July 17, 2026

Nuclear Watchdogs: Detecting Weapons in Space and NASA's Swift Rescue Mission

Show Notes
Transcript

SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 85 Detecting nuclear weapons in space New modelling says small cube-sat sized spacecraft not much bigger than a fridge could be used to detect the presence of nuclear weapons on satellites in space. NASA’s rescue mission to save the Swift space telescope reaches orbit NASA’s Swift re-boost rescue mission is finally on its way to intercept the gamma ray space telescope and try to save it from its fiery fate. Stopping astronauts from wanting to kill each other on long space trips It can be tough enough getting on with family members at home or the people you have to work with – but imagine what it will be like if you’re stuck with a small group of people on a multi-year mission to Mars. The Science Report A new study indicates that people who speak more than one language seem to have younger brains. Warnings that two thirds of Australian adults and a quarter of kids are now overweight or obese. Half of all fatal electric scooter accidents in Sweden are caused by drunk riders. Great news for chocolate lovers with 4 new species discovered. Skeptics guide to the case of the missing peacock. Our Guests This Week: Professor Chris Kirkland from Curtin University NASA planetary geologist Cynthia Phillips Professor Dorothy Carter from Michigan State University And our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics 🌏 Get Our Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.bitesz.com/nordvpn . The discounts and bonuses are incredible! And it’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌ If you’d like to support the podcast and gain access to bonus content by becoming a SpaceTime crew member, you can do just that through The Big Bang editions on Patreon, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Details on the Support page on our website https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/support/ For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen too. Thank you…

The Astronomy, Space, Technology & Science News Podcast.

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Versus Spacetime Series twenty nine, episode eighty five, for broadcast

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on the seventeenth of July twenty twenty six. Coming up

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on Spacetime, detecting nuclear weapons in space, NASA's rescue mission

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to save the Swift Space Telescope bridges orbit, and stopping

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astronauts from wanting to kill each other along space trips.

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All that and more coming up on Spacetime.

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Welcome to Space Time with Stewart gary.

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In.

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Modeling shows that small, cubeset sized spacecraft not much bigger

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than a fridge, could be used to detect the presence

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of nuclear weapons on satellites in orbit. A report in

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the journal Nature claims spacecraft could be used to verify

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that nations are complying with the Outer Space Treaty, which

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prohibits the placement of nuclear weapons in space. There's currently

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no way to verify spacecraft don't contain nuclear weapons. In

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twenty twenty four, US government officials warned that Russia could

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be developing a new satellite designed to carry nuclear weapons

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into space. The claim followed the launch of a suspicious

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Russian spacecraft, the Cosmos two five three, into low Earth

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orbit in twenty twenty two, just weeks before the country's

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invasion of Ukraine. Moscow claims the suspicious satellite is used

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for surveillance and sensing. However, US authorities believe it may

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be carrying components of a nuclear device undergoing testing with

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a possible future goal of fielding an actual nuclear anti

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satellite weapon. The detonation of a nuclear weapon in orbit

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could destroy many satellites, not just military and reconnaissance satellites,

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but also communications, navigation, and scientific platforms. The thing is

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the Kremlin launch Cosmos two five five three into a

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really strange and unusual orbit, one that goes through hostile

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radioactive environments normally avoided by most spacecraft. The authors of

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the study warned that the spacecraft's unusual orbit could be

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because it's highly radioactive, and that's the best orbit for

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trapping electrons if you want to detonate a thermonuclear weapon

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in space. The authors say their simulations suggest that a

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nine unit cubes that could identify a thermonuclear weapon at

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a distance of about four kilometers. The system would involve

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an inspector spacecraft maneuvering next to a suspected satellite and

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then detecting neutrons generated by high energy protons aligning with

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radioactive material The sensor system would detect a nuclear weapon

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with ninety nine percent accuracy if it was orbiting within

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four hundred meters of the suspected satellite for about a week.

