Speaker 1: This is the Doctor Sky experience. Always look to the
Speaker 1: sky seventy seven WABC. Now here's Doctor Sky.
Speaker 2: Like travels billions of years just so we can watch
Speaker 2: a star say goodbye. But in this darkness, every end
Speaker 2: is just the beginning of something beautiful.
Speaker 3: Thirty two minutes after the hour, we're proviadent on it
Speaker 3: to have on the line two very special guests, author
Speaker 3: and space historian Rod Pyle, and also very much honored
Speaker 3: to have retired United States Air Force Camplin Ed Dwyight.
Speaker 3: His story is most amazing. In nineteen sixty one, at
Speaker 3: the direction of President John F. Kennedy, he became the
Speaker 3: first African American to enter the Air Force training program
Speaker 3: from which NASA selected its astronauts, and often and not
Speaker 3: to be overly repeated, becoming the oldest person to ever
Speaker 3: participate in a spaceflight, a record previously held by William
Speaker 3: Shatner in a launch in Blue Origins NS twenty five
Speaker 3: mission in twenty twenty four. Gentlemen, thank you for being
Speaker 3: with us. Let's continue with the phone calls. They rule
Speaker 3: here in the theater of the mind. Line number three.
Speaker 3: We go to Joan in New York City. Good morning, John,
Speaker 3: how are you.
Speaker 4: Oh, good morning, doctor Sky. I have a couple of
Speaker 4: questions for you. I've heard on NPR that there's going
Speaker 4: to be a partial soul eclipse on August twelfth, and
Speaker 4: much bigger, not quite total, but a lunary eclipse on
Speaker 4: August twenty seventh or twenty eight. So what can you
Speaker 4: tell us? Where are the best places on Earth to
Speaker 4: view these where you would get the largest eclipse. And
Speaker 4: they said something intriguing which I didn't quite understand. Maybe
Speaker 4: you understand what they meant. They said that a lunary
Speaker 4: eclipse always follows a solar eclipse, and I don't know
Speaker 4: what that means eventually, Yeah, yes.
Speaker 3: Vice versa. But let me start off briefly. This is
Speaker 3: what's happening August twelfth, coming up right around the corner.
Speaker 3: There'll be a total solar eclipse for lucky people in Europe,
Speaker 3: particularly Spain, and we here in the New York area
Speaker 3: or the East Coast virtually have no ability to see
Speaker 3: any partiality of this, but the big one. Not to
Speaker 3: take time from our great guests here, but the subject
Speaker 3: is in accordance with what we're talking about, space science, astronomy.
Speaker 3: August two, twenty twenty seven. If you're in an area
Speaker 3: called Luxor Egypt, you'll get to see the longest total
Speaker 3: solar eclipse of all. But what happens there is a
Speaker 3: symbiosis or a connection. When there is a total eclipse
Speaker 3: of the Sun or partial, you usually get one that
Speaker 3: happens some fourteen days later due to the alignment of
Speaker 3: the planetary system. So we appreciate Joan. You have a
Speaker 3: question though, regarding what we're talking about with.
Speaker 4: Ed and also with Oh just congratulations to that man,
Speaker 4: the oldest man in space. I can't imagine having the freedom,
Speaker 4: the courage, your duty to go up in space. And
Speaker 4: I'm a little younger than you and not a lot,
Speaker 4: so congratulations to you. And also being the first African
Speaker 4: American in the program. I think that's fabulous. So thank
Speaker 4: you for that.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you so much, and I hope I
Speaker 3: answered you. Let's continue on line. The time is limited.
Speaker 3: Line one, Greg and Michigan calls in again. Good morning, Greg,
Speaker 3: you're on with two very interesting guests.
Speaker 5: I'm sure, good morning everybody. Mister positive boomshaka laka. I've
Speaker 5: got to ask you, guys, the question of the universe.
Speaker 5: Is it infinite and if it is made by my God,
Speaker 5: can it be infinite?
Speaker 3: Very interesting. I don't know, Rod, you want to jump
Speaker 3: on that one because I'm going to try to get
Speaker 3: into more of the space conversation. But go ahead, this
Speaker 3: is interesting your thoughts on this.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't touch that with a ten light year long
Speaker 6: tall you know alious religious persons, so I'm probably not
Speaker 6: the right out.
Speaker 3: Well, captain, please jump in. I mean it's your time
Speaker 3: on stage on the in the theater of the mine.
Speaker 3: Go ahead.
Speaker 7: No, no, I couldn't answer that question, but you know
Speaker 7: I could answer the question you asked, what was my
Speaker 7: experience on the on the recent on my recent flight.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 7: At launch when when?
Speaker 6: When? When?
Speaker 7: When the booster lit? I uh, we have seventy feet
Speaker 7: here in this in this capsule and boos. When the
Speaker 7: booster lied, I thought the damn thing blew. I thought
Speaker 7: the whole ship blew.
Speaker 6: Jeez.
Speaker 7: And I said to myself, well, I'm going to become
Speaker 7: a cristling to the ground any minute now. And I've
Speaker 7: lived a good life. I'm paying this to myself. And
Speaker 7: next thing, you know, this thing starts lifting up into
Speaker 7: the sky. And I said, oh, I said, oh, this
Speaker 7: is how it works.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. So when you get to the top, when
Speaker 3: you get to the Apoge, I mean you go up
Speaker 3: about what about fifty some miles or that line in
Speaker 3: space is probably fifty sixty.
Speaker 7: Miles right right. And so I am sitting on top
Speaker 7: of the explosive bolt is right below my butt, and
Speaker 7: the exposed the boat to separation booster from the capsule exploded,
Speaker 7: and so I said, well, they didn't get me the
Speaker 7: first time, They got me this time. And the next thing,
Speaker 7: you know, this this booster starts moving away from the capsule.
Speaker 7: And I was sitting there absolutely amazed, and I got
Speaker 7: a chance to look down at the Earth, and I
Speaker 7: looked at this wonderful little I've seen the curvature of
Speaker 7: the Earth obviously as a test about it, but seeing
Speaker 7: the Earth from from that distance, so you got this wonderful, neat,
Speaker 7: little well ordered ball down there. There's spectacular and view
Speaker 7: everything is organized and beautiful, and it's just incredible, and
Speaker 7: there's no boundaries between countries and states and all this
Speaker 7: sort of thing, you know, And I got I got
Speaker 7: an incredibly spiritual moment at that point in time, and
Speaker 7: I just could not imagine why why these people on
Speaker 7: that little ball down there I can't get along with
Speaker 7: each other?
Speaker 3: And I wow, that's an amazing statement, my friend, You're
Speaker 3: so correct. I mean, eight eight point seven billion people
Speaker 3: routing it, that's amazing. Why do I have to have wars?
Speaker 3: Why can't we just be like you said?
Speaker 7: Why can't we all just And I came to the
Speaker 7: conclusion that every elected official needs at least three orbits
Speaker 7: on this earth, and all the bs well, it won't stop,
Speaker 7: but it will certainly slow down, uh, you know, trying
Speaker 7: to kill each other and do all these incredibly bad
Speaker 7: things to each other. Just it was my it was
Speaker 7: worth all all that whole life that I've lived just
Speaker 7: that few seconds of looking at the earth and from
Speaker 7: that distance, and it just it was ever a movie.
Speaker 7: And you already changed a lot of my values and
Speaker 7: things about what this earth and everything is all about.
Speaker 3: Actually, absolutely right, Captain again, thanking you for your service
Speaker 3: and all the people in all the branches, men and
Speaker 3: women of course, right dedication to America. I'm going to
Speaker 3: ask you this quick question. We'll go back to the
Speaker 3: callers and we'll get a ride involved. And sure he
Speaker 3: has a number of questions too. Shock Yeger and General
Speaker 3: Curtis LeMay or what instrumental in moving forward your ability
Speaker 3: to become the first African American American astron in the
Speaker 3: training program. Talk about that because I've had Chuck here
Speaker 3: before he passed, and he was a tough cookie to interview. Boy,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you I didn't get a lot of words
Speaker 3: out of him. All he ever said to me he
Speaker 3: was yep, nope, I wanted to get more.
