Talking Space

NASA has tried to get Extra Vehicular Activity Number Ninety underway since June 13th. The first attempt was thwarted by a space suit comfort issue, the second by a water leak that created a blizzard of ice inside the  Quest airlock. Are the Shuttle-Era Extra Vehicular Mobility Units (EMU) or space suits finally showing their age? Also, what about Collins Aerospace and their recent withdrawal from their NASA contract to build the next generation of space suits for the ISS and the Artemis Lunar Program when they indicated back in February that all was going well? We discuss.

On June 17th, the FAA held a virtual public hearing to receive comments concerning SpaceX’s plans to use Launch Complex 39-A and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to support Starship Super Heavy Launches. We discuss what occurred during the session and the fallout from statements put into the record by both Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance.

Talking Space continues our Boeing Space CST-100 Starliner Crewed Flight Test coverage. The team continues to examine the “Starliner is Stuck at the ISS” misconceptions and asks what NASA & Boeing Space could have done to alleviate such headlines. We also look at a detailed explanation posted on Twitter from Jim May, a Boeing Engineer who was part of the NASA-TV coverage, of why “Calypso” remains on the ISS. The basis of his discussion comes from the actual NASA flight certification plan. Heather Smith mentions the observations of a NASA flight director and his assessment of how Starliner performed during its first actual safe-haven exercise. 

All this and more in this edition of Talking Space!

(Recorded July 5th, 2024)

Host: Larry Herrin

Panel Members: Gene Mikulka, Mark Ratterman, Heather Smith

The Geosynchronous Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-U, launched at 5:26 PM EDT on 25 June 2024 from Launch Complex 39 A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. 

 A SpaceX Falcon Heavy took the 6000-pound satellite to its geostationary orbit in the Western Hemisphere. After a commissioning process, GOES –U will be renamed GOES 19 and take over the GOES EAST duties, standing sentinel, watching for severe storms, hurricanes, and wildfires. A unique option on this spacecraft: it can keep an eye on Coronal Mass Ejections or CMEs from the Sun.

This episode is an all-you-can-eat GOES fest, complete with GOES-U Falcon Heavy launch audio at the beginning and a related special audio treat at the end of the episode. 

Mark Ratterman was at the Kennedy Space Center press site representing Talking Space during launch activities and was able to talk to several key players of the GOES-U team. In this episode you'll hear from: 

John Gagosian - Director, NASA Joint Agency Satellite Division

Krizia Negron - Language Program Lead, National Weather Service Office of Science and Technology Integration, NOAA

Chris Reith - Program Manager, Advanced Baseline Imager,  L3-Harris Technologies Mr. Reith is also working on NOAA's follow-up to the GOES series: The GeoXO program

Ken Graham – Director, National Weather Service 

If you wish to take a look at what the GOES satellites have seen and how their images have evolved over the years, NOAA has on their website a "Cool Image Retrospective" page, have a look here.  

Please be sure to let us know your thoughts on the topics we discuss. You can always reach us at [email protected]. You now also have a way to easily send us a voice recording that we may use on the show: just click on the blue microphone icon at the bottom right of any of our web pages at TalkingSpaceOnline.com.

Show recorded 07-03-2024.

Host: Larry Herrin

Segment Producer: Mark Ratterman 

Panelists:  Gene Mikulka, Heather D. Smith 

Podcast Editor: Gene Mikulka

GOES-U Falcon Heavy – website photo credit: NASA

“Starliner Stuck In Space!!!”, “Starliner Stranded at the ISS!!”, “Space-X To Rescue Starliner Crew!!!” These were the various outrageous headlines being thrown around by various space media outlets this week, concerning the Boeing Starliner Mission and its progress. None of these sensational headlines are true, the ship and crew are in good condition but the media claims that the Starliner mission is in a grave situation, remain.  

 In this special edition of Talking Space, Gene Mikulka and Heather Smith take the time to sort through the chaff that is out there about the mission and offer insight into what is going on. We explore why it is not just the usual social media suspects perpetuating the myth about a broken spacecraft and a “crew in peril” but mainstream media has been jumping on the same bandwagon.

There have been some exceptions to the rule the social media rule: the YouTube channel Overlook Horizon released a fairly good video explaining some of the mission details that we also touch on, in this installment. The video does speculate what a Dragon rescue might look like, however, our show does not examine that possibility. Given the information that NASA and Boeing have presented in thier joint press conferences, such speculation on our part was not needed or required. 

As of this writing, Starliner remains docked to the ISS, in a good, healthy state, ready to support crew return. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams continue to support the balance of the Expedition 71 crew in their ISS science and maintenance duties.

