Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Every Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as always a senior writer, Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland by rocket to the Moon, by airplane to the rocket,
Speaker 1: by taxi to the airport, by front door to the taxi,
Speaker 1: by throwing back the blanket hanging down the leg. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we want to start off. This episode was something
Speaker 1: we haven't done in a while, and by that I
Speaker 1: mean some listener mail. This listener mail comes from Megan,
Speaker 1: and Megan says, Hi, guys, I love your podcasts. I
Speaker 1: rely on them as a form of continuing education as
Speaker 1: I work on my own research and writing projects that
Speaker 1: relate to technology. As the data approaches for the launch
Speaker 1: of the final Space Shuttle, I wondered if you would
Speaker 1: consider doing one or a dozen special episodes on space technology.
Speaker 1: One episode just on the Space Shuttle itself would be nice.
Speaker 1: How does it fly? What does it do? How does
Speaker 1: it deliver its payloads? Into space without losing its air pressure.
Speaker 1: And then I snipped a big part of her email
Speaker 1: because it relates to other possible topics we may talk
Speaker 1: about the future. And then I go to thanks and
Speaker 1: keep up the good work, Megan. Yeah. I had to
Speaker 1: keep that last little bit in, but it's good, you know.
Speaker 1: I want to be inclusive. Yes, and Megan did have
Speaker 1: several other suggestions, all of which are wonderful ones, and
Speaker 1: we will probably get to them in the future, but
Speaker 1: we want to concentrate on the Space Shuttle right now.
Speaker 1: Talking about trying to get us to talk about space
Speaker 1: technology is doesn't require a lot of arm twisting, so
Speaker 1: we just have to say, jiminy, yeah, we've already talked
Speaker 1: about some in the past and the older space tech,
Speaker 1: but um, yeah, I think that there are several in
Speaker 1: the future. Let's just say that, yeah. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: also add that we have a great article on how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com about the Space Shuttle and it's
Speaker 1: called Brace Yourselves How the Space Shuttle Works. And it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's really really well done. It's a comprehensive, very long,
Speaker 1: very involved article, lots of really great animations and illustrations
Speaker 1: in there. I do highly recommend it um. It's it's
Speaker 1: I would call it one of our classic house stuff
Speaker 1: works articles because it kind of pulls out all the stops.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna kind of talk about the space Shuttle,
Speaker 1: and I thought we'd start with maybe sort of a
Speaker 1: brief overview of the history of the program. So you've
Speaker 1: got NASA, you know, they're they've they've had their successful
Speaker 1: launches of getting astronauts into orbit, getting astronauts all the
Speaker 1: way to the Moon and back safely. They've made some
Speaker 1: phenomenal contributions to science um. In around nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: President Nixon announced that what he wanted to see what
Speaker 1: what the next up in the space program was going
Speaker 1: to be, was to create a reusable space uh shuttle
Speaker 1: or Space Transportation System st s UM, so that we
Speaker 1: could actually keep using the same vehicle over and over again.
Speaker 1: Because prior to that point, the vehicles we've been using,
Speaker 1: the capsules we've been using we're all one use, used
Speaker 1: one time, and that was all you could use them for. Well,
Speaker 1: you know that that's one of the benefits. You know,
Speaker 1: they're disposable. You can pick one up anytime you're out
Speaker 1: on the road. Right You're right, you just go to
Speaker 1: your costco and hey, you know if I buy them
Speaker 1: in bulk. No, no, that's not how that worked at all.
Speaker 1: It was incredibly expensive to develop the capsules and you
Speaker 1: could only use them one time. So this was an
Speaker 1: idea of creating a space program that would use the
Speaker 1: same vehicle over and over, but there were some trade
Speaker 1: offs that you had to make for that. One of
Speaker 1: those trade offs was that you couldn't necessarily create a
Speaker 1: vehicle that could go into high orbits or to travel
Speaker 1: to distant locations like the Moon or Mars. You could
Speaker 1: only kind of launch into a lower but um part
Speaker 1: of that was this idea of a space Shuttle design
Speaker 1: that could return by gliding down to the Earth's surface,
Speaker 1: as opposed to you know, plummeting and then uh launching
Speaker 1: out a parachute and then kind of drifting down into
Speaker 1: the ocean for retrieval. So the design meant that they
Speaker 1: had to reconcile the fact that we would not be
Speaker 1: using this same sort of vehicle to go to places
Speaker 1: like the Moon or Mars. So this was a calculated
Speaker 1: decision on NASA's part to kind of change the focus
Speaker 1: of the space program. It was now no longer. Just well,
Speaker 1: it was never just about being the first to the moon,
Speaker 1: but that was a big part of it, right, The
Speaker 1: space race was in part a competition. Yeah, that that's true.
Speaker 1: The UH USSR Soviet Union was, of course. And this
Speaker 1: won't be a surprise to probably anybody who listens to
Speaker 1: this podcast, but yeah, we we've talked about the space
Speaker 1: race before between um, the United States and the USSR,
Speaker 1: And you know, it escalated from the time of sput Nick.
Speaker 1: You know, the the evolved the beeps UM up to
Speaker 1: the point where they decided they wanted to go to
Speaker 1: the Moon and it was a competition to see who
Speaker 1: could go and and set foot on the moon first. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know it went from you know, who can
Speaker 1: orbit the Moon or orbit the Earth first? And then
Speaker 1: you know who can have you know, set foot on
Speaker 1: the moon and then there this this presented greater challenges
Speaker 1: because the science involved. The idea of doing science and
Speaker 1: space UM is very compelling because there are things that
Speaker 1: you can do in outer space that you can't do
Speaker 1: uh and within the Earth's gravity, like lots of flippies.
Speaker 1: Well yeah that too, but yeah, I mean this is
Speaker 1: the the also from what I understand, tang tastes best
Speaker 1: if you're in if you're in a low Earth orbit.
