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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George don't

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Speaker 1: way with you, along with Space History and Robert Zimmerman.

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Speaker 1: His website, of course, is called Behind the Black dot com.

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Speaker 1: Linked up at Coast to coastam dot com. Robert, Let's

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the Moon fifty second anniversary.

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Speaker 1: Can't believe it. Fifty two years ago we went to

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Speaker 1: the Moon. I would say that every single person that

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Speaker 1: was involved with getting that to happen, and every single

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Speaker 1: person that watched it when it did happen, if you

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Speaker 1: had asked any of them at that time that fifty

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Speaker 1: two years later, no human had yet returned from those

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Speaker 1: Apollo missions, they would have said, oh gosh, that's absurd.

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Speaker 1: Of course, we're going to be back. We're gonna be

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Speaker 1: there regularly for the next half century. We'll have bases there,

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Speaker 1: we'll have everything. Yeah, and that hasn't happened, and it's

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Speaker 1: been a great disappointment that I thank god, is about

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Speaker 1: to change. We will sit when the next I think

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Speaker 1: decade and a half, we will be returning to the

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Speaker 1: Moon in great numbers, will be a glorious competition between

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Speaker 1: many private companies and many nations to put their footsteps

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Speaker 1: on the Moon. And of course that's in preliminary work

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Speaker 1: to get farther out into the soloist to go to

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Speaker 1: the asteroids, to go to Mars, to build space stations,

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Speaker 1: and once again, it's not just simply a government planting

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Speaker 1: flag effort. It's going to be an effort of many

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Speaker 1: people following their dreams and making money along the way

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Speaker 1: of the three astronauts for Apollo eleven. Of course, just

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Speaker 1: buzz Aldron is alive. He's ninety one years old. We

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Speaker 1: tried to get him on tonight, but he just was

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Speaker 1: real way too busy to answer his phone. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: what a gutsy guy he is. All three of them

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Speaker 1: were truly unique individuals. Neil Armstrong's really interesting in that

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Speaker 1: here was a guy who trained as a pilot test

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Speaker 1: pilot in the military, and when he left the military,

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Speaker 1: what did he end up doing. You know, you have

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Speaker 1: many choices. You're out of the military, the gi bill,

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Speaker 1: you could do many things. You're a pilot, you know

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Speaker 1: how to fly really sophisticated planes. You could make a

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Speaker 1: good living, you know, doing any kind of commercial air work.

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Speaker 1: But if he do, he decides to, he'll become a

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Speaker 1: civilian test pilot. Now's due civilian flying for aviation companies

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Speaker 1: that want to fly and test cutting edge airplanes. So

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Speaker 1: that's what he did for a living. He was not

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Speaker 1: a military guy when he was chosen. He was a

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Speaker 1: civilian test and that's why they chose him. That's exactly right.

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Speaker 1: And then you have Mike Collins, who I interviewed a

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Speaker 1: number of times over the years in writing my histories,

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Speaker 1: and you couldn't have met a more gracious, friendly, open person.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, that openness from him is reflected in

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Speaker 1: the Air and Space Museum in Washington because after the

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Speaker 1: Apollo missions, he left NASA and he became the head

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Speaker 1: of the Air and Space Museum, and he was the

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Speaker 1: man really that made that museum become thee the diamond

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Speaker 1: it really is as museums in Washington. Buzz Aldrom, you know,

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Speaker 1: he's this guy so passionately wanting to be the first

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Speaker 1: on the Moon that they had to like chain him

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Speaker 1: down almost on the flight. And that's because he was

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Speaker 1: he wanted to do it, and he was he knew

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Speaker 1: what he was doing like all of them, like every

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Speaker 1: single astronaut on every single mission through the Apollo through

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Speaker 1: the sixties Space Race. The most remarkable stat of all

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Speaker 1: is the fact that none of them ever made an error.

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Speaker 1: It was the human element that worked every single time. Now,

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Speaker 1: sometimes little things went wrong, they owe if they including

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Speaker 1: things they did, but they always fixed it. And this

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Speaker 1: is an achievement that's beyond the description. And Buzz Aldrom's

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Speaker 1: part of that. Don't go up to Buzz and tell

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Speaker 1: him to swear in a Bible and ask him if

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Speaker 1: he went to the moon. If you do that, he'll

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Speaker 1: punch in the face popularity will he'll pop? Right, let's

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Speaker 1: talk about Mars for a moment. That we'll come back

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Speaker 1: to the Moon. But it was quite an accomplishment over

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Speaker 1: the fifty years to do what we did. But how

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Speaker 1: many rovers do we have operating on Mars right now?