Speaker 8: But is that true.
Speaker 3: These guys were involved in you were moving up the line.
Speaker 7: No, these guys were the guys that stopped.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 7: He was very upset.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeager was livid that that president didn't make him the
Speaker 7: first astronaut or put him on that astronaut team. He
Speaker 7: was very bitter about that.
Speaker 3: Wow, I didn't know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and the fact that he was that the president
Speaker 7: would cho the black uh candidate. The steam came out
Speaker 7: of this guy's ears and practically coming down to test
Speaker 7: by the school, he had a meeting with with the
Speaker 7: new students and the instructor staff and he told these
Speaker 7: guys that the president is trying to use him the
Speaker 7: end where he's trying to cram an in word down
Speaker 7: our throats and if we allow this guy to do this,
Speaker 7: the President's going to take the whole uh make the
Speaker 7: whole space program. Black.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but truth is the
Speaker 3: best thing of all, Captain, because let me say this now,
Speaker 3: I have to consider myself an apology to the audience.
Speaker 3: You can't always believe everything you read here. So that's
Speaker 3: what I was reading. And again I'm dead wrong on that.
Speaker 3: Sorry to hear that.
Speaker 7: Well, all through test about the school, he called me
Speaker 7: into his office every week and told me to my
Speaker 7: faith that I was not worthy, I shouldn't have been there,
Speaker 7: and the President's going to kill me. And it just
Speaker 7: went on through my whole training, and he was running
Speaker 7: around talking about how how inadequate I was. Out of
Speaker 7: my test potic clas as there was seventeen in the class,
Speaker 7: and I graduated seventh out of that seventeen. And I
Speaker 7: erupted in these days at the end, at the end
Speaker 7: of the thing that as it was, there were ten
Speaker 7: there were ten white guys that were below me, and
Speaker 7: it was your rating system that did this. Yeah, sorry
Speaker 7: to hear that.
Speaker 3: And God blessed because nowadays everybody not because of the race, color,
Speaker 3: or creed. They should be given what obviously equal opportunity
Speaker 3: men and women to aspire based on their credibility, their scores,
Speaker 3: and their ability to do the job, which is a
Speaker 3: tough one. I'm sure, Ron, I'm sure you have a
Speaker 3: quick comment or too, because the quick comment it almost
Speaker 3: sets us up to the next break here in about
Speaker 3: a minute and a half.
Speaker 6: Please continue, I do so, Captain Dwight. I have a question.
Speaker 6: I mean, you were a pioneering flight test, you were
Speaker 6: a potential astronaut candidate. No thanks to those guys, but
Speaker 6: why do you think it took another twenty two years
Speaker 6: to get a person of color in space in the
Speaker 6: American space program?
Speaker 3: Great question?
Speaker 7: Well, okay, okay, that is a great question. Because all
Speaker 7: through my training, the President brought me to Washington every
Speaker 7: weekend to meet with the Senators. This was a big
Speaker 7: political move. I met with almost all the Senators trying
Speaker 7: to get political with the President, trying to get political support.
Speaker 7: I only met with the househole leadership because of four
Speaker 7: than thirty five member members of that so I couldn't
Speaker 7: meet with all those guys as a political move to
Speaker 7: move this whole black astronaut or blacks in space idea
Speaker 7: along and from the time I got every one of
Speaker 7: the senators that I spoke to and how this twenty
Speaker 7: year thinking, every single one of them wished me well
Speaker 7: good luck, but you know you're twenty years too soon,
Speaker 7: every single seven. And it was this twenty year thing.
Speaker 7: And then Lewis and Clark were the last great pioneers.
Speaker 7: So this whole thing. America was one hundred percent against
Speaker 7: this whole thing, and it was just too soon. And
Speaker 7: there was no way that they were going to allow
Speaker 7: a black to be involved, and he's already asked form
Speaker 7: out selections, so they had to move the thing back
Speaker 7: so that space was well exploited. And then you bring
Speaker 7: the blacks and the women in and I faced that
Speaker 7: the whole time I was in the program.
Speaker 3: Well, gentlemen, we have to take that break again. Apologies
Speaker 3: for cutting anybody short, but we do have a ton
Speaker 3: of callers that would like to get in on the conversation.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back here on the Doctor Sky Experience.
Speaker 3: If you've called in, we'll do our very best to
Speaker 3: get you on with your questions and comments in the
Speaker 3: Theater of the Mind on the Doctor Sky Experience.
Speaker 1: This is the Doctor Sky experience. Always look to the sky.
Speaker 1: Seventy seven WABC. Now here's Doctor Sky.
Speaker 8: Listen. Captain Jim Lovell, an old astronaut, has made four
Speaker 8: very significant flights. Hopefully that the people listening, especially the
Speaker 8: young people, will get a good education kind of follow
Speaker 8: me in space. And it was a pleasure to be
Speaker 8: on the Doctor Sky's show. And lots of LEU. Call
Speaker 8: of you.
Speaker 3: Forty seven minutes after the hour, we continue with the
Speaker 3: callers our two very special guests, author and space historian
Speaker 3: Rod Pyle and Ed Dwight, retired United States Air Force
Speaker 3: Captain Ed Dwight, one of the original astronauts, the African
Speaker 3: American astronauts to be put into the space program and
Speaker 3: also the oldest person to participate in the spaceflight, beating
Speaker 3: out the age of William Shanner. Let's continue online. Number three.
Speaker 3: Welcome Dominic in New Jersey. You're on with our great guests.
Speaker 10: How are you hello, Doctor Scott and all your guests
Speaker 10: are amazing as always of you keep me up late
Speaker 10: at night being that you do have all those great,
Speaker 10: great guests, so thank you.
Speaker 4: I do want to ask.
Speaker 10: Captain dwighte again, this is Dominic and it's really an
Speaker 10: honor to speak to you. I was reading a bit
Speaker 10: about you, and I see how long you trained for
Speaker 10: space flight back in the sixties, but you know that
Speaker 10: you finally flew at ninety was the New Shepherd spacescraft
Speaker 10: spacecraft like a more forgiving ride than what you trained
Speaker 10: for back then, like with the G forces and like
Speaker 10: the vibration and physical stress of the launch. And at
Speaker 10: any point did you think, Wow, I'm like ninety years
Speaker 10: old and I'm actually doing this, or like thought twice
Speaker 10: about growing up? Thank you for for answering my questions.
Speaker 3: Woh, captain human side of this, This is cool.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I never flew, you know, in the New Shepherd,
Speaker 7: So I can't answer. I can't answer that question. Uh,
Speaker 7: can you give me the second question again?
Speaker 3: I guess dominate, go ahead. I'm sorry. We had too
Speaker 3: many things that we could try to get through in
Speaker 3: a short time. What was the second time?
Speaker 6: Go ahead?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 10: No, So my my question is when you flew up
Speaker 10: with the UH with the flue origin, right, was that
Speaker 10: spacecraft a little bit more forgiving bride than what you
Speaker 10: trained for back when you were a young man, like
Speaker 10: especially the g's forces or the vibration and things like that,
Speaker 10: being that it was newer technology, right, So I was
Speaker 10: just wondering what your thoughts were with like the advancement
Speaker 10: of what we have now versus Ben. I mean, I
Speaker 10: know it didn't any easier, but he.
Speaker 3: Never flew the first time. He never flew the first time.
Speaker 3: But yeah, Captain your experiences, how was the G force
Speaker 3: on what you flew on?
Speaker 10: I guess it was the training, the training that he had.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the G forces in in the spaceships, it is
Speaker 7: really negligible. I mean, you know, I pulled up up
Speaker 7: to ten twelve z's when I was flight testing, So
Speaker 7: that's a totally different matter that the G forces in
Speaker 7: these space in the spacecraft doesn't come anywhere near you know,
Speaker 7: those kind of G forces that we experienced as hard
Speaker 7: as hard nosed fighter pilots where we're doing flight testing
Speaker 7: and stuff. So there's really no comparison. The uh, it's
Speaker 7: just not a factor. I'll just put it to you
Speaker 7: that way.