Speaker 1: And yes, contrary to popular myth, tang was not created
Speaker 1: for the Space program. It just happens to be very
Speaker 1: handy in this in this content. But um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this was, this was we're talking about this
Speaker 1: as the early seventies, fresh on the heels of uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the Apollo program. Yes, um, so this is
Speaker 1: really the next step exactly. And so NASA then awarded
Speaker 1: the prime contract for the Shuttle to Rockwell International, and
Speaker 1: Rockwell International had to come up with different ways of
Speaker 1: creating some reusable materials, including things like the tiles that
Speaker 1: help absorb heat upon re entry. That was a big thing, right,
Speaker 1: you know. It wasn't just that, uh that it needed
Speaker 1: to be able to fly to the surface of the
Speaker 1: Earth safely, but it had to have something that would
Speaker 1: absorb and redistribute heat in a way that would protect
Speaker 1: the people inside and could be used over and over again,
Speaker 1: as opposed to something that could only do it the
Speaker 1: one time. Right, if you if you go see one
Speaker 1: of the capsules from the earlier space missions and say
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian Institution, for example, and you actually look at
Speaker 1: the heat shield on the bottom of the capsule and
Speaker 1: how burned it looks from re entry. It's it creates
Speaker 1: an impression because that's a it's an awful lot of
Speaker 1: friction coming back home. You said the word friction, did, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's we'll we'll address that when we get into re entry.
Speaker 1: But before you guys right in about friction, just let
Speaker 1: I want to let you know I will address that.
Speaker 1: But you're kinda have to wait. Should we take that? No, No,
Speaker 1: we need to keep that in because it's important. It's
Speaker 1: important because it's it's sort of shorthand right from talking
Speaker 1: about the heat that's generated. But it's a little more
Speaker 1: complicated than that. And don't worry people, we will talk
Speaker 1: about it. We're just gonna talk about that when we
Speaker 1: talk about the shuttle re entering the Earth. Samus here,
Speaker 1: So the the first shuttle that was ever built, you
Speaker 1: know the you know the name of the very first
Speaker 1: shuttle ever built that was not designed to go into space.
Speaker 1: It was just the first one that was built to
Speaker 1: test the flying capability, right, Yes, yes, As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, I have some history on each of the
Speaker 1: spacecraft involved. Um and I remember this because I actually
Speaker 1: have I still have it a lunchbox with this space
Speaker 1: particular spacecraft on it. What was from one from my
Speaker 1: younger days. Um, and that would be the Enterprise OV
Speaker 1: one oh one. Yes, this is a and And you
Speaker 1: may wonder is this in reference to the the long
Speaker 1: loved science fiction series Star Trek. Yes, it is the
Speaker 1: inner the Shuttle Enterprise, which was not designed to go
Speaker 1: into space. It was only to test the the gliding
Speaker 1: and flying capabilities of the Shuttle to UH, to see
Speaker 1: make sure that the design actually worked. Um, that's all
Speaker 1: it did. So they launched it from a Boeing seven
Speaker 1: forty seven and it successfully flew and landed safely at
Speaker 1: the Edwards Air Force Space Yes, and it actually rolled out.
Speaker 1: If think about it, we were talking about the early seventies,
Speaker 1: they didn't waste any time. The Enterprise rolled out on
Speaker 1: September seventeenth, nineteen seventy six, So it was it didn't
Speaker 1: take years and years and years to develop. I also
Speaker 1: want to say, is just as an aside. I know
Speaker 1: we've got a lot to cover, but it ended up
Speaker 1: being sort of a recursive thing since the Enterprise space
Speaker 1: Shuttle was mentioned in Star Trek as being the first Enterprise,
Speaker 1: So it's that I find that amusing. So uh, there
Speaker 1: were other the The actual shuttles that were used in
Speaker 1: space uh flights were the Columbia, the Discovery, the Atlantis,
Speaker 1: the Challenger, and then later the Endeavor. Now the Columbia, Discovery, Atlantis,
Speaker 1: and Challenger were the original four shuttles. Yep. The Columbia
Speaker 1: was rolled out in seventy nine, Challenger in eighty two,
Speaker 1: Discovery in eighty three, Atlantis and eighty five, and Endeavor
Speaker 1: in ninety one. And the very first space Shuttle flight
Speaker 1: as in going into lower thorbit was in nineteen eight one,
Speaker 1: and it was the Columbia. Yes. Uh. Now, again these
Speaker 1: were all designed to go into low Earth or a bit.
Speaker 1: And I thought it might be interesting to kind of
Speaker 1: take sort of a an audio tour of the Shuttle.
Speaker 1: In other words, we're just going to kind of talk
Speaker 1: about the different parts of the Space Shuttle. And and
Speaker 1: this is um I kind of took it from pre launch,
Speaker 1: So this is the the whole kit and caboodle. One
Speaker 1: might say, it's not just the orbiter. And now that's
Speaker 1: what most of us think about when we think about
Speaker 1: the Space Shuttle. You think of the orbiter, which is
Speaker 1: the one that looks kind of like a funky airplane.
Speaker 1: But the the if you're talking about the whole Space Shuttle,
Speaker 1: you're talking about three major sections. Your solid rocket fuel boosters,
Speaker 1: which do the lion share of the work when you're
Speaker 1: talking about launch, they do. They provide seventy of the
Speaker 1: thrust that's needed to lift off the launch pad. So
Speaker 1: you're thinking, like, well, if the solid rocket fuel boosters
Speaker 1: are doing sev of the work, where's the other coming from.
Speaker 1: That's actually coming from the orbiter's engines. But we'll get
Speaker 1: into that. So the solid rocket fuel boosters are using
Speaker 1: a They use a solid rocket motor. It has a
Speaker 1: propellant that's uh uh. It's also got an igniter and
Speaker 1: a nozzle, so the nozzle courses where it directs the
Speaker 1: gases out so that it creates thrust. The fuel it
Speaker 1: uses is it consists of. While the fuel part is
Speaker 1: the atomized aluminum has oxidizers in the form of ammonium percolate.
Speaker 1: It's got a catalyst the form of iron oxide powder.
