WEBVTT - TechStuff Goes on a Voyage 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:14.600 Get in tech with technology with Textile from hof dot com. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.640 Hey then, everyone, and welcome to text Stuff. I'm Jonathan 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.439 Strickland and I'm Lauren voc Obam. And today we wanted 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:24.720 to talk about something that was sent into us by 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.080 a listener. Listener Eric via Twitter said, can we talk 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:32.520 about Voyager? The Voyager spacecraft? And oh, how we can? Yes, 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:36.000 we can. So we divided this up into a few 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:38.280 different sections to talk about, and the first thing we 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:40.519 wanted to talk about was kind of what was the 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.560 purpose of the Voyager missions, which by the way, are 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.440 still going right now. But we wanted to talk about 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.760 kind of the timeline of the missions, and then we'll 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.480 get into more details about the spacecraft itself, and then 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:56.800 follow that up with a discussion about the science that 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:01.400 has been discovered by these amazing spacecraft. So, going back 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.959 to May nineteen seventy two, that's when NASA begins to 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:09.600 fund a mission that will involve designing, building, and launching 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.640 spacecraft that are meant to explore the outer planets of 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.120 our Solar System. And even before this, back in the 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:19.520 nine an engineer named Gary Flandreau noticed that sometime in 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.440 the nineteen seventies, the outer planets would be aligned planetary 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:27.240 alignment in such a way as to make this very possible. 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:29.479 And this was you know, the space program was going 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:34.600 and booming, and it was kind of an incredible alignment 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.760 of the stars that allowed us to write when we 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:39.959 had money to do this stuff. Right, So, so I 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.600 mean that planetary alignment is really what makes the voyageer 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.919 missions possible because you know, if the if the plants 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.400 were in such an alignment so that let's say that 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.680 well there's still aligned properly, they're just not viable for 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.400 us to explore. But let's say let's say like Jupiters 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.080 on one side of the Sun and Saturn's on the 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.120 other side of the Sun, it would be really tricky 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:06.200 to design a spacecraft trajectory that could explore both. Right, So, 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:08.880 and this particular alignment isn't going to occur again for 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.200 another hundred and seventy six years, so you had to 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.400 jump on the opportunity. And so in nineteen seventy two, 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.720 even though it was still years away from when this 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.480 alignment would occur, NASA gets on the ball and starts 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:25.200 to design this and in nineteen seventy seven they are 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:29.560 finished with the design, and the spacecraft they had been 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:33.600 designing was under the working name the Mariner Jupiter slash 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.840 Saturn nineteen seventy seven, but they decided to rename it 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.239 a little bit of a mouthful, yeahah, they called it Voyager, 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:44.760 And on August twenty, nineteen seventy seven, a Titan Centaur 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:50.320 rocket carried one of the two Voyager spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida, 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.680 into the atmosphere and ultimately into space. Which one was 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.760 it that launched first? It was Voyager two that launched first. 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:03.480 Which one launched second, Voyager one? Okay, So so this 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.320 this was basically for pr purposes because the way that 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.920 they were designed, Voyager one was going to do to 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.600 with trajectory. It was going to reach Jupiter first and 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.920 so start sending back images of Jupiter. You know, fingers 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.760 crossed if all goes well first, and NASA thought that 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:24.639 the public would be incredibly confused if if a Voyager 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.079 one launched first but got to the planets second, whereas 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:30.400 some for some reason, launching second and getting to the 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.280 planet first is less confusing. No one was paying attention 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:37.080 to the launch, yeah, goodness knows, no one pays attention 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.960 to something spectacular. Yeah, the one thing you're actually able 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:44.640 to watch while you're still on Earth. Uh. It still 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:46.760 makes me tear up every single time anything gets launched 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.480 in to space. I'm like, just humanity is so beautiful. Yeah, 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:51.440 it's pretty awesome. I mean, when you think about what 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.600 it takes to get something into space, it is phenomenal 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.560 the amount of engineering and ingenuity that went into that. 