WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: TechStuff Goes on a Voyage 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to text Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:14.480 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.759 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.599 I love all things tech, and today we're going to 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.960 listen to a classic episode titled tech Stuff Goes on 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:28.360 a Voyage. It's about the Voyager program and this episode 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:33.800 originally published on April two thousand thirteen. The Voyager program 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:38.280 is one of those really fascinating space programs that I 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.920 absolutely loved learning about, so I hope you guys enjoy 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.319 this classic episode. The first thing we wanted to talk 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.559 about was kind of what was the purpose of the 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:54.120 Voyager missions, which, by the way, are still going. But 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:56.680 we want to talk about kind of the timeline of 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.640 the missions, and then we'll get into more details about 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:01.760 the space craft itself and then follow that up with 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.160 a discussion about the science that has been discovered by 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:10.040 these amazing spacecraft. So going back to May nineteen seventy two, 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.320 that's when NASA begins to fund a mission that will 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:17.600 involve designing, building, and launching spacecraft that are meant to 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.920 explore the outer planets of our Solar System. And even 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:25.119 before this back in the engineer named Gary Flandreau noticed 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.280 that sometime in the nineteen seventies, the outer planets would 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.679 be aligned planetary alignment in such a way as to 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.920 make this very possible. And this was you know, the 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.759 space program was going and booming, and it was kind 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:43.160 of an incredible alignment of the stars that allowed us 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.320 to write when we had money to do this stuff. Right, So, so, 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.560 I mean that planetary alignment is really what makes the 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.120 voyager missions possible because you know, if the if the 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:54.880 plants were in such an alignment, so that let's say 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.920 that alignment, well there's still aligned properly, they're just not 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.400 viable for us to explore. But let's say let's say 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.440 like jupiters on one side of the Sun and Saturn's 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:06.840 on the other side of the Sun, then it would 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:12.760 be really tricky to design a spacecraft sector could explore both. Right, So, 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:15.480 and this particular alignment isn't going to occur again for 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:17.760 another hundred and seventy six years, so you had to 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:20.960 jump on the opportunity. And so in nineteen seventy two, 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.280 even though it was still years away from when this 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.040 alignment would occur, NASA gets on the ball and starts 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.760 to design this, and in nineteen seventy seven they are 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:36.120 finished with the design and the spacecraft they had been 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:40.160 designing was under the working name the Mariner Jupiter slash 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.400 Saturn nineteen seventy seven, but they decided to rename it 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:45.799 a little bit of a mouthfall, yeaheah. They called it Voyager, 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:51.320 and on August twenty, nineteen seventy seven, a Titan Centaur 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:56.880 rocket carried one of the two Voyager spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida, 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:01.240 into the atmosphere and ultimately into space. Which one was 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:03.560 it that will launched first? It was Voyager two that 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:09.600 launched first. Which one launched second? Voyager one? Okay, So 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.880 so this this was basically for pr purposes because the 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.160 way that they were designed, Voyager one was going to 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:18.959 due to its trajectory, it was going to reach Jupiter 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:23.080 first and so start sending back images of Jupiter, you know, 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.200 fingers crossed if all goes well first, and NASA thought 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:30.639 that the public would be incredibly confused if if the 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.720 Voyager one launched first but got to the planets second, 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.840 whereas some for some reason launching second and getting to 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.440 the planet first is less confusing. No one was paying 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.240 attention to the launch. Yeah, goodness knows, no one pays 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:47.560 attention to something. Yeah, the one thing you're actually able 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.440 to watch while you're still on Earth. It still makes 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.760 me tear up every single time anything gets launched into space. 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:56.720 I'm like, just humanity is so beautiful. That's pretty awesome. 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:58.480 I mean when you think about what it takes to 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.040 get something into space, and is phenomenal the amount of 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.120 engineering and ingenuity that went into that. But yes, absolutely so. 