Speaker 1: It's got a binder agent which I don't even think
Speaker 1: I could even pronounce, and then there's a curing agent
Speaker 1: which is an epoxy resin, and this material altogether makes
Speaker 1: a solid rocket fuel. And this stuff weighs a lot,
Speaker 1: and you know that it's one of the one of
Speaker 1: the big challenges with space flight is the fact that
Speaker 1: your fuel weighs so much. Um. In order to to
Speaker 1: launch something of a particular mass into space, you need
Speaker 1: a lot of fuel to get there. Well, the more
Speaker 1: fuel you add, the more weight you add, so you
Speaker 1: you have this problem where you've got to get the
Speaker 1: right ratio of fuel to counteract not just the weight
Speaker 1: of the vehicle, but the weight of the fuel as well.
Speaker 1: According to NASA, the Space Shuttle, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: put it on a scale, you need a pretty big scale.
Speaker 1: It weighs more than two point zero four million kilograms
Speaker 1: or four and a half million pounds at launch, and
Speaker 1: uh it uses in in eight and a half minutes
Speaker 1: after launch. It uses more than one point five nine
Speaker 1: million kilograms or three point five million pounds of propellant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's slightly less fuel efficient than a hummer. Yes, but
Speaker 1: hummer doesn't use solid fuel. No, no, no, But I
Speaker 1: wanted to mention something else that this this solid rocket
Speaker 1: fuel booster, it's actually jointed it's not it's not one
Speaker 1: solid piece. And if you were to ever actually take
Speaker 1: a look at one of these and just see the
Speaker 1: scale of it, how huge it is, you would understand
Speaker 1: there's no building in of one piece. Would not be
Speaker 1: it would not be a practical Well, they use O rings,
Speaker 1: rubber O rings seals to seal the two sections or
Speaker 1: the multiple sections together. Right, Basically, they're they're sort of
Speaker 1: like gaskets. Yes, so these are meant to create uh
Speaker 1: an airtight seal around the solid rocket boosters. Well, it
Speaker 1: was it was one of these O rings that caused
Speaker 1: the problem that led to the Challenger disasters. We wanted
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about the disasters that have
Speaker 1: happened in the Space Shuttle program. Well, the Challenger disaster
Speaker 1: was a very famous one. And what happened was that
Speaker 1: when the day of that launch it was unusually cold.
Speaker 1: The cold weather had made the the rubber O rings
Speaker 1: shrink a little bit, so they were no longer properly
Speaker 1: sealing the joints. But in the solid rocket booster upon launch,
Speaker 1: some of the hot gases, I mean we're talking incredibly
Speaker 1: hot gases from the that were being emitted by the
Speaker 1: solid rocket booster were escaping through the joints because the
Speaker 1: O rings were no longer sealing them properly. Some of
Speaker 1: these cut through like a blowtorch. They cut through the
Speaker 1: exterior of the external fuel tank, which is the next
Speaker 1: section we'll be talking about in a second. And the
Speaker 1: external fuel tank has two different kinds of fuel in it,
Speaker 1: as liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Well, the hot gases
Speaker 1: from the solid rocket booster ended up igniting the liquid
Speaker 1: hydrogen inside the external fuel tank, which then promptly exploded.
Speaker 1: That was what caused the explosion on the Challenger flight.
Speaker 1: So it was after that the spatial program actually stopped
Speaker 1: for a few years after the Challenger disaster while NASA
Speaker 1: was investigating the disaster and trying to determine what was
Speaker 1: the cause and how would the organization prevents such a
Speaker 1: thing from happening in the future. So ultimately you could
Speaker 1: say that the rubber O rings in the the solid
Speaker 1: rocket fuel booster was they were to blame for at
Speaker 1: least that part of the Challenger to that disaster, the
Speaker 1: whole initial um emergency that then lead to the tragedy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it it those engines do get hot. They according
Speaker 1: again according to NASA. The temperatures inside the engines themselves
Speaker 1: reach more than six thousand degrees fahrenheit around three three thousand,
Speaker 1: three fifteen point six degrees celsius. Yeah, so that's you know,
Speaker 1: any any leak, it can be very catastrophic in a
Speaker 1: very very short span of time, as we have seen. Right.
Speaker 1: So that's our first section that we wanted to talk about. Next,
Speaker 1: we have the external fuel tank. Now, this is the
Speaker 1: big kind of rocket looking thing that sticks to the
Speaker 1: shuttle even after they they jettison the rocket boosters. By
Speaker 1: the way, in order to jettison these things, they have
Speaker 1: these explosive charges between the sections that that when they explode,
Speaker 1: they break the the the links between one element in
Speaker 1: the next, which, of course that means that you have
Speaker 1: to also be very careful with that because I mean,
Speaker 1: anytime you're using explosives near a whole lot of fuel,
Speaker 1: clearly you've got to take a lot of precautions. Well,
Speaker 1: external fuel tank stores liquid hydrogen liquid oxygen, as I said,
Speaker 1: and that's what provides fuel to the orbiters three main engines. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it's uh, there's there's a six to one ratio
Speaker 1: for liquid hydrogen to liquid oxygen so there's far more
Speaker 1: liquid hydrogen on than the than oxygen. The external fuel
Speaker 1: tank is a hundred fifty eight feet long, which about
Speaker 1: forty eight ms, and it's got a diameter of twenty
Speaker 1: seven point six ft or about eight point four meters,
Speaker 1: And when it's empty, it weighs a feather light seventy
Speaker 1: eight thousand pounds or thirty five thousand four UM, and
Speaker 1: it holds one point six million pounds of propellant, which
Speaker 1: again seven nineteen thous so it's got a total volume
Speaker 1: of around five and twenty six thousand gallons or two
Speaker 1: million liters. So yeah, it holds. It holds a lot
Speaker 1: of fuel UM and it's it's made out of aluminium
Speaker 1: and aluminium composite materials. It's got the two tanks. The
Speaker 1: forward tank is the one for the oxygen, the aft
Speaker 1: tank is for hydrogen, and then there's an inner tank
Speaker 1: region that separates the two from each other. So this
Speaker 1: this UH propellant, it flows, It flows through a um
Speaker 1: seventeen in diameter feed linet cimeters. I always have to
Speaker 1: try and do that because I keep forgetting that we
Speaker 1: have so many people from around the world who listen
Speaker 1: to our podcast and we're used to using these outmoded
Speaker 1: methods of measurement, and everyone else is much more forward
Speaker 1: thinking than we are. Then we uh So the fuel
Speaker 1: flows through this this diameter or the diameter this feed
Speaker 1: line and goes to the shuttle's main engines and then
Speaker 1: the oxygen. By the way, if you if you want
Speaker 1: to know how fast the the the fuel flows through
Speaker 1: this line. The auction flows through at a rate of
Speaker 1: around seventeen thousand, six hundred gallons per minute, which is
Speaker 1: sixty six thousand, six hundred liters per minute. Strangely enough,
Speaker 1: we still use minutes in both systems of measurement. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then hydrogen, though, flows at forty seven thousand, four hundred
Speaker 1: gallons per minute, or a hundred seventy nine thousand liters
Speaker 1: per minute, so quite fast indeed. Yeah, well, I mean seriously,
Speaker 1: you could if you were using water instead of fuel,
Speaker 1: the shuttles engines could drain a regular size swimming pool
Speaker 1: uh in about seconds. Yeah, which, and if you were
Speaker 1: using water instead of fuel, that would be the most
Speaker 1: awesome water park ever, although you could probably only go once.