Speaker 3: I'm just said, thank you, Dominic and New Jersey appreciate
Speaker 3: you and your commentary. I got to ask you this, Captain,
Speaker 3: the type of airplace you say test pilot, what are
Speaker 3: some of the aircraft that you flew, because I'm sure
Speaker 3: many people out there may or may not have the
Speaker 3: vast experience in aviation. Describe some of them that you flew.
Speaker 3: I'm amazed to hear this.
Speaker 7: I ended up playing twenty five different airplanes, from from
Speaker 7: from small planes up to a flud B fifty two's,
Speaker 7: and then flight testing, you know, one thirty five, which
Speaker 7: was the largest planes. I mean, you know, flying a
Speaker 7: B fifty two is like driving around in an apartment building.
Speaker 3: The pictures I've seen them, and they're called, as you know, sir,
Speaker 3: there's an acronym. We won't use the real description, but
Speaker 3: it's the b U f F the buff and I
Speaker 3: don't describe it because it uses some letters pay together
Speaker 3: bad words that we don't say on the radio.
Speaker 7: But yeah, yeah, I ended up playing all the fighters,
Speaker 7: all one hundred series fighters, and they've been in earlier
Speaker 7: and some of the World War Two fighters flud.
Speaker 8: And so.
Speaker 7: It's just hard to, you know, to evaluate that whole range.
Speaker 7: These most pilots going in the military and they fly
Speaker 7: one airplane their whole career, you know, variations of the
Speaker 7: same airplane their entire twenty thirty year career. And I
Speaker 7: was really lucky, and it was really really unusual. And
Speaker 7: I was in these various and Sunday situations where I
Speaker 7: was on the base and I was some of them
Speaker 7: was out of sheer curiosity because I wanted to build
Speaker 7: up my flying time. So I went volunteered to fly
Speaker 7: other airplanes other than you know, you know, my main airplanes.
Speaker 7: So that's how I ended up flying twenty five different
Speaker 7: airplanes from light light airplanes up up up to be
Speaker 7: fifty two's and which was really fascinating, fascinating flying career.
Speaker 7: And I was I was able to see how the
Speaker 7: different airplanes interacted. And like the Airport four, everybody talks
Speaker 7: about that there's the worst airplane in the world. It
Speaker 7: flies straight, yes.
Speaker 3: The manned missile, So you're.
Speaker 7: Right twice the speed of some but don't try to
Speaker 7: turn it.
Speaker 3: Captain. I got one more thing, and I want to
Speaker 3: get Rught in before the hour ends. And again my
Speaker 3: thank you honoring your service in the military and what
Speaker 3: you've done and what you continue to do here. It's
Speaker 3: just an amazing, amazing story. You know, I was close
Speaker 3: with many of the Tuskegee airmen here in Arizona. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you ever knew the gentleman Bob Ashby.
Speaker 3: My god, Hey, my friend Bob and I, Hey what
Speaker 3: we did? Look the audience, we're going to go. I
Speaker 3: wish we had fifty hours with you, but here it
Speaker 3: is real quick. What we did. We hooked at with
Speaker 3: the company and the Philippines that made these incredible models.
Speaker 3: So as an honor to the Tuskegee Airman, the redtail
Speaker 3: pilot says, you know, we did one for Bob Ashby.
Speaker 3: But sadly, Bob, like yourself, tells us the story of
Speaker 3: horrible discrimination because he was a command pilot on a
Speaker 3: major airline. I won't mention it. He barely got into
Speaker 3: that seat in the command seat because of the horrible discrimination.
Speaker 3: So that's a story, you bet.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Sorry, Bob and I were really
Speaker 7: really close by the.
Speaker 3: Way, Okay, we got some go ahead.
Speaker 6: I guess it just may not be the most appropriate.
Speaker 6: It's not a space question. But you know they called
Speaker 6: the F one O for the widow Maker. Was there
Speaker 6: a good reason for that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 7: Uh yeah, because if you didn't know, if you weren't
Speaker 7: on it every minute with that airplane, I mean it could,
Speaker 7: it could and would kill you.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 7: And and they were using it for for loyal over
Speaker 7: d landings and preparation for the Space Shuttle and test
Speaker 7: bout the school. They were using the F one o four.
Speaker 7: We'd go to thirty thousand feet and shift the engine
Speaker 7: off and landing.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 7: They are plenty of three hundred miles an hour. And everybody,
Speaker 7: everybody in the tests arena there that got killed. Several
Speaker 7: guys got killed. Out of my classmates, seventeen of this
Speaker 7: graduated and within three years only eight of us were left.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: I got one closing thing to mention here, that F
Speaker 3: one o four. I don't know, Captain, if you were
Speaker 3: familiar with General Steve Ritchie, the Air Force ACE in Vietnam.
Speaker 3: He and I were friends and he sent me down.
Speaker 3: We went to visit in Florida. They had a detachment
Speaker 3: of fe O fours called Starfighters. And at one time
Speaker 3: you said to me, how about a ride in the
Speaker 3: back seat? And I said to him, in my very
Speaker 3: simple way, Hell, no getting me in the back seat.
Speaker 3: But what a beautiful looking airplane? Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, No, I'm sorry, But what I want to
Speaker 3: mention this is most important your website. I want to
Speaker 3: mention ed Dwight d w I g HD dot com.
Speaker 3: You can learn so much more, ladies and gentlemen about
Speaker 3: his artistic side, the artistic side of this American hero,
Speaker 3: as I like to call you, and again, sir, thank
Speaker 3: you for your service to the United States. And again, ay,
Speaker 3: discrimination never be the path in this country ever. Again,
Speaker 3: it should be based on our character, our abilities, and
Speaker 3: that simply should be why it should be. And we
Speaker 3: could add in another thing, talking about truth and justice.
Speaker 3: That's the thing we need. Rod Byle, You're going to
Speaker 3: continue with me in hour number two, but Edward, I
Speaker 3: just want to say one thing. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: If you have a closing comment, you have the floor,
Speaker 3: and folks, if we haven't gotten to you, we'll definitely
Speaker 3: continue in hour number two one eight hundred eight four
Speaker 3: eight nine to two two. Captain Dwight your fatal words.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, I really really really appreciate this. You know,
Speaker 7: you you know you go through life and you you
Speaker 7: you know I don't. I don't consider myself the people
Speaker 7: give me credit for a whole bunch of self and
Speaker 7: I and all I'm doing is what I consider to
Speaker 7: be the right thing. I had a lot of training
Speaker 7: to do things right, and I spent a lot of time.
Speaker 7: Everything I've ever done, I've spent an incredible amount of
Speaker 7: time doing the homework associated with it so I can succeed.
Speaker 7: And there were four that have been forces that have
Speaker 7: have allowed me not to succeed as well as I
Speaker 7: plan to. But I ended up getting over the hump
Speaker 7: when I became a sculptor. I've done one hundred and
Speaker 7: thirty three Lords memorials in thirty seven Statesful, I've been busy,
Speaker 7: staying busy.
Speaker 6: And I didn't tell you this, but right now I'm
Speaker 6: legally blind.
Speaker 3: God yeah, but I'm still working and continue. You'll never
Speaker 3: give up, and that's the way to have it, folks,
Speaker 3: no matter what affliction we have, we have to over comment.
Speaker 6: You better believe.
Speaker 7: Okay, Well, I'm writing three books and that's why I
Speaker 7: got to stay living to get these three books finished.
Speaker 3: Well, God bless you, and I hope you have a
Speaker 3: good morning.
Speaker 6: Sir.