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That detection time could be cut to a matter of

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hours if modible sensors were used or the sensor satellite

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was able to get to within one thousand meters of

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the suspected spacecraft. While normal satellites would emit many neutrons,

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are still naturally occurring protons, neutrons, and electrons in the atmosphere,

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especially in lower th orbit. The new design uses two

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panels made up of pixels of neutron sensors known as

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scintillators that interact with radiation and emit light, panels of

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sandwich between synthetic crystal diamond detectors that allow the system

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to distinguish between neutrons coming from radioactive materials and natural protons,

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neutrons and electrons. The two panel construction could then be

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used to estimate the direction of the neutron, allowing it

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to differentiate between natural atmospheric neutrons and those coming from

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suspected satellites. Back in nineteen sixty two, the United States

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detonated a one point four megaton thermonuclear warhead in space,

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which unintentionally destroyed mudiple satellites. The blast released enormous volumes

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of highly energized electrons, and many became trapped in its

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magnetic field, where they damaged any electronics on spacecraft in

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their path. The authors point out that when you have

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a nuclear detonation in space, the whole body of the

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bomb becomes ionized and nearly every single electron in the

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weapons mass becomes free. It gets injected into the inner

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van Allen radiation belt, and once there, the electrons start

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hitting everything flying through those belts, causing ionization and radiation damage.

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And as you go further out into space, you create

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these thick belts around the Earth populated by highly energetic

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protons and electrons, indiscriminate satellite killers. This is space time

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still to calm NASA's rescue mission to save the Swift

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space telescope and stopping astronauts from wanting to kill each

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other on long duration space flights. All that and more

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still to calm on space time, NASA's Swift Reboot rescue

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mission is finally on its way to intercept the gamma

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ray space telescope and try and save it from a

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fiery fate. After two scrub launch attempts, Hellas's Link spacecraft

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is now in orbit and closing in on the twenty

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two year old Swift space telescope. Launched in two thousand

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and four. Swift is an early warning system searching the

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skies for gamma ray bursts, which are the most powerful

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explosions in the universe since the Big Bang, which often

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only lasts for a few seconds. At most, Swift scans

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the heavens invisible ultraviolet X ray and gamma ray light,

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telling astronomers the gamma ray bursts just happen and where

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it's located, thereby allowing scientists to turn their telescopes towards

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the event and study it and it's aft to glow

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in more detail. The problem is Swift's orbit's been decayed

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due to recent space weather events, which of course the

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Earth's upper atmosphere to expand, resulting in increased atmospheric drag

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impacting the spacecraft. Swift was expected to remain in orbit

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for around thirty years and so wasn't equipped with frusters,

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thereby making it incapable of boosting its own orbit, but

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the especially active solar activity of recent years as intends

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to fight drag on the spacecraft, bringing it down much

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faster than expected. It's now orbiting at around three hundred

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kilometer is an altitude and only has a few months

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of life left. Rather than allow Swift to fall back

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to Worth and burn up during atmospheric reentry, NASA's decided

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to try a rescue mission. Arizona company Catalyst were given

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the opportunity to quickly design and build a spacecraft, which

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they called Link, which could rendezvous with Swift in orbit.

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Because Swift doesn't have any docking hardware. Catalyst of accustom

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capture mechanism, which will use three light act guided robotic

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arms to latch onto a structural feature of the Swift

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spacecraft without damaging the telescope's delicate instruments. Link was carried

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into orbit aboard a Northrop Grumm and Pegasus Excel rocket

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which has dropped launched at an altitude of roughly forty

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thousand feet or two hundred meters from the underbelly of

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the Stargazer, a modified L ten eleven airliner flying above

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the Marshall Islands. The launch was scrubbed twice, first by

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bad weather, then a software in Pegus's navigation system. Luckily

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it was a case of the third times charm. Once

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it reaches Swift, Link will maneuver around the spacecraft like

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a spy inspection satellite, checking for any damage and then

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targeting the best latch points to grab onto. The capture

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itself will be especially tricky. That's because Swift was never

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designed to be touched once it reaches orbit. Mission managers

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determined that a series of small metal rings used during

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ground handling operations before Swift's launch may be the best

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possible targets, but it's still or really iffy. You see,

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no spacecraft has ever attempted to use these flanges as

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grappling points before. While Swift can't boost itself into orbit,

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it can control its own orientation and should be able

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to assist Link in proximity maneuvers by maintaining the appropriate orientation.

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Once the two spacecraft have docked, Link will fire up

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its own thrusters, gradually raising Swift back to its original

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six hundred kilimeta high orbit over a period of several months.

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If it all works, Swift will resume it's mission searching

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the skies for the next gamma ray burst. This is

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space time still to come, stopping astronauts from wanting to

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kill each other on long duration space flights, and later

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in the science report, good news for chocolate lovers with

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a discovery of four new species of Kakawa plant. All

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that and more still to come on space time. When

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you think about it, it's tough enough getting out with

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family members at home or with people you have to

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work with, But imagine what it must be like if

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you're stuck in a confined place with a small group

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of people on the multi year mission of Mars, and

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just such a journey could be less than a decade away.