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Speaker 1: Right now, there are two rovers operating on Mars. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: take that back, three rovers operating on Mars. We have

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Speaker 1: the American Curiosity Rover, which is working been working now

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Speaker 1: for oh what is it now, eight years years, nine

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Speaker 1: years and it's it's if you go my website behind

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Speaker 1: the black and you just do a search for the

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Speaker 1: word cool images or Betty yet Curiosity or Rover update.

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Speaker 1: You will see spectacular mountains images because Curiosity has now

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Speaker 1: moved into the mountains of Mars and these are the

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Speaker 1: first ground level pictures we've ever had on Mars of

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Speaker 1: mountains and foothills, and it's spectacular. I post them regularly

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Speaker 1: because they're just it's just breath taking. Now that's that's

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Speaker 1: a cause Securiosity than you have. Perseverance has now been

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Speaker 1: on Mars now for about for three months. It's now

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Speaker 1: it's really beginning operations. It's real science work. They're going

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Speaker 1: to have a preliminary press conference this week giving us

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Speaker 1: an update of their first science result. It's biggest results

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Speaker 1: so far. However, there's been an engineering achievement, and that's

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Speaker 1: its Ingenuity helicopter. It is demonstrated that we can fly

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Speaker 1: on Mars. Aviation in that thin atmosphere is possible, and

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Speaker 1: it was so successful that rather than just simply be

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Speaker 1: a thirty day engineering test, it turned out to be

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Speaker 1: a permanent, now operational scout for Perseverance day using it

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Speaker 1: in that extent. Now it can't do scouting great scouting

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Speaker 1: work because it wasn't designed to actually be a scouting.

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Speaker 1: It's still pretty good. It's designed to be an engineering test,

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Speaker 1: but they're learning how to use a helicopter do scouting

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Speaker 1: for future missions. This is spectacular. And then the third

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Speaker 1: rover on Mars is China's first rovers are wrong. It's

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Speaker 1: been on Mars since mid May. It's now moved about

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Speaker 1: fifteen hundred feet from its landa I just posted a

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Speaker 1: few days ago the images they released earlier this week

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Speaker 1: of its most recent images. It actually it traveled about

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Speaker 1: a thousand feet to its parachute and heat shield not

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Speaker 1: heat shield, I'm sorry, fairing cover essentially, and it took

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Speaker 1: pictures of that. They're very tight lipped about what it's doing,

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Speaker 1: so it's a little hard to say. I do know

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Speaker 1: what its scientific goals are, and its prime scientific goal

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Speaker 1: is to see if there is water under the surface

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Speaker 1: at that location. They're in the equatorial regions where you

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Speaker 1: would not expect to find water. If they find water

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Speaker 1: underground with their radar penetrating instrument, that will be a

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Speaker 1: major discovery and it will be a significant for future conversation.

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Speaker 1: Then Perseverance just report back to NASA that there may

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Speaker 1: have been signs of past life, some kind of evidence

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Speaker 1: I have I heard that that might be something that's

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Speaker 1: good that was reported later today that I haven't chambed

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Speaker 1: about twelve hours ago. Yeah, and I think those kind

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Speaker 1: of reports don't get me particularly cited. I can't tell

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Speaker 1: you the number of stories I've read where they say

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Speaker 1: we may have found evidence of this, and that's not

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Speaker 1: really very significant. What one of the things NASA has

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Speaker 1: done with Perseverance that is really a distortion of its

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Speaker 1: mission is they have sold it as a search for life,

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Speaker 1: and that is totally incorrect. It's great press, the modern

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Speaker 1: press that is very ignorant about Mars eats it up,

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Speaker 1: but it's not what Perseverance is doing. Perseverance is doing

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Speaker 1: the same thing Curiosity is and Jerrong is doing. They

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Speaker 1: are trying to understand the geology of laws at the

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Speaker 1: particular locations they are at. They are exploring laws at

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Speaker 1: those locations and trying to understand its geology. Understanding its

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Speaker 1: geology both now and its history historical geology. We'll tell

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Speaker 1: us a great deal about the planet itself and whether

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Speaker 1: it could have once had life. The odds of them

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Speaker 1: finding evidence of actual life on the planet is almost nil.

