Transcript: February Week 3

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
How many of our listeners remember astronaut John Glenn?

KRIS
His first trip into space took place 45 years ago on the 20th.

RACHEL
For our younger listeners, John Glenn was the first American astronaut to orbit the earth.

PAUL
Didn’t the United States did launch two astronauts before Glenn?

KRIS
Yes. They were Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom.

RACHEL
But their Mercury spacecraft were launched by the Redstone booster, a rocket too weak to put them into orbit.

KRIS
So instead of going into orbit, they made 15 minute suborbital hops.

RACHEL
For John Glenn’s launch, the Redstone was replaced with the more powerful Atlas missile.

KRIS
The Atlas had the power to put the Mercury spacecraft into a 160 mile high orbit.

PAUL
Did you know John Glenn’s Mercury spacecraft was named Friendship 7?

RACHEL
Each Mercury spacecraft had a name that included a seven. That was to indicate that it took all seven astronauts to make the Mercury project a success.

KRIS
For John Glenn, all three of his orbits were uneventful.

RACHEL
But not on earth. At Mission Control, an indicator light for heat shield release lit up.

KRIS
The Mercury heat shield was held to the bottom of the spacecraft with clamps. And below the heat shield was the retro pack, a small rocket engine that slowed the Mercury capsule down for reentry.

RACHEL
Then just before splash down, the heat shield was released. This allowed it to act as part of a landing bag to cushion the astronaut at splash down.

KRIS
John Glenn wouldn’t make a successful splash down if he first didn’t make a successful reentry.

RACHEL
And he wouldn’t make a successful reentry if his heat shield dropped when the retro pack was discarded.

PAUL
So Glenn was told to retain the retro pack after it fired.

KRIS
On earth, Mission Control really believed there was a faulty switch on the Mercury, rather than a heat shield clamp that had come lose.

RACHEL
But to make sure, the retro pack was not jettisoned after it slowed the Mercury down. That way its three straps would hold the heat shield in place until well into reentry.

KRIS
By then, aerodynamic forces would probably keep the heat shield firmly in place on the base of the Mercury.

RACHEL
As it turned out, ground control was right, the switch was faulty and Glenn safely recovered in the Atlantic after a five hour flight.

PAUL
It’s been twenty years since the supernova SN1987A was discovered.

KRIS
On February 23rd, 1987, SN1987A, the closest supernova to earth since the invention of the telescope, was discovered in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

RACHEL
The Large Magellanic Cloud is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way that’s 168 thousand light years away.

KRIS
So while we saw the supernova in 1987, it really exploded in 166 thousand BC.

PAUL
Astronomers didn’t study just the light of SN1987A.

RACHEL
That’s right. Neutrino detectors buried underground detected 25 neutrinos from the explosion. This was the birth of neutrino astronomy.

KRIS
Neutrinos are very light weight subatomic particles that carry no charge.

RACHEL
They’re formed when the collapsing core of a supernova squeezes protons and electrons into neutrons.

KRIS
Because they are so light and neutral, neutrinos can escape a supernova before the light of the explosion.

RACHEL
Perhaps a neutrino detector will give us advanced warning of the next supernova. KRISThat’s Idaho Skies for the third week of February. Next week’s show is a little bit of Pluto, Venus, and Saturn.

For Idaho Skies this is Kris…

PAUL
..Paul..

RACHEL
.. and Rachel.

Transcript: February Week 2

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
Thirty-five years ago on the 14th, the Soviet Union launched Luna 20 to the moon.

RACHEL
The unmanned Soviet spacecraft successfully returned over an ounce of lunar material.
KRIS
At the time, the Apollo missions were returning around 100 pounds of moon rocks and dust on each mission.

PAUL
At the time, the Soviet Union was claiming that they weren’t racing the United States to the moon.

RACHEL
They also claimed that their unmanned missions were safer than Apollo missions, so they were the preferred way to explore the moon.

KRIS
But that was all propaganda. The Soviet Union really was hoping to beat the United States to the moon.

RACHEL
To do so, they developed two manned moon programs. They were called the L1 and L3 projects.

PAUL
L1 was an attempt to send a Soviet cosmonaut around the moon before Apollo 8.

KRIS
And L3 was an attempt to land a cosmonaut on the moon before Apollo 11.

RACHEL
The L1 project would either launch two small spacecraft to the moon or launch a single spacecraft to the moon with the more powerful Proton booster.

KRIS
But the L1 project was put on hold after the death of cosmonaut Komarov in Soyuz 1.

