WEBVTT - To Pluto and Beyond 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:14.120 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcomed up Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.159 podcast that looks at the future and says ice and 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.959 silence and dark skies as we go around another year. 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:24.720 I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Bolcabon, I'm Joe McCormick. That 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:27.320 kind of put me in a in a moody mood, 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.560 melancholy mood. That song I don't normally talk about the 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:32.720 lyrics I pick, but this, in this case I'm going to. 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:36.160 That song is called I'm Your Moon. It's by Jonathan Colton, 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.280 and it's about Pluto and Karen, and it's it's Karen 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:44.199 singing to Pluto after Pluto has been downgraded from planet 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:48.000 to dwarf planet, saying it's all right, I'm still here 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.720 with you and we're revolving around each other. You know, 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.600 that's the thing. When people get upset about Pluto not 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:55.840 being a planet anymore, I'm like, what's wrong with being 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.800 a dwarf planet. It's kind of insulting to Series and 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.360 all these other dwarf planet that are pretty cool. Well, 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.480 I think Colton's point was that the designation was almost 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.280 created for Pluto and Thereford, that's when it's an insult. 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.200 We're not calling you that anymore. We're calling you this 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:13.920 new thing that you are, and and nothing else that 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.160 we've classified yet is but the reason why we chose 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:19.240 that lyric, or why I chose that lyric in the 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.800 first place. Yeah, act like we have any say whenever 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.200 I'm not hear you guys, pay lyrics. Um. But no, 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.959 we we are going to cover new horizons the probe 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.600 that has gone on this amazing mission to Pluto, the 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:37.600 flyby of Pluto, and to talk about everything that went 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.520 into making that mission possible, as well as the some 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.200 of the science that we've learned so far, knowing that 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.720 we've got so much more to learn from this mission, 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:53.240 and it's really just a cool story. It's amazing that 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:56.200 I grew up learning about Pluto as one of the 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.600 planets in our Solar system in my science books, and 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:01.880 I remember, you know, learning all the names of the 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.720 planets and thinking about Pluto is just another one of them. 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.320 But I think I didn't realize when I was a 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:12.760 kid how we had never gotten a close look at Pluto. 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.120 Oh yeah, yeah, And I mean depending on when you 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.040 were learning about it. I don't think that we had 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:20.760 any concept about even what the atmosphere of the planet 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.359 looked like until yea, So when I was a kid 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.639 going to school, we didn't know anything about Pluto's atmosphere. Yeah, 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:30.200 they were there. They were just making it up. They 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.000 were just like, hey, so there's this planet called Pluto 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:36.560 out there. Yeah it's and you know it's it's it's 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.600 probably I see, pretty young in our our scientific knowledge, 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:42.720 Like if you look at that, you know when we 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.280 learned of these different planets. The discovery of Pluto dates 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:51.200 back to nineteen thirty who discovered by Clyde Townbo who 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.679 named you know, was able to discover this planet, which 0:02:55.160 --> 0:03:00.720 got him a great deal of fame in astronaut Uncle Circles, 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.640 who was Clyde uh clients. It was an interesting guy, 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.960 very eccentric, astronomer, very he loved puns. So I think 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.280 I would have gotten along with Clyde really well a 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:18.000 guy non eccentric astronomers. Is that a subcategory of the field. 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.240 There could be some who are just very you know, 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.720 very middle of the road kind of astronomers. I don't know. 