S27E127: SpaceX's Triumph, Asteroid Mysteries, and Europa's Ocean Odyssey

[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime Series 27, Episode 127, for broadcast on the 21st of October 2024.

[00:00:07] Coming up on SpaceTime, SpaceX's Starship's amazing fifth test flight, a new study looks at where most meteorites come from, and NASA's Europa Clipper sails towards the Jovian Ice Moon.

[00:00:20] All that and more coming up on SpaceTime.

[00:00:25] Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:44] In what many have described as the most spectacular space engineering event of the year,

[00:00:49] SpaceX has successfully caught its Starship Super Heavy booster following its return to Earth from its climb to space, using a set of mechanical chopsticks on the launch pad tower.

[00:01:00] The booster had blasted off from the same launch pad at SpaceX's star base in Berka Chica, Texas, seven minutes earlier, on what was the fifth Starship test flight.

[00:01:09] Flight directors go for launch. T-minus five, four, three, two, one.

[00:01:17] We have liftoff.

[00:01:18] Vehicles pitching downrange. Booster after chamber pressure nominal.

[00:01:22] 30 seconds into the flight, the brumviles just starting to reach us here at launch control.

[00:01:28] Booster ship, avionics power, telemetry nominal.

[00:01:31] That is the sound of 33 Raptor engines.

[00:01:33] Max Q.

[00:01:34] Now pass through the maximum aerodynamic pressure.

[00:01:38] The most stress the vehicle is going to see on the way uphill.

[00:01:40] Our next major milestone coming up, it's going to be hot staging.

[00:01:43] We're going to see the engines ignite on ship to push it away from the booster.

[00:01:48] First, we're going to see the booster's engines start to shut down all but three.

[00:01:52] We're going to do what's called most engines cut off instead of main engine cut off.

[00:01:56] Because three are going to keep going.

[00:01:58] And then we're going to see the engines on ship ignite.

[00:02:00] Right now, the tower team is doing their go, no, go.

[00:02:04] We're coming up on hot staging next.

[00:02:06] Ship engine start up.

[00:02:07] There's most engines cut off.

[00:02:09] Stage separation.

[00:02:11] Booster.

[00:02:11] Stage separation.

[00:02:12] Hot stage separation confirmed.

[00:02:15] Ship under its own power.

[00:02:17] I'm seeing six out of six.

[00:02:18] Raptors lit.

[00:02:19] The super heavy booster produces some 16.7 million pounds of thrust from its 33 Raptor engines.

[00:02:25] That makes it roughly twice as powerful as the Saturn V rockets used during the Apollo moon missions

[00:02:30] and the SLS or Space Launch System rockets which are being used for the Artemis flights.

[00:02:35] Ship avionics power at some train nominal.

[00:02:38] The booster and the tower are both performing automated checks to make sure we are go for the booster to return to the launch pad for that catch.

[00:02:45] And once those are complete, the flight director.

[00:02:49] And we did hear that the tower is go for catch.

[00:02:54] So that was one of the big criteria we were looking for.

[00:02:57] We'll wait to hear that the go for catch has been sent.

[00:03:01] Following most engine cut off and hot stage separation, the giant core stage returned to Earth, undertaking a boost back burn and then later a landing burn with up to 13 of the 33 Raptor engines,

[00:03:13] helping decelerate the spacecraft from supersonic speeds and generating sonic booms before making a picture perfect controlled landing with a pair of huge mechanical so-called Mechazilla chopsticks reaching out from the launch tower to bring the slowly descending booster to a halt.

[00:03:29] The booster is making its way back to the launch site.

[00:03:33] We are going to try and catch it using the chopsticks on the launch tower, the exact same tower that it just launched from just, wow, five minutes ago.

[00:03:42] Yeah, and the booster.

[00:03:43] Start ship on nominal trajectory.

[00:03:44] Guys, I can confirm the command was sent for the booster to come back.

[00:03:49] That is incredible.

[00:03:49] So I'm looking up right now.

[00:03:51] It's pretty much right overhead of us and we can see it starting to come down.

[00:03:55] I can't wait for us to hear the sonic boom through Dan's mic.

[00:03:59] Right.

