If you’re fascinated by the Fermi Paradox like I am, you’re going to want to spend a few minutes and watch this wonderful video from the Kurz Gesagt team. We’ve shared a bunch of their videos on the past about the Big Bang, the Solar System, and neutron stars.
This video tackles the infuriating question: if the Universe is enormous, and ancient, and there seem to be planets capable of supporting life everywhere… where are all the aliens?
After you’ve watched this video, go to their channel and go down the rabbit hole and watch all their videos.
Evolution explains how life adapts and evolves over eons. But how did life originate? Chemists Miller and Urey put the raw chemicals of life into a solution, applied an electric charge, and created amino acids – the building blocks of life. Continue reading “Astronomy Cast Ep. 376: The Miller-Urey Experiment”
When we think of astronauts, we think of humans. But there have been plenty of animals who have traveled in space as well.
When we think of spaceflight, we think astronauts. You’re a human, you perceive the Universe with your human-centric attitudes. You… specist.
The reality is that the vast number of living things sent to space were our animal buddies. This is a tough topic to hit, as it’s kinda sad. More sensitive animal loving viewers might want might to skip this one, or at least grab some tissue. Just don’t shoot the messenger.
We’ve thrown so many different kinds of animals into space, a better question might be: what animals haven’t been in space? It’s a Noah’s Ark salad of living things.
Mice, monkeys, fish, reptiles, frogs, insects, dogs, and of course, those hardy hardy tardigrades, who laugh at the rigors of spaceflight, and eat vacuum for breakfast. We’ve brought them all home safe and sound. Well, some of them. A good number of them. All the tardigrades are fine. I think.
At the beginning of the space age, scientists sent a series of animals in high altitude balloons to test the physical demands of spaceflight. Scientists had no idea whether creatures could even survive high altitude or radiation, so they sent insects, mammals and even primates nearly halfway to space.
This is how we roll. Mostly we make all kinds of weird assumptions about what might happen, and really it’s better to send a handful of bugs than a person. When we first worked out flight, there were concerns all the air would get sucked out of our lungs and we’d just pass out. Sometimes we get a little freaked out.
This high altitude business all seemed to go well enough. So they packed the poor creatures, I mean our brave animal adventurer friends onto left-over German V-2 rockets and fired them on ballistic trajectories, including a few monkeys.
The Russians… oooh, Russians… were the first to send dogs into space, with Tsygan and Dezik. They didn’t actually reach orbit, and were both brought home safely. Good dogs!
Laika inside Sputnik 2
Here’s the one you’re waiting for… Laika was launched aboard the second spacecraft to ever orbit the Earth, Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957. At that point, scientists weren’t sure if humans could even survive spaceflight, or if we’d just dissolve after soiling our space pantaloons.
Oh, you hu-mans. Soviets chose the toughest dog they could find, a stray mutt they found living on the streets of Moscow. You can’t make this stuff up. Well, I could.
If I did, I’d make it more like, they went to the toughest dog bar in all of Moscow and met the bouncer, Laika at a high stakes winner take all poker-slash-Russian roulette game for all the bones, in a dark smokey dog house in the back.
Originally, it was reported Laika lasted 6 days in orbit, but in 2002, it was uncovered that she actually died shortly after launch. Either way, Laika was doomed, as technology to recover a capsule from space was still a few years off. Apparently there was some kind of race on.
Five months after launch, Sputnik 2 burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere, and Laika’s name still lives on to this day in legend.
In the 50s and 60s, there was a whole series of monkeys sent to space. A third survived their flights and then went on to live long monkey lives, reminiscing about their days of monkey glory hanging out in the primate version of that bar in “The Right Stuff”.
In 1961, Ham the Chimp was sent into space on board a Mercury-Redstone rocket. Ham was trained to believe he was flying the spacecraft. The brave little tyke demonstrated that human astronauts could do the same, as long as they were rewarded with fruit.
Three months later, Alan Shepard followed in Ham’s footsteps, becoming the first American in space. Whether the fruit rewards program was retained is classified.
Ham, the Chimpanzee
From that point on, it was a river of living things traveling into space: crickets, ants, spiders, newts, frogs, fish, jellyfish, sea urchins, snails and shrimp.
Even cockroaches. Seriously, somebody thought that would be a good idea. I suspect it was part of some kind of secret Atomic SuperRoach program.