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.560 The Voyager to launches first. The Voyager one launches about 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.480 sixteen days later, in fact, not about sixteen days later, 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:15.840 at launches nicely on September and it's using the same 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.600 sort of rocket, the Titans Centaur rocket, which, by the way, 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:23.480 I love it anyway. The initial purpose was for these 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:27.440 to explore the giant planets in the Outer Solar System. 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:32.919 Those giant planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Pluto, 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.719 of course not a giant planet. It does not get 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:40.960 the treatment, not for these missions. Forget you Pluto. And 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.280 there were two separate trajectories that were being used. Voyager one, 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.440 of course, was designed so that the trajectory was chosen 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.680 so that it would reach Jupiter first, then move on 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.240 to Saturn, and then get flung off to head toward 0:04:55.320 --> 0:05:00.880 interstellar space. Uh. Voyager too would do a visit to 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:05.320 all four of the giant planets. So that's why you 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.480 have the different timelines, because even though Voyager two launched first, 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.200 for it to be able to hit this trajectory where 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:13.640 it was going to to pass by each of the 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.800 four giants, it had to do that at a different Yeah. 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:19.839 So that's the you know. And if you were to 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.040 just look at a model of the Solar System and 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.120 just spin the planets around at the different rates, you 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.479 would see like, oh, yeah, now I understand you would 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:29.880 have to be really particular about when you would launch 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.279 and how you would launch for it to be able 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.040 to hit all of these points properly. I mean, it's 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.600 an amazing amount of engineering that's required and and just 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.640 math that's required to make sure that you've got the 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:42.680 right the right timing. Yeah, and it was it was 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.080 kind of shady, you know, basically until it happened, no 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.080 one was sure that it was going to happen, right 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.320 and Uh, And it's interesting because the Voyager spacecraft actually 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.279 used the planets themselves to help make sure they got 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:55.360 to where they needed to go. But we'll get into that. 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.360 It's pretty awesome though. So moving down the timeline, they 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:04.279 they've launched in nineteen seventy seven. Almost two years later, 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.920 on March five, nineteen seventy nine, Voyager one has its 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.960 closest approach to Jupiter and it captures a lot of 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:15.080 images of Jupiter and Jupiter's moons. Uh. And then July nine, 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:19.000 nineteen seventy nine, so same year, that's when Voyager two 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.920 passes closest to Jupiter. Uh. Then we go to the 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.440 next year. On November twelve, eighty Voyager one has its 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.599 closest approach to Saturn, and then it begins its trip 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.120 out of the Solar System, saying so long, suckers, and 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.000 starts heading off into the well. It would be the sunset, 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.080 except it can't be in the opposite of the sunset, right, 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:41.640 It's not the sun rise either. That's that would normally 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.800 be the opposite of a sunset, the sun diminishing into 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:49.120 a tin year ball. I guess not nearly as poetic. 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:54.000 But August one, that's when Voyager two gets its closest 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.440 approach to Saturday. But of course Voyager two is not 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.159 flung off into in our interstellar space right away. Instead, 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.160 it is then heading toward Uranus, which it passes closest 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:08.480 to on January fourth, nineteen eight six. So it took 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:13.280 five years for Voyager two to go from Saturn to Uranus. Uh, 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.600 and it would take um it would take a few 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.640 more years before it would like five well three more years, 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:20.640 I'm sorry, three more years before I would get close 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:25.080 to Neptune. But before we get to that point, seven, 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:31.880 Voyager two observes the supernova nineteen seven eight Voyager returns 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.480 the first color images of Neptune. So that Voyager two 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.600 that is, so it's getting closer to Neptune. It's still 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:40.600 not the closest it will be, but that's when we 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.840 first started getting color images of Neptune back from Voyager, 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:48.640 and on August nine, Voyager two as its closest approach 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.400 to Neptune. And that concludes the primary mission of the 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:56.480 of both Voyager spacecraft, that primary mission being the exploration 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.720 of those outer planets. So the cost of the missions 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.680 from nineteen seventy two to the time when they finished 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:09.040 their mission their primary mission was eight hundred sixty five 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:13.680 million dollars. Now, NASA points out that if you break 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.760 this down by the population of the United States and 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.960 year over year, that's about eight cents per person per year. 