Speaker 1: So the the fuel, they burn the fuel in the
Speaker 1: prechamber to create high pressure and then the heat and
Speaker 1: the pressure from the gases drive turbopump, and then the
Speaker 1: fuels burned in the main combustion chamber. They direct the
Speaker 1: gases out of the nozzle at around six thousand miles
Speaker 1: per hour ten thousand kilometers per hour, and that means
Speaker 1: that each of the three engines can generate around three
Speaker 1: thousand to four seventy thousand pounds of thrust. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so that's you know, that's what's providing that other of
Speaker 1: thrust when the Shuttle is going to launch. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: the the external tank is covered with a spray on
Speaker 1: foam installation, which leads us to a discussion, a brief
Speaker 1: discussion about the second Space Shuttle disaster, and uh, this
Speaker 1: is the Columbia disaster. Now, you may remember when the
Speaker 1: Columbia was coming in in two thousand three, when it
Speaker 1: was coming up for the descent towards Earth, it broke
Speaker 1: apart on re entry. Well, the investigation led to the
Speaker 1: discovery that that the likely cause of that was that
Speaker 1: a piece of this foam installation broke off of the
Speaker 1: external tank during launch and struck the orbiter and that's
Speaker 1: what weakened the orbiter and caused it to break apart
Speaker 1: upon re entry. And one of the most controversial things
Speaker 1: about the the orbiter itself has been the heat resistant tiles.
Speaker 1: I mean even from the very beginning. I remember those
Speaker 1: discussions when I was a kid, and um, you know
Speaker 1: those they're they're made of a type of foam, uh basically,
Speaker 1: and and they're they're delicate. I mean, even on the
Speaker 1: very first missions they would notice that some of them
Speaker 1: would fall out. Um. And they've done a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, made made a lot of changes to the
Speaker 1: tiles over the years, but um, they are still all
Speaker 1: things considered, even though they are very heat resistant, I
Speaker 1: mean we're talking thousands and thousands of degrees and um,
Speaker 1: because they do on re entry hit about three thousand
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit actually comes back into the atmosphere forty eight
Speaker 1: degrees celsius. So I mean, even though they are amazingly
Speaker 1: heat resistant, they are remarkably fragile for all of that.
Speaker 1: So they have to be very careful, um with that.
Speaker 1: And now they on on flights subsequent to Columbia's um accident,
Speaker 1: they have been very careful to check the outside of
Speaker 1: the spacecraft before re entry. Yeah, and there have been
Speaker 1: spatial launch delays when they've discovered even the smallest of
Speaker 1: of flaws which you know, as far as we know,
Speaker 1: could have potentially have saved the lives of other astronauts. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's of course it's impossible to know, you know which
Speaker 1: ones would have successfully landed and which ones wouldn't. But
Speaker 1: it's much better to know that they've they've gone through
Speaker 1: these sort of procedures in order to maintain astronauts safety.
Speaker 1: I mean, these these accidents were tragic and multiple ways. Uh.
Speaker 1: First of all, and in my opinion, most importantly meant
Speaker 1: the loss of lives, and and that is truly a
Speaker 1: tragic thing. Uh. It also in a more superficial way, really,
Speaker 1: when you look at the big picture, men a setback
Speaker 1: in the space program um, which you know that's a
Speaker 1: problem as well, and we've had a lot of advances
Speaker 1: in technology due to the Space program. So I admire
Speaker 1: the fact that NASA has taken these incredible precautions, which
Speaker 1: when you're excited about a launch and you've planned a
Speaker 1: trip down to Florida to watch a launch, UH, can
Speaker 1: be frustrating, you know, you go down there and then
Speaker 1: the launch is delayed because of this. But it's that's
Speaker 1: much better than the alternative obviously. So now we're moving
Speaker 1: on to the orbiter. We talked about the solid fuel
Speaker 1: rocket boosters and the external tank. The orbiter is next.
Speaker 1: So the orbiters, of course what we think of when
Speaker 1: we when we talk about the space Shuttle. That's the
Speaker 1: very iconic shuttle. UM it has a like I said,
Speaker 1: three main engines, it's got an orbital maneuvering system. It is.
Speaker 1: Each of the orbiter engines, by the way, as fourteen
Speaker 1: ft long or four point three meters and seven and
Speaker 1: a half feet in diameter or two point three meters,
Speaker 1: and each engine weighs six thousand, seven hundred pounds or
Speaker 1: around three thousand and they are it's hard to get
Speaker 1: a a vision on how big that is just when
Speaker 1: I start saying numbers. If you ever visit one of
Speaker 1: the the centers that has a Space Shuttle or has
Speaker 1: one of the engines there, to see it in person
Speaker 1: is pretty phenomenal. I mean, it's it's a really you
Speaker 1: start to grasp how big the entire vehicle is just
Speaker 1: by looking at one engine. Now, the orbiter consists of
Speaker 1: there's a forward fuselage which has the crew compartment inside
Speaker 1: of it. Um. And it also has the the reaction
Speaker 1: control system module. It's got a movable airlock which can
Speaker 1: be used to put inside the crew compartment or inside
Speaker 1: the cargo bay. Uh. Then you've got the mid fuselage.