One of the most poignant stories of animals traveling to space has got to be the nematode worms that flew to orbit with the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003.
When the shuttle tore up on re-entry, killing all 7 astronauts, the nematode worms survived the re-entry and crash landing. There were 60 other science experiments on board Columbia, many of which included animals: fish, insects, spiders, bees and even silk worms. Only the nematodes survived.
It wasn’t the originals that they found. Nematodes have a lifecycle of 7-10 days, so the ones they discovered were probably 5th generation removed from the initial spaceketeers.
As you can see, we aren’t the only creatures to go to space. In fact, we’re the minority. Space belongs to the tardigrades, mice and nematode worms.
I for one welcome our horrible waterbear overlords.
Okay, I’m going to brace myself for this one. Do you think it’s ethical to use animals in spaceflight? Tell us your opinion in the comments below.
In order to fly in space, astronauts need to make a few sacrifices, like drink their own urine. Yuck? Don’t worry, it’s totally safe.
Astronauts are a resourceful bunch. They’re the best of the best of the best of the best. They’re ready to do whatever it takes to get the job done. WHATEVER IT TAKES, INCLUDING DRINKING PEE. They live on the International Space Station for the better part of a year, where air, food and water are precious resources. Sometimes you take a hit for the team back.
Every drop of water on the International Space Station was carried there from Earth, by rocket, possibly in someone’s bladder. The cost of launching a single kilo into orbit can be over $10 grand. Do a little back of the tp math and the value of a single kilogram of water in space is worth almost as much as a kilogram of yellow gold here on Earth.
That’s actual money gold, and not pee joke gold. The punchline is astronauts need to conserve water. For the longest time, there wasn’t any way to take conservation to the “next level”. All the “waste water” including pee produced on the station was just held, possibly uncomfortably and resulting in dancing, and it needed to be disposed of.
In 2009, NASA got serious about conserving water and launched the Water Recovery System to the International Space Station. What is it with you guys and names? I would have shot for “Precycling Internal Solution System” just for the acronym. In fact, that’s what we’re using now.
Ever since, astronauts have been drinking their own urine like Captain Redbeard Rum on Blackadder. Generally after it’s been purified by the recovery system, or if you prefer “peecycled”. Outside of that I’m sure accidents happen, and whatever they get up to in their own time is their business.
Speaking of which, Here’s a video of beloved Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield demonstrating the P.I.S.S system. It takes all water vapor, sweat, and grey water produced and excreted by astronauts and turns it back into drinkable water.
On Earth, you can clear dirty water by boiling it. Collect your steam on a cold surface, pure, pee free and ready for drinking again. Pro tip, this process actually requires gravity, which isn’t readily available when you’re in free fall.
The Recovery System looks like a big spinning keg, which creates artificial gravity. It’s heated and steam is produced. Dirt and contaminants such as the most purified pee molecules are pushed to the edges of the drum while the steam is carried away.
NASA’s Water Recovery System. Credit: NASA
The artificial gravity isn’t perfect, and only 93% of the water can be recovered this way. This means that dirty waste water builds up inside the space station and needs to be flushed with the rest of the trash. Astronauts can’t peecycle everything on the space station, trash does build up. They’ve got a solution for this too.
The most recent cargo delivery spacecraft is always left attached to the space station. Instead of doing laundry, which would use up their precious water and is super boring. Seriously, if you went to the trouble of sending me to space and asked to me wash my clothes I’d get a little snippy.
Astronauts do what the rest of us only dream about. They just wear their clothes until they’re totally worn out. Then throw their laundry into the excess module. Once it’s completely filled with pee, laundry, food remnants, and other, uh… stuff, the spacecraft detaches from the station and re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere where it’s incinerated. No fuss, no muss. Also, clearly for this episode, we’re only going as far as pee jokes as poop jokes are off the table.
Yes, astronauts are drinking their pee. They close their eyes and remind themselves it’s just pure water. Completely safe and delicious to drink. No pee molecules left here. As astronaut Koichi Wakata said, “Here on board the ISS, we turn yesterday’s coffee into tomorrow’s coffee”.
Would you be willing to drink the water produced by the Water Recovery System? Tell us in the comments below.
Look up, way up. It’s entirely possible that you’re looking right at a satellite, which is watching you right back. What kind of Earth Observation technology is possible?