RACHEL
As a result of the accident, the Soviets spent the next year redesigning the Soyuz into a safer spacecraft.

KRIS
Initially the Proton proved to be a very reliable booster. But after the Soyuz 1 accident, it showed a less dependable side when 75% of the Proton launches failed.

PAUL
We know the Soviets were still trying to beat the United States because our spy satellites show two rockets being prepared for a moon launch in December 1968.

RACHEL
The first was a Soyuz rocket, designed to carry three cosmonauts into orbit.

KRIS
And the second was a Proton rocket. This much more powerful rocket was to carry their moon ship.

RACHEL
The launch of Apollo 8 later that month put an end to the Soviet dream of beating the United States around the moon.

KRIS
The Soviet’s attempt to beat America to the moon’s surface ended in 1969 when two of their unmanned N-1 rockets failed.

RACHEL
Their failures were spectacular to say the least.

KRIS
The Soviet moon lander and orbiter were heavy, so the N-1 was a super booster that carried a lot of fuel.

RACHEL
When the N-1 control system failed and the N-1 engines shut down, the N-1 crashed with an explosion as powerful as a small atomic bomb.

KRIS
In fact, the second N-1 attempt completely destroyed the entire launch pad.

RACHEL
There were two more attempts to launch the N-1 before the Soviets finally gave up.

KRIS
After that, the Soviet Union claimed they never were in a race for the moon.

PAUL
And that’s the real moon hoax.

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the second week of February. Next week our show will talk about John Glenn and the first time neutrinos were used to make an astronomical observation of a supernova.

For Idaho Skies this is Rachel.

KRIS
..Kris..

PAUL
.. and Paul.

Transcript: February Week 1

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

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
The moon is at apogee on the 7th at 7:00 PM.

KRIS
Its distance from earth this month is 252 thousand miles. That’s its greatest distance this month.

PAUL
Two hundred and fifty two thousand? Let’s put this into some kind of perspective for our listeners.

RACHEL
No problem. The average walking speed of an adult is three miles per hour.

KRIS
So when I do the math….

SOUND OF CALCULATOR BUTTONS BEING PUSHED

KRIS
… I calculate that it will take an adult almost 72 thousand hours to walk to the moon.

RACHEL
That means if you leave today, you’ll arrive at the moon in the middle of April 2015.

KRIS
I think I’ll wait until I can book a rocket flight.

PAUL
On the evening of the 7th, you can see three planets simultaneously in binoculars.

RACHEL
The planets are Mercury, Venus, and Uranus.

KRIS
Look low in the west-southwest at seven PM on the 7th.

RACHEL
You’ll see Venus, the Evening Star, one width of your palm above the horizon.

KRIS
While aiming your binoculars at Venus, put it at the upper left of your binocular’s field of view.

RACHEL
At the lower right you’ll see the next brightest star. But that’s not really a star, it’s Mercury.

KRIS
Close to the center of your binocular’s field is a star in Aquarius. But between that star and brilliant Venus is the planet Uranus.

PAUL
Uranus will be faint, so don’t expect it to jump right out.

RACHEL
Mercury and Venus are quite close to each other. From earth’s perspective, they’re located just above the edge of the sun.

KRIS
But Uranus is very distant. It’s clear across the other side of the solar system and twenty times farther away than either Mercury or Venus.

RACHEL
So don’t let their close proximity in the sky fool you.

PAUL
Sixty years ago on the 12th, a large meteor was observed exploding over Russia.

KRIS
It caught the attention of eyewitnesses because of its great brilliance and its loud boom when it exploded.

RACHEL
Since this meteor occurred over the Sikhote-Alin region, it’s called the Sikhote-Alin meteorite

KRIS
It’s believed that 900 tons of the meteor survived and landed within a one square mile area.

PAUL
This sounds like a good time to explain some meteor terminology.

RACHEL
Alright. A small rocky body in space is called a meteoroid.

KRIS
When a meteoroid enters the earth’s atmosphere and begins to glow, we call it a meteor.

RACHEL
A meteor that survives its passage through the atmosphere and lands on the ground is called a meteorite.

PAUL
And a rock that you think is a meteorite, but is really just a rock, is called a meteor-wrong.

KRIS AND RACHEL
Um, yeah, thanks for that one.

KRIS
Often a meteorite doesn’t come down in one piece. The region that fragments of a meteorite occupy is called a strewn field.

PAUL
That’s Idaho Skies for the first week of February. Join us next week to hear about the real moon hoax. For Idaho Skies this is Paul

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
.. and Kris.