Speaker 1: That's where the cargo bay is. That's you know, the
Speaker 1: when we think of the doors opening out to space.
Speaker 1: That's the mid fuselage area. That's where the payload for
Speaker 1: the Space Shuttle will be in. Uh. Payloads could be
Speaker 1: anything from a satellite that needs to be launched into orbit,
Speaker 1: two pieces of equipment or material for the International Space Station,
Speaker 1: including of supplies for the International Space Station. Uh. Then
Speaker 1: you've got it also has the remote manipulator arm, the
Speaker 1: robotic arm that we've seen that helps position satellites and
Speaker 1: the right uh orientation and that kind of thing. Then
Speaker 1: you've got the aft fuselage. So that's the back end
Speaker 1: of the the orbiter. That's that's where the engines are,
Speaker 1: the main engines, so the orbital maneuvering system is there.
Speaker 1: Um And then uh, that's so you can think of
Speaker 1: the orbiter and those three big sections. The one that
Speaker 1: the astronauts stay in the most is, of course, the
Speaker 1: the forward fuselage. That's where the crew quarters are in
Speaker 1: the control systems are for for the orbiter itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the crew module is UH, isn't three sections
Speaker 1: where where the astronauts will work, live and and stow
Speaker 1: their their gear. UM, And it's got UM. I was
Speaker 1: looking something up. Did you get into the where the
Speaker 1: flight deck and mid deck are? Okay? Yeah? The flight
Speaker 1: deck UH and the mid deck, equipment bay and an
Speaker 1: airlock are the three parts of the crew module. UM. Basically,
Speaker 1: the flight deck is the you know, what you might
Speaker 1: see in an airplane if you think about it in
Speaker 1: those terms, you see where the pilot and the co
Speaker 1: pilot are, right and if if the shuttle we're sitting
Speaker 1: on the ground, you know, horizontal flat on the ground
Speaker 1: like exc. The flight deck would be the uppermost section
Speaker 1: of that of the crew compartment. That's where you'll find
Speaker 1: the flight controls. UM has all the hand controllers, the
Speaker 1: rudder pedals. UM. There are four people. There's for four
Speaker 1: people on the flight deck UM, and you know it's
Speaker 1: got all the everything they need to basically fly or
Speaker 1: you know, I guess what do you call it in space?
Speaker 1: I guess you call it flying? It navigating and space UM.
Speaker 1: And if you're looking on the if you were in
Speaker 1: the cockpit, you would see the displays and the controls
Speaker 1: for operating the orbiter itself, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah. Um. On the right you would see
Speaker 1: the controls for handling payloads. Um. And it according to NASA,
Speaker 1: again more than two thousand, twenty separate displays and controls.
Speaker 1: That's what you will find in the flight. And in
Speaker 1: case you're worried about right versus left starboard, on the
Speaker 1: starboard side, because it all depends on which way you're facing.
Speaker 1: If you're facing the towards the front of the shuttle,
Speaker 1: it's on the right. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Starboard side. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: you know it's funny that NASA didn't actually use port
Speaker 1: and starboard in here. But uh, and mid deck is
Speaker 1: where you'll find uh four cruise sleep stations. Um. And
Speaker 1: uh you also find other types of gear, the waste
Speaker 1: management system, toilet, the head yeah, um, a personal hygiene station,
Speaker 1: and where you work and and eat there. Um. They
Speaker 1: do fit seven people up to seven people in a shuttle. Um.
Speaker 1: The upcoming actually, as we're recording this, the the last,
Speaker 1: the very last in a thirty year program Space Shuttle
Speaker 1: mission is about to uh launch on July eight, which
Speaker 1: is kind of why we are um. We actually recorded
Speaker 1: several episodes before this, but we wanted to get this
Speaker 1: in before that. Yes we did, and the last crew
Speaker 1: is actually going to be four people from what I understand,
Speaker 1: so they can hold up to seven, but uh, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: this last mission will have four. And the mid deck
Speaker 1: also includes exercise equipment because one of the things we
Speaker 1: learned in these these um missions is that if you
Speaker 1: are in space for any significant amount of now granted,
Speaker 1: Space Shuttle missions last between about seven and fourteen days,
Speaker 1: depending on the mission, but you can so uh, you
Speaker 1: can experience muscle loss and bone bone density loss. So
Speaker 1: the exercise equipment is there to help counteract that. It's
Speaker 1: because you know, you're in a witless environment, so you're
Speaker 1: no longer needing to support your own weight whenever you
Speaker 1: move around, and everything is much easier. But that means
Speaker 1: that once you get back down on the ground where
Speaker 1: we do have gravity, um, it becomes a little bit
Speaker 1: you know, you may suffer some some problems because of
Speaker 1: muscle loss or bone density loss. So then in the
Speaker 1: lower deck that's pretty much where equipment that's where it
Speaker 1: quote unquote lives so life support equipment, electrical systems, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And there are five on board computers
Speaker 1: that handle the data processing and the flight systems aboard
Speaker 1: the shuttle. So those five systems are are distributed throughout
Speaker 1: this this area as well. And uh, you've got the
Speaker 1: two orbital maneuvering systems engines that are located in the
Speaker 1: aft of the the orbiter. These burn UM monomethyl hydrazine
Speaker 1: fuel and nitrogen tech tetro oxide oxidizer. I thought you
Speaker 1: could get through then I definitely bungled it at any rate. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a different kind of fuel mixture than the
Speaker 1: external fuel tank obviously UM and also from the solid
Speaker 1: fuel rocket boosters. Uh. And the reason why they're using
Speaker 1: this subs these two substances together is that when you
Speaker 1: combine them, they ignite even if there is no oxygen present.