Feel like somebody’s watching you? Well buckle up Rockwell, because somebody totally is. From space, definitely. And by the spiders. Oh, how the spiders love to watch. Right now, there are hundreds of satellites directing their creepy magic eyes and space nostrils towards the Earth.
Watching every… move… you make? Well, not your every move. Probably not any of your moves. At least not enough to warrant bringing in Thriller Pepsi-hair-on-fire Michael Jackson for backing vocals.
There’s a flock of Earth Observation satellites orbiting the planet right now. NASA alone has more than a dozen satellites in its imaginatively titled Earth Observing System program. Some image the land while others measure the atmosphere, oceans, ice, even the planet’s gravity and magnetosphere.
There’s also Landsat satellites. The first launched in 1972 to begin photographing Earth for SCIENCE. Many of the most famous images of Earth were taken by this program, and the missions are still going.
Landsat 8 launched in 2013, and preliminary plans are being made for Landsat 9. Landsat 8 images the entire planet every 16 days. They can’t see what you put in your coffee, at a 15-meter resolution.
NASA isn’t watching you right now, but they are pouring over photos from the last 16 days. Really, they’re dwelling on you from the past. They keep meaning to send you flowers and tell you you’re really pretty, but first they’ve got to get up the courage to dig through your garbage and spend a whole day waiting in their car outside your favorite restaurant.
Want to see what they’re tracking exactly and what secrets they’ve uncovered? Go to this url here – and you can browse the image archives in almost real time from the Landsat satellites. You can see all kinds of government and personal secrets like the seasons changes from Spring to Summer, or possibly a time that lake froze over.
You’re probably wondering about the higher resolution images, like the ones you’ve been looking at on Google Maps. Most likely you’ve been duped. The crazy high resolution images you see of cities are actually photographs taken from airplanes flying a few hundred meters up.
Satellite view of the White House. Image credit: Google Maps
If you can see an airplane or black helicopters flying around you suspiciously, you might be under surveillance. Otherwise, you’re probably safe.
Ah, who am I kidding. We’ve all watched John Oliver. The least of our concerns is cameras. Nobody should be even thinking about a tiny little fly robot that attaches itself to your nosehairs.
What we were talking about? Oh right! How about images from space? The best commercially available satellite images have a resolution of 41 cm. That’s about… this big.
Your tinfoil hat, seen from above only takes up a single pixel. Rest comfortably, as this isn’t a technological problem, it’s actually a legal issue. That’s the highest resolution satellites were allowed to provide.
That’s right, I said “were”. A revision to the law allows the next generation of satellites, such as the recently launched Worldview-3 satellite, to get down to 31 cm – as small as 25 will be permitted.
As the press officer of Digital Globe noted, they’ll be able to tell if your vehicle is a car, truck or SUV. That’s all fine and dandy, but will they call me when I can’t remember where I parked?
Of course, we have no idea what resolution the most powerful satellites are, because they’re super double secret unimaginably classified. We don’t know how many there are, and what they’re capable of, but they’re launched aboard some of the most powerful rockets available in the US, like the Atlas 4. A defense satellite quietly going about its business in low Earth (credit: US Air Force)
What do they look like? Let’s go with the Hubble Space Telescope, pointing down. What kind of resolution do they have? Nobody knows. You can google “Hubble pointed at earth” and read up on all the messy complications with resolution and speed.
The rumor mill seems to think that it’s around 15 cm, significantly better than the commercially available options. Not enough count sugar spoonfuls, but it could target you in your tinfoil hat with ordinance.
Are you being watched from space? Probably. There are several satellites overhead right now, and other satellites capturing low resolution images of your region every few days.
The most powerful satellites are classified military reconnaissance spacecraft, and we have no idea what they’re capable of.
Holy Snowden, that does sound creepy in realm of “stop reading snapchats over my shoulder, heavy breather.”
What configuration of tinfoil hat do you like best to protect your thoughts from orbital mind control lasers?
In the world of quantum mechanics, particles behave in discreet ways. One breakthrough experiment was the Stern-Gerlach Experiment, performed in 1922. They passed silver atoms through a magnetic field and watched how the spin of the atoms caused the particles to deflect in a very specific way. Continue reading “Astronomy Cast Ep. 374: Stern-Gerlach Experiment”