Speaker 3: Let's talk again at your convenience. And I also want
Speaker 3: to tell the audience that's something very special that you
Speaker 3: have in your honor. You have an asteroid known as
Speaker 3: asteroid nine two five seventy nine asteroid Dwight. You got
Speaker 3: a piece of rock out there, out in the universe,
Speaker 3: rightfully deserved. Captain God, bless you and thank you for
Speaker 3: your service to America.
Speaker 6: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 7: Okay, thank all of you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Okay, bye, blessing well, ladies and gentlemen. We continue on
Speaker 3: the other side with Rod byle. We have so much
Speaker 3: to cover in the area of space updates. What about
Speaker 3: the asteroidal bodies that are out there we know? What
Speaker 3: about the missions to the asteroidal bodies and so many
Speaker 3: other things. What happened to the SpaceX booster? But most
Speaker 3: important right Rod in the theater of the mind. People
Speaker 3: can join in the conversation. If you have been on hold,
Speaker 3: we apologize with the popularity of the guests. Stay on
Speaker 3: the line and we'll continue to do this. A quick
Speaker 3: space and astronomy update from my side. Don't forget. We
Speaker 3: find the big percied meteor shower once again, reining forth.
Speaker 3: If you have clear skies, this is the week to look.
Speaker 3: No moon is in the sky as of August the twelfth,
Speaker 3: when a total solar eclipse occurs on the other side
Speaker 3: of the world, giving good conditions to look in the
Speaker 3: northeast on the evenings of August the twelfth into the
Speaker 3: thirteenth and to the thirteenth into the fourteenth early morning
Speaker 3: look in the midnight sky right after midnight in the northeast.
Speaker 3: You beget to see some of the amazing sights in nature.
Speaker 3: More on the Doctor Sky experience when we return with
Speaker 3: our number two and thanks to our helmsman Bill and
Speaker 3: Jackson making sure you're heard. Five by Fine.
Speaker 6: Ground, you have a safety exclusion zone. And once you
Speaker 6: have an exclusion zone, you kind of almost have a
Speaker 6: de fact a land claim. You're not claiming the land,
Speaker 6: but you're you're telling people that you've got this stay
Speaker 6: out area because you don't want anybody getting hurt.
Speaker 3: So is that analogous or something like if you have
Speaker 3: a mobile home and you own the mobile home, but
Speaker 3: you don't own the land underneath it.
Speaker 6: Something of that order, right, I mean to make it
Speaker 6: really kind of like that, To take it a step further,
Speaker 6: I have a leaky pro paint tank and if you
Speaker 6: smoke too close to my mobile home, it's going to
Speaker 6: blow up.
Speaker 3: So stay over there, you know, you know this is
Speaker 3: very interesting. David Online too comes to us in the
Speaker 3: theater of the mine. He's in Staten Island. David, you're
Speaker 3: on the year with Rod Pyle. How you doing?
Speaker 11: Rod? And Doctor Sky previously was the subject of a
Speaker 11: child who made a mud pie and it took time
Speaker 11: of a crib and turned into a ladder, and then
Speaker 11: in an orphanation made a roadside bomb with toysts and
Speaker 11: sand and eventually we take red black red checkers that
Speaker 11: drop him on his toys. And many years later Wall Street,
Speaker 11: I have an article regarding to Howard ten year old
Speaker 11: and make an atomic bomb. That was the primary red
Speaker 11: black red. The black was lead to separate two isotopes.
Speaker 8: What I'm trying to.
Speaker 11: Say is the Alligator submarine has to be brought back
Speaker 11: to life, modernized in the twenty first century, and give
Speaker 11: it to the Navy because we're going to need it
Speaker 11: in the near future. As what I have learned over
Speaker 11: from here station. By the way, I love it. It's
Speaker 11: very informative, it's very educational. It's a saying they said
Speaker 11: in the Navy many years ago during the Second World War.
Speaker 11: Both let's think ships. But I needed help for a
Speaker 11: long time. I'm going to two.
Speaker 3: Well, blessings to you, my friend, and keep those secrets
Speaker 3: where they need to be. You're absolutely right, and I
Speaker 3: think I'm getting out of that route a bit about
Speaker 3: radiation shielding. But from what he's describing, David and Staten Island,
Speaker 3: obviously spacecraft that's a big issue, I mean quick coming
Speaker 3: from you, that is something very serious on long journeys
Speaker 3: out into space. How do you really protect the crew
Speaker 3: because I have no idea. What do you keep building
Speaker 3: heavier and heavier layers of lead as David was talking
Speaker 3: about with submarines to shield reactions from nuclear.
Speaker 7: What do you do well?
Speaker 6: And in this case, I think we're not talking about
Speaker 6: shielding the crew for a reactor, although we will might
Speaker 6: have nuclear proposal. We're talking about shielding the space.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So you've got spacemic radiation coming from outright, coming from
Speaker 6: outside the Solar System, and you've got the radiation coming
Speaker 6: from the Sun. So I wrote a book about, I
Speaker 6: guess exactly ten years ago called Blueprint for a Battlestar,
Speaker 6: which is about, you know, great scientific innovations, and one
Speaker 6: of the things in there was about this topic. They
Speaker 6: NASA particular, but through NYAK their Advanced Innovation Program and
Speaker 6: a number of other branches have been working hard on
Speaker 6: this problem, as have other international folks, and we're finding
Speaker 6: lighter and lighter elements of sometimes pretty esoteric combinations of
Speaker 6: either metal alloys or other kinds of things like composits
Speaker 6: that do block radiation pretty effectively. The problem is that
Speaker 6: they're not heavy, they're bulky, and it seems from what
Speaker 6: I've read, I mean the holy grail of this is
Speaker 6: active radiation mediation. So if you can have the right
Speaker 6: kind of electrical field or magnetic field around your ship
Speaker 6: that can deflect an awful lot of radiation. Just don't
Speaker 6: let your generators go out, or you have a problem
Speaker 6: if you're there too long. But in a more some sense,
Speaker 6: there's been a lot of conversation about using water jackets. Now,
Speaker 6: water's really heavy, so this is why you want to
Speaker 6: be able to get it from the moon. Right, you're
Speaker 6: not launching it off Earth. But once you've got it,
Speaker 6: you put a water jack or into spacecraft. Water's very
Speaker 6: good at absorbing blocking a lot of different kinds of radiation.
Speaker 6: You can also make it in to breathe the boxygen
Speaker 6: you can make it int a rocket fuel. You can
Speaker 6: use it to grow algae for food supplies. So there's
Speaker 6: all kinds of good things that come if you can
Speaker 6: handle moving the mass of water to surround your shit.
Speaker 3: Right, And when you bring it up, you bring up
Speaker 3: a good point. That's why if people look at nuclear
Speaker 3: reactors like these big power station room nuclear reactors, they're
Speaker 3: obviously the rods are in case what and big pools
Speaker 3: and puddles of water, big pools, not puddles. And you're right,
Speaker 3: that mitigates what some of that radiation from escaping in
Speaker 3: a way that they know the formulas. We don't. But
Speaker 3: as long as they keep it safe, don't let the
Speaker 3: thing drain and have exposed rods.
Speaker 6: That's not a good situation, right, Never good too to
Speaker 6: have that situation, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you've written so many books here and I'm looking
Speaker 3: at this whole list. Wow, it goes along like a
Speaker 3: big print out here. So we're talking about the book
Speaker 3: that you just mentioned before. This is so amazing in
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen blueprint for a battlestar sterling books. Obviously, these
Speaker 3: books that go back, they're still in print or people
Speaker 3: can get them, or they're hard to find if they're
Speaker 3: a book collector. On many of these how to actually
Speaker 3: tell us about that.
Speaker 6: Fortunately for me, although a lot of them are on
Speaker 6: back list, we sold enough of them that they're all
Speaker 6: available used. And I always, you know, unless somebody wants
Speaker 6: a pristine first edition that they want signed or something,
Speaker 6: I say, look, just go to Books a Million or something.