Speaker 1: So clearly, if you're going to go into an environment
Speaker 1: where there is a distinct lack of oxygen, that is
Speaker 1: important mm hmm. So uh that and they use uh
Speaker 1: nitrogen to help pump that fuel through, and and also helium,
Speaker 1: the helium pressurized helium is actually used to move the
Speaker 1: fuel through the system. Nitrogen is used to help clear
Speaker 1: it out once you're done maneuver doing your maneuvers, because
Speaker 1: you don't want any fuel sitting in those fuel lines, um,
Speaker 1: because that could be a problem the next time you
Speaker 1: need to use them. So then there's a whole section
Speaker 1: about the what the orbital maneuvering system can do. It's
Speaker 1: actually can produce up to six thousand pounds of thrust,
Speaker 1: and um, you can accelerate the shuttle by two ft
Speaker 1: per second per second. Remember acceleration is a change in velocity. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, I did find this one
Speaker 1: interesting fact. Um, the h the shuttle can go from
Speaker 1: zero to seventeen thousand, four or miles per hour in
Speaker 1: eight and a half minutes, just slightly faster than a
Speaker 1: hummer and nine times the speed of a rifle bullet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so don't never mind. Uh yes, yes, why don't we?
Speaker 1: Uh well, I have an interesting uh kind of breakdown
Speaker 1: of what a launch sequence is like for leading up
Speaker 1: to well half a minute before the shuttle actually launches.
Speaker 1: So half a minute before the shuttle launch is actually
Speaker 1: T minus thirty one seconds, meaning that in thirty one
Speaker 1: seconds you're gonna have launch, assuming that everything is is coathetic. Yes,
Speaker 1: that there go, Yeah, that there go for launch. So
Speaker 1: at thirty one seconds to launch, the onboard computers take
Speaker 1: over the launch sequence, so the astronauts really are sitting
Speaker 1: back and waiting to make sure that they are going
Speaker 1: to launch. Uh. Six point six seconds from launch, the
Speaker 1: shuttle's main engines ignite one at a time, and they
Speaker 1: ignite point twelve seconds apart from each other. I always
Speaker 1: love that part watching launch. Yeah, and they build up
Speaker 1: to about oh a little bit over nine of their
Speaker 1: maximum thrust at that point. Now, three seconds from launch,
Speaker 1: the shuttle main engines are in liftoff position, so they
Speaker 1: have been They're all mounted on gimbals right, so they
Speaker 1: can actually be directed. They're not they're not stuck in
Speaker 1: a single direction, so they've been positioned and they are
Speaker 1: at the correct amount of thrust for launch. That part
Speaker 1: two team mine is zero seconds. This is the actual
Speaker 1: launch part. That's when the solid rocket boosters are ignited,
Speaker 1: and of course they produce the of the thrust needed
Speaker 1: to get the orbiter or actually the entire shuttle off
Speaker 1: the launch pad. So that's the point where you've got
Speaker 1: enough thrust to counteract the weight of this vehicle and
Speaker 1: launch it into the air. It looks like there's a
Speaker 1: ton of smoke, but actually what comes out of then
Speaker 1: the engines is mostly water vapor. Uh So, twenty seconds
Speaker 1: after the launch you've got the first maneuver where the
Speaker 1: shuttle will roll right about a hundred eighty degree roll
Speaker 1: in adjustment of seventy eight degrees and pitch. A minute
Speaker 1: after launch, the shuttle engines are at their maximum throttle.
Speaker 1: And then two minutes after launch, your solid rocket boosters
Speaker 1: will separate from the orbiter and fuel tank at about
Speaker 1: they're about twenty eight miles up orty kilometers up in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere at that point. Now, the main engines on
Speaker 1: the the orbiter continue to fire at that time. Now,
Speaker 1: once the solid rocket boosters separate from the rest of
Speaker 1: the shuttle, uh, they will deploy parachutes and will land
Speaker 1: in the ocean about room around a d forty miles
Speaker 1: off the coast of Florida. That's about two kilometers and
Speaker 1: then UH those will be recovered by ships and actually
Speaker 1: be reused after being processed. Obviously, you can't just slap
Speaker 1: them back on the launchpad. Clearly, seven and seven point
Speaker 1: seven minutes after launch, the main engines are thralled down
Speaker 1: to keep acceleration below three g's because otherwise you may
Speaker 1: harm the integrity of the space shuttle itself. And a
Speaker 1: half minutes after launch you shut the main engines down.
Speaker 1: Nine minutes after launched, the external tank separates from the orbiter,
Speaker 1: and the external tank actually will burn up upon re
Speaker 1: entry the Ten and a half minutes after launched, the
Speaker 1: orbital maneuvering system engins fire to get the shuttle of
Speaker 1: the orbiter into a low orbit, and forty five minutes
Speaker 1: after launch, the UH Orbital Maneuvering System eensions will fire
Speaker 1: again to place in a slightly higher circular orbiter orbit,
Speaker 1: which is about two fifty miles above the surface of
Speaker 1: the Earth or or four kilometers there you go. That's
Speaker 1: that's the whole process of just getting the orbiter into
Speaker 1: that that orbit around the Earth. Now. Of course, um,
Speaker 1: once they're up there, they will deploy satellites, they will
Speaker 1: do science experiments. Sometimes they'll go for an extra vehicular activity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a space walk. Yes, the NASA terms UM E
Speaker 1: V A is what then and yes, and then they'll
Speaker 1: try to uh, you know, get everything ready, pack up,
Speaker 1: uh you know, and it's time to head home. You know,
Speaker 1: you wanted to to talk about that. They have to, Uh,
Speaker 1: they have to. There are a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the Mission Control Center that help the shuttle astronauts as
Speaker 1: they're going through their mission. Um they will help them
Speaker 1: position the shuttle in the correct direction to come home,
Speaker 1: the right attitude exactly, and they also will make they
Speaker 1: also monitor all the different systems aboard the shuttle, because
Speaker 1: there are tons of different systems on there, right. I
Speaker 1: mean when I say tons, of course, I mean there
Speaker 1: are lots of them. So things like everything from what
Speaker 1: we would call life support systems, so stuff that not
Speaker 1: just distributes oxygen through the system, but oxygen at the
Speaker 1: right mixture. You know, it's not going to be pure oxygen.