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.240 So it's it's essentially saying like, look, really in the 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:26.000 grand scheme, and it sounds like a lot of money, 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:27.640 but in the grand scheme of things, this is just 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:33.160 a tiny investment. So look at these pictures of center. Yeah. Uh, 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.319 keep keep calm and keep exploring, is what they said. 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:42.240 I hate that name anyway. So the that that million 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:45.920 dollars included everything include the expense of the launch vehicles, 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:48.720 the radioactive power source, which we'll get to talk about 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.559 in a little bit, uh, and and just the maintaining 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:56.199 of the missions. By nine, Voyager one was heading toward 0:08:56.320 --> 0:09:02.079 interstellar space and on vale In Tine's Day in nineteen nine, 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.720 we get the final images from Voyager, which is a 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.439 portrait of the Solar System. Happy Valentine's Day, I gave 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:15.400 you the Solar System. Sweet Three days later, February I'm 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:19.719 sorry three days in eight years later on fantasy, I 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.360 should read the year before I read the day February 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:24.960 sevent have all my notes in front of me, it's just, 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.800 you know, my typing and viewing skills are Apparently there's 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:33.480 something to be desired. February seventeenth, the Voyager one passes 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.600 the Pioneer ten, which had obviously been launched previously, and 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.600 so that makes the Voyager one the most distant human 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.400 made object in space. It is still to this day 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:46.920 the most distant human made object in space. It's actually 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.480 most distant stir and it was because it keeps going. 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.439 That was good. Well, I figured it might as well 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.760 measure up to my reading and comprehension skills. Uh. Decenumber 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:02.600 fifteen two thousand four. Edge or one crosses the termination 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.679 shock comination shock. This is this is pretty cool, guys, 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.520 and do the heally you sheath. Yeah. So here's here's 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.480 some things that you need to know about our wacky 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.840 little solar system. Here you might ask, what's the edge 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:19.920 of the Solar System? Is it Pluto? No? No, it's 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.120 not Pluto. Well, I mean again, it all depends on 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.320 how you're defining the edge of the Solar System. But 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.520 the way NASA defines it, Nope, not Pluto, especially since 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:29.320 it's not it's still on a planet right now, that's 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.240 not it's a dwarf planet. There's that never mind, there's yeah, 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.000 it's you know, it's Pluto is right there with happy, sneezy, 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:41.040 sleepy Adobe doc bashful. Uh So, termination shock, that's that's 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.240 the point where the solar wind particles start to slow down. 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:49.040 They were traveling essentially at kind of the speed of 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:52.400 sound would be, but anyway, they're traveling really fast. They 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.880 start slowing down because you can think of the solar 0:10:55.920 --> 0:11:00.439 wind as this uh, this force that pushes out from 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.560 the Sun. All right, Now, think of the interstellar space 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:07.640 kind of having its own pressure. It's sort of like 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.760 air pressure. It's pushing in on the solar made of 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.040 magnetic fields instead of air pressure. So there exactly, they're 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.000 not air particles. It's all we're talking. There are particles 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.000 on space, but that's that's a different thing anyway. So 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:24.880 the solar wind is pressing against these these other pressures. 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:26.840 So once you get to the point where the solar 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:31.439 wind is slowing down, that's the termination shock. Right, there's 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.480 kind of a boundary with a with a shock wave 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:38.040 fare and also still not the edge of the Solar system. Also, 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.960 you also have the heliosphere. Now this is where we 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.640 still have we still have evidence of the solar wind 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.080 within the heliosphere. Then you have the helio pause, which 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.400 is the very boundary of where the solar wind is, 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:53.280 and that still is not the edge of the Solar System, 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.800 not according to NASA. According to NASA, really we need 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:58.760 to think of the edge of the Solar System as 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:03.560 being an area where the Sun's gravitational poll has no 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.800 greater effect on you than any other particular celestial body 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:09.200 out there. So, in other words, you aren't being pulled 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:11.719 towards the Solar System at that point anymore than you're 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.280 being pulled towards some other point, right, Yeah, so that 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.800 that area is ill defined by the very nature of gravity. 