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Speaker 1: Of course, if they find it that's great, then they

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Speaker 1: want to find it. That's great, but that's really not

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Speaker 1: the focus. The focus is to try to figure out

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Speaker 1: what that planet is like now and what made it

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Speaker 1: what it looks like today in the past, and there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of mysteries about Mars. We really do not

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Speaker 1: understand what it's like, but we do a beginning. We

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Speaker 1: all beginning to understand something about Mars that was never

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Speaker 1: really understood in the past, which is that the planet

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Speaker 1: is not a dry desert planet. This is another misconception

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Speaker 1: people have. They are learning with the orbiters and the

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Speaker 1: rovers and the landers that Mars is actually more like Antarctica.

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Speaker 1: If they wet, icy draw icy place, so you don't

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Speaker 1: have liquid water, so it's very dry. Antartica is a desert,

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Speaker 1: but it's got everywhere. I'm behind the black I've got

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Speaker 1: some posts, I've got a map. You can actually see

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Speaker 1: from thirty degrees latitude north and south, going north, pretty

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Speaker 1: much wherever you go, you're gonna find ice. You're gonna

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Speaker 1: find it near the surface. You're gonna find lots of

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Speaker 1: glacial material in thirty to sixty degree latitudes, lots of

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Speaker 1: really easily accessible ice. And so that's that's Mars. Mars

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Speaker 1: is not a dry planet, but it's a planet made

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Speaker 1: of ice, which you then have to process. So when

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Speaker 1: the colonists get there, the way they will get their

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Speaker 1: water is a mining operation. They will dig down and

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Speaker 1: mine out the ice and then process it for drinking

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Speaker 1: or for energy or maybe fuel and fuel energy. They

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Speaker 1: will process it for the hydrogen oxygen, they will process

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Speaker 1: for the oxygen to breathe, and they will process it

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Speaker 1: for the water. And you know, and it's everywhere any

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Speaker 1: time you any place you pick north I'm sorry, closer

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Speaker 1: to the pole above thirty latitude, you're almost certainly going

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Speaker 1: to land in a place we have easily accessible life.

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Speaker 1: That is what they're learning, and that's that's that's why

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Speaker 1: Jarrong's mission is so significant. Was it's at twenty four

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Speaker 1: degrees latitude, so it's farther south in those lines. And

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Speaker 1: if they find underground water there that it suggests that

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Speaker 1: anywhere on the surface you merely have to dig down

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Speaker 1: to get water. That's a big deal. It is thirty

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Speaker 1: one years ago the Hubble space telescope was launched. It died,

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Speaker 1: but they rebooted it and it's working again. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: wrote you know, some people tell me I wrote the

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Speaker 1: book the History of a Bolt of universe universe, and Amira,

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Speaker 1: it is the telescope. I like to say that it

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Speaker 1: cannot be killed. Every every decade, that's amazing. Shut it

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Speaker 1: down and it never dies. However, we must, I must

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Speaker 1: to stick a pin in the balloon of the success.

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Speaker 1: They yes, it was down for a month. It had

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Speaker 1: a computer hardware problem. They figured it out. They switched

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Speaker 1: to the wrecked hardware backup on the telescope. It resumes

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Speaker 1: science operations just a few days ago. But here is

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Speaker 1: the caveat the downside. Of the downside, there is no

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Speaker 1: redundancy left. They use the backup computers modules to get

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Speaker 1: going again, but that means they don't have a backup

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Speaker 1: anymore for those modules, and in fact, throughout the telescope

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Speaker 1: increasingly they have no backups. They have no backups for

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Speaker 1: the gyroscopes. To keep it pointed, they have no backups

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Speaker 1: any longer for the companid they used to send astronauts

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Speaker 1: from the Space Shuttle up there right, can't do now

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Speaker 1: we don't have any The telescope has a grapple attachment

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Speaker 1: on it, and it is possible, and they even considered

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Speaker 1: a robotic mission when they had the Shuttle was grounded

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Speaker 1: after the Columbia accident. It is possible to still do

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Speaker 1: a repair mission to Hubble because it's designed to be repaired,

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Speaker 1: and in fact the computer that failed was a unit

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Speaker 1: that was put in during the last maintenance mission in

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Speaker 1: oh nine, so you could put a new one in.

