WEBVTT - OSIRIS-REx: NASA's Journey to the Netherworld 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from housetop were 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:22.640 On September eight, Osirius REX will launch from Cape Canaveral. 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.000 It will orbit the Sun for a year, then use 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.600 Earth's gravitational field to assist it on its way to 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:34.160 the asteroid Bayning, utilizing a complex thruster array to match 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:38.600 its speed, rendezvous with the ancient rock and steal a sample, 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:43.720 and then return home. The name OSIRIS stands for Origins 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:51.040 Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security Regular Explorer or Osiris REX. 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.280 But you really can't name a craft like this after 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.840 the ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife and transition and 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.320 not expect us to ruminate on it. A god torn 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.319 to pieces and scattered across the cosmos by set, forced 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.679 to descend into the underworld, but not before conceiving a 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:13.440 miraculous child with isis ensuring the birth of Horace, God 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:18.000 of Kings, for ages to follow. Because what are asteroids 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:21.080 but the scattered remnants of the building blocks that are 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.880 created into planetary form and eventually planetary life as we 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.120 know it. They're shards of the nether age in our 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.320 Solar system, and in the case of the Venue asteroid 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.600 a shard that has been witnessed to the Solar System's birth, 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.280 and a shard that might even bring death or at 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:48.040 least phoenix like rebirth to life on Earth. Hey, welcome 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:49.760 to Stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.040 Lamb and my name is Christian Sager. We have a 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.320 special episode for you today where we are going to 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:58.120 be talking about the NASA Osyrius REX mission. For the 0:01:58.160 --> 0:01:59.760 first part of the episode, Robert and I are going 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:02.920 to present to you the information about this mission. Uh 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:07.120 and in particular asteroid Baynu, which is traveling to and 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:09.799 then the latter half, we were lucky enough to get 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:12.760 Dr Amy Simon to do an interview with us. She's 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:17.000 a senior scientist at NASA on planetary atmospheres and she's 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:21.040 working on the Osiris REX mission, and she gave us 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.280 some really good answers to some complex questions. Yeah, and 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.200 you know, we in the intro here we hit a 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:30.239 little bit on the the Egyptian mythology tie and both words, 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.359 you know, one is the god of the of transition 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:34.720 and the underworld, and the other is kind of the 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:38.079 menu is the name of kind of an Egyptian phoenix creature. 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.680 So that the question that instantly enters everyone's mind. I 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.560 think when you encounter acronyms like this is uh, is 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.320 it really as cool as Osiris rex sounds because it 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.840 sounds amazing. Cyrus Rex sounds like what the next dinosaur 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.799 in Jurassic World too will be called? Yeah, and I think, 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:55.600 but I think the answer is yes. This is a 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.720 really fascinating mission. I think it actually holds up rather 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.679 well to the mythic expectations are presented by the name. 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.160 And that's why we're discussing it here on the show. 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.480 So let's start off by getting into Beanu. What is 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.880 this thing? You may have heard about it recently, because 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.120 in the last two to three days before we're recording this, 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.040 there has been a flurry on the internet, especially on 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:20.880 science sites, of oh, is this asteroid going to hit 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.680 Earth in like a century or two, right, and then 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:27.960 the the counter headlines that are like, no, stupid, this 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:32.360 asteroid is not definitely gonna hit Earth. Yeah. Um. And 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:37.160 it's interesting because in those headlines you see our fear 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.720 rising up about the threat of near Earth objects. And 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:44.360 on one hand, I feel like people should be more fearful, 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:46.800 but people should I mean more to the point people 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:49.640 should be more aware of the long term risk posed 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:51.880 by near earth objects, like it should be a talking 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:58.680 point for for all political candidates and not just transhumanist candidates. Interesting. Yeah, 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.320 well especially at don't if you remember, but earlier this 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:05.960 year there was a meteoroid caught on film, like on camera. 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.040 Somebody whipped out their smartphone and caught one crashing into 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.880 Earth and it killed a person. And it was wow, 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.800 like just seeing something like that that was just so real, 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:20.520 really jaw dropping. Uh. And this is I mean, that 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.120 was tiny compared to Benu Benu is uh. Let me 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.000 see here a thousand, six hundred and fifty ft wide 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:31.839 or five meters. But according to the people at NASA, 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.840 we don't need to worry because that is well below 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:40.080 their calculations for what would cause like a mass extinction event. Yeah, 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:41.960 this isn't gonna be to the twenty till the twenty 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:43.839 second century, so there's plenty of time for us to 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.360 not worry about it. And it's gonna be a one 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.320 chants that it'll impact the Earth. But but more to 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.200 the point, it's just the general idea I think of, 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.440 like being aware of near earth objects in the threat 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:59.520 they posed learning more about those objects so that we 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.320 we we can potentially intercede and protect ourselves. I think 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:08.479 that is a very important issue for for humans in general. Yeah. 