1. Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021; 7 pm PST (9 pm CST, 10 pm EST): We welcome back Andrew Chanin of the UFO EFT for a summary of space finance 2021 and a look ahead to 2022.
2. Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021; 1:00 pm PST (3:00 pm CST, 4:00 pm EST) – Hotel Mars: John Batchelor and Dr. David Livingston will review space developments in 2021.
3. Friday, Dec.24, 2021; 9:30-11 am PST (11:30 am-1 pm CST, 12:30-2 pm EST): No show for the Christmas holiday. Merry Christmas everyone.
4. Sunday, Dec.26, 2021; 12-1:30 pm PST (2-3:30 pm CST, 3-4:30 pm EST): We welcome back Leonard David to review special news stories of 2021 and a look ahead to 2022 for space.
Some recent shows:
** Sunday, Dec.19.2021 – Theresa Hitchens “was back with us to discuss national security space policy, main concerns, 2022 be on the look out for issues and more“.
** Friday, Dec.17.2021 – Dr. Lee Cronin from the University of Glasgow, Scotland spoke with David Livingston and co-host Bill Gowan about “his work in molecular complexity leading to his development of the Molecular Assembly index to help search for biomarkers and life on other planets“.
** Tuesday, Dec.14.2021 – Gene Meyers discussed “Space Solar Power Sats, Gene’s unique advocacy for SSP, top policy makers and politicians through his White Paper, infrastructure and more“.
Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** The AP Interview: Japanese billionaire in space – Associated Press
Japanese fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa has spoken to The Associated Press in his first interview from the International Space Station (Dec. 13).
** 【リアルガチ】無重力で遊んでみた 【FOR REAL】Playing Around in Zero Gravity – Yusaku Maezawa【MZ】
MZ is finally getting used to life in space, And what do you do in space? You play with zero gravity!! Staying still, paddling like a drowning dog, twirling around… See MZ playing around like a little kid. Also see MZ talk about the importance of gravity. For the 12 days in space, MZ and Yozo will attempt to film as many challenges and activities that people from all around the world had requested them to do in the ‘100 Things You Want MZ to Do in Space’.
** 【衝撃の一枚】宇宙から地球撮ってみた【A MIRACLE PIECE】Capturing Earth From Space – Yusaku Maezawa【MZ】
For today’s video, MZ attempts to take photos of the Earth using a camera with telescopic lens. You only have one chance with the button as the ISS moves very fast. MZ seems very proud of what he captured on his camera… For the 12 days in space, MZ and Yozo will attempt to film as many challenges and activities that people from all around the world had requested them to do in the ‘100 Things You Want MZ to Do in Space’. Please stay tuned!
** Expedition 66 PAO Minnesota Public Radio NPR – December 15, 2021 – NASA Video
Aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Tom Marshburn discussed living and working in space during an in-flight event December 15 with Minnesota Public Radio and NPR’s “Here and Now” program. Vande Hei and Marsburn are in the midst of long duration missions aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration missions as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program.
** Expedition 66 PAO KCRG-TV and Kitsap Sun Newspaper – December 13, 2021 – NASA Video
Aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Kayla Barron discussed living and working in space during an in-flight event December 13 with KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and the Kitsap Sun newspaper in Bremerton, Washington. Chari and Barron are in the midst of a six month mission aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration missions as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program.
SpaceX’s 24th Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is slated for launch no earlier than December 21 at 5:06 a.m. ET from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The ISS National Laboratory is sponsoring multiple payloads on this mission that will bring value to our nation and drive a sustainable market in low Earth orbit. This video highlights two investigations launching on this mission from private-sector research partners Merck and Procter & Gamble.
The three astronauts on a six-month mission in China’s space station have been working out on a regular basis to prevent potential health hazards that might be caused by the microgravity environment.
** Chinese Astronauts Show Space Station Routine Cleaning Between Duties – CCTV Video News Agency
The three Chinese astronauts, traveling aboard China’s space station core module Tianhe showed routine cleaning between their duties to make their space home clean, tidy and comfortable.