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.440 I think of astronomers as being dreamers, so I often 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:29.560 think of them as being eccentric. I'm sure you have 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.760 your astronomical accountants, the people who their favorite part of 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.040 the job is logging the coordinance of the new object, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:40.320 creating new spreadsheet mechanisms to to sort the data, naming 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:47.160 those objects on nonsequential series of like the CR one 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:52.600 oh five nine point a R four so droll so 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:57.240 uh tumbo discovered Pluto, but later on we would discover 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.920 much more about this that it has five moons that 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.440 we know of. There may be more, the largest of 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:06.960 which is Karen, which is more than half the size 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:13.440 of Pluto if you're going by diameter. There's also sticks, Nicks, cabarros, 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.360 and Hydra. We've got a lot of Hellish names going 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.960 on here. The idea being that when you come out 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:23.880 from interstellar space and you start entering into the Solar System, 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.680 you first passed through the Alter realm, the hellish Alter 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:30.320 got to go through Hell to get to us kind 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:33.400 of or you know, it's the icy mouth of Satan 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:38.640 out there. To be fair, the the idea of the 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:44.080 underworld and the and the the area beyond life in 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:48.440 Greek mythology doesn't have quite the same connotations, not necessarily 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.839 a place of punishment for it, but we do get 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.600 these like sort of like negative afterlife kind of feelings. 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.320 Which Pluto, he's the god of the dead, right and 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.640 and you know if a lot of very popular depictions 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:06.080 of that character cast that cast him in a villainous 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.640 or or malevolent light. Yeah, was he in the Disney Hercules. 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.480 Was the Hades with the fire hair? Yeah, played by 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:20.360 James Would Yeah, thank you, but definitely the equivalent to Pluto. Yes, okay, 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.039 so you got Pluto, you got you got sticks. That's 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.200 the river you have to cross to get to the underworld. 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.320 Also an amazing arena band. Right there you go. And 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.839 then Karen is the fairy operator who gets you across 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.160 the right. Yeah, who you? You have the coins that 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:38.640 you have to have so that he will fare you across. Now, 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.200 I don't know quite about the other ones. Care bros. 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:45.839 That's uh, I don't know, okay, Well, hydra Hydra's the 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.240 multi headed Oh yeah, yeah, I know that one, all right, 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:52.720 you know that one? Hale hydra ra Uh, you know, 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:57.440 I don't know what you guys are talking. Cares that's 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.839 the Greek pronunciation for We often will get a soft 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:05.960 Sea Serberus, the three headed dog. Okay, so um, yeah, 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:08.320 it's uh. And by the way, I have a friend 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:14.000 from high school who is uh, very knowledgeable in Greek mythology, 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.560 and if he's listening to this episode, I do apologize 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.159 for butchering the pronunciation of all these names, because I 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:24.360 know I am, But these were discovered later on, and 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.520 this was really the New Horizons mission was our really 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:29.680 our first chance to get a close look at these 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.720 various bodies. Before we had had a lot of pretty 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.640 blurry images from various telescopes. Oh yeah, if you googled 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.320 images of Pluto just a couple of months ago, you 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:44.360 would get artists illustrations, but then you'd also get a 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:48.000 photograph from the Hubble telescope that was basically a disc 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:51.520 of yellow and black blurs. Yeah, it's it's funny because 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.520 NASA has actually released a series of photos that have 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:59.280 been taken over time of Pluto, so you can actually 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:06.760 see our view of Pluto. Yeah, it's really impressive. But 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.080 before we get into the actual mission, I thought i'd 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.360 talk a little bit just kind of a quick overview 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:16.160 of the history of planetary exploration using probes, because it 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.880 kind of tells you, you know, how how difficult this 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:23.640 problem was and why it's been so why it took 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:27.320 so long for us to get a close look at Pluto. Yeah. 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:29.880 Also just to put in real quick, because we forgot 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.560 one of these moons. Nicks is the goddess of the night. 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:40.360 I didn't mention Nick, thank you very much. Similar I 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.360 think they're related. So I think it's one of those 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:46.000 weird Zeus things and Nicks. It's awesome. I just wanted 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:47.920 to put in, don't don't want to forget anybody out there. 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:49.520 I just like that. We've got a real rock in 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:57.080 episode so far. Alright, So alright, No, I'm not going 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:01.880 to go down that route. So the first successful UH mission, 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.840 a fly by mission using a probe would be back 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.440 in nineteen sixty two with the Mariner Too. That went 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.360 by Venus because the first time we sent a probe 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.600 on a fly by mission of another planet, and it 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.800 was the first mission to perform a successful fly by. 