Speaker 6: You can find most of them for anywhere from three
Speaker 6: to twelve dollars, you know, spend retail price unless you
Speaker 6: really want it brand new. I think eight or ten
Speaker 6: of them are still in print, and then the rest
Speaker 6: out of the working on my twenty second now are
Speaker 6: still available. And then I've got a new one coming
Speaker 6: out later this year, and one that US came out
Speaker 6: actually called a Dream Renewed that takes a new look
Speaker 6: at the work of Gerard O'Neil about orbital space colonies.
Speaker 6: I was an editor on that book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd like to get a copy of that one.
Speaker 3: And wherever we purchase one, it obviously available by your website,
Speaker 3: which is pilebooks dot com.
Speaker 6: Well, actually it won't be on there because it's a
Speaker 6: National Space Society imprint. So it's going to be on
Speaker 6: the NSS website at NSS dot org, and it's going
Speaker 6: to be on Amazon in about six weeks. I think
Speaker 6: so it's nice coming out. Yeah, File that's.
Speaker 3: In the other books, Rodpile books. It just pilebooks dot com.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, Pilpy eater one.
Speaker 6: Actually I grabbed both domains because you know it wants
Speaker 6: my name right.
Speaker 3: It's fascinating. Well, we're almost up again at the space
Speaker 3: time continuum which rules, which is the hard break at
Speaker 3: the bottom of every hour. So it's what's interesting. We
Speaker 3: have so many things I'd like to discuss with you,
Speaker 3: but I want to jump into this, maybe just in
Speaker 3: a couple of minutes. Maybe we have two all these
Speaker 3: particular spacecraft that are orbiting the Moon. I'm looking at
Speaker 3: about seven that are still in lunar orbit, but we
Speaker 3: can go through after the break. I want to talk
Speaker 3: about one, and in particular for this moment, the Lunar
Speaker 3: Reconnaissance Orbiter. I'm so proud of that spacecraft. How can
Speaker 3: you be proud of a spacecraft. Well, it shows us
Speaker 3: all these different images of you know, pass spacecraft like
Speaker 3: our Apollo descent modules, the footprints, and that I hope
Speaker 3: is one way that people might believe well, if they
Speaker 3: believe the image is real, I do that we did
Speaker 3: go there, but little LRO does a great job, don't
Speaker 3: you think.
Speaker 6: Absolutely. It's a spectacular success. And like most of NASA
Speaker 6: and or JPL spacecraft, has greatly outlived its warranty. Most
Speaker 6: of these things have a primary mission of anywhere for
Speaker 6: three months to a year. This one was supposed to
Speaker 6: work for a year, with an extension of two years,
Speaker 6: and it's coming up on soon. It'll be eighteen years amazing.
Speaker 3: Also mission our special guest here, he's our go to
Speaker 3: guy when it comes to these space subjects. And again
Speaker 3: you can go to pile Books dot com orerever good
Speaker 3: books are sold and there's a lot of places. We'll
Speaker 3: be right back one eight four eight nine, two two
Speaker 3: two to get into the theater of the mind. I'm
Speaker 3: Steve Kates, Doctor Sky, and the Doctor Sky Experience continues
Speaker 3: talking with you, not at you, about the great mysteries
Speaker 3: that lie out in the universe. We'll be right now.
Speaker 1: The Doctor Sky Experience is on the air seventy seven WABC.
Speaker 6: Now here's Doctor Sky.
Speaker 2: Look into the distance where time stands still at the
Speaker 2: edge of the dark, the light learns to bend. We
Speaker 2: cross the boundary, not to disappear.
Speaker 6: But to discover.
Speaker 2: Where the infinite begins.
Speaker 3: We're all part of the space time continuing here on
Speaker 3: talk radio seventy seven WABC thirty one minutes after the hour.
Speaker 3: Rod Bile, He's our space historian, an author on great
Speaker 3: topics every linked to the subject that we're talking about
Speaker 3: about space. The question we have for the audience, and
Speaker 3: we continue with it, what does the US space program
Speaker 3: mean to you regarding American exceptionalism? Four eight nine two.
Speaker 3: Let's go to line number one. Dave's been patient in
Speaker 3: New York. Good morning, how are you doing? Hi?
Speaker 8: How are you doing?
Speaker 6: Steve doing good?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 12: Yeah, I'm the lesson glory guy nerves. You know you've
Speaker 12: talked to me before.
Speaker 6: Nine question.
Speaker 12: Yes, yes, not often, but you know, anyway, my question is,
Speaker 12: is there a way or could they develop a way
Speaker 12: to harvest the radiation the cosmic rays or whatever in
Speaker 12: outer space? Or if we have a spaceship or you know,
Speaker 12: a base on the Moon or whatever to harvest the
Speaker 12: cosmic rays and we reutilize them as power and also
Speaker 12: possibly shield whatever craft.
Speaker 5: We have.
Speaker 3: Very interesting question. I never thought about it that way, David.
Speaker 3: I'm sure Rod will bring us right to the center
Speaker 3: of the conversation. Rod, this is.
Speaker 6: Interesting, Well, you have a stronger physics background than I do,
Speaker 6: doctor Scott, but I think radiation space radiation is one
Speaker 6: of those things. It's a little bit like the Martian atmosphere.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 6: The Martian atmosphere is thick enough that you have to
Speaker 6: worry about having heat shields and so forth, but so
Speaker 6: thin that it really and help you slow down enough
Speaker 6: to land on the planet without extraordinary measures. And my
Speaker 6: understanding of space radiation, and please correct me if you
Speaker 6: think differently, is that it's strong enough to do serious
Speaker 6: damage to our genetic structure over extended period of time,
Speaker 6: but otherwise so very very weak that I don't think
Speaker 6: there's a way to collect enough of it for it
Speaker 6: to make a difference, at least not the current techno.
Speaker 3: Well, you're so right, and Dave, just to add to this,
Speaker 3: I'm not the expert on this either. I'm just giving
Speaker 3: a little bit of opinion here from what I do
Speaker 3: and read. But you have the different particles in space,
Speaker 3: Cosmic rays would be just ridiculously I think I hate
Speaker 3: the word impossible to harvest because of the incredible power
Speaker 3: that they have. That's one part of the radiation that's
Speaker 3: pretty dominant in space. But if you look at the energy,
Speaker 3: like we know from the Sun, all this proton energy
Speaker 3: in the form of light and heat. That's something obviously
Speaker 3: that's another discussion. It's a solar power. But Dave, if
Speaker 3: you bring up something interesting, I never thought of it
Speaker 3: that way because we're trying to talk in this little
Speaker 3: context how to shield this spacecraft so that humans don't
Speaker 3: become you know, cancer victims obviously on long duration space missions.
Speaker 3: But you want to add something else to the conversation.
Speaker 3: You bring up some amazing topics for great research.
Speaker 12: That's exactly what I was thinking. But you know, if
Speaker 12: there's a.
Speaker 8: Way to.
Speaker 12: Channel it and use it for a shield, and also,
Speaker 12: you know, let me bring up you know, the power
Speaker 12: of solar wind, and.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 12: The sci fi stuff with the sails powering ships going
Speaker 12: out and all that. But yeah, I just thought there
Speaker 12: might be a way to channel it back into a shield.
Speaker 3: That's a very interesting concept because as you go deeper
Speaker 3: into space, right rod, the solar wind that Dave is
Speaker 3: talking about, it's strong. It's like a garden hose. The
Speaker 3: best analogy we can give everybody listening if they don't
Speaker 3: know about solar wind, the stream of particles coming out
Speaker 3: from the Sun. It varies in soder cycle low and high.
Speaker 3: We know that, but it's like the analogy would be
Speaker 3: you take a garden hose, Dave and fire it. You
Speaker 3: know what, It's tiniest little focused beam of water. Eventually
Speaker 3: at the source it's very powerful. But what happens way
Speaker 3: out So if you're doing missions both Dave and Rodd
Speaker 3: that go deeper out into the universe, the dissipation of
Speaker 3: the solar wind is not going to be as strong
Speaker 3: as when you left let's say the Earth, so you'd
Speaker 3: have to go to distant stars and that just confuses
Speaker 3: the audience more.