[00:04:00] That is going to be incredible.

[00:04:02] It was so cool to hear the lift off.

[00:04:03] And so once again, a successful on time lift off of Starship Flight 5.

[00:04:08] The ship has separated from the booster.

[00:04:10] It is making its way back to the launch site.

[00:04:13] We are going to attempt the catch using the chopsticks.

[00:04:16] We did hear the confirmation that the command was sent to the tower.

[00:04:20] We are go for catch.

[00:04:22] And in order to...

[00:04:22] Guys, we should just be about 30 seconds away from our landing burn.

[00:04:27] It's going to happen in three phases where we land 13 engines, burn off all of that velocity.

[00:04:32] Oh, we can see it coming down through the plume.

[00:04:34] Booster coming in hot for booster catch.

[00:04:37] We're going to ignite 13 of those Raptor engines and how fast this vehicle is moving.

[00:04:44] We're now down to three Raptor engines.

[00:04:47] We can see those chopsticks now.

[00:04:51] We can see those chopsticks now.

[00:04:54] We're losing our stuff over here.

[00:05:20] We're losing our stuff over here.

[00:05:23] I'm sorry.

[00:05:25] Like, even in this day and age, what we just saw, that looked like magic.

[00:05:31] Oh, wow.

[00:05:32] Wow.

[00:05:42] A day for the engineering history books.

[00:05:46] The super heavy booster as it has just been successfully caught back at the very same

[00:05:51] launch tower that it just came from.

[00:05:53] Dan, I love this.

[00:05:55] You are reflecting exactly what everybody else here in Hawthorne, except maybe a little bit

[00:06:00] more because you got to see it with your own eyes.

[00:06:05] We've got it.

[00:06:13] The main engine caught off.

[00:06:15] The ship's in orbit, but I am like shaking right now.

[00:06:20] That was...

[00:06:20] Let's check in on ships.

[00:06:21] It's hard to believe that...

[00:06:23] Surship, nominal orbit insertion.

[00:06:24] Oh, right.

[00:06:25] Exciting news there.

[00:06:26] It's hard to believe that, you know, booster isn't the only excitement that we have today.

[00:06:30] Just confirmation there.

[00:06:31] The ship, and it is now in the orbit that we expected it to.

[00:06:36] This is just an incredible day.

[00:06:38] It has the booster vents, some pressures there.

[00:06:40] This amazing feat, an unprecedented event in space flight history, was just part of the

[00:06:45] highly successful fifth test flight for the 121-meter tall Starship mega rocket, which also

[00:06:50] saw the upper Starship stage enter a nominal suborbit, traveling halfway around the planet

[00:06:56] and then re-entering the Earth's atmosphere belly first, just as planned.

[00:07:00] The belly flop re-entry to Earth's atmosphere was designed to ensure the heat shields were

[00:07:05] taking all the heat during the descent back to Earth.

[00:07:08] Starship is in a good attitude for entry, approaching the entry interface.

[00:07:11] Re-entry will be enabled by that heat shield on the bottom half, made up of 18,000 hexagonal

[00:07:18] ceramic tiles, and they are designed to insulate the vehicle during atmospheric entry.

[00:07:24] At that point in time, temperatures can be as high as 26,000 degrees Fahrenheit or about 1,400 degrees Celsius.

[00:07:31] The design itself also permits for rapid reuse with no refurbishment between the flights.

[00:07:37] The heat shield has been completely reworked.

[00:07:40] The atmosphere remains on a nominal entry trajectory.

[00:07:44] We can start to see that plasma now starting to build up on the side.

[00:07:49] It's not quite full plasma yet, but we are starting to see that color indicate that the heat is building up on the heat shield.

[00:07:57] Yeah, so the ship will attempt to light the three center Raptor engines, and those are the engines that can gimbal or maneuver or point.

[00:08:08] And they do that to help flip the ship until the engines point down so that it can land using the Raptor's thrust in the ocean.

[00:08:17] The flaps actuate a little bit here as the vehicle controls its role during re-entry.

[00:08:23] That was one of the main learning points from Flight 3 was the roll control.

[00:08:28] It didn't work quite as well as we wanted it to.