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.800 But it wasn't our first try as a as a 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.400 you know, as humanity's first try wasn't the first one. 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.920 The first try was with the Soviet Union in nineteen 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.640 sixty one with the Sputnik seven probe that was meant 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:33.520 to land on Venus, but it never escaped Earth orbits. 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.760 So yeah, well, and this story happens over and over 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.240 for both the Soviets and for the United States. I mean, 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.320 this was this was during the Space race, right, No, 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:49.000 I'm not making fun. Yeah, sad trombone noises that would 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:51.600 go along with the rest of this this section here. Yeah, 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.720 And and other attempts that would follow spot Nick seven 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.600 but we're also unsuccessful, were the Venera one and the 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:01.080 Mariner one and the spot Nick nineteen pro uh. And 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:03.240 it wouldn't be until Mariner two that we actually got 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.320 a good look at Venus. Next came Mars actually, so 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:08.720 we didn't go to Mercury. Next, we went to Mars. 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:13.440 And that was the Mariner four as the first successful 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:15.880 fly by probe. That was in nineteen sixty four, and 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.559 I believe it was on July four of nineteen sixty four, 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.400 which happens to be the same date that we achieved 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:27.160 this Pluto fly by. Cool, that's an interesting coincidence. Other 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.120 attempts to get to Mars included Mariner three, spot Next 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:32.720 twenty two and twenty four, and the Mars one and 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:37.079 Mars Nick one and two probes. Actually those two had 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.600 been launched back in nineteen sixty, so if Mars Nick 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.080 one and two had been successful, they would have actually 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.880 preceded the Venus fly by, but they were not successful. 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.360 Then we checked out Mercury in nineteen seventy three with 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:53.080 the Mariner four. Voyager one and two flew by Jupiter 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.280 and Saturn. In nineteen seventy seven, Voyager two would also 0:09:56.400 --> 0:10:00.559 go by Uranus and Neptune. So we had looks at 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:06.560 all the other planets, but Pluto remained so far out there, uh, 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.120 that we had not had a chance to check it out. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.880 And so we launched the New Horizons probe way back 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:14.959 in two thousand six. So it took more than eight 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.800 years for it to go from Earth to Pluto. Uh. 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:24.000 And it's funny because it almost didn't happen. We almost 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:28.160 didn't have a New Horizons project, and if it had 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:30.720 not happened when it did, we would have had a 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.640 really long wait ahead of us to give it another go. 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:39.080 So NASA had been debating on a Pluto mission for decades, 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.360 and one of the proposed missions was called the Pluto 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.920 Kuiper Express. Back in two thousand Kuiper referring to the 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.520 Kuiper Belt, which is sort of like the asteroid belt 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.120 between Mars and Jupiter, but much bigger and on the 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:55.559 very outskirts of our solar systems, way way out there. Yeah, 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.920 lots of frozen not just water, ice, but methane and 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:03.200 other hydrocarb and uh So, the budget for this proposed 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.000 mission just kept growing as time went on. Things were 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:10.000 getting tagged on. This was during a pretty rough period 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:12.720 during NASA's history. Yeah, this was during a lot of 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.120 the Space Shuttle trouble and stuff like that. Yeah, and 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.760 budget cuts they were they were facing big budget cuts, 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.880 and there were budget plans that were proposed that didn't 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.440 have money set aside specifically for missions like this, which 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:29.079 also caused a problem. But eventually NASA ended up canceling 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.319 this project when it just got too complicated and too expensive, 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:36.480 and that prompted the NASA Associate Administrator Ed Wiler to 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:41.000 say that the plans to visit Pluto were officially dead 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:45.640 for the foreseeable future. And here is why. So, Pluto's 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:51.920 got a really enormous orbit, right gigantic, Yeah, and not 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:56.560 exactly as close to circular as many of the other orbits, right, Yeah, 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.360 it kind of dips in and out. Yeah, it's kind 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:00.840 of what we might call an ex and trick orbit. 