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:10.880 And when we talked to Dr Amy Simon later in 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.559 this episode, you know, she makes it clear this isn't 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.719 why they chose this particular asteroid, but yes, planetary defense 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:19.880 is a part of their mission. It is something that 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.039 the people that has to think about. So what do 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.240 we know about this asteroid? Well, near Earth asteroid is 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:28.719 a is a weird term, but it's It was formally 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:35.560 called it had a very generic name r Q thirty six. Uh. And, 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.279 as Amy tells us later on, they renamed it Banu 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.279 after a contest with students coming up with names. Yeah, 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.000 and uh. And I think there's one one in large 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:51.120 part because it ties into the Egyptian themes President Osiris. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh. 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:55.480 And what's important about it is it's carbon rich. Uh. 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.160 And because of that, it may contain clues to the 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:02.720 origins of life in the universe and especially here on Earth. 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.000 It's thought to be the remnant of the building blocks 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:12.120 that formed planets, so it might contain natural resources like water, organics, 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.920 or metals. Uh, and I realized as we were talking 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.160 to Amy, because she she reminded us that it's so black, 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:21.240 it's blacker than like black ink here on Earth. It 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.280 only reflects three percent of the light that comes at it. 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:26.520 So this is really I mean, if it's made of metal, 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.400 it is the blackest of metals. It is the most 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.120 metal thing in space. Like imagine wearing all black on 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.360 a really hot day. You're getting a sense of the 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.480 of the situation that's going here and the resulting Yarkovsky 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:43.960 effect that that gradually pushes it, and this gradually changes 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:47.479 the the orbit of this asteroid over time, pushes it 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:52.560 causes them to migrate until it encounters the gravitational residents 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.279 of Saturn, and the regular tugging effective effect here eventually 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.480 pushes Banu into the inner Solar System, where the experience 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:03.000 is close encounters with Venus and Earth, encounters that then 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.560 pull apart the rubble kind of reshape it, turn it 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:09.800 inside out. Because it's worth mentioning here that it's dark, yes, 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:11.840 but it's also just kind of a loose collection of 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.720 boulders and rock and dust, And there's actually a theory. 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:17.360 I don't know if you ran across this one and 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.440 the Nathi materials that a billion years ago, the venue 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.440 was part of a larger proto planet and he got 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.200 shattered by a space collision with another asteroid. And this 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.840 is just kind of the rough remnants of that. Yeah. 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:32.640 The theory that I read was that it was thought 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.880 to have been the material of a nebula and that 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.760 was disrupted by an exploding star. Yeah, well that was 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.160 the original. Yeah. Basically, if you go back far enough, 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.320 about four point five billion years, you just have a 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.360 stellar nursery of hydrogen, helium, and dust and this is 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.680 the birthplace of our son. The surrounding solar system. A 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.200 supernova of a nearby star stirs all of this into action, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.440 spinning off the cretion disc that births the star and 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.520 uh yeah, and so everything else is in this mix 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.440 as well. And this uh, this asteroid Ben who was 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.440 essentially you know, a call back to these earlier Yeah, 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:07.360 and the idea is essentially right like that. It's just 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.520 bits of dust that were like super flash heated together 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.320 into this molten rock that like you you refer to 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.400 it's sort of like a rubble pile. They think it's 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.640 not like one big rock. It's just like a bunch 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:22.400 of stuff fused together. Uh, and it's being propelled by 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.680 the Rakovsky effect that you mentioned earlier. Now, okay, just 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.680 real quick, some numbers on the whole, whether it's going 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.480 to hit us thing or not. NASA does officially classify 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.800 it as quote potentially dangerous, but there's only a point 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.319 zero three seven percent chance that it will strike Earth 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:42.480 according to their calculation. So, like, if you think about 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.440 this in terms of say Batman's rogue gallery, this is 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.040 not the Joker um, but this is also maybe not 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.760 what's the Vincent Price character Egghead? Yeah, it's not Egghead. 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.160 It would be somewhere you tell me you're the comics, 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:02.679 a real rare Batman villain like that. But the threat threat, uh, 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.120 one that I would immediately go to would be a 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.000 character named Anarchy. And the anarchy is spelled with the K. 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:14.480 It's a teenager. He's just running around Gotham causing chaotic anarchy. Yeah, 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.600 so that's pretty low on Batman's road gallery. That's not 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.000 one of his priorities. He lets Robin handle that, right. 