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.760 But yes, so the Voyager to launches first. The voyage 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.560 Or one launches about sixteen days later. In fact, not 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:07.080 about sixteen days later, at launches nasically on September nine, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:10.480 and it's using the same sort of rocket, the Titans 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:14.800 Centaur rocket, which, by the way, I love it. Um anyway, 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.800 the initial purpose was for these to explore the giant 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:23.720 planets in the Outer Solar System. Those giant planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.799 and Neptune Um. Pluto of course, not a giant planet, 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:32.640 it does not get the treatment, not for these missions. 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.640 Forget you Pluto. And there were two separate trajectories that 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.200 were being used. Voyager one, of course, was designed so 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:42.640 that the trajectory was chosen so that it would reach 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:47.040 Jupiter first, then move on to Saturn, and then get 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:52.000 flung off to head toward interstellar space. Uh. Voyager too 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.719 would do a visit to all four of the giant planets. 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.200 So that's why you have the different timelines. But because 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.960 even though Voyager two launched first, for it to be 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.320 able to hit this trajectory where it was going to 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.359 pass by each of the four giants, it had to 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:11.919 do that at a different different Yeah. So that's the 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:13.719 you know. And if you were to just look at 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.200 a model of the Solar System and just spend the 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:19.800 plants around at the different rates, you would see like, oh, yeah, 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.200 now I understand you would have to be really particular 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:24.479 about when you would launch and how you would launch 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:26.760 for it to be able to hit all of these 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.840 points properly. I mean, it's an amazing amount of engineering 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.800 that's required and and just math that's required to make 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.520 sure that you've got the right the right timing. Yeah, 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:36.960 and it was it was kind of shady, you know, 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.280 basically until it happened, no one was sure that it 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.640 was going to happen, right and uh, and it's interesting 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.479 because the Voyager spacecraft actually used the plants themselves to 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:47.800 help make sure they got to where they needed to go, 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:51.000 but we'll get into that. It's pretty awesome though. So 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.839 moving down the timeline, they they've launched in nineteen seventy seven. 0:05:55.760 --> 0:06:01.160 Almost two years later, on March five, Edger one has 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.320 its closest approach to Jupiter and it captures a lot 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.760 of images of Jupiter and Jupiter's moons. Uh. And then 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:12.440 July nine nine, so same year, that's when Voyager two 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.360 passes closest to Jupiter. Uh. Then we go to the 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.240 next year. On November twelve, Voyager one has its closest 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:23.240 approach to Saturn, and then it begins its trip out 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.920 of the Solar System, saying so long, suckers, and starts 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.400 heading off into the Well. It would be the sunset, 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.520 except it can't be at the opposite of the sunset, right, 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.200 It's not the sunrise either. That's that would normally be 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.359 the opposite of a sunset, the sun diminishing into a 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:44.720 tinier ball. I guess not nearly as poetic, but auguste 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.240 that's when Voyager two gets its closest approach to saturny. 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.920 But of course Voyager two is not flung off into 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.160 in our interstellar space right away. Instead, it is then 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.679 heading toward Urinus, which it passes closest to on January 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.279 nineteen eight six. So it took five years for Voyager 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:06.960 two to go from Saturn to Uranus uh, and it 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.559 would take um it would take a few more years 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.480 before it would like five well three more years, I'm sorry, 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:14.840 three more years before it would get close to Neptune. 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.240 But before we get to that point, seven, Voyager two 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:26.280 observes the supernova nineteen eight Voyager returns the first color 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.560 images of Neptune, so that Voyager two that is so 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:33.000 it's getting closer to Neptune's still not the closest it 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.239 will be, but that's when we first started getting color 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:40.040 images of Neptune back from Voyager, and on August nine, 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.440 Voyager two as its closest approach to Neptune. And that 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.880 concludes the primary mission of the of both Voyager spacecraft. 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.560 That primary mission being the exploration of those outer planets. 