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.400 And if NASA didn't get a spacecraft on the way 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.679 to Pluto within a few years of two thousand, while 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.239 it was as most interesting, we would miss that opportunity. 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:16.040 Well most interesting. Aren't planets always kind of interesting? Well, 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.400 they're always kind of interesting, but some can be more 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.880 interesting than others, and some can be more interesting at 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.640 one time of the year than another. For example, when 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:29.640 Pluto is closer to the Sun, its atmosphere is gaseous, 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.200 or so we suspected, So we suspected. But when it 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:36.839 moves further out, scientists were worried that the temperature of 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.800 the planet would become so cold that the atmosphere itself 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:46.520 would freeze and fall to the ground. So you imagine, 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.040 like if you've ever seen any of those cartoons or 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.160 anything where someone says something and their words freeze in 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.280 the air, and then it's kind of like that, but 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.679 for real, z's that. I feel like I have felt 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.600 cold before. I don't think I think I need to redefine. Yeah, 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.160 you know, we're talking like, you know, seriously cold here 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.240 where where things that would be in gas form here 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:12.360 on Earth would be would be solid there on Pluto. 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.960 So we wanted to be able to look at Pluto 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.440 when it's atmosphere would still be an atmospheric form, but 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.560 because of that enormous orbit, we would only have a 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:27.520 certain operation, a certain window of opportunity. Um Pluto takes 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:31.800 two hundred forty seven point six eight earth years to 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:36.040 go around the Sun once, and if we missed that 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:40.800 point where that that range where the atmosphere would remain 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.960 in gas form as far as we could tell, then 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.160 we'd have more than two centuries to wait to try 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:50.040 it again. And that that's that's that's a really long 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.760 term budget plan, even for NASA exactly right, And then 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:57.680 they'd be like, well, why bother planning anything, because by 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.240 the time we'd get around to launch all, all the 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.240 technology is going to be different anyway. So it was 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.400 very disheartening to those who wanted to look at Pluto 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:11.200 back in two thousand when this mission was canceled. So 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.160 in order to get to Pluto in time to check 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.760 out this atmosphere, they had one other chance, which was 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.240 to use one of the other planets in our Solar 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:24.920 system as kind of a boost. Right, This is the 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:28.800 Jupiter Gravity Assist, and New Horizons is not the only 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.120 spacecraft that has used this. We We've talked about this 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:34.640 a bunch on the show. It's it's basically, when you 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.680 get a probe or or spacecraft near the orbit of 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:42.320 something big enough to kind of uh, let it be 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:46.040 captured by the planet and then keep going. So so 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.720 it like it like gets this forward boost by by 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.280 temporarily kind of kind of riding in the slip stream 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.960 of the planet almost and then like like that skateboard 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:58.320 and back to the future. That's exactly what I was 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:00.760 gonna say. It's like when Marty gets on the back 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.560 of the truck and uses the truck to accelerate on 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.440 the skateboard much faster than his little toe push could 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:11.920 ever get him. Right. Yeah, So the the you might think, well, 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.440 if we have Jupiter there, then what's the big worry? 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:17.600 We can just use jubiter Well, Jupiter orbits too. Yeah, 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.520 And and Jupiter's orbit and Pluto's orbit, aren't you know, 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.560 it's not like they're always in alignment, so you only 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.800 have the amount of time where you can still correct 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.400 for the trajectory you're going to get with the gravity 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.960 assist so that you're still heading in the right direction 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.960 so that you ultimately pass by Pluto. Uh. And the 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.960 scientists had figured out that they needed to have this 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:45.040 uh they need to have a launch before really January 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.320 two thousand six or right around there in order to 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.240 take advantage of this. Now it turns out that they 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.000 actually got there a little later than that because the 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:57.840 calculations weren't uh like like they