chose SpaceX to build

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a lander for Artemis three, the
first mission in the series to have actual

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astronauts set foot on the lunar surface. Blue Origin had also competed for the

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first contract and filed an unsuccessful lawsuit
against NASA when SpaceX was chosen as the

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sole lander provider. Blue Origins Lander, dubbed Blue Moon, is being developed

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with several partner companies, including Draper, Bowing, Astrobotic, Honeybee Robotics,

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and Lockheed Martin. The latter will
be responsible for developing a crucial element.

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Once in lunar orbit, Blue Moon
will need to be refueled before it can

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descend and collect the astronauts from the
surface of the Moon. Therefore, Lockheed

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Martin has to develop a kind of
shuttle to refuel Blue Moon around the Moon.

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And that's all I have at the
moment. Back to you, Steve

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Astronomy the podcast. Wow, doesn't
that the development of the Artemis mission sound

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exciting? With refueling craft orbiting the
Moon, It just sounds fantastic that science

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fiction becoming science fact. I can't
wait to see some of those things unfoiled.

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Very exciting. Well, the big
story at the moment is the six

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hundredth person to enter Earth orbit is
now on our way to the International Space

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Station. In fact, at about
one o'clock this afternoon Eastern Australia time,

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she would have docked with the ISS
Rainer Banawi on Sunday, that was yesterday

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for us here in Australia, lifted
off with fellow Saudi Space Commission astronaut ali

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Al Corny pronunciation folks, privately funded
astronaut John Schoffner of Tennessee, and former

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astronaut Peggy Whitson on the second mission, organized by Houston space services company Axiom

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Space. The four Axiom two crewmates
launched at five thirty seven Eastern daylight time

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on the space ex Dragon spacecraft Freedom
atop a Falcon nine rocket from thirty nine

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A pad from the Kennedy Space Center
in Florida. Less than nine minutes later,

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Banawi in her crewmates began circling the
planet. Our Carney and Schoffner our

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first time flyers, but based on
a precedent set in twenty twenty one,

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when the six hundredth person entered space, a figure that also included suborbital flights.

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The count is based on the astronauts
mission designations. As pilot, Schoffner

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became number five nine eight, our
Carney is number five ninety nine, flying

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as Mission Specialist one. As such, Banawi as Mission Specialist two, claimed

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the round number and with Benawi one, seventy two women helped comprise the six

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hundredth person total. I feel incredibly
humble to follow in the footsteps of many

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astronauts and pioneers before me Bowe's set
in a statement as the six hundredth person

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to enter orbit around the Earth,
I'm excited to represent the Kingdom of Saudi

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Arabia and the Saudi Space Commission during
this historic mission. It's a true honor

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to be a part of the mission
that is expanding access to low Earth orbit

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for people like me and you who
are to be able to inspire people around

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the world and reach for the stars
and pursue their dreams. But now is

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now the first Saudi woman to fly
in space and the first Arab woman into

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Earth orbit with al Kahni, the
first Arabs and Saudis to launch together on

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the same mission. The first Saudi
and Arab astronaut to fly, Sultan bin

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Salman al Saud, did so as
payload specialist for the Space Shuttle Discovery in

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nineteen eighty five, all that time
ago. Once they arrive at the ISS,

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which is expected to go well.
It happened at one o'clock daylight time

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here in Eastern Australia, Banawi and
al Khanni will be greeted by this DAS

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Expedition sixty nine crew including Amiati astronauts
our Sultan al Naudi, marking the first

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time three astronauts have been in space
at the same time. But Nardi thirty

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three, al Kanni thirty one and
not the only record setters on the ax

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crew. Schaffner sixty seven is the
first person who had been born in Alaska,

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Fairbanks to fly into space. So
I think it's a very odd sort

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of thing to say, because somebody
from my town went into space, they

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would also be the first person from
my town to be in space. Don't

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you think that's odd? No.
Peggy Whitson, as a former NASA astronaut,

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already holds the distinction as the most
experienced American and woman to fly into

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space, having previously logged more than
six hundred and sixty five days on three

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long duration stays aboard the ISS.
She will add to that count on this

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mission, which is expected to last
about a whole ten days. Whitson sixty