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.679 So the cost of the missions from nineteen seventy two 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.280 to the time when they finished their mission their primary 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:05.520 mission was eight hundred sixty five million dollars. Now, NASA 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.680 points out that if you break this down by the 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.400 population of the United States and year over year that's 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:15.640 about eight cents per person per year. So it's shappy. 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.360 It's essentially saying like, look, really, in the grand scheme, 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:20.080 it sounds like a lot of money. Then the grand 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.400 scheme of things, this is just a tiny investment. So 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:28.040 look at these Saturn Yeah. Uh, keep keep calm and 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:32.080 keep exploring, is what they said. I hate that name anyway. 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:37.240 So the that that million dollars included everything. It included 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:41.120 the expense of the launch vehicles, the radioactive power source, 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.320 which we'll get to talk about in a little bit. Uh, 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.920 and and just the maintaining of the missions. By nine, 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:54.040 Voyager one was heading toward interstellar space. And on Valentine's 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:58.360 Day in nineteen nine, we get the final images from Voyager, 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:02.280 which is a portrait of the cell system. Happy Valentine's Day, 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:07.520 I gave you the Solar system. Sweet. Three days later 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:12.559 February I'm sorry, three days in eight years later on 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:14.760 fas I should read the year before I read the day, 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.120 February sevent have all my notes in front of me. 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.280 It's just, you know, my typing and viewing skills are 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:26.199 apparently there's something to be desired. February seventeenth, the Voyager 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:30.479 one passes the Pioneer ten, which had obviously been launched previously, 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:34.520 and so that makes the Voyager one the most distant 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.560 human made object in space. It is still to this 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.079 day the most distant human made object in space. It's 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:43.640 actually most distant stir than it was because it keeps 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.960 going that well, I figured it might as well measure 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.640 up to my reading and comprehension skills. De Sceumber fifteen, 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:57.880 two thousand four. Voyager one crosses the termination shock combination shock. 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:02.000 This is this is pretty cool. Guy into the Heliu sheath. Yeah. 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:04.400 So here's here's some things that you need to know 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:08.240 about our wacky little solar system. Here, you might ask, 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:13.079 what's the edge of the Solar System? Is it Pluto? No, No, 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:15.439 it's not Pluto. Well, I mean again, it all depends 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:17.680 on how you're defining the edge of the Solar System. 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:19.800 But the way NASA defines it, Nope, not Pluto, you 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.360 might especially since it's not it's still on a planet, 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.559 right now, that's not it's a dwarf planet. There's that, 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.240 never mind, there's yeah, it's you know, it's Pluto is 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.880 right there with happy, sneezy, sleepy Adobe doc bashful uh 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.960 so termination shock. That's that's the point where the solar 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.600 wind particles start to slow down. They were traveling essentially 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:44.640 at kind of the speed of sound would be, but anyway, 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.920 they're traveling really fast. They start slowing down because you 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.360 can think of the solar wind as this, uh, this 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.360 force that pushes outward from the Sun. All right, Now, 0:10:55.480 --> 0:11:00.200 think of the interstellar space kind of having its own pressure. Sure, 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.160 it's sort of like air pressure. It's pushing in on 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.319 the solar syde of magnetic fields instead of air pressure. 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.560 So there exactly, they're not air particles. It's all we're talking. 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:11.800 There are particles out in space, but that's that's a 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.880 different thing anyway. So the solar wind is pressing against 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.280 these these other pressures. So once you get to the 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.600 point where the solar wind is slowing down, that's the 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.040 termination shock. Right, there's kind of a boundary with a 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.400 with a shock wave there and also still not the 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:33.439 edge of the Solar system. Also, you also have the heliosphere. 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:35.560 Now this is where we still have we still have 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.920 evidence of the solar wind within the heliosphere. Then you 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.680 have the helio pause, which is the very boundary of 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.440 where the solar wind is and that still is not 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.760 the edge of the Solar System, not according to NASA. 