they had kind of 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:00.920 been conservative by saying, if we don't get there by 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:02.880 January two thou six, we don't get there at all, 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:05.840 or if we don't launch by January two thousand six, 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.640 there's no point in doing it. But uh, the point 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:10.960 was that they needed to launch from Earth because it 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:12.880 was going to take time to go from Earth to 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.480 Jupiter and then even more time obviously to go from 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.280 Jupiter to Pluto. So they used this new idea. They 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:21.640 kind of started pitching this around and there was a 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:24.320 new group formed in NASA to design a mission that 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.400 would become New Horizons, and they estimated the cost would 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.200 be five hundred million dollars, which would include the rocket 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.360 needed to launch the spacecraft, so not just that the 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.600 spacecraft cost five million, they're saying the whole thing. Yeah, 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.840 considering how we taught so many times about how expensive 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:45.600 getting stuff into spaces, Uh, it's actually pretty pretty uh decent, 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.160 you know, as far as space missions are concerned. Um. 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:52.800 So they proposed this in two thousand one. There was 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:58.000 a competitive mission pitch process where NASA was entertaining mission 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:03.080 pitches from various parts of the organization, and as administration said, 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:05.240 all right, let's fund this one. Let's see if we 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:07.919 can make it happen. Uh. So the funding came from 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:10.679 earmarks and budgets placed by members of Congress because the 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:16.240 president his budget plan did not cover anything that would 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.680 go to this kind of mission. So, in other words, 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.720 it took an Act of Congress in order to carve 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.560 out parts of NASA's budget to allow this to happen. 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.080 So New Horizons gets the funding it needs from this 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.760 Act of Congress. But there still were some other issues 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:33.800 before it got to the point where I was doing 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.280 a fly by of Pluto. Well, yeah, I know, it's 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.240 had some onboard computer problems. Yeah, Um, just after the 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.960 gravitational assist from Jupiter, it had a computer issue that 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:45.520 wasn't even the one I was talking about you were 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:47.359 thinking of the one that was almost that was just 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:51.520 before It's fly by. No, they had so cosmic race. 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:53.960 We've talked about these before on the podcast. Sure, high 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:58.600 energy particles flying through space. Uh, so they can cause 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.119 computer glitches since see it ends up being like a 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.440 control all delete thing. It's not like it's it destroys 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:09.000 the computer, but it doesn't necessitate a reboot. Um. So, 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.280 there were cosmic rays that interfered with the computer, and 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.280 at first the team had anticipated that it would only 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.199 happen once in New Horizons mission. They thought that the 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:23.280 cosmic rays were infrequent enough and the space is huge 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.720 that the odds were that New Horizons might encounter one. 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:28.920 They get, they kind of factored that in. It turned 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.240 out that it encountered several more on its way to Pluto, 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.600 and it was fine, it would reboot, everything was okay, 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.119 So no permanent damage was caused, but it did teach 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:44.000 scientists something interesting like, Wow, there's a little bit more 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:46.600 of a chance of running into cosmic radiation than we 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.520 had first anticipated. Yeah, what more of that activity? Uh? 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:51.960 And that can control delete kind of thing was also 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.119 what wound up happening in the more recent computer shutdown. Yes, 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:57.800 that was very scary because we were right about to 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.280 reach Pluto. Yeah, we were like ten days out. Yes, Specifically, 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:03.840 what was happening was that the computer aboard the New 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.359 Horizons was being asked to do two things at once, 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.640 and it was the combination of the two what gave 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.879 it Cartesian doubt. It had too much, It required too 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:15.639 much computational power. It could not do both of them 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:17.600 at once. So instead of trying to do both of 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.080 them ones and possibly damaging itself in the process, it 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.800 shut down, went to its backup computer, and so for 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.040 a while we found home. Found home to say like, hey, 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.560 hell yeah, exactly what to do about this one? My 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.160 main brain shut down? Can you guys look into that? 