Transcript: January week 2

PAUL
Welcome to Idaho Skies on Radio Boise. This is the second week of January. We’re your hosts, Paul..

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
The moon is at apogee on the 10th at 11 AM

KRIS
Apogee is the point in the moon’s elliptical orbit that is its greatest distance from earth.

RACHEL
The moon is 251 thousand miles away today. That’s the same distance as ten trips around the world.

PAUL
Wait; what’s that star to the moon’s upper right on the morning of the 11th?

KRIS
Why that’s Spica, or the lucida of Virgo.

RACHEL
Spica will be 2-1/2 degrees from the moon, or five lunar diameters away. You can’t miss it.

KRIS
Spica is the 16th brightest star in our sky. But it’s not a single star. It’s really two stars orbiting each other.

RACHEL
They orbit each other so closely that their mutual gravities pull each other out of round.

KRIS
The light you see from Spica left in the year 1744, or 262 years ago.

PAUL
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was born 100 years ago on the 12th.

RACHEL
You may not be familiar with the name of Korolev, but you are familiar with his work.

KRIS
Korolev designed the SS6 Sapwood, the world’s first successful inter continental ballistic missile, or ICBM.

RACHEL
After proving that it worked, he converted it into the first rocket capable of putting a satellite into space.

KRIS
The Soviets did not name the rocket Sapwood; that was NATO’s name. Korolev called it the R-7. His nickname for his creation was Semyorka, or old number seven.

PAUL
It was old number seven that put Sputnik 1 and Yuri Gagarin into orbit.

RACHEL
The rocket is still being used today in Russia, making it the most successful rocket in history.

KRIS
In a way, its surprising that Korolev designed the R-7.

RACHEL
Shortly before the beginning of World War II, he was arrested by Stalin in one of his paranoid purges.

PAUL
Korolev was sent to work in the Kolyma gold mine, one of Russia’s worse gulags.

KRIS
Since the Soviet Union was unprepared to fight the war against Germany, Stalin began using his political prisoners as slave labor.

RACHEL
So Korolev was saved from the Kolyma gold mine and sent to an aeronautical lab.

KRIS
After the end of World War II Korolev was sent to Germany to study the Nazi V-2 missile.

RACHEL
With the information he gained and his own creativity, Korolev succeeded in creating the Soviet Union’s first missile, the R-1.

KRIS
It’s amazing to think that a man so brutalized by the Soviet system would go on to create their space program.

RACHEL
Korolev died in 1966 during a simple operation. His surgeon discovered Korolev had cancer and he was unable to treat it. Korolev died on the operating table.

PAUL
At 7:00 AM on the 15th, Antares is less than 2 degrees above the very thin crescent moon.

KRIS
But that’s not all. Jupiter will be the even brighter star to the moon’s upper left.

RACHEL
Jupiter’s distance from the moon is 6-1/2 degrees. And all three objects, Jupiter, the moon, and Antares will fit in the field of view of your binoculars.

PAUL
That’s Idaho Skies for the second week of January. Next week our show will tell you how to find a very young moon and the two discoveries of Neptune. For Idaho Skies this is Paul.

KRIS
..Kris..

RACHEL
.. and Rachel.