Our usual format picks up next time with an upcoming deep dive into the GOES-U launch and more!

Host

Gene Mikulka

Panel Member: Heather Smith

A quick special report on the status of the joint NASA/Boeing Starliner Mission based on a Blog Post prepared by  NASA and Boeing for our listeners. 

After years of development, testing, disappointment, and perseverance,  NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Willams took Boeing's CST 100 Starliner to the International Space Station for its first flight with a human crew. The team discusses all facets of the launch, rendezvous, docking (not without its moments of drama), and public reaction to the mission thus far.

Also this week, the fourth test flight of the SpaceX Starship Super-Heavy booster and a re-entry test of the Starship vehicle itself. The super-heavy vehicle is critical for NASA's Artemis lunar landing program, and a derivative of Starship was selected by NASA to be the human lunar lander used on Artemis III. The team puts the fourth Starship test into perspective.

Starship development was also critical for the SpaceX/ Yusaku Maezawa dearMoon program, which was to take Maezawa and eight invitees into orbit around the Moon. However, Maezawa announced that since a 2023 launch had become "unfeasible" and lacked a "clear schedule," he was canceling the program. The announcement drew some ire in the space community, and we examine the fallout.

One of The Hubble Space Telescope's three gyroscopes used to point the telescope to distant objects has failed. We look at a Media Telecon where NASA's astrophysics leader, Dr. Mark Clampen, indicated the agency will continue to utilize Hubble in a "one gyro mode" so the iconic telescope can still deliver good science with only a 20% loss of capability. The orbiting telescope is in overall good health and should continue to operate until 2035. At the same teleconference, Dr. Clampen announced that NASA has no intention of launching a Hubble servicing or re-boost mission in the foreseeable future. This news ends the SpaceX/Polaris plan to launch a possible servicing mission to the telescope. A May 2024 NPR article by Nell GreenfeldBoyce also reported NASA's concerns about the unsolicited proposal. 

Sadly, the past few episodes have ended in obituaries, and that trend continues. The team takes a  few moments to remember NASA Apollo 8 Astronaut William Anders, who died in a plane crash this past weekend.

All this and more in this edition of Talking Space!

UPDATE ONE:  During the show, we reported that the new undock date for Starliner was on 22 June. After we published, NASA and Boeing decided to do some more analysis on the thruster issues experienced during last week's docking to the ISS. To understand the Starliner Service Module more, ( the service module does not return ) NASA and Boeing have now indicated that Starliner will undock from the ISS  at 10:10 PM EDT on Tuesday, June 25th with a landing planned at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 4:51 AM EDT on June 26th. 

UPDATE TWO: In A Blog Post Today (21 June 2024)  NASA and Boeing Space announced that they are waiving the return date of 26 June for Starliner, with a new date to be announced at a later time. To quote the NASA blog post: " The move off Wednesday, June 26, deconflicts Starliner’s undocking and landing from a series of planned International Space Station spacewalks while allowing mission teams time to review propulsion system data."

Steve Stitich, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager said “We are strategically using the extra time to clear a path for some critical station activities while completing readiness for Butch and Suni’s return on Starliner and gaining valuable insight into the system upgrades we will want to make for post-certification missions.”

NASA Reports that Starliner remains healthy and that CFT Crew Members Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams continue to support the Expedition 71 Crew with their activities on the International Space Station. 

Talking Space will continue to follow the story as it develops. 

Host: Gene Mikulka

Panel Members: Mark Ratterman, Heather Smith

May 6th was going to be the date that Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunni Williams were going to take the Boeing CST 100 Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station for the first time with astronauts on board. Starliner has undergone a rather stormy development period and is several years behind schedule as a result but NASA, Boeing, and United Launch Alliance (ULA) teams after the earlier flight readiness review were confident that the spacecraft was ready for crewed flight. The mission also marked the first time since Leroy Gordon Cooper’s Mercury-Atlas 9 on May 15th, 1963, that a human was going to ride to orbit on the “shoulders” of an Atlas launch vehicle. Even the weather for the attempt on May 6th was 95 percent “go.”

Unfortunately, the May 6th date was not to be. A cranky valve on board the Second Stage (Centaur Stage) of the ULA Atlas V kept Starliner on the ground. We explore what exactly happened, put the event in context, and gauge public reaction on various social media outlets. We also take a look at a rather explosive claim from a New York-based NASA contractor, ValveTech, about the component in question and debunk the Company’s claims.