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.399 And so you know, obviously it takes a long time 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:41.359 for information to get between the spacecraft and us. Yeah, 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:43.800 for four and a half hours was the time difference 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:48.080 at like like right then on that day. So that's 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:52.200 you know, a significant delay between getting a message out 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.720 and being able to reply. Then you have to wait 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:56.760 another four and a half hours for the reply to 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:58.000 go out, and then you have to wait another four 0:19:58.000 --> 0:19:59.879 and a half hours to see if it worked. But 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.399 everything worked out fine. The engineers on the ground said, 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:05.840 you know, this is exactly what the computer was supposed 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.159 to do. If this sort of thing happened, we know 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:10.600 how to fix it. Uh. There were some reports that 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:12.399 would say in the media that made it seem like 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.040 the mission itself was in jeopardy. But all the engineers 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.120 I was reading about, they were like, no, I mean 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.440 this was you know it. It obviously caused concern because 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.159 of the timing. Oh yeah, yeah. But and and for 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.200 that minute when you know, they got the like help 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.480 message at first, you know, before they could check back 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.600 in with the computer, there was that moment of them 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:36.080 going like, oh, well, is this another computer shutdown or 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:40.280 did an asteroid destroy our spacecraft? And no one had 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:43.040 any idea for like another four and a half to 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.560 nine hours. There was always the chance that there could 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.080 be a collision, and that would have been the end 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:52.760 of New Horizons. Yeah. Of the four d and nineties 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:57.280 six planned observations, the shut down prevented thirty of them 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.119 from happening. Uh so so six percent, which which sounds 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:03.720 like a kind of large number until you kind of wait, 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:08.119 the importance of the observations by how close you actually 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.240 are to the planet, and this was still so far out, 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.760 or relatively so far out, that it didn't do any 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:19.920 uh irreparable harm that there were most of the stuff 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:23.560 I saw was like, it caused thirty of our observations 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:27.320 to not happen, but they were thirty of the boring ones. Yeah, 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:31.639 I mean I hadn't crossed over into the underworld yet. No. No, 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.199 it caused a few of our staff members to sleep 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:38.280 on the floor of the apl that night. But so 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:41.000 I thought we could talk a little bit about some 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:43.800 of the instruments that are on the new horizons. These 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.120 are the things that are gathering the information, and they 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:50.800 were purposefully made fairly simple. They decided not to go 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:55.439 super elaborate and and load this thing down with you know, 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:59.040 a hundred instruments. There are only seven aboard the spacecraft 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:02.840 UM and they have great names. Are they also named 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:07.159 after demonic entities from the underworld? Yes, Ralph, demonic entity 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.840 from the underworld, is the first one quake in fear 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.719 upon the approach of Ralph. Ralph maybe what you do 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.800 in the underworld, if you're at a certain level of 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:20.840 the world that I recall lots of Ralph ing in 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:24.159 one of the levels of Dante's inferno. Uh No RALPH 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:28.040 is a visible and infrared imager and spectrometer, and it 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:31.240 is able to create thermal maps of surfaces and provide 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:35.719 color and composition. Uh you know enhancements to images. So 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:37.760 a lot of the pictures that we see, by the 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:40.000 time we see them, they've gone through a couple of 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:43.440 different layers of enhancements so that we can really make 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:45.560 sense of what we're seeing. It's not the what the 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:50.680 raw data would normally represent. Then you have ALICE, which 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:54.520 is an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer, and that's used to examine 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.600 the composition of Pluto's atmosphere and can also search for 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:01.280 an atmosphere around other bodies like Karen Kuiper Belt objects 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:05.320 or k b o s. Then you have REX, the 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:11.080