These annotated images, obtained with the GRAVITY instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) between March and July 2021, show stars orbiting very close to Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. One of these stars, named S29, was observed as it was making its closest approach to the black hole at 13 billion kilometres, just 90 times the distance between the Sun and Earth. Another star, named S300, was detected for the first time in the new VLTI observations. To obtain the new images, the astronomers used a machine-learning technique, called Information Field Theory. They made a model of how the real sources may look, simulated how GRAVITY would see them, and compared this simulation with GRAVITY observations. This allowed them to find and track stars around Sagittarius A* with unparalleled depth and accuracy.
The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI) has obtained the deepest and sharpest images to date of the region around the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. The new images zoom in 20 times more than what was possible before the VLTI and have helped astronomers find a never-before-seen star close to the black hole. By tracking the orbits of stars at the centre of our Milky Way, the team has made the most precise measurement yet of the black hole’s mass.
“We want to learn more about the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*: How massive is it exactly? Does it rotate? Do stars around it behave exactly as we expect from Einstein’s general theory of relativity? The best way to answer these questions is to follow stars on orbits close to the supermassive black hole. And here we demonstrate that we can do that to a higher precision than ever before,”
explains Reinhard Genzel, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, Germany who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2020 for Sagittarius A* research. Genzel and his team’s latest results, which expand on their three-decade-long study of stars orbiting the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, are published today in two papers in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
On a quest to find even more stars close to the black hole, the team, known as the GRAVITY collaboration, developed a new analysis technique that has allowed them to obtain the deepest and sharpest images yet of our Galactic Centre.
“The VLTI gives us this incredible spatial resolution and with the new images we reach deeper than ever before. We are stunned by their amount of detail, and by the action and number of stars they reveal around the black hole,”
explains Julia Stadler, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching who led the team’s imaging efforts during her time at MPE. Remarkably, they found a star, called S300, which had not been seen previously, showing how powerful this method is when it comes to spotting very faint objects close to Sagittarius A*.
With their latest observations, conducted between March and July 2021, the team focused on making precise measurements of stars as they approached the black hole. This includes the record-holder star S29, which made its nearest approach to the black hole in late May 2021. It passed it at a distance of just 13 billion kilometres, about 90 times the Sun-Earth distance, at the stunning speed of 8740 kilometres per second. No other star has ever been observed to pass that close to, or travel that fast around, the black hole.
The team’s measurements and images were made possible thanks to GRAVITY, a unique instrument that the collaboration developed for ESO’s VLTI, located in Chile. GRAVITY combines the light of all four 8.2-metre telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) using a technique called interferometry. This technique is complex,
“but in the end you arrive at images 20 times sharper than those from the individual VLT telescopes alone, revealing the secrets of the Galactic Centre,”
says Frank Eisenhauer from MPE, principal investigator of GRAVITY.
“Following stars on close orbits around Sagittarius A* allows us to precisely probe the gravitational field around the closest massive black hole to Earth, to test General Relativity, and to determine the properties of the black hole,”
explains Genzel. The new observations, combined with the team’s previous data, confirm that the stars follow paths exactly as predicted by General Relativity for objects moving around a black hole of mass 4.30 million times that of the Sun. This is the most precise estimate of the mass of the Milky Way’s central black hole to date. The researchers also managed to fine-tune the distance to Sagittarius A*, finding it to be 27 000 light-years away.
This visible light wide-field view shows the rich star clouds in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer) in the direction of the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. The entire image is filled with vast numbers of stars — but far more remain hidden behind clouds of dust and are only revealed in infrared images. This view was created from photographs in red and blue light and forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The field of view is approximately 3.5 degrees x 3.6 degrees.
To obtain the new images, the astronomers used a machine-learning technique, called Information Field Theory. They made a model of how the real sources may look, simulated how GRAVITY would see them, and compared this simulation with GRAVITY observations. This allowed them to find and track stars around Sagittarius A* with unparalleled depth and accuracy. In addition to the GRAVITY observations, the team also used data from NACO and SINFONI, two former VLT instruments, as well as measurements from the Keck Observatory and NOIRLab’s Gemini Observatory in the US.