Speaker 6: Right, Well, then you're tacking like a sloop at sea.
Speaker 6: There's an interesting I just read about a study that
Speaker 6: Nayak is doing, which is the NASA Advanced Innovation Concept Study.
Speaker 6: A university I think it's Texas. A and M just
Speaker 6: got granted a bunch of money to study a stack
Speaker 6: solar sales. So rather than one big, huge monolithic thing,
Speaker 6: you know, kilometers wide, it's a stack of twenty or
Speaker 6: thirty smaller sales, kind of like some of the Chinese
Speaker 6: kites you see where they have surface after surface after
Speaker 6: surface strung together exactly so that the effective area is
Speaker 6: it's huge, but it's much easier to fly up and deploy.
Speaker 6: But you're right, I mean, you get you know, you
Speaker 6: start heading outside of the heliosphere, and I mean there's
Speaker 6: actually that point that the voyagers across where you leave
Speaker 6: the effect of the solar wind and now you're outside
Speaker 6: of that, and whatever you're getting is from the great beyond,
Speaker 6: I guess, And I don't know what you do at
Speaker 6: that point. I mean there's been tons of studies about
Speaker 6: you know, if we have a huge, powerful laser orbiting
Speaker 6: Earth and we point that at a at a reflector
Speaker 6: or some kind of a dish on the spacecraft, can
Speaker 6: we push it with that? But when you start looking
Speaker 6: at the kind of power reserves acquired, you know, this
Speaker 6: visionary stuff. But for a guy like me, stuck stuck
Speaker 6: in old age in the first half of the twenty
Speaker 6: first century, it seems, oh, it's going to be.
Speaker 3: Hard anyway, we're both in the same group. But here
Speaker 3: we go. This is interesting. So Dave, thank you for
Speaker 3: your call in New York, because here's an interesting thing.
Speaker 3: Maybe it gives raw inspiration to write a book, but
Speaker 3: I think, no, not better than you.
Speaker 6: Rod.
Speaker 3: If Arthur C. Clark was still around the great sci
Speaker 3: fi ro Oh yeah, I'm sure he could take great
Speaker 3: liberty at turn turning a book out about what you
Speaker 3: talked about, Dave, about harnessing the power of the energy
Speaker 3: coming out from the universe. So anyway, that's amazing. Before
Speaker 3: the break, I wanted to get into the conversation of
Speaker 3: these spacecraft that are orbiting the Moon. I called it
Speaker 3: the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is there. The Indian nation
Speaker 3: has Chendrayan two supposedly still in orbit. The Koreans have
Speaker 3: the dan Yuru or dan Uri spacecraft. And then here's
Speaker 3: an interesting part about this. These are things I don't know.
Speaker 3: That's what we ask you. Artemis too apparently put tiny
Speaker 3: little CubeSats in orbit around the Moon, P one and
Speaker 3: P two. I have no idea if they're still running.
Speaker 3: They were these tiny little things that maybe look like
Speaker 3: a suitcase. And the Chinese have two very important relay satellites.
Speaker 3: So those people are wondering, right Rod, how do we
Speaker 3: get signals from the far side of the Moon when
Speaker 3: we've never done that? Are eves They have these little
Speaker 3: relay satellite, so not the splood hairs the Moon still
Speaker 3: has a whole lot of these little orbiting objects going
Speaker 3: around it, and probably many more to come.
Speaker 6: Right it does. And you mentioned the Chinese satellites, which
Speaker 6: I found especially compelling. I mean, the thing an artemist too, was,
Speaker 6: I think, just a small experiment. Basically CubeSat sizes are recalled,
Speaker 6: but the Chinese ones, I think are called Magpie one,
Speaker 6: a Magpie two kind of cube.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 6: And you know, we had looked at doing an apollo
Speaker 6: landing on the far side of the Moon with some seriousness.
Speaker 6: It was never taken forward. For one reason, they canceled
Speaker 6: a bunch of the missions, and for another, its just
Speaker 6: deemed pretty dangerous. But we knew we'd need relay satellites
Speaker 6: to do that because obviously radio's line of site you
Speaker 6: can't bend it around the backside of the Moon because
Speaker 6: it got this big rock blocking your signal. So the
Speaker 6: Chinese put these relay stations up so they could land
Speaker 6: their rover and their spacecraft on the far side of
Speaker 6: the Moon. As far as I know, they're still active,
Speaker 6: and you know, they they proved that they are are
Speaker 6: technologically at this point by doing that. That was a
Speaker 6: really big step.
Speaker 3: That is amazing, right. That shocked a lot of people,
Speaker 3: because you're right, many people who want to see a
Speaker 3: radio telescope on the far side of the moon. Why,
Speaker 3: in simple terms, you would have no spurious radiation, so,
Speaker 3: in other words, you wouldn't be hearing this radio station.
Speaker 3: Shame on that, because we'd want to hear it on
Speaker 3: the far side of the moon, but all radio signals
Speaker 3: would be what mitigated, so you'd not be able to
Speaker 3: hear anything so quiet. Would be the purpose of setting
Speaker 3: up a giant radio telescope without radio interference. I heard
Speaker 3: a crazy story one time. I don't know if you
Speaker 3: could corroborate it. People working in the giant radio telescope.
Speaker 3: I think it was in Puerto Rico when they were
Speaker 3: working on that big dish telescope that was in the ground.
Speaker 3: You've seen it in movies, Garcibo, And when the whole
Speaker 3: thing collapsed, you know, the antenna. Somebody said to me
Speaker 3: and I thought it was serious, that they were actually
Speaker 3: detecting a signal from something, and it was very very
Speaker 3: powerful and it could have been what the first alien
Speaker 3: signature from outer space. Later they deduced guess what it was.
Speaker 3: It was somebody downstairs in the cafe near the you
Speaker 3: know where they're getting the snack bar microwave, right, it
Speaker 3: was the microwave oven.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's ridiculous, but probably, yeah, I know that that
Speaker 6: is true. And there's been a number of those where
Speaker 6: they got this what looked like it could have been
Speaker 6: some kind of a signal from d space. They said,
Speaker 6: oh my god, it's so exciting. In fact, I think
Speaker 6: that was one of the explanations that might have been
Speaker 6: put forth for the Wow signal way back in the sixties. Yeah,
Speaker 6: the sixties and seventies, remember that was But yeah, there's
Speaker 6: so many, you know, as you point out spurious causes
Speaker 6: that you can have for these things, and God bless
Speaker 6: the scientists to spend all the time tracking down every
Speaker 6: possible reason that it's not alien so that we can
Speaker 6: know whether it's we found something or not. Because how
Speaker 6: exciting is that going to be when it happens?
Speaker 3: Eight nine two two two brings you into the theater
Speaker 3: of the mind with special guests and ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3: If you we have an email, mine is Dr Risky
Speaker 3: not just going at WABC radio dot com. Answer all
Speaker 3: the emails that I do get and some people do
Speaker 3: roud they send us some guest suggestions. We've had a
Speaker 3: few in the past doing some research for my side.
Speaker 3: We appreciate that greatly. Not all of those, of course, happen,
Speaker 3: but again due to time and circumstance, many many amazing
Speaker 3: guests coming throughout the month of August. We'll stay tuned
Speaker 3: with you, and hopefully you'll stay tuned with us. What's
Speaker 3: interesting Before we go to the next break, the last
Speaker 3: break of the two hour show, I wanted to give
Speaker 3: you just kind of wet our appetites on the Artemis
Speaker 3: free mission, because again people were thinking, hey, Autemist three,
Speaker 3: they're supposed to be landing on the south pole of
Speaker 3: the Moon. Not yet, what's Artemist three? And a quick summation,
Speaker 3: So Artimist three.