If you live in North America, did you catch the aurora this past weekend? A Class 4 Geomagnetic storm was the cause, the first Class 4 solar storm warning issued by NOAA since 2005. NOAA called a press conference about potential impacts on Friday, May 10th, calling the event “potentially historic.” What were the impacts here on Earth or did it pose issues for the International Space Station? We discuss.

The  US Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved the FAA Reauthorization Act which extends the period where the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) would be limited from regulating the safety of commercial human spaceflight, more commonly known as the “learning period.” Also, the FAA announced public meetings to occur next month to get public comments on an Environmental Impact Study on allowing Starship Super Heavy launches from NASA's Launch Complex 39A. All comments should be submitted by one of the methods listed under "ADDRESSES" in the linked document no later than June 24, 2024. We examine both stories.

Tokyo’s Astroscale announced that it had conducted the first rendezvous with a spent rocket upper stage in Earth Orbit. The idea is to understand how such an object behaves as a prelude to determining how to dispose of such an object properly. We take a brief look at their plans.

All this and more in this edition of Talking Space!

Please be sure to let us know your thoughts on the topics we discuss. You can always reach us at [email protected]. You now also have a way to easily send us a voice recording that we may use on the show: just click on the blue microphone icon at the bottom right of any page at TalkingSpaceOnline.com.

Show recorded 05-12-2024.

Host: Larry Herrin

Panelist(s):  Gene Mikulka, Heather Smith (Mark 

Ratterman, Dr. Kat Robison and Sawyer Rosenstein will return)

Podcast Editor: Larry Herrin

Space Debris – website photo credit: Astroscale 

Aurora Borealis -- website photo credit: Dr. Kat Robison

NOTE: As of the recording date of the episode, the next launch attempt for Starliner was May 17th. That has since been changed. Due to a stubborn helium tank system leak, the latest date: NET May 25th at 3:09 PM EDT (1909 UTC). This new date is tentative as of this writing, and is subject to change.

In this special episode of Talking Space, we delve into a rarely discussed, but crucial aspect of living in space: health and sickness. We're putting the spotlight on the unique challenges posed by bacterial and viral infections aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and future long-duration missions.

We're bringing you a deep dive into a groundbreaking experiment, GEARS (Genomic Enumeration of Antibiotic Resistance in Space), recently transported to the ISS. What is the aim of this experiment? How can analyzing the genetic makeup of antibiotic-resistant microbes in space help us on Earth?

Joining us for this insightful conversation are Dr. Sarah Wallace, a NASA microbiologist at the Johnson Space Center’s Biomedical research and Environmental Sciences Division Microbiology Laboratory, and Dr. Christopher Carr, co-director of the Georgia Tech Astrobiology Program. They'll shed light on the history of sickness on the ISS, the precautions in place, and the worst-case scenarios of illness or injury that have occurred.

How do astronauts maintain personal hygiene in space? What kind of medical supplies are available aboard the ISS? Tune in to find out.

We're also discussing the specifics of the GEARS experiment. What unique insights can we glean from the genetic makeup of bacteria in space? How will this knowledge shape the future of long-duration space missions?

With the advent of commercial LEO destinations, how is the space industry preparing for microbial challenges? What discussions are under way to make new stations more resistant to accumulating microbes?

Lastly, we tackle the ultimate Doomsday medical scenario: What would happen in case of a serious illness outbreak on the ISS or during a long-term flight to Mars? We'll discuss how scientists are trying to mitigate the potential dangers of bringing Earth germs to another planet and the risks of bringing something dangerous back to Earth.

Don't miss this episode of Talking Space as we navigate the intriguing world of health and sickness in space.

Please be sure to let us know your thoughts on the topics we discuss. You can always reach us at [email protected]. You now also have a way to easily send us a voice recording that we may use on the show: just click on the blue microphone icon at the bottom right of any page at TalkingSpaceOnline.com.

Show recorded 04-18-2024.

Host: Larry Herrin

Panelist(s):  Mark Ratterman (Gene Mikulka, Dr. Kat Robison and Sawyer Rosenstein will return)

Podcast Editor: Larry Herrin

GEARS experiment – website photo credit: Planetary eXploration Lab (PXL)

Sarah Wallace - website photo credit: NASA

Christopher Carr - website photo credit: Planetary eXploration Lab (PXL)

Welcome to another episode of Talking Space, where we bring you the latest updates on space exploration and technology. In this episode, we're excited to introduce our new team member, Heather Smith, who brings her passion for space to our discussions. Welcome, Heather!

• The episode kicks off with news about Slovenia signing the Artemis Accords. These accords outline best practices for sustainable space exploration and Slovenia is the third European country to sign them in less than a week, closely following Switzerland and Sweden.