Speaker 1: It has to be atmosphere that's comparable to the Earth's atmosphere. Also,
Speaker 1: there have to be scrubbers that will scrub carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: from the atmosphere so it doesn't get too stuffy or uh,
Speaker 1: eventually it would get to a point where you could
Speaker 1: not breathe um of the carbon dioxide. Scrubbers use a
Speaker 1: chemical reaction where it takes carbon dioxide from the system,
Speaker 1: combines it with another another compound and then you end
Speaker 1: up getting a kind of a nert material and sometimes
Speaker 1: water as a result. And that way you don't have
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide build up in the cabin and also you
Speaker 1: have to worry about maintaining heat. The heat inside the
Speaker 1: space shuttle would continue to get warmer and warmer. The
Speaker 1: electrical systems actually provide more than enough heat to keep
Speaker 1: the shuttle warm, despite the fact that you would think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, space is probably pretty cold. Well, that's true,
Speaker 1: but the electrical systems on the shuttle generate enough heat
Speaker 1: where they actually have to figure out ways to manage
Speaker 1: that heat so it doesn't overheat. So they've got a
Speaker 1: lot of different systems for that and uh, both passive
Speaker 1: and active systems for managing heat. There are lots and
Speaker 1: lots of other ones that we could talk about, but really,
Speaker 1: if we want to talk about the re entry system
Speaker 1: or the reentry process, um that gets uh, that's also
Speaker 1: a very delicate procedure. Obviously, launching is going to be
Speaker 1: a pretty delicate thing as well. You're talking about lots
Speaker 1: and lots of of of very um reactive agents in
Speaker 1: the launch process. Well, coming back down is also pretty tricky,
Speaker 1: so here's the process that goes through a re entry.
Speaker 1: They closed the cargo bay doors. That's clearly very important. UH.
Speaker 1: And most of the time when the or the orbiter
Speaker 1: is flying around the or in orbit around the Earth, UH,
Speaker 1: in relation to us, it would look like they are
Speaker 1: upside down, like the top of the Space Shuttle would
Speaker 1: be facing the surface of the plant. So they will
Speaker 1: actually use their thrusters to turn the orbiter, and they
Speaker 1: don't turn it so it faces directly like it's gonna
Speaker 1: come down nose first. Actually they face it tail first. UM.
Speaker 1: In order to start firing the the the oms, the
Speaker 1: orbital neuvering system engines to slow the orbiter down, so
Speaker 1: they're actually, you know, they're using it to to fire
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction of their orbit to slow down
Speaker 1: the the orbiter. And it takes about twenty five minutes
Speaker 1: from the first time they start firing those engines to
Speaker 1: the point where they reach the upper atmosphere. And at
Speaker 1: that during that that twenty five minutes, they use their
Speaker 1: thrusters in order to turn the orbiter over again so
Speaker 1: that the bottom of the orbiter will face the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and UH, they're moving again where it's nose first as
Speaker 1: opposed to tail first at that point, and then they
Speaker 1: will burn all the leftover fuel from their forward thruster
Speaker 1: system as a safety precaution because of course it's going
Speaker 1: to heat up quite a bit, so they don't want
Speaker 1: any fuel in that area of the orbiter before they
Speaker 1: start to really gain lots of heat. Now, this is
Speaker 1: where we talked about the idea of friction generating the heat.
Speaker 1: That's not exactly true. What's happening is pressure there. When
Speaker 1: the orator comes in at the into the atmosphere, it's
Speaker 1: compressing the air below it, and that compression is what's
Speaker 1: generating that heat. So you may have heard that the
Speaker 1: friction is what causes the heat. Of everyone's heard it.
Speaker 1: I mean the Smithsonian reports it as friction. It's not friction.
Speaker 1: It's actually compression that's generating the heat. Now, there is
Speaker 1: friction playing a role. It is not that there's no friction,
Speaker 1: because if there were no friction, then the shuttle would
Speaker 1: just slide through the atmosphere like it was nothing. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not, you know, not a non factor. It's just
Speaker 1: that the major contributor to heat is the compression of
Speaker 1: the atmosphere as the shuttle re enters the atmosphere, so
Speaker 1: then um, it's it starts to come into the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: It's generating tons of heat through this compression again literally tons.
Speaker 1: I always get mail whenever I use the word tons
Speaker 1: to just say a lot um and it tries to distribute,
Speaker 1: it doesn't try that. There's heat distribution methods that are
Speaker 1: mostly used through things like the reinforced carbon carbon which
Speaker 1: is r c C, which is on the wing surfaces,
Speaker 1: the underside of the shuttle. UM, there's some high temperature
Speaker 1: insulation tiles on the uppard forward fuselage and around the windows,
Speaker 1: things like that. That's what's used to absorb that heat
Speaker 1: UM once it encounters once it's re entered the our atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Now is the time where we talk about the the
Speaker 1: whole flying element here. So the shuttle has um we
Speaker 1: swept back delta wings. That's the name of the design
Speaker 1: for the shuttles wings, and it can generate generate a
Speaker 1: lot of lift with a small surface area of wingspace
Speaker 1: because of that design. So it's essentially flying under comput
Speaker 1: to control. At this point, the astronauts are not guiding
Speaker 1: the shuttle, the orbiter as it's coming in at at
Speaker 1: this moment, and it starts to have to make these
Speaker 1: long S shaped flight patterns, And the reason for that
Speaker 1: is to continually decelerate the the orbiter. You know, you
Speaker 1: have to slow it down. You can't just come in
Speaker 1: for a landing straight away or else. You you know,
Speaker 1: you need a much further You have to go a
Speaker 1: much further distance in order to do it. So the
Speaker 1: S shape kind of helps the shuttle slow down. So
Speaker 1: it's banking back and forth and um around though about
Speaker 1: a forty miles away from the landing site. Uh, you've
Speaker 1: got the radio beacon from the runway, which is called
Speaker 1: the tactical Air navigation system that gets picked up by
Speaker 1: the shuttle. And about twenty five miles out from the
Speaker 1: the landing site, that's when the computers handover control to
Speaker 1: the shuttles commander. So at that point the shuttle does
Speaker 1: come under human control, and the commander actually flies the
Speaker 1: shuttle down and has to make a long curved entry
Speaker 1: toward the landing strip and sets down the shuttle. Now,
Speaker 1: this whole time when the shuttle is coming down, it's
Speaker 1: coming down in a much steeper approach than what you
Speaker 1: would experience on your typical commercial air flight. So uh yeah,
Speaker 1: this would really freak me out if I were on
Speaker 1: a on a normal flight and and arrived at a
Speaker 1: at this kind of steep grade. But at that point
Speaker 1: the the orbiter, once it's around two thousand feet above
Speaker 1: the ground, that's when the commander will lift the nose
Speaker 1: to slow the rate of descent, and uh, the pilot
Speaker 1: will deploy the landing gear and that's when the orbiter
Speaker 1: touches down. The they throw on the brakes, the vertical
Speaker 1: tail opens up, parachutes deployed, and best all helps too
Speaker 1: slow and eventually stop the orbiter. Uh. At that point,
Speaker 1: you still have to wait a while. You can't have
Speaker 1: people just run up to the orbiter at that point.