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:50.880 According to NASA, really we need to think of the 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.280 edge of the Solar System as being an area where 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.120 the Sun's gravitational poll has no greater effect on you 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.839 than any other particular celestial body out there. So, in 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.800 other words, you aren't being pulled towards the Solar System 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.240 at that point anymore than you're being pulled towards some 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.960 other point, right, Yeah, so that that area is ill 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:14.439 defined by the very nature of gravity. But um, that 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.000 would take us a very long time to get there, 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:17.640 and we'll talk about that when we get into the 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:21.599 science section. So anyway, termination shock has all these fluctuating 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.560 magnetic fields due to the change and the speed of 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:26.960 the Solar wind, and that's kind of why it's called 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.560 what it's called. And Voyager one, like I said, crossed 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.400 it on December two thousand four and begins to encounter 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.640 the interstellar medium. That doesn't mean that it's in interstellar 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.360 space yet, but starting to encounter the particles that would 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:44.199 be an interstellar space. September five, two thousand seven, three 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.240 years later, that's when Voyager two catches up and crosses 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:49.480 the termination shock at a totally different point. By the way, 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.319 these two spacecraft are in two totally different sections of 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.000 no nowhere near each other anymore, not at all. And 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.880 in in July and two thousand twelve, Voyager one enters 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.720 a new region of space which is still inside the 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.160 Solar System. It's another region of the helio heliosphere helio 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.640 sheaf called a magnetic highway YEP. And the directions of 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:13.000 the particles that it's encountering are beginning to change, which 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.720 suggests that the spacecraft is at the very edge of 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:19.920 the heliosphere. And UM engineers didn't expect that the data 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:21.920 that they got back. They thought that it would have 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.280 passed beyond this point earlier, which just tells us that 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.960 our Solar system is actually larger. We thought that the 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.080 Sun is more powerful than we previously expected. It never 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.520 underestimate the power of the Sun. It can turn me 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:38.760 read in a matter of minutes, very susceptible to that 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.600 sort of thing. So yeah, that's we've already talked about 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:45.360 how they have They left at different times in their 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:49.599 pathways meant that they are traveling in different directions and 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:53.080 different at different speeds. Uh, and they visited different you know, 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:55.880 like the Voyager two visited two more planets than Voyager 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.680 one did. We talked about how the planets helped move 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.920 the spacecraft and direct the spacecraft. So, if you guys 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.880 have seen science fiction films like Star Trek for the 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.760 Voyage Home, where they sling shot around the Sun, they're 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.920 actually using the Sun's gravity to kind of accelerate a 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.559 ship to the point where it can travel back in time. 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:17.360 I don't understand that. By the way, if you've got 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.520 warp speed, you technically anyway, that's another episode. We already 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.200 did that episode, Yes we did. But anyway, they use 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:25.400 it to slingshot around the Sun, which magically lets them 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:29.600 travel back in time. There's some truth to that in 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:31.880 the sense that we have used that same kind of 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:36.080 principle with designing the voyage or spacecraft. Right. What we 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.680 what we kind of realized is that if you okay, 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:43.840 you're you're you're moving towards the planet, you're a probe okay, 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.200 and uh, as you move towards the planet, you're going 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.640 to start accelerating as the planet's gravitational pull starts pulling 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:51.760 you in. Right, if you only kind of graze by it. 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.320 Then hypothetically you'll decelerate on the way out because you're 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.840 losing energy to that gravitational pull. Right. And by the way, 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:02.960 because of the concert vation of energy, technically the planet's 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:08.640 orbit actually slows sure infanticimally, Yeah, it's uh see, I've 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:10.280 got wait wait, wait, I have it written down. I 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:12.680 know I've got it written down. It's something like, uh, 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.800 one foot in a trillion years. Well, but hey, that 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:19.200 is an impact you are, you are making a difference, 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:21.880 But that Jupiter is going to be a little late 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:26.280 to its to its appointment in one trillion years. Right. However, 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.440 