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.520 But if that, but if that particular villain is just 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.319 going to be close enough for study, then it might 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.240 be a way to additionally learn how you handle villains 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.520 and what how villains are put together? Right? Yeah, and 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:36.200 so according to Scientific American, if Benu did hit Earth, 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:38.920 even if we did get within that very very tiny 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.680 window of probability, yes, it would devastate a local area, 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.440 but it's not gonna wipe out civilization. It's something we 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:47.920 would know is coming. We would be able to evacuate people. 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.760 Is to do something like on a large level, uh, 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:57.200 that would possibly cause mass extinction. The asteroid has to 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.960 be at least point six miles wide or out one kilometer, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:05.080 So Bannu is nowhere near that. Um, don't worry about it, 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:08.320 no matter what headlines you see this week. All right, 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:10.280 we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:21.000 we will dive into the mission itself. Osiris Rex. Okay, 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.680 so we're back now, Osiris Rex. What is this all about? 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.360 What's the goal? Let's start there. It's a spacecraft, but 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.199 let's start with why they're building this spacecraft. What's the 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.760 whole point of it? Right? Uh? They want to take 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:37.520 this spacecraft to Banu and bring back at least two 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:42.319 point one ounces or around four pounds of sample soil 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:46.560 and rock from Banu to bring back to Earth. And 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.400 it's the first mission to ever try this with an asteroid, right, 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.640 and I want to stress it in the name itself. 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.400 That's the REX Regular Explore and that's all about documenting 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.320 the regular the layer of loose outer material at the 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.920 sampling site. Uh and you know, scaling down from there. 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:06.320 So you might be asking yourself, well, why do these 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:08.960 scientists just want to get this little tiny piece of 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.440 soil and rock bring it back here? What good is 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.280 that going to do us? Right? Well, the answer is 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.400 they think it will help us investigate how planets formed 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:20.079 and how life began because of you know that origin 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.920 story that we gave you earlier about Benu, and it's 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:27.040 uh history going so far back, you know, there may 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.480 be traces there. Yeah, there was a period of time 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.800 where the asteroid, these asteroids are just like pushed back 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.880 into the inner sellular system and they're just crashing into everything, 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.040 crashing into Earth. And this could have been a way 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.000 that some of these vital materials that would lead to 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.600 a life on Earth might have gotten here. Yeah, And 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.040 so this mission, it's the mission is there's so many 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:52.200 people contributing to there's NASA, there's several universities involved. Lockheed 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.760 Martin built some of the materials that are on the spacecraft, 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:58.959 but it's managed out of NASA's Godard's Space Flight Center, 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.520 which is up in Green Maryland for us here in America. Uh. 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.440 In fact, the how Stuff Works team visited there, I 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:07.520 want to say, like six months ago and shot a 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.320 bunch of videos just talking to different scientists there about 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:14.240 the missions that they were performing. Uh. The thing is 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:16.960 too about this is like they can look at Banu 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.000 with a telescope and they have lots of interpretations about 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:23.120 what its composition is. Uh, but they want to be 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.640 able to prove that. So part of sending the spacecraft 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:31.160 there is also to confirm or maybe deny some of 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.800 their interpretations and observations from a telescope. Uh. So they're 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.960 gonna be doing things like measuring the effect of sunlight 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.760 on the orbit of the asteroid. And we've mentioned this before. 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:44.200 Let me clarify this is the Yarkovsky effect. What it 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:48.120 is is when the asteroid absorbs sunlight then re emits 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.560 that sunlight as heat and it gets a slight push. 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.160 And Amy talks with us about that later. But can 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.599 do all sorts of things that change the trajectory of 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:57.880 the asteroid. So I think we've hit on all of 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.400 the key points in the name of the craft. We 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.920 have the origins the sea of the spectral interpretation, resource identification, 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:08.400 security and that actually refer that actually deals with the 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:10.840 measure of the measuring the effect of the sunlight on 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.240 the orbit and the Acosmy effect. And then the regular explore. 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.000 Now regulthe was a term I wasn't familiar with. It 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.440 means the layer of loose outer material that's on the 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:24.280 asteroid that they're going to sample, basically, right, That's that's 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:26.920 why it's a regular if explorer. Here's the real quick, 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:30.400 down and dirty stats on the spacecraft. Spacecraft of os 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.920 Iris REX. Uh. It's twenty point to five feet long, 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.520 eight feet wide, and ten point three three ft tall, 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.760 so it's no small thing. Uh. It weighs a thousand, 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.200 nine forty pounds, but that's without fuel. When you put 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.440 fuel into this thing, it weighs four thousand, six hundred 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.720 and fifty pounds. They're also going to have two solar 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.720 panels on it to generate wattage to power the thing 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.960 as well as the fuel that's in there. And in addition, 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.760 it has this y it array of communication systems so 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.959 that it can relay back to Earth both its scientific 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.160 findings and what they refer to as its health status. 