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Speaker 1: But you that we do not right now have any

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Speaker 1: spacecraft with the capability of docking with Hubble and doing

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Speaker 1: such a mission. Will we have that comp capability the

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Speaker 1: resurgence of man space flight privately that's going on right now,

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Speaker 1: it suggests that within five years we're going to have

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Speaker 1: that capability all over again, and it will be possible

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Speaker 1: to mount a mission to repair Hubble. So I have

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Speaker 1: my fingers course this telescope will hold on for at

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Speaker 1: least five more years, because if it can do that,

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Speaker 1: we will be at a point where we could say, hey,

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Speaker 1: for not too much money, we can engineer a mission

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Speaker 1: manned or possibly robotic to the telescope to fix the

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Speaker 1: problem we need it fixed. Once the James Webb telescope

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Speaker 1: goes up in another welescope is not a replacement for Hubble.

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Speaker 1: This is a line Naser is told for thirty years.

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Speaker 1: James Webb Telescope is a cutting edge infrared telescope. It

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Speaker 1: observes only in the infrared. It is not an optical telescope.

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Speaker 1: It is designed it is optimized for doing cosmology. It

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Speaker 1: can do other kinds of things, but it's designed to

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Speaker 1: do cosmology deep space observy. So it's not going to

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Speaker 1: give us that awe inspiring look that we get with Hubble. No,

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Speaker 1: we it will give us infrared images that will be

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Speaker 1: spectacular and are inspiring, but they will not be what

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Speaker 1: our eyes to see, and Hubble can do that. They

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Speaker 1: will not be working at optical wavelength. I will tell

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Speaker 1: you that the Chinese in building their space station that's

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Speaker 1: being assembled right now, they plan to launch a Hubble

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Speaker 1: class optical telescope, possibly slightly better than Hubble. It's under

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Speaker 1: construction right now, and that is going to fly near

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Speaker 1: their space station, with the concept that their space station

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Speaker 1: occupants will be able to go to that lescope periodically

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Speaker 1: and maintain it. And so they if Hubble dies that

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Speaker 1: we might we will not be blind in optical wavelines

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Speaker 1: because the Chinese will provide it. Of course, they're not

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Speaker 1: gonna let us use it. They're going to keep it themselves.

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Speaker 1: But that's where we stand. At least we've done some shows,

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Speaker 1: many shows. Robert were concerned about a couple of things,

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Speaker 1: but one includes an X flare from the Sun, which

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Speaker 1: if it hits us directly, could literally wipe out all

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Speaker 1: our electronics. Tell us about the real dangers of that,

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Speaker 1: I think they're entirely overrated. Really, see what you wanted

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Speaker 1: to hear, But they I think they're really I hope

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Speaker 1: you're right. There is no question that an really powerful

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Speaker 1: flare from the sun can and has caused blackouts on Earth.

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Speaker 1: It had did it back in I think sixty nine,

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Speaker 1: But in these thirty forty years, you wouldn't spend the

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Speaker 1: money though to insulate the power grid. The power grid.

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Speaker 1: The people who run the powergrid have been very aware

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Speaker 1: of the and have worked very hard to protect the

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Speaker 1: bow Gride scout. Doesn't mean it's not an issue, but

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Speaker 1: it's not. It's not a death defying we're all going

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Speaker 1: to die situation. On top of that, the sun itself

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Speaker 1: has been relatively inactive for the last twenty years so far.

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Speaker 1: That is even more reduced from that that kind of

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Speaker 1: that's respect. So no, I'm not really particularly worried about

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Speaker 1: the Sun a solar flare hurting us. I'm more concerned

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Speaker 1: that the Sun might be inactive and cause global cooling,

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Speaker 1: which it seems to have done for the last two decades.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at

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Speaker 1: one a m. Eastern, and go to Coast to Coast

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Speaker 1: am dot com for more