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Where it takes six to seven months to get to Mars,

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another six or seven months to return to Earth. And

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then there's the amount of time you'll need to spend

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on a red planet. Because the Earth and Mars travel

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around the Sun at different speeds, the optimal launch windows

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for a fuel efficient round trip only open every twenty

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six months, and that leaves mission managers with two choices.

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Either you stay for just a few days, which seems

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hardly worth the effort for such a long trip, or

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more likely, you undertake an extended stay on Mars for

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more than a year before the planets realign. That's a

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long time to be stuck in a confined space with

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a bunch of strangers and their little habits and idiosyncrasies,

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let's call them quirks, with nowhere for you to escape to,

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to get away from it all. Like it or not,

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you're going to be stuck with these people day after day,

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month after month, year after year, and no matter how

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good you're training, there's going to be pressure making matters worse.

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There's the issue of communications delay between the Earth and Mars. Now,

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depending on the orbital positions of the two planets, the

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one way delay in communications between the Earth and Mars

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will range from three minutes at their closest approach to

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around twenty two minutes when the planets are on opposite

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sides of the Sun. And then there's the issue of

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things going wrong, stuff breaking the unexpected. If something goes

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wrong on the International Space Station, there's a lake or

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the toilet stont flush. Well, Earth's only four hundred kilometers

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away and communications is almost instantaneous. But that sort of

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safety winner doesn't exist on a trip to Mars, and

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so there are all sorts of real problems NASA is

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trying to address through a range of simulations, go through

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exercises about the space station and in mockups on the

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ground to try and overcome these problems work out solutions

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before the problems become real now. One of those is

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a joint study by NASA and Michigan State University called

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Project Fusion. Fusion standing for Facilitating United Systems of Interdependent

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Organizational Networks. It's focusing on teamwork under pressure. Dorothy Carter

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from Michigan State It's one of the scientists involved in

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the project. She's analyzing how to understand and mitigate communications

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delays between mission control on Earth and a crew of

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astronauts on a mission to Mars. Carter and colleagues at

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Michigan State's Kesler Lab have been working with volunteers living

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and working inside NASA's Human Exploration Space Analog or HERA,

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a mockup habitat set up at a hangar at the

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Johnson Space Center in Houston. They're practicing real time simulations

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see how people interact in different pressure situations under different

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stress conditions with a range of variables, including communications delays.

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Carter's research reported in the journal Personal Psychology found communications

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delays disrupt collective attention dramatically affecting crew performance. They found

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that interventions that target someone's experience level with a task

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or capacity, address message simplicity in other words, clarity, and

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create a sensor shared leadership among team members connectivity can

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all help preserve collective attention situations with delayed communications.

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The Brian and Michelle Tessler Lab is an amazing experimental

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laboratory the physical space that allows us to conduct high

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quality basic science research on teamwork. And we've had this

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kind of amazing opportunity to collect human subjects experimental data

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both here in the Kestler Lab as well as in

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partnership with the Human Exploration Research Analog, which is a

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capsule that's located inside of a hangar at Johnson's Space

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Center in Houston, Texas. NASA has this grand goal of

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sending a team of humans to deep space destinations like

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the Moon and Mars and maybe beyond, and it really

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requires this large collaborative system or a multi team system

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to work together and coordinate and collaborate to achieve this goal.

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Participants who are living and working inside of the HAIRRA capsule,

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they teamed up multiple times with undergraduate students here at

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MSU who were located here in the Kessler Lab to

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participate in our research study. One of the things that

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we've find is that they really need what we call

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collective attack, which means that multiple people from different disciplines

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are co focusing their attention on the same problem space

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at the same time. It's just harder to get on

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the same page with somebody when you can't talk to

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them in real time. Things like training and simplifying communications,

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clear and concise messages, developing trust, and shared leadership help

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support collective attention even during delayed communication. We need people

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to work together collaboratively across disciplines, and we need leaders

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to guide us in those pursuits.

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That's Professor Dorothy Katta from Michigan State University, and this

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is Space Time and tim that To take a nonether

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brief look at some of the other stories making THEWS

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and Science this week with the Science Report, a new

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study indicates that people who can speak more than one

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language seem to have younger brains. The findings presented at

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the twenty twenty six Federation of European Neuroscience Societies Forum

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followed a detailed analysis of seven hundred people from the

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Basque region in Spain who spoke between one and four

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different languages, including combinations of Spanish, Basque, French and English.