Speaker 1: For one thing, it's still quite warm. Yeah. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: Actually I wanted to clarify because I had always been
Speaker 1: told again this is sort of a misnomer about the
Speaker 1: foam tiles. They're not really made of foam. I wanted
Speaker 1: to do a little bit of clarification that they're actually
Speaker 1: made of a silica fiber, basically sand mixed with some
Speaker 1: ceramic um and you know, there is some air in there,
Speaker 1: which is why I think, uh, people describe it as
Speaker 1: being foam. Their their pockets of air based on the
Speaker 1: way they're made, but they're not It's not actually foam
Speaker 1: like you would see, uh you know, a styrofoam or
Speaker 1: some kind of plastic foam. So just to clear that
Speaker 1: up before anybody writes in, I do know the difference
Speaker 1: in that. But they're actually a couple different kinds. But
Speaker 1: they do store heat and uh you know they I
Speaker 1: mean you can anytime you've put something down on a
Speaker 1: ceramic tile, like you know, the hot plate. When you
Speaker 1: have one of those tiled tables and you lift it up,
Speaker 1: you know that the the uh tiles are still holding
Speaker 1: heat in. And that's what's going on with the shuttle.
Speaker 1: You can't just uh you know, wheel it up to
Speaker 1: the gate. Besides, usually when I get in, there's not
Speaker 1: a gate ready and you have to sit there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's also some you know, the whole the fuels
Speaker 1: that that the shell burns also can generate some pretty
Speaker 1: nasty gases that need to redistribute. Chris is giving me
Speaker 1: a funny look because he's he's thinking, I'm going to
Speaker 1: make a a fart joke. I am not. Um No,
Speaker 1: there are noxious gases that are generated by the burning
Speaker 1: of this fuel. Stop laughing a little two year old
Speaker 1: and then the uh, but you have to give it
Speaker 1: time for those two to dissipate, and also for the
Speaker 1: shuttle to cool down the orbiter to cool down. Um.
Speaker 1: Once that happens, it takes probably about twenty to thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: they'll start powering down the systems and then that's when
Speaker 1: the crew will exit the shuttle. To great acclaim. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so that's kind of a beginning to end. Look
Speaker 1: at the basic overview of a Space Shuttle mission. Now,
Speaker 1: there are there are so many more elements we could
Speaker 1: go into. I mean, this is this episode is are
Speaker 1: a gone forty five minutes and we barely touched on
Speaker 1: on on even half of what we could have talked about.
Speaker 1: In fact, we probably could have done an entire episode
Speaker 1: just about a launch, but we wanted to give you
Speaker 1: more of an overview of the Space Shuttle itself if
Speaker 1: you want to learn more, Like I said, the how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works article is fantastic, but also NASA has more
Speaker 1: I'm not going to use tons again, lots of resources.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of information about the Space Shuttle on
Speaker 1: their site. Uh yeah, there there there are some interesting facts,
Speaker 1: and I mean just as in factoids and little things
Speaker 1: that are just interesting to people who are curious. Also
Speaker 1: some extremely technical documents too, So it's no matter how
Speaker 1: interested you are, assuming you're interested somewhat, there will be something.
Speaker 1: Just a couple of notes. UM. The launch date is
Speaker 1: planned for July eight, two thousand eleven UM for Space
Speaker 1: Shuttle Atlantis on STS one thirty five, which is the
Speaker 1: last plan space Shuttle mission. They are supposed to be
Speaker 1: launching at eleven twenty six am Eastern daylight time as
Speaker 1: at the time of recording this UH from Kennedy Space
Speaker 1: Center Pad thirty nine A. They're scheduled to land on
Speaker 1: July twenty at seven oh six am Eastern daylight time
Speaker 1: UM at Kennedy Space Center UM, and their primary payload
Speaker 1: is UH the raphael OH Multipurpose Logistics Module whatever that
Speaker 1: is UM. So UH, godspeed to the Shuttle costronauts on
Speaker 1: this final mission. There may be very sad to see
Speaker 1: the program end, but I'll be something else. I'll be
Speaker 1: watching the launch live, I'm sure, UM always on the computer.
Speaker 1: I actually had a chance to maybe get a stand
Speaker 1: by position for the tweet up, but sadly I am
Speaker 1: not able to take advantage of it because I used
Speaker 1: up all my vacation recently. Well, hopefully Megan and some
Speaker 1: of the others who are going to the tweet up
Speaker 1: will keep us up to date on what's going on. Certainly,
Speaker 1: I sure hope so. Well. Enjoy that. That's gonna wrap
Speaker 1: up this discussion of the Space Shuttle, and we will
Speaker 1: be tackling other space related topics in the near future.
Speaker 1: Actually for Chris and I will be tackling it in
Speaker 1: about thirty seconds, but you'll be hearing it later on. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about more elements about the space program.
Speaker 1: If you have anything specific you would like us to
Speaker 1: talk about, whether it's the Space program or anything else,
Speaker 1: let us know. You can let us know on Facebook
Speaker 1: and Twitter are handled. There is text stuff h s
Speaker 1: W or you can send us an email. That address
Speaker 1: is tech stuff at how stuff Works dot com and
Speaker 1: Chris and I will talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
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