Speaker 6: This is the rejiggering of the program that the new administrator,
Speaker 6: Jerry and Isaacman did a few months back, and I
Speaker 6: think with good reason. Artemis three is specifically an Earth
Speaker 6: orbit mission, primarily to test the docking and maneuvery capability
Speaker 6: of the Orion capsule with hopefully both lunar landers. Now
Speaker 6: we have a contract with SpaceX to convert their starship
Speaker 6: into a lunar lander, which they're moving very slowly on
Speaker 6: to be frank and we have another contract with Blue Origin,
Speaker 6: Bezos's company, to their lunar lander called Blue Moon, which
Speaker 6: is moving, as far as we can tell, more rapidly,
Speaker 6: and it's smaller and it's just it's purpose designed to
Speaker 6: land on the Moon, whereas Starship is kind of a
Speaker 6: one size fits all kind of spacecraft that they have
Speaker 6: to adapt. So the idea with Artemis three is that
Speaker 6: they'll go into orbit and they will rendezvous and dock
Speaker 6: with and undock and dock with and undock and maneuver
Speaker 6: while attached to these two different lander probably mock ups
Speaker 6: at that point. I don't think either of them will
Speaker 6: be actually ready as landers, but at least they'll be
Speaker 6: working engineering models and make sure that they're going to work,
Speaker 6: and then hopefully a year year and a half later
Speaker 6: Artemis foreheads off to make a landing with whichever one
Speaker 6: of those landers is ready.
Speaker 3: That's amazing cross. So it's still a tight competition. We
Speaker 3: can discuss much more when we come back from the
Speaker 3: very last break of a two hour radio show, but
Speaker 3: I'd like to take the opportunity to thank owner and
Speaker 3: I heard of John Katzimatitis and from the executive staff
Speaker 3: Chad Lopez, for giving me the honor of an opportunity
Speaker 3: of a lifetime to be behind this microphone sharing with you,
Speaker 3: ladies and gentlemen, great information as you tell us, and
Speaker 3: obviously talking more about the great mysteries of the universe,
Speaker 3: and in case you're a first time listener, the realms
Speaker 3: of astronomy, space aviation, whether American exceptionalism as we like
Speaker 3: to call it, a theater of the mind, and that
Speaker 3: of course seems to you know, kind of really pound
Speaker 3: it out, because people tell me that they enjoy this
Speaker 3: kind of conversation where we let you have an opportunity
Speaker 3: to express your opinions, and we certainly don't get into
Speaker 3: the political realm much, and that's on purpose because we
Speaker 3: have so many things to share. And as the good
Speaker 3: well as our good first guest had talked about the
Speaker 3: oldest gentleman to fly into space, simply, why can't we
Speaker 3: all just simply get along more in the Doctor Sky Experience.
Speaker 3: As we move toward the conclusion of hour number two,
Speaker 3: with many great guests to come in future iterations, thank
Speaker 3: you for your interest. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Doctor Sky Experience is on the air. Seventy seven WABC.
Speaker 1: Now here's Doctor Sky.
Speaker 9: One, Doctor edgar Mitchell, Apollo fourteen astronaut Actorsdanlon in nineteen
Speaker 9: seventy one to the Pronomo area on Apollo fourteen with
Speaker 9: Commander Alan Shepherd who was their commander, Stuart RuSHA who
Speaker 9: was their command Mogreal pilot, and I was a Luner
Speaker 9: Modreal Pollot in February fifth, nineteen seventy one. And you're
Speaker 9: listening to the Doctor Sky Show.
Speaker 3: Forty nine minutes after the hour, we continue with our
Speaker 3: special guest Rod Pile. Still time if you'd like to
Speaker 3: join in the conversation on eight hundred and eighty four
Speaker 3: eight nine.
Speaker 6: Two two two.
Speaker 3: In the time limited that we do have, I wanted
Speaker 3: you Rud to take the floor and talk to us
Speaker 3: about these space missions that are heading out into space,
Speaker 3: the Psyche Mission, the Europa Clipper, the Juice Mission, and
Speaker 3: of course this little mission that we're talking about in detail,
Speaker 3: the Juice mission, which is called the Jupiter Icy Moons Explore.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of excitement in unmanned space problems, there is,
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 6: Just wanted to touch on one other topic real quick
Speaker 6: before we go into that. You were mentioning the solar
Speaker 6: eclipse earlier, and I know we're not going to be
Speaker 6: able to see it from the US, but as a
Speaker 6: person who did some moderately substantial damage to my eyes
Speaker 6: when I was a young boy using inexpensive solar filters
Speaker 6: on a telescope, I would just encourage anybody overseas who's
Speaker 6: planning to look at it to buy your eclipse glasses,
Speaker 6: not from Amazon, but from a reputable source, either directly
Speaker 6: from Celestron or lunt Toptics, both of whom are the
Speaker 6: certified reputable. Yeah, because there's just so much junk out there,
Speaker 6: and you know, the eyesight something you can't get back,
Speaker 6: and if you forget it, dam as you know better
Speaker 6: than I do, if you damage it during an eclipse,
Speaker 6: that's pretty much it.
Speaker 3: Yes, So we don't want to Yeah, yeah, Well, talking
Speaker 3: about these missions, we have a few minutes left here.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a Psyche mission that's heading out there
Speaker 3: to what maybe what a nico lyon and core of
Speaker 3: a planet. Who knows. Someday we'll hear about a quadrillion
Speaker 3: trillionaire and they have to tow these objects back to
Speaker 3: that could be a bigger future than anything SpaceX is
Speaker 3: even thinking about now.
Speaker 6: It's funny, you know, and you I'm sure you've read
Speaker 6: the same stuff I have. There's been a lot of
Speaker 6: people talking years about the millions and billions are going
Speaker 6: to make an asteroid. Mining companies have started risen and
Speaker 6: fallen trying to do that, and notably above them, these
Speaker 6: space industries raised a lot of money and failed. You know,
Speaker 6: asteroids are far away, most of them. They're moving in
Speaker 6: specific trajectory, so you have to know where they are.
Speaker 6: You have to know where they're going to be. You
Speaker 6: have to rhyn with them, you have to prospect them,
Speaker 6: make sure they actually have something you want other than
Speaker 6: just various kinds of carbon and rock, and then you've
Speaker 6: got to go after it. So Psyche is interesting because
Speaker 6: it's they call it a metal asteroid. It's certainly very
Speaker 6: rich in metal. It's located out in the asteroid belt
Speaker 6: between Mars and Jupiter. So we've got a mission headed
Speaker 6: out there. That's the PI of that is a woman
Speaker 6: named Lindy Elkins Tanton, who have met a few times.
Speaker 6: She's really wonderful, the great guest if you ever get
Speaker 6: her on the show, by the way, and it's supposed
Speaker 6: to arrive at the asteroid in twenty twenty nine. That's
Speaker 6: the thing about all of these missions, you know, you
Speaker 6: just wish they could go a little faster because they're
Speaker 6: so exciting.
Speaker 3: New propulsion methods. But rod not to cut your short.
Speaker 3: It's just a stream of consciousness that brings me to
Speaker 3: this point. Hopefully media will get it right and we'll
Speaker 3: do our part. Of course, not only here on this
Speaker 3: powerhouse station, but I'm sure with others, you know, discussing
Speaker 3: the subject Apompae, the asteroid that's skimming very close to
Speaker 3: the Earth April thirteenth or so of twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 3: Let's help me. I don't go into this whole thing
Speaker 3: that it's going to strike us. We're all doomed. Let's
Speaker 3: see what the science says about it, don't you think?
Speaker 6: Yeah? And I mean, what's exciting about that? Again, I
Speaker 6: know you're probably ahead of me on this is that
Speaker 6: we'll be able to observe it as it goes by,
Speaker 6: which is not something happens very often for an asteroid.
Speaker 6: It is exciting unless somebody goes over and gives it
Speaker 6: a kick in our direction. It should miss us and
Speaker 6: it doesn't come around. I think till the late twenty thirties. Again, right,
Speaker 6: you're exactly right.