Please be sure to let us know your thoughts on the topics we discuss. You can always reach us at [email protected]. You now have a way to easily send us a voice recording that we may use on the show: just click on the blue microphone icon at the bottom right of any page at TalkingSpaceOnline.com.

Show recorded 04-21-2024.

Host: Larry Herrin

Panelist(s):  Mark Ratterman, Heather Smith (Gene Mikulka, Dr. Kat Robison and Sawyer Rosenstein will return)

Podcast Editor: Larry Herrin

Delta 4 Heavy NROL-70 poster – website photo credit: NRO

Is the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) system becoming unglued? During the NAC Science Committee meeting on March 21st, there were significant questions about the Primary NAC and its ability to deliver recommendations to NASA's leadership expeditiously so they can be acted upon by NASA Leadership. That wasn't the only thing on the minds of NASA's scientists and advisors. The Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory are profoundly impacted by NASA's austere FY 24 and FY 25 budget constraints, and one of the two missions may face cancellation. Also, the significant demands placed on NASA's Deep Space Network were of major concern. We report on what was said and offer analysis.  

The Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission was officially declared completed when, as predicted, the robotic Odysseus lunar lander did not respond to a "wake-up" call on March 23rd. Larry Herrin and Mark Ratterman talked with Chantelle Baier, CEO of 4Space, who facilitated one of the commercial payloads on the IM-1 mission, to wrap up her experiences on the flight and discuss future endeavors. See Jeff Koons Moon Phases web site to explore the details of his art, exploring themes of connectivity and acceptance.

NASA extended its call for new astronaut applications through April 16th and Mark Ratterman highlights what the US Army is doing to encourage applicants in its ranks. 

After the joint Boeing Space/NASA press conferences last week highlighting the upcoming first crewed flight test of the CST 100 Starliner, some words were put out on social media by some prominent individuals in space advocacy berating Boeing Space. In a commentary, Gene Mikulka poses a question: Can't we wish Butch Wilmore and Sunni Williams well and forget about wearing our corporate t-shirts for a little while?

Finally, Space exploration lost two giants this past week, and we look back on the lives and contributions of former astronaut General Thomas P. Stafford and former Johnson Spaceflight Center Director  George W.S. Abbey. 

All this and more, on this episode of Talking Space!

Host: Larry Herrin

Panel Members: Gene Mikulka &  Mark Ratterman - Dr. Kat Robison and Sawyer Rosenstein will return.

We’re giving up on new ways to describe how busy it is now in the world of space-related news. Nonetheless, we still have a Starship Flight 3 recap, a look at the next (and last) Delta IV Heavy launch, and we also focus on the upcoming total solar eclipse. But first, in the News Roundup, even more, including:

• Crew 7 returns from the ISS;

Next, the team discusses some possible alternatives for the future of Space Launch Complex 37 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The USAF conducted a public hearing (both in-person and online, which Gene attended) to discuss the two options. One is for SpaceX to take over LC-37 and convert it for use by the Starship Super Heavy. The other is to establish a new LC-50, to be located between SpaceX’s LC-40 and ULA’s LC-41.  Charles Boyer from “Talk of Titusville” outlines the entire plan here. 

According to the site TimeandDate , the first sign of a partial eclipse in North America is to start at 15:42 UTC (that's 11:42 AM EDT) on April 8, 2024, and will end about 20:52 UTC or 4:52 PM EDT. 

NASA has a good site as well if you are looking for when to look in your area, NASA’s Eclipse Explorer can give you information about your town to see if you are in the path of totality. So can a moving map animation at greatamericaneclipse.com.

And if you get rained out or clouded over? Never fear, NASA TV will be providing coverage.

Finally, the team recaps their impressions of the third test flight of Starship Super Heavy. While both booster and ship were prematurely lost (which, by regulation, requires that SpaceX conduct another Mishap Investigation), there were a number of notable achievements to highlight on this test flight. There were a number of lowlights as well. We discuss it all.

Please be sure to let us know your thoughts on the topics we discuss. You can always reach us at [email protected]. You now have a way to easily send us a voice recording that we may use on the show: just click on the blue microphone icon at the bottom right of any page at TalkingSpaceOnline.com.

Show recorded 03-17-2024.

Host: Larry Herrin

Panelist(s): Gene Mikulka and Mark Ratterman (Dr. Kat Robison and Sawyer Rosenstein will return)

Podcast Editor: Larry Herrin

TalkingSpaceOnline.com episode page photo credits:

CADRE Mars Yard Tests: NASA/JPL-CalTech