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.199 But um, that would take us a very long time 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:23.679 to get there, and we'll talk about that when we 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.240 get into the science section. So anyway, termination shock has 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.440 all these fluctuating magnetic fields due to the change and 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:32.920 the speed of the Solar wind, and that's kind of 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.360 why it's called what it's called. And Voyager one, like 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:38.720 I said, crossed it on December two thousand four and 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:43.240 begins to encounter the interstellar medium. That doesn't mean that 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:45.880 it's in interstellar space yet, but starting to encounter the 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:49.839 particles that would be an interstellar space September five, two 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:53.120 thousand seven, three years later, that's when Voyager two catches 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.680 up and crosses the termination shock at a totally different point. 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.920 By the way, these two spacecraft are in two totally 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.640 different sections of no nowhere near each other anymore, not 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.360 at all. And then in July and two thousand twelve, 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.599 Voyager one enters a new region of space which is 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.160 still inside the Solar System. It's another region of the 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:15.080 helio heliosphere helio she called a magnetic highway YEP. And 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.560 the directions of the particles that it's encountering are beginning 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.000 to change, which suggests that the spacecraft is at the 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.760 very edge of the heliosphere. And UM engineers didn't expect 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:27.920 that the data that they got back. They thought that 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.160 it would have passed beyond this point earlier, which just 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.240 tells us that our Solar system is actually larger, thought 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.240 that the Sun is more powerful than we previously expected. 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.960 Never underestimate the power of the Sun. It can turn 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:45.240 me read in a matter of minutes, very susceptible to 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:47.920 that sort of thing. So, yeah, that's we've already talked 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.680 about how they have, they left at different times in 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:56.120 their pathways, meant that they are traveling in different directions 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.280 and different at different speeds. Uh, and they visited different 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:01.880 you know, like voice You're two visited two more planets 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:04.320 than Voyage or one did. But we talked about how 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:08.439 the planets helped move the spacecraft and direct the spacecraft. 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.000 So if you guys have seen science fiction films like 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.520 Star Trek four, the Voyage Home where they sling shot 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.040 around the Sun, they're actually using the Sun's gravity to 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.560 kind of accelerate a ship to the point where it 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.360 can travel back in time. I don't understand that. By 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.440 the way, if you've got warp speed, you technically anyway, 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:28.880 that's another episode. We already did. That episode we did. 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:30.840 But anyway, they use it to sling shot around the Sun, 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:35.360 which magically lets them travel back in time. There's some 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:37.480 truth to that in the sense that we have used 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:42.280 that same kind of principle with designing the voyage or spacecraft. Right. 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:45.400 What we what we kind of realized is that if 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.840 you okay, you're you're you're moving towards the planet, you're 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:52.200 a probe okay, okay, and uh, as you move towards 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.760 the planet. You're going to start accelerating as the planet's 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.240 gravitational pull starts pulling you in. Right, if you only 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.200 kind of graze by it, then hypothetically you'll deseller right 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.800 on the way out because you're losing energy to that 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.240 gravitational pull. Right. And by the way, because of the 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:14.040 conservation of energy, technically, the planet's orbit actually slows sure infanticimally, Yeah, 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.240 it's uh say, I've got wait, wait, wait, I have 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:17.760 it written down. I know I've got it written down. 