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The author's measured brain activity to create a brain age

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in Clark then use this clock to gauge the brain's

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age of one hundred and forty four other people. When

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comparing people's real age with the age of their brain,

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they found that those who spoke two languages had brains

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that appear to be six years younger than those who

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only spoke one language, and for those who could speak

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four languages, their brains are p to be thirteen years younger.

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A new report warns that two thirds of Australian adults

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and a quarter of Australian kids are now considered overweight

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or obese. The findings by the Australian Institute of Health

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and Welfare are based on data from twenty twenty three

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and twenty four and explain why almost eleven one billion

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dollars was being spent on treating overwet and obesity last year.

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The authors say that compared with a decade ago, almost

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an additional ten middle aged adults in every one hundred

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and an additional nine in every one hundred young adults

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were living with abdominal obesity, which is measured by waste circumference.

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A new study is found that almost half of all

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fatal electric scooter accidents in Sweden are caused by the

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rider being under the influence of alcohol. The findings were

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reported in the journal's Safety Research show that these fatal

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crashes mainly occurred in the evenings or through the night,

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and in all cases no helmet was being worn by

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the victim. The authors analyzed all fatal crashes involving electric scooters,

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electric bicycles, and conventional bicycles in Sweden between twenty sixteen

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and twenty twenty four. Alcohol is often a factor in

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fatal crashes occurring with all three of these vehicle types,

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but the figures for the electric scooters stood out. Of

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the fatal e scooter crashes, forty four percent of riders

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were under the influence of our alcohol, compared to twenty

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seven percent among ebach riders of thirteen percent among cyclists.

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Light alcohol levels will high across all three groups, with

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e scoter riders averaging one point eight that's more than

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three times the Australian limit of point Zho. Five Scientists

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trudging through Peruvian cocoa forests have discovered four new genetically

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distinct species of cocoa, a tree responsible for one of

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the world's favorite things, chocolate. Many peruvin cocoa farms rely

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on wild and semiwild cocoa varieties, which have often not

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been altered by selective breeding or genetic engineering. A report

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in the General plus one analyzed to genetic diversity of

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Engenaetia these farm cocoa plants and found four previously unidentified

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genetic groups. These have one letter differences in their code

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of DNA compared to the varieties that were already known.

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The authors say two of the four new groups of

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genetic ancestors that suggest they might produce especially high quality

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and delicious beans for chocolate making. A famous psychic has

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failed to foresee the disappearance of her own pet peacock.

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The skeptics timendum says, not only did she fail to

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see the future of her beloved bird, but the fellow

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psychics also failed to predict where the feathered friend might

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be well.

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There are major issues in the world today. This became

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a story fairly recently that a lady who is a psychic,

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a professional psychic herself, who's pet peacock named Kevin, disappeared

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one day. So she was looking for it and couldn't

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find it, and even using her own psychic ability, she

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couldn't find it. So he called up their friends who

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were also psychic. Apparently this was a circle that he

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lives in, and they were suggesting all sorts of different

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things to try and find the peacock. Her husband was

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very accommodating. I don't think his psychic for different mind.

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The next day they went out with their dog and

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the dog found the peacock. Now, the dog ran straight

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through the peacock.

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It's a lot about psychic abilities, doesn't it.

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It's a lot about a dog's too, actually, But apparently

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it was near a place where a psychic has suggested

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it to be near water. It's a very strange little story.

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But I mean, psychic found my missing peacock is not

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actually correct. The dogs and there's no in the case,

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and that the dog is the psychic at all. Dog's name,

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by the way, was Lincoln, So Lincoln found Kevin. It's

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a heartwarming story.

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That's the skeptics timendum and This is Spacetime, and that's

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the show for now. Spacetime is available every Monday, Wednesday

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00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:35.400
and Friday through at bites dot com, SoundCloud, YouTube, your

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favorite podcast download provider, and from space Time with Stuart

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00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:43.039
Gary dot com. Space Time's also broadcast through the National

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Science Foundation, on Science Zone Radio and on both iHeartRadio

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and tune In Radio. And you can help to support

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which gives you access to triple episode commercial free versions

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You've been listening to space Time with Stuart Gary. This

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