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.360 So basically you know whether it's malfunctioning or not. Uh. 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.600 So they perform a lot of detailed tests on these 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:16.880 system to make sure that they survived the journey. That's 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.440 something we talked to Amy about later. But everything from 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.480 vibrational testing to heat and cold uh and then um 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:27.480 loud loud noises. They literally blast these things with air horns. Yeah, 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.120 they've really put it through hell, because that's that's kind 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.400 of what leaving the planet it amounts to. And the 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.800 reason why it has to have so many communication systems 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.000 on board is that it's going to be communicating not 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:43.200 just with NASA, but with three different facilities on Earth, 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:49.000 one in Goldstone, California, one in Spain, and one in Canberra, Australia. Uh. 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:53.040 They each have huge two and thirty foot diameter dishes 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.920 for communication, so they can talk to things like this 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.280 up to the size of a pizza box. Now, uh 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:02.840 osiris Rex is much bigger than that, obviously given the 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.200 stats I just gave you. But you know, the communication 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.440 systems on board might not be all right, So what 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:09.760 kind of payload are we we're talking about here. They've 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.000 built a lot of different little I'm gonna just call 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.280 him gizmos and widgets to put on board the spacecraft 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.120 for its mission. And the first one that the one 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:20.600 that said they seem the most proud of. There's a 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.200 lot of material on Nassa's side about This is called 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:27.440 oviars UH and it is the Osiris REX Visible and 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.880 infrared spectrometer UH. So basically, this is going to look 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.880 at the asteroids spectral signature and detect whether there's organics 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:39.160 or other mineral materials there. It measures visible and near 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:44.720 infrared light that's reflected and emitted from BEANU and it's key. 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.400 It is key to their search for organics. This is 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.440 because minerals and other materials have unique what they refer 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.560 to as fingerprints within these spectrums, so they'll hopefully be 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.920 able to see these things even before they actually touched 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.760 down for that brief second with their arm. UH. It 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:05.200 only operates. This is OVIRS an auto cyrus rex at 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.560 ten watts. It's less power than your standard household light bulb, 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.640 and they've built it with no moving parts to reduce 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.000 the risk of malfunctions. So this is like a pretty 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:18.680 pared down invention for them to measure these things and 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.520 to avoid it getting overheated by all the light and 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:25.040 thermal radiation that's going to be bombarding them while they're 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.120 out there. The whole thing has been analyzed to scatter 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.280 light around it and make it resistant to corrosion as well. 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:35.520 Now I have to admit, when it comes to space missions, UM, 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.200 I always returned to like the eight year old me 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.840 and UH and assembling Lego kits, And maybe part of 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.600 that is also also that I'm now assembling Lego kits 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:47.880 with with my son. But I get excited about little 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:51.560 robot arms, h any kind of grabb or any type 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.880 type of you know, UM, fine manipulation device on a 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.960 land or a spacecraft. And there is a really cool 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.840 one here with a very fun name. It's called togasm 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:06.280 or tagasm or tag asm. Tag as definitely an ASTHM 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:10.120 in there, the touch and go sample acquisition mechanism. So 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:12.320 we kind of joke with Amy later on when we 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.040 talked to her about all these acronyms that NASA comes 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:16.480 up with, and she was a good sport about it, 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:20.600 and explained why. But yet, So the arm it has 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.200 a sample return capsule that's attached to it to protect 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.880 the sample that with both a heat shield and parachutes 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.240 upon reentry. And that's important because we we talk about 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:35.320 um planetary contamination as a possibility with amy, So they 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:37.280 really want to seal this thing up tight. The arm 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.600 reaches out, grabs it, seals it within this capsule, and 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:42.359 then keeps it safe all the way back to its 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:47.120 journey to Earth through our our atmosphere. And then they're 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:51.640 gonna put it into a very high security laboratory here 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.439 on Earth because the sample retrieval aspects of this. And 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:56.040 we get into this little bit in the interview whether 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:59.560 here it's just amazing here this is it's quite a 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.119 feat to to send this device reach out into the 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.080 void with your technology, pinch off a little bit of 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.360 rock and bring it back. Yeah. Yeah, I mean we've 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:09.840 never done it before. It sounds it sounds easy when 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.399 you think about like sci fi type stuff, right, like 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:15.080 like just take your average summer blockbuster movie, Like if 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.320 you saw something like this happen in it, you'd go, sure, 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.480 I happen all the time. You can do that. But no, 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:22.120 we haven't done it yet before, Yeah, not not in 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.000 the the exact way that this one is carrying it out. 