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:22.840 It's something like, uh, one foot in a trillion years. Well, 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:24.840 but hey, that is an impact you are. You are 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.840 making a difference. But Jupiter is going to be a 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:32.840 little late to its to its appointment in one trillion years. Right. However, 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.040 because planets are moving in their orbits, if you are 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.760 going on the same trajectory as a planet's orbit, you 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.920 can pick up that orbital speed as you slingshot around 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.760 the planet. Ye, And so that that has allowed the 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:50.600 Voyager spacecraft to get propulsion from one plant to the 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:54.320 next without having to have massive thrusters on board. In fact, 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.600 when we get to the actual description of the spacecraft, 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.560 you'll find out that their thrusters are not incredibly powerful 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.400 at all, but they were able to use the power 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:06.960 of gravity to direct and propel themselves something as large 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.200 as as Jupiter. You know, it's moving through space at 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.280 something like thirty thousand miles per hour forty tho kilometers 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.720 and uh yeah, so so and and that's yeah, it's 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.840 a completely free energy boost of about that much speed. 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.880 According to NASA, because of the use of planetary gravity, 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:29.000 Voyager too ended up having a fuel economy of about 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:32.440 thirteen thousand kilometers per leader or thirty thousand miles per gallon. 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.160 That's efficient. That beats That beats my car. That's highway miles, 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:38.720 city miles. They did not give me, so I don't 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.880 I don't know how it would do in the city. Uh. There, 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.840 the Voyager two's flight path got a look, like we said, 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.480 at all four of the giant plants um and uh 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.440 and it's a couple of billion miles further inside the 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:55.960 Solar System than the Voyager one. So the Voyager one 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.640 got a kind of a head start into interstellar space 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.720 um and is more than eleven billion or seventeen point 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:06.960 seven eleven billion miles or seventeen point seven billion kilometers 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:09.639 away from the Sun at this point more more more 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.200 than eighteen as of as of today, there's there's a 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.440 there's a tracker on on NASA nice where you can 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.640 check all this out. So uh and and uh. At 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:23.000 that distance, it takes hours for a for data to 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.560 go from the spacecraft to be picked up here on Earth. 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:29.760 About seventeen hours. Wow. Yeah, so that's a long time. 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:32.720 So the way that let me let me find my 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.159 note on it that it's really interesting the way that 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:38.080 they receive those radio signals because they're they're pretty far away, 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.639 they're getting increasingly difficult to check all the times. They 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.720 have a whole series of two and thirty ft radio 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:48.400 dishes right basically to pull Voyager data. These are the 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:52.240 deep space antenna that they have to pick up this information, 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.280 um and uh. And they actually upgraded those over the 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.359 course of the life of the Voyager program. When they 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.360 first started, they were significantly smaller, and they didn't have 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.760 to be as big because the Voyager spacecraft were relatively 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.080 closer to the Earth. Uh. And now now we've got 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:12.239 to a point where we keep upgrading the antenna so 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.480 that we can continue to pick up these increasingly weak signals, 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:20.160 so it's pretty amazing. According to NASA, the emissions from 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:24.080 Earth to Neptune required the equivalent of eleven thousand work 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:29.280 years of human work. Eleven thousand work years, which they said, 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:31.000 there's only a third of what it took to build 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.240 the Great Pyramid. So well, hey, so you know we're slack, 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.280 and yes, you know, really they're just saying, look how 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:40.560 much more efficient we are. They were piling up rocks, 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:45.120 we were sending spacecraft into space. Um and uh, and 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:47.600 again we've learned that the Solar System is actually larger 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:51.360 than what we have previously anticipated and um. So by 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:54.280 the time the Voyager two flew by Neptune, the two 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:58.680 spacecraft together had transmitted about five trillion bits of scientific 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.560 data back at Earth and it was someone's job to 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.280 look at all that. But yeah, the deep space tracking 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:06.119 antennas are the ones we were talking about earlier that 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:08.080 have been upgrades several times, and that that kind of 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:12.560 that's the brief overview of the mission, and next we're 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.080 going to take a look at the spacecraft itself and 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:19.399 also some kind of cool records that are above the 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.879 two spacecraft. But before we do that, let's take a 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:33.720 quick pause to thank our sponsored. Okay, let's talk about 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.000 the actual spacecraft for a minute. We know what they 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:38.680 were supposed to do and what they have done. Um 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.440 so uh And one thing I did not mention, I 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.880 guess is that the whole inner interstellar travel stuff that's 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.000 totally planned as well, in fact, has been added on 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.400 as a secondary mission. The primary mission was the outer planets. 