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three is now also the first woman
to command ACE commercial spaceflight. She joined

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Axiom Space after retiring from NASA in
twenty eighteen, becoming the company's director of

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Human space Flight. Whitson is the
second former NASA astronaut to fly for Axiom,

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following Michael Lopez Allegria on Axiom one
in twenty twenty two, and the

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third NASA astronaut to return to space
after leaving the agency, following John Glenn

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in nineteen eighty eight, Isn't that
interesting. During the next week at the

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space station, Whitson will assist Schoffner, Alkhani, and Banawe proceed through their

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planned science and outreach programs. The
AX two crew plans to conduct more than

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twenty different experiments, including research into
stem cells, DNA based nano materials,

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and cancer countermeasures. They will also
photograph lightning strikes and high altitude transient luminous

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events known as sprites, and test
a wearable skin suit that simulates Earth's gravity

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to counteract the negative effects of micro
gravity. As you know, the human

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body does not like living in no
gravity. It tends to shed things like

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calcium and other things and just not
very happy in zero gravity, so it'll

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be interesting to see how that works
out. Schoffner, a race car driver

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who has aspired to fly in space
since his childhood, will use part of

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his time to announce the winners.
Get this of a Crayola sponsored art and

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poetry contest that was open to children
from around the world. Al Khanni and

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Banawi will interact with students in Saudi
Arabia with the goal of inspiring and interest

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in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics education. We're going to be

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doing three education awareness experiments with kids, said Alkhani during a pre launched press

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conference. It's going to be a
live event, which is going to be

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amazing for them because it's going to
be a huge opportunity to compare the results

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that they had on the ground with
the ones we are going to have aboard

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the I s now. That is
going to be interesting. Okan'ne and Banawe

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are going to be bringing a taste
of their country to their temporary home in

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orbit. We are going to be
taking with us Saudi coffee and dates to

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share with the astronauts on the board. The ISS fantastic. Banawi and has

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a Saudi flag and packed earrings from
her grandmother who was not able to attend

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to launch, but gave her blessing
for the flight. Whitson has again flown

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with a necklace that she wore at
her wedding and then flew on her three

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previous missions. Schoffner, You're going
to love this. Chose something that represents

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his lifelong dream of flying in space. He says, when I was eight

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years old, I built a model
of the Gemini spacecraft. It had little

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astronauts in it that would come out, and I happen to have one of

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those from nineteen sixty three, one
of those little astronaut guys, probably ed

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White, he says, he says, So that one's going up with me

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into space again. That's fantastic.
I love that it sort of puts a

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real human complex these people who have
done this jaunt into space, that's like

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this ultimate adventure, but they're still
very human. They're taking these little trinkets

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with them. One other astronaut above
the spacecraft was Gig, the mission's zero

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G indicator and AX two fifth crew
member, the result of a partnership between

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Axiom Space and Build a Bear Workshop. The Fuzzy Bear was dressed in a

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miniature version of the axioms prototype spacesuit, which the company is developing for NASA

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astronauts to wear on the artem's three
moon landing. Oh fantastic. Axiom two

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is the second flight for Dragon Freedom, which previously flew SpaceX's crew crew for

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astronaut mission to and from the space
station. Private missions like a X two

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are part of NASA's strategy to help
build a low Earth orbit economy such that

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companies like Axiom Space can operate commercial
orbit facilities after the ISS is retired.

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What a wonderful story. A cosmic
lens magnified the light of an exploding star.

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Now astronomers are using observations from that
supernov to calculate the universe's current rate

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of expansion. Stars explode all the
time in the universe, but the supernova

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that Patrick Kelly found in twenty fourteen
marked serendipity at its finest, an explosion

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not only caught in the act of
detonation, but also magnified by the gravity

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of confluence of foreground galaxies. Now, Kelly from the University of Minnesota is

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leading a team in using this serendipitous
supernova to get an independent measure of the

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universe's current expansion rate. Astronomers have
been debating intensely for about a decade.