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:31.639 So they have another really high tech acronym device on 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:35.520 board this ship. It's called oh cams uh, and this 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.320 is the camera suite of three cameras that are going 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:43.000 to allow them to globally image and map Banu. There's 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.480 also a laser altimeter on board that they'll use to 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.600 measure the distance between the craft and Banu as it 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.879 gets closer. Uh. Now, the point of these tools is 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.120 to help them map the asteroid and recon for possible 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.960 sampling sites as they get closer. This is so detailed 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:04.160 that they can spot individual pebbles on its surface. Now, 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:07.080 remember Banu we referred to it before. It's just like 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.280 a pile of rubble in space, right. It's not smooth. 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.400 It's a lumpy, irregular shape. So it's going to need 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.160 this kind of data before they approach it. They also 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.359 have a thermal emission spectrometer that just provides them, you know, 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.280 standard temperature information. And then this is cool. M I. 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.959 T And Harvard students and some faculty got together and 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.639 put together an X ray imaging spectrometer that will observe 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:32.880 the X ray spectrum around Benu as well, So there's 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.480 some involvement there. And you know what, I'm gonna add 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:36.879 this here. I was gonna save it from the end 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:38.840 of the episode, but you mentioned, uh, you know the 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:41.199 fun part about playing with legos and kind of building 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.560 your own thing. So one of the project scientists on 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.280 the Osiris REX mission, his name is Jason Dwarkin, and 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.240 there's a video game called Cerbal Space Program. I hadn't 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:53.080 heard about it before this, but it's basically like a 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.600 simulator for building devices that you would launch into space 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.040 and see how they react. Right. He presented to the 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:03.680 fans of the video game in their forum. He said, hey, 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:05.480 I got a challenge for you. Can you build a 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:10.760 replica of Osiris Rex and successfully return an asteroid sample 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.360 to Earth? And he himself tried to do it over 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.200 and over again and he didn't have very good results. Uh. 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.359 The game essentially simulates what it's like running a space 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:23.440 agency on like a a sort of like alternate version 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.440 of Earth. Uh. And he found that within the game 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:30.280 he couldn't get the spacecraft or launch using the realistic matches, 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:34.160 uh sorry, masses that they're using in real time here 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:36.800 on Earth. But still he said, hey, I want to 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:38.240 see you guys do it. And there is a big 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:40.639 response and lots of people have been attempting this in 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:44.640 this video game. So this is a very fact based, 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.400 science based video game on games. That's what it sounded like. Yeah, 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:49.479 so you wouldn't be able to pull off what I 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.760 instantly think about, and this kind of unreal reality would 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:56.720 be to actually put the ghost of Wu tang Rapper 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:00.200 d ak O Cyrus. He would power it the stead 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.040 of the Yarkovsky effect. It's the big baby Jesus effect. 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.560 That would be pretty cool. Uh yeah, yeah, So, I 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.440 mean they're they've they've got so many collaborators on this thing. 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.160 They've got m I T, the multiple universities that contributed 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:19.680 to the research, NASA, Lockeed Martin, other companies. It's we 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.040 We asked her about this later, but I can't imagine 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:24.879 being the project manager on this thing, just trying to 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.879 keep everybody in uh communication and and and keep this 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:33.400 on track. Yeah. Indeed, now we've already touched a little 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.560 bit on the itinerary. It's gonna launch September eight, two 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.880 thousand and sixteen. It's seven oh five pm eastern daylight time. 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:42.919 It will be a position on the nose of an 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:47.440 Atlas five rocket for launch, and it's going to orbit 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:49.960 the Sun for a year, using Earth's gravitational field to 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.199 help assess its journey to being. The only thing that 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:55.840 I like immediately think of when I hear something like 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:57.880 that is the old thing they do in Star Trek 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:00.040 whenever they travel back in time, and they like it 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.639 them around the Sun and somehow that works and then 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.320 they go back. Yeah, this one will not be going 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:10.000 back in time though, it's traveling through spacetime as everything is. 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.320 So you want to get technical about it. Yes, Uh, 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:16.880 it's not going to reach Banu though until and it's 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:19.560 going to approach in August of that year. It's got 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:22.320 rocket thrusters that will help slow it down over the 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.879 course of that year, and then it will briefly touch it, 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:29.280 like very briefly to retrieve that sample. So it's just 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.399 gonna come up very slowly, touch it, grab a sample 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:35.199