because planets are moving in their orbits, if you are 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.200 going on the same trajectory as a planet's orbit, you 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.360 can pick up that orbital speed as you slingshot around 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.200 the planet. Ye, And so that that has allowed the 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:44.040 Voyager spacecraft to get propulsion from one planet to the 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:47.680 next without having to have massive thrusters on board. In fact, 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:50.000 when we get to the actual description of the spacecraft, 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.000 you'll find out that their thrusters are not incredibly powerful 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:55.840 at all, but they were able to use the power 0:15:55.920 --> 0:16:00.440 of gravity to direct and propel themselves to as large 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.640 as as Jupiter. You know, it's moving through space at 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.920 something like thirty thousand miles per hour forty eight thousand 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:10.040 kilometers and uh yeah, so so and and that's yeah, 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.280 it's a completely free energy boost of about that much speed. 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.320 According to NASA, because of the use of planetary gravity, 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:22.440 Voyager too ended up having a fuel economy of about 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.880 thirteen thousand kilometers per leader or thirty thousand miles per gallon. 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.600 That's efficient. That beats That beats my car. That's highway miles, 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.160 city miles. They did not give me, so I don't 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.320 I don't know how it would do in the city. Uh. There, 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:39.280 the Voyager two's flight path got a look, like we said, 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.920 at all four of the giant plants, um and uh. 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.880 And it's a couple of billion miles further inside the 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.400 Solar System than the Voyager one, So the Voyager one 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.480 got a kind of a head start into interstellar space. Um. Uh. 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:57.160 And it is more than eleven billion or seventeen point 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.400 seven eleven billion miles or seventeen point seven billion anometers 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.680 away from the Sun at this point, more than eighteen 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.280 as of as of today. There's there's there's a tracker 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.680 on on NASA nice where you can check all this out. 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:12.600 So uh and and uh. At that distance, it takes 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:17.840 hours for a for data to go from the spacecraft 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:21.920 to be picked up here on Earth. About seventeen hours. Wow. Yeah, 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.600 so that's a long time. The way that let me 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:27.960 let me find my note on it that it's really 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:30.200 interesting the way that they receive those radio signals because 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:33.040 they're they're pretty far away, they're getting increasingly difficult to 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.600 detect all the times. They have a whole series of 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.560 two and thirty ft radio dishes right specifically to pull 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.680 Voyager data. These are the deep space antenna that they 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:47.399 have to pick up this information. Um and uh. And 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.720 they actually upgraded those over the course of the life 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.760 of the Voyager program. When they first started, they were 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.520 significantly smaller and they didn't have to be as big 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:02.280 because the Voyager spacecraft were relative leak closer to the Earth. Uh. 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.280 And now now we've got to a point where we 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:06.600 keep upgrading the antenna so that we can continue to 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:10.640 pick up these increasingly weak signals. So it's pretty amazing. 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:15.520 According to NASA, the missions from Earth to Neptune required 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:19.160 the equivalent of eleven thousand work years of human work 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:23.239 eleven thousand work years, which they said there's only a 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.520 third of what it took to build the Great Pyramid. 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:30.880 So well, hey, so you know we're slacking, you know, really, 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:32.879 they're just saying, look how much more efficient we are. 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:36.320 They were piling up rocks, we were sending spacecraft into space. 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.000 Um and uh and again we've learned that the Solar 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.280 System is actually larger than what we have previously anticipated. 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.280 And um so, by the time the Voyager two flew 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:50.080 by Neptune, the two spacecraft together had transmitted about five 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:54.040 trillion bits of scientific data back at Earth and it 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:56.880 was someone's job to look at all that. But yeah, 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:58.720 the deep space tracking antennas are the ones we were 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:00.760 talking about earlier that have been up aid several times, 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:03.800 and that that kind of a that's the brief overview 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.520 of the mission. And next we're going to take a 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.919 look at the spacecraft itself and also some kind of 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:15.000 cool records that are above the two spacecraft. But before 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.760 we do that, let's take a quick pause to thank 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:21.800 our sponsored Okay, let's talk about the actual spacecraft for 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:23.320 a minute. We know what they were supposed to do 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:27.000 and what they have done. Um So, Uh. And one 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.199 thing I did not mention, I guess is that the 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:32.400 whole inner interstellar travel stuff that's totally planned as well, 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.959 in fact, has been added on as a secondary mission. 