Speaker 3: He has another opportunity to pass but way off subject
Speaker 3: for the limited time. But Psyche, you're talking about that mission.
Speaker 3: Talk about the Europa Clipper. Educate us on this because
Speaker 3: that's another fascinating concept.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I forget the year that arise, but that's
Speaker 6: en root and that will be a orbiter. It just
Speaker 6: got this kind of complex orbital plot around Europa and
Speaker 6: I think a couple other moons during the course the mission.
Speaker 6: I haven't read about it lately, but you know what
Speaker 6: they want to do. The thing that's so cool about
Speaker 6: Europa and moons. I can sell this out at Saturn
Speaker 6: is we think that because we think they have a
Speaker 6: warm brandy sea below the surface. There's evidence apparently on
Speaker 6: the surface as far as we can tell, that these
Speaker 6: oceans bent out occasionally and then fall back to the
Speaker 6: surface's ice. And if that ocean is down there, and
Speaker 6: if it's warm, we think there's a reason a good
Speaker 6: chance that there could be life in it. And so
Speaker 6: if you can scoop up some of this mist as
Speaker 6: it's coming out and analyze it, you might be able
Speaker 6: to get some idea of what's going on down there,
Speaker 6: and that's a very exciting prospect. I did want to
Speaker 6: dip back just on the asteroid thing for a second.
Speaker 6: You know, this what I was alluding to is this
Speaker 6: talk about, you know, asteroids made out of solid platinum
Speaker 6: and all that. And I was talking, as I may
Speaker 6: mentioned the show before, to the billionaire named Steve Jerbertsen
Speaker 6: who invested heavily in space X and elsewhere. Brilliant guy
Speaker 6: finished Stanford Engineering in two years instead of the usual four. Incredible,
Speaker 6: and we're talking about this, and he said, you know,
Speaker 6: there's just one big problem with this. The second you
Speaker 6: get a whole bunch of this stuff, the bottom falls
Speaker 6: out of the market. So if you do find a
Speaker 6: way to grapple this asteroid and bring it back to
Speaker 6: Earth and set it down in the outpack of Australia
Speaker 6: or somewhere like that, which I guess has actually been
Speaker 6: explored as an idea, no kidding, you know, because who cares?
Speaker 6: Right then suddenly platinum is worth a whole lot less
Speaker 6: and you're kind of back where you started. So I
Speaker 6: think that's a grossover simplification, but that was his point,
Speaker 6: and I thought, that's a really good point.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a very good point. Supply and demand
Speaker 3: with rare earth type elements, that's interesting. In other words,
Speaker 3: the rush could be good in the beginning. It makes
Speaker 3: a lot of people, what quadrillionaires, but then again, look
Speaker 3: at this tiny planet. Who is going to actually use this?
Speaker 3: And then the price changes. It's going to be like
Speaker 3: on the markets, just like gold and silk, or unless
Speaker 3: they come up with a whole different market strategy, right,
Speaker 3: who knows.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think rare earth elements might be of interest though,
Speaker 6: because those we are going to start running out of
Speaker 6: those at some point, and there's a lot of that
Speaker 6: in the Solar system, so that may be the big
Speaker 6: holy grail out there.
Speaker 3: Interesting. So the missions that we're talking about here, Lazien
Speaker 3: and gentlemen, we talk Psyche Europa Clipper. Here's one that
Speaker 3: doesn't get a lot of attention in the short time.
Speaker 3: We have the Parker Solar Probe, the fastest man made
Speaker 3: object ever as it scoots near the Sun. This is incredible.
Speaker 3: I'm surprised the thing hasn't fried. Isn't that a most
Speaker 3: amazing piece of equipment, the Parker Solar Probe. Talk about it?
Speaker 6: It is and it's in an orbit that it takes
Speaker 6: it either through the corona and right down towards the photosphere,
Speaker 6: which is you know, these are some of the hottest
Speaker 6: places in the Solar System, and you know, I can
Speaker 6: spacecraft are very fairly lightly built, so it's this kind
Speaker 6: of tubular affair with this this solar shield that holds
Speaker 6: out in front of it. So you've got to keep
Speaker 6: it oriented properly because it's not surrounded by shielding. It's
Speaker 6: just it's like a night holding up a shield in
Speaker 6: a joustick tournament. And every time it does this pass
Speaker 6: near the Sun, it manages to survive and come out
Speaker 6: the other side, and the results have been really amazing.
Speaker 6: But when you think of you know, you see these
Speaker 6: temperatures and you think, how did they engineer that? It
Speaker 6: just it blows my mind.
Speaker 3: Technology imagination is what it is. But you're talking about
Speaker 3: an object, folks. This is pretty accurate. Over four hundred
Speaker 3: thousand miles an hour, I'll repeat it, four hundred thousand
Speaker 3: miles an hour makes the voyager probe as it's moving
Speaker 3: out of the deep space thirty five thirty eight thousand.
Speaker 6: Miles an hours.
Speaker 3: You know, that's incredible and it doesn't burn up into
Speaker 3: like a big cinder. That is totally incredible. As we
Speaker 3: talk about it, Rod, time is of course run out,
Speaker 3: always a sad moment as we talk about with you.
Speaker 3: Poyl Ebooks dot com is one of the locations. I
Speaker 3: appreciate you, my friend, and the best of success in
Speaker 3: all the new endeavors. Let's stay in touch and of
Speaker 3: course the listeners out there, we want to thank you
Speaker 3: for being part of the Doctor Sky experience in what
Speaker 3: we call a theater of the mind, a place where
Speaker 3: hopefully our goal is to learn something new each time
Speaker 3: you listen, and we talk about these great mysteries from astronomy, space, aviation, weather,
Speaker 3: celebrity guests many to come, and great stories of American exceptionalism.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Rod Pyle. Always a privilegent honor to have
Speaker 3: you here. And I want to thank our very first guest,
Speaker 3: retired the United States Air Force, Captain Ed Dwight, on
Speaker 3: his success of reaching the goal of being an astronaut.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Rod, appreciate your time.
Speaker 6: Thanks Steve.
Speaker 3: We'll talk more about these subjects, but remind yourself, well
Speaker 3: will We will remind you that if you look into
Speaker 3: the northeast sky, maybe now where it's dark and you
Speaker 3: can go out of doors, take a look the beginnings
Speaker 3: in peak soon to come of the Percied meteor shower,
Speaker 3: one of the better meteor showers of the year. Why
Speaker 3: because this time the moon will be a it's new phase,
Speaker 3: giving friends on August twelfth, a total solar eclipse, albeit
Speaker 3: a brief one. People do get excited about that. The
Speaker 3: Perseed's again peaking. If you want to be out there
Speaker 3: for the peak night the night of August the twelfth
Speaker 3: into the morning of the thirteenth, the night of the thirteenth,
Speaker 3: midnight to sunrise on the fourteenth. I've watched it for
Speaker 3: over forty years. Sometimes it's a dribble, but sometimes it's
Speaker 3: leader literally a meteor storm. You never can tell with
Speaker 3: what's going on in the heavens, so meteors rain out
Speaker 3: of the northeast sky so much more. The email that
Speaker 3: you can send to me is just Drsky at WABC
Speaker 3: radio dot com, and folks, what we do now. Stay
Speaker 3: tuned to talk Radio seventy seven WABC for another sign
Speaker 3: of midnight as line'll takes you to the early morning.
Speaker 3: As we move toward these dog days of summer, the
Speaker 3: most amazing time of the year. We do like the
Speaker 3: temperatures sometimes, but here in Arizona are high today one
Speaker 3: hundred and sixteen degrees. Unfortunately, the humidity was rather high.
Speaker 3: Thanks to our helmsman Bill and Jackson for making sure
Speaker 3: that everybody out there has an opportunity to be heard
Speaker 3: and heard clearly. Thank you, Clear Skies, good health, exceptional health.
Speaker 3: Will see you next week with more interesting subject matter
Speaker 3: on the doctor Sky experience. Where on this powerhouse blowtorch signal,
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