[00:08:30] We learned that we needed some redundancies, so we added more roll control thrusters,

[00:08:35] and we'll see those in action as that was a Flight 3 learning that worked better on Flight 4

[00:08:40] and still enabling that same design today.

[00:08:44] Starship has passed through 85 kilometers altitude.

[00:08:46] Flaps now have control of the vehicle.

[00:08:48] Great call out, as Kate mentioned. The flaps are controlling the attitude of the vehicle.

[00:08:53] Starship is designed to land on Mars where there are no runways or other humans to help out.

[00:08:58] So we also want rapid reusability.

[00:09:01] So we're doing propulsive landing instead of a more traditional means like parachutes.

[00:09:06] And so we will use the engines on this vehicle to help slow the vehicle down for a vertical landing.

[00:09:12] Yeah. Now, entry is going to basically happen in five phases.

[00:09:16] The first is low drag that lasts for about three minutes.

[00:09:20] Next is high heating, beginning when heating increases above the heat rate break-up limit.

[00:09:26] That lasts for about ten minutes.

[00:09:29] We then have high dynamic pressure.

[00:09:31] Starship will continue to slow down and experience increased aerodynamic loads during that phase.

[00:09:35] And that will happen before reaching Mach 1, about a minute after…

[00:09:39] Starship is approaching the peak heating phase of entry.

[00:09:42] Remains on a nominal trajectory.

[00:09:43] Okay. So that was phase two that he just called out that I was mentioning.

[00:09:47] After peak heating is that dynamic pressure around Mach 1.

[00:09:51] And that will last about a minute after leaving the hypersonic area.

[00:09:55] And then we go into subsonic.

[00:09:57] And then, of course, landing burn.

[00:09:58] Starship is now experiencing peak heating.

[00:10:01] Remains on a nominal entry trajectory.

[00:10:02] We are hoping that all four flaps will stay more intact than they did last time.

[00:10:08] We did make some changes to the design in order to…

[00:10:11] Starship is now halfway through the peak heating phase of entry.

[00:10:14] Remains on a good trajectory.

[00:10:16] A lot better this time.

[00:10:17] Raptor remaining chill has started.

[00:10:18] Now, we heard a call out there saying that engine chill has begun.

[00:10:21] This is an indication that we are starting to flow a little bit of the super cold liquid oxygen through the hardware, through the Raptor engine, specifically the turbo pumps, to help ensure that the hardware is at the right temperature before we give a full push, a full flow of propellant at engine startup.

[00:10:42] So, all of that to say, we are getting closer to the landing burn.

[00:10:46] We're currently at about 63 kilometers from planet Earth.

[00:10:50] We're making a controlled re-entry.

[00:10:52] This is one of the primary objectives for Starship today is to demonstrate another controlled re-entry, even more controlled than what we saw on flight four.

[00:11:01] And so far, that is looking good.

[00:11:03] Starship has passed through the peak heating phase of flight, approaching maximum entry dynamic pressure.

[00:11:08] All right, we're through peak heating.

[00:11:11] Coming up is basically max Q part two.

[00:11:14] We're going to hit kind of that part of the curve where we're still moving really fast and the atmosphere is just dense enough that we're feeling the most pressure.

[00:11:23] But hopefully, we're going to start feeling a little bit less heat now.

[00:11:26] There are two flaps at the forward end and two flaps at the aft end.

[00:11:31] Once again, Starship now at T plus one hour and nine seconds into its flight today, re-entering the Earth's atmosphere.

[00:11:39] Currently about 45 kilometers above the surface of the Earth, now 44.

[00:11:45] We are targeting a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean, northwest-ish of Australia.

[00:11:51] And we are attempting to, as we did on flight four, perform a flip maneuver as well as a-

[00:11:57] Starship is at maximum entry dynamic pressure, remains on a good trajectory.

[00:12:01] So this is the greatest amount of aerodynamic loads that the vehicle will experience during its flight.

[00:12:07] It's coming back through the Earth's atmosphere.

[00:12:09] The atmosphere is actually helping to slow the vehicle down.

[00:12:12] Now, the four flaps on the ship help steer the vehicle.