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:39.200 The primary mission was the outer planets. Secondary is what's 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.239 up with this interstellar stuff? We don't know anything about. Well, 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.160 they realize that their power sources would work until about 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:48.640 and so figured well, hey, let's just kind of roll 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:52.520 with it. Yeah. Yeah, So that's five. That's about when 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:55.880 we expect the power resources to be to the point 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.359 where they can no longer power the transmitter to send 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:01.480 us back that uh, And we'll talk about that. That's 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.120 one of the things that that's interesting about this spacecraft. 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.160 There are a lot of interesting things. So both of them, uh, 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.880 because because they're identical, Yes, they are identical. So each 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.879 one of them weighs just under a ton, and now 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.000 when they were on top of the the launch vehicle, 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.200 they weighed a lot more than that. But the spacecraft 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.480 themselves are just under a ton each unearthed obviously its weight, 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.440 it's all relative to where you are. Uh. And they 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:31.040 are each made up of about sixty five foulsand individual parts. 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.560 But these parts are often made up of tinier components. 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:39.160 So they have a term they use which is equivalent parts. 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.000 And equivalent parts means like if you were to look at, 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:44.280 for example, if I were to say my computer is 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:48.800 part uh is one part of the equipment that I use, 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.919 someone else could point out, well, that computer has multiple 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:55.440 chips in it, and those chips have transistors, and so 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:58.720 really that one part is a representation of lots and 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.160 lots and lots of parts. So NASA was like, well, 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:03.440 if you want to know how many equivalent parts there are, 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:07.880 there about five million of them. Compare that to your 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:12.320 old standard definition color television there'd be about two thousand, 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:16.639 five D equivalent parts. So lots more than a color TV, 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:20.680 which is kind of what you want when you're space. Yeah, 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:22.760 you need a little bit more than than your average 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.119 standard definition color television, I would hope. So, yeah, also 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:32.240 larger than your standard yes, well, unless you're a crazy 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.120 rich person. The main body is a is a ten 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:37.679 sided box that's about six ft or one point eight 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:42.520 meters across, and that's where the fuel tank, the and 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.800 and some of the electronic instruments. And we'll talk about 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:49.679 those instruments. There are a lot of them. Yeah, they're uh, 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:54.000 they were. They both have areas that are hardened against 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.560 radiation and shielded. And the reason for that is obviously 0:21:57.600 --> 0:21:59.600 that when you go into space, you are going to 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.280 encou ter things that you would not encounter here on 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:04.359 the surface of the planet. And the reason for that 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:11.639 is that the Earth atmosphere and magnetos sphere mag magnetosphere 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.400 sphere still makes me think that we're watching x men. 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:20.920 I would say, I would say magnetosphere, you would butt sphere. 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:24.680 It is the sphere in which magneto travels, and it's 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:29.720 also a magnetic field that surrounds the Earth, penetrates and 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.200 binds us together like the force. Now, what it does 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:36.760 is it actually repels certain types of waves and particles, 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:40.840 which allows us to remain. Yeah, we do. We're not 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:44.520 being bombarded by cosmic radiation or gamma rays or things 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.280 like that, because that would be a much worse sunburned 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:49.680 than that other saurn than we were talking. The combination 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.680 of the of our atmosphere and the magnetosphere or magnetosphere 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:55.400 protects us and so the thing is that when you're 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:57.480 out in space, you don't have the benefit of that protection. 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:01.840 So that's why both of them have these these shielding 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:05.479 areas and casings that are hardened against radiation to protect 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:07.879