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Although the new measurement would settle that
debate, it does provide an independent method

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that astronomers badly need. Supernova Refstyle, named after Norwegian astronomers ser Refstyle just

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happened to go off under a lens. From Earth's point of view, A

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massive galaxy cluster magnified the supernova's light
and bent it, splitting it into separate

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but identical images. Kelly, who
as a graduate student in twenty fourteen,

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was searching the Hubble space telescopes images
by ice, spotted three bright images and

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contacted his team straight away. A
fainter fourth image was found later and it

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was immediately clear. He said that
it was very exciting, but the physics

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of gravitational lensing, which is the
same as for eyeglasses, should have created

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not four but five images. One
image was missing. Kelly and his colleagues

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predicted that the light of the final
image might be traveling a longer path to

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Earth through the cluster than that of
the others, depending on the path traveled.

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They figured it would appear anywhere from
a year to a decade later,

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and a year later it did show
up. A new study published in Science

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explore what super over refstyle can tell
us about cosmic expansion. The universe has

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been expanding, so the theory goes, since the Big Bang, although at

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different rates. Astronomers have measured the
rate at which the universe is currently expanding,

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called the Hubble constant, in many
different ways. These ways often rely

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on carefully calculated distances, but the
measurements have become more precise and the answers

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have split between two numbers, creating
tension. While this tension is regarded as

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a potential problem for the standard model
of cosmology, which includes mysterious dark matter

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and equally mysterious dark energy, there's
still the possibility that the different answers come

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out due to systematic errors in the
measurements themselves. Supernover refstyle offers a new

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way to estimate the Hubble constant that, while not free of systematic errors,

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is at least free from the ones
that plague the other estimates. To calculate

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the Hubble constant, Kelly and his
colleagues first need to determine the distance to

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the super over based on the last
images delayed arrival. The time delay itself

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is more precisely estimated in an accompanying
paper published in the Astrophysical Journal. To

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do that, they first need to
properly account for the distribution of mass in

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the intervening galaxy cluster. Since the
cluster's gravity is what bending the light,

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understanding its master distribution is basically like
knowing the prescription of the cosmic lens.

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Using a set of cluster models,
Kelly's team arrives at an estimate of the

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Hubble constant that's between sixty three point
three and seventy point seven kilometers per megapasic.

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There's a lot of wiggle room in
that answer, but it's in line

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with what astronomers have previously found by
analyzing observations of the cosmic microwave background taken

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from the Plank satellite, and it's
below the other set of estimates, such

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as that from the Shoes collaboration based
on observation of Cepheid variable stars and Type

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IA supernova, as well as from
the Holy Cow team that studies distant lensed

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quasars. Christopher Koshenek from Ohio State
University, who wasn't involved in the study,

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says that it's a solid result,
but he questions whether the new measure

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is precise enough to be useful.
The measurement's uncertainty is six percent, and

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you need a one or two percent
measurement to be competitive. He says,

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the devil is in the lens model. Heads Kelly's team applied many models and

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then calculated a sort of weighted average
of the results that helped make their measurements

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more precise, but Koshek explains that
a weighted average Joey works if the uncertainty

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of any one model is random.
Kelly's team agrees that the lens models are

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indeed the sticking point when it comes
to precision, noting that if the clusters

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mass distribution were known exactly, they
be able to measure the cubble constant within

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one point five percent. With improved
models for the clusters mass based on James

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Webb Space Telescope observations, more precise
measurements may come from supernova refstyle. Finding

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more lens supernova will be the key
to better understanding the ubble constant. In

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fact, astronomers recently announced another lens
supernova in New James observations. Certainly the

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same method will also be applied to
the Myriads supernova that the upcoming VIAC Reuben

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Observatory will find. And I'd like
to acknowledge Monika Young for the wonderful research

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on that article. And that's it
for another episode of Astronomy Daily. I

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hope you got something out of that
today. It's been a very exciting day

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in space. So, like we
keep saying, keep your eyes on the

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skies and Halley, what do you
say, Just a reminder that all the

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past episodes of Space Nuts with Andrew
Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson can be found

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on the nuts website. That's right, it's space Nuts dot Io is the

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address. You'll find all the episodes
of Astronomy Daily there as well. And

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don't forget to say hi on a
Space Nuts Facebook page. And that's it

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for us. I'm Steve Dunkle,
your host, see you later. Bye,

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We'll be your whole Steve Dunkle