GRAVITY will be updated later this decade to GRAVITY+, which will also be installed on ESO’s VLTI and will push the sensitivity further to reveal fainter stars even closer to the black hole. The team aims to eventually find stars so close that their orbits would feel the gravitational effects caused by the black hole’s rotation. ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), under construction in the Chilean Atacama Desert, will further allow the team to measure the velocity of these stars with very high precision.
“With GRAVITY+’s and the ELT’s powers combined, we will be able to find out how fast the black hole spins,” says Eisenhauer. “Nobody has been able to do that so far.”
The year 2021 is rapidly coming to an end as The Space Show enters its second week of our Annual Fundraising Campaign. Each year at this time we ask you to support us as we are a listener supported space everything radio interview talk show featuring guests you want to hear from and talk with about their work and projects. Now is the time to step forward with your financial help as we need your support for the coming year. In addition to your being able to use PayPal per the above direct link, you can use Zelle through your bank account. To use Zelle, send the contribution to david@onegiantleapfoundation.org. OGLF uses a Chase bank account and this address register once your Zelle notification and transfer is received.
To make sure that The Space Show meets the challenges of 2021, we need partners just like you to help us stay strong as we are completely listener funded. We can’t go it alone, we need your help and support along with your positive energy and messages through participation in The Space Show support and programming. But in addition, we also need listeners and supporters just like you to help bring to reality the goal of having space make a positive impact on all our lives. Many of you listen to our programs and participate with us plus I frequently get personal messages from many of you regarding a guest or a specific topic yet I don’t see your name in our donor files. While our content is distributed free of charge, and we work hard to continue this policy, Space Show programming is costly which is why it is important for as many as possible to support us with your donations during our campaign. We need everyone’s support, not just a few because staying strong for 2022 is a group activity and we do need your financial support and participation.
1. Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021; 7 pm PST (9 pm CST, 10 pm EST): We welcome back Gene Meyers to discuss his Space Solar Power (SSP) advocacy plus his space advocacy methodology.
3. Friday, Dec.17, 2021; 9:30-11 am PST (11:30 am-1 pm CST, 12:30-2 pm EST): We welcome Dr. Lee Cronin from Glascow, Scotland on his work in molecular complexity. Space Show listener Bill Gowan will be co-hosting this show.
4. Sunday, Dec.19, 2021; 12-1:30 pm PST (2-3:30 pm CST, 3-4:30 pm EST): We welcome back Theresa Hitchens on policy, the Russian ASAT test and more. Please check her out on the web with her policy expertise.
Some recent shows:
** Sunday, Dec.12.2021 – David Livingston led an open lines program with readers in which “Many topics were discussed in our 1 hour 50 minute program“.
Space science, Hubble Space Telescope, lunar and Martian rovers, Chinese lunar rover object, National Space Council meeting, private sector space station, U.S. space priorities, fate of ISS ground controllers with private space stations, commercial 8 meter space telescope, FAA and NEEPA, SpaceX Pad 39A modifications, Falcon Heavy, Starship, Rocket Lab launches at Wallace Island, Rocket Lab flight termination system, Dragon backup for electrical failures, Dream Chaser for 2022, Blue Origin, SpaceX and engineering, space tourism for 2022, ISS and tourism, Bob’s video game based on his sci-fi book Pioneer, SpaceX rovers to Mars, SpaceX to the Moon before NASA, Artemis, launch rate for 2021 and 2022, SpaceX and Starship flights for 2022, China and Russia re the United States, China’s hypersonic glide nuclear weapon.
Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** Expedition 66 Soyuz MS 20 Docking – December 8, 2021 – NASA Video
Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin and two Japanese private citizens, Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano launched on the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft atop a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday, December 8. Following docking to the International Space Station, the trio took part in a welcome ceremony aboard the complex. Misurkin, Maezawa, and Hirano, who are flying under a contract between Roscosmos and Space Adventures, are scheduled to undock from the International Space Station Sunday, December 19 to land in Kazakhstan.
** Expedition 66 Soyuz MS 20 Hatch Opening – December 8, 2021 – NASA Video
** Welcoming ceremony for the Soyuz MS-20 crew at the Space Station – space googlevesaire
Coverage of the hatch opening and welcoming ceremony for the Soyuz MS-20 crew at the International Space Station (hatch opening scheduled at 10:35 a.m. EST) Credit : NASA
** 宇宙に着いた前澤から、みなさんへ伝えたいこと。What MZ Wants to Tell You From Space –Yusaku Maezawa【MZ】
Finally…! MZ successfully arrived at the ISS (international Space Station) on the 8th Dec!!
The very first video MZ wishes to share with you is a message from himself after witnessing space for the first time with his very own eyes. To those who are working hard to achieve their dreams and goals, we hope this will inspire you in some way. For the next 12 days, MZ and Yozo will attempt to film as many challenges and activities that people from all around the world had requested them to do in the ‘100 Things You Want MZ to Do in Space’. Please stay tuned! Filmed by Yozo Hirano
[Note: Click on the CC closed captions button to see English translation of Maezawa’s comments.]
More about the new visitors to the ISS including Yusaku Maezawa and his production assistant Yozo Hirano:
** Science Launching on SpaceX’s 24th Cargo Resupply Mission to the Space Station – NASA
The 24th SpaceX cargo resupply services mission, targeted to launch in late December from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carries scientific research and technology demonstrations to the International Space Station. The experiments aboard include studies of bioprinting, crystallization of monoclonal antibodies, changes in immune function, plant gene expression changes, laundering clothes in space, processing alloys, and student citizen science projects. https://go.nasa.gov/339gHDD
Explore the International Space Station’s Cupola module in 360 degrees while ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer lifts weights in weightlessness. This 360 timelapse video was shot over 53 minutes, at a rate one frame every two seconds, as Matthias completed a workout on the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED). Pan to watch the world go by as the Station orbits Earth at around 28 000 km/h, then see how Matthias keeps his muscles and bones healthy for a safe return to Earth. Exercise is an important part of an astronaut’s daily routine. It not only keeps them fit and ready for demanding tasks like a spacewalk, but it also helps to combat bone and muscle loss caused by a prolonged stay in orbit. ARED is one of several exercise devices astronauts use on Station. They also have a treadmill called T2 and an exercycle known as CEVIS. Matthias was launched to the International Space Station on Crew Dragon Endurance as part of Crew-3 at 02:03 GMT/03:03 CET Thursday 11 November. His ESA mission on board is known as Cosmic Kiss and will see him live and work for approximately six months in orbit. Follow Matthias: https://bit.ly/ESACosmicKiss
Even astronauts in orbit cannot escape housework. Join ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer as he vacuums the European Columbus and Japanese Kibo modules of the International Space Station in this 360° video. Unlike on Earth, dust on the Space Station does not settle. Astronauts vacuum regularly to prevent floating dust from getting in their eyes and noses, causing irritation and allergic reactions. Pan to explore the different modules and follow Matthias’s work. Matthias was launched to the International Space Station on Crew Dragon Endurance as part of Crew-3 at 02:03 GMT/03:03 CET Thursday 11 November. His ESA mission on board is known as Cosmic Kiss and will see him live and work for approximately six months in orbit. Follow Matthias: https://bit.ly/ESACosmicKiss
** See China’s Shenzou-13 crew conduct ‘routine heatlh checks’ on one another in space – VideoFromSpace
Chinese astronauts Wang Yaping, Ye Guangfu, and Zhai Zhigang, currently serving aboard the Tiangong space station, use a ” multipurpose otoscope to examine each others eyes, ears, and skin,” according to China Central Television. Credit: China Central Television (CCTV)