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:54.560 Secondary is what's up with this interstellar stuff we don't 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.400 know anything about. Well, they realize that their power sources 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.440 would work until about and so figured well, hey, let's 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:05.160 just kind of roll with it. Yeah. Yeah, so that's five. 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:08.399 That's about when we expect the power resources to be 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.040 to the point where they can no longer power the 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.679 transmitter to send us back data. And we'll talk about that. 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.520 That's one of the things that that's interesting about this spacecraft. 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.520 There are a lot of interesting things. So both of them, uh, 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:23.280 because because they're identical, Yes, they are identical. So each 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.280 one of them weighs just under a ton. And now 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.359 when they were on top of the the launch vehicle, 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.600 they weighed a lot more than that, but the spacecraft 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.560 themselves are just under a ton each unearthed obviously, because 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.360 weight is all relative to where you are. Yes, uh, 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.040 And they are each made up of about sixty five 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:46.280 fouls and individual parts. But these parts are often made 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:50.000 up of tinier components. So they have a term they 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:54.040 use which is equivalent parts. And equivalent parts means like 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.240 if you were to look at, for example, if I 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:59.880 were to say my computer is part uh, is one 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.080 part of the equipment that I use, someone else could 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:05.919 point out, well, that computer has multiple chips in it, 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:10.160 and those chips have transistors, and so really that one 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.720 part is a representation of lots and lots and lots 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:14.960 of parts. So NASA was like, well, if you want 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.640 to know how many equivalent parts there are, there about 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:22.359 five million of them. Compare that to your old standard 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.000 definition color television. There will be about two thousand, five 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:30.000 D equivalent parts. So lots more than a color TV, 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:32.800 which is kind of what you want when you're when 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:34.919 you're expo space. Yeah, you need a little bit more 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.000 than it than your average standard definition color television. I agree, 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:43.600 I would hope. So yeah, also larger than your standard yes, well, 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:47.919 unless you're a crazy rich person. The main body is 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:50.440 a is a ten sided box that's about six ft 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:54.359 or one point eight meters across, and that's where the 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:58.000 fuel tank, the and and some of the electronic instruments. Yeah, 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:00.200 and we'll talk about those instruments. They are all lot 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:06.120 of them. Yeah, they're they were. They both have areas 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:10.080 that are hardened against radiation and shielded. And the reason 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:12.119 for that is obviously that when you go into space, 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:14.919 you are going to encounter things that you would not 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:17.119 encounter here on the surface of the planet. And the 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:21.880 reason for that is that the Earth atmosphere and magnetos 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:27.040 sphere mag magnetosphere sphere still makes me think that we're 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.440 watching x men. I would say, I would say magnetosphere. 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:36.280 I know you would, but shere it is the sphere 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:40.600 in which magneto travels, and it's also a magnetic field 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:45.280 that surrounds the Earth, penetrates and binds us together like 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:48.439 the force. Now, what it does is actually repels certain 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:53.200 types of waves and particles, which allows us to remain. Yeah, 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:56.600 we do. We're not being bombarded by cosmic radiation or 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.680 gamma raise or things like that, because that would be 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:01.560 a much were sunburned than that other sa burned than 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:04.240 we were talking. The combination of the of our atmosphere 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:08.280 and the magnetosphere or magnetosphere protectas, and so the thing 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:09.679