[00:12:17] And one of the main objectives for the ship today is to demonstrate controlled re-entry during this phase of flight, this re-entry phase.

[00:12:26] And we have six engines on ship, but we only need three of them, the three sea level engines.

[00:12:32] We will have that flip maneuver happen very close to touching down for splashdown.

[00:12:38] We'll do that flip maneuver, ignite those engines, slow the vehicle down immediately, and then hopefully have a, what we call a soft splashdown in the water.

[00:12:48] Then, with less than a kilometer to go before reaching the planet's surface,

[00:12:52] the upper stage maneuvered itself back into a vertical attitude before reigniting its Raptor engines,

[00:12:57] splashing down on target in the eastern Indian Ocean off the Western Australian coast.

[00:13:03] The next call-out that we'll hear is that it is traveling about the speed of sound.

[00:13:06] That will be the call-out that it is transonic.

[00:13:09] And then we will hear another call-out saying that it is subsonic, meaning going slower than the speed of sound.

[00:13:15] Starship is transonic.

[00:13:16] There it is.

[00:13:16] So, at this point in time, we say transonic because certain parts of the vehicle, like the flap,

[00:13:22] might be experiencing airflow faster than the speed of sound, while other parts of the ship may be experiencing airflow.

[00:13:29] Starship is in the subsonic belly flop.

[00:13:31] All right, so now the entire vehicle is traveling slower than the speed of sound.

[00:13:36] So, it's subsonic.

[00:13:38] The crowd here at Mission Control Hawthorne also getting excited just like us.

[00:13:42] We're awaiting a water landing.

[00:13:45] We are going to reignite the three engines to perform that flip maneuver.

[00:13:49] And we're basically about a minute and a half, wow, away from the landing flip.

[00:13:55] We saw that speed drop like a rock.

[00:13:57] So, we're basically, we're doing a belly flip right now, or a belly flop right now.

[00:14:01] That's what's kind of, if you saw the high altitude campaign, that's the unique thing about how Starship comes back.

[00:14:07] So, we've bled off pretty much all of the speed we're going to.

[00:14:10] We're essentially at terminal velocity.

[00:14:12] Starship is at five times altitude, remains on target.

[00:14:15] Five to go, coming up soon, landing burn.

[00:14:18] Starship is on target, approaching landing burn start-up.

[00:14:21] Landing burn start-up.

[00:14:25] Starship has landed.

[00:14:53] No, we hit the target because we had these buoys placed in a pretty specific spot.

[00:14:58] So, wow.

[00:15:00] The only obvious problem during the entire fifth test flight was the vision from the external cameras aboard Starship,

[00:15:07] showing that both the left and right forward fins did appear to overheat during the descent,

[00:15:12] but they still survived long enough to provide a controlled soft landing.

[00:15:15] This mission was an important step in developing Starship for the Artemis III man-moon landing mission slated for 2026.

[00:15:23] During that flight, the Artemis III Orion capsule will rendezvous with a modified version of Starship,

[00:15:29] which will then proceed to carry two Artemis astronauts down to the lunar surface near the Moon's south pole.

[00:15:35] It'll be man's first return to the Moon since 1972, some 54 years earlier.

[00:15:42] Eventually, SpaceX will use Starship as an interplanetary colonial transport,

[00:15:47] carrying up to 100 people or 150 tons of cargo on missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

[00:15:54] This is Space Time.

[00:15:56] Still to come, a new study looks at where most asteroids come from,

[00:16:00] and NASA's Europa Clipper launches on its mission to the Jovian Ice Moon.

[00:16:05] All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:16:23] A new study has found that the most common types of meteorites that reach the Earth

[00:16:28] originate from just three major asteroid breakup events.

[00:16:32] The findings are detailed in three separate papers,

[00:16:35] one in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, and two others in the journal Nature.

[00:16:40] They're based on data showing that 70% of all known meteorite falls

[00:16:44] originate from three young asteroid families,

[00:16:47] Carin, Coronas and Massalia,

[00:16:49] which were produced by recent collisions that occurred in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter,

[00:16:55] 5.8, 7.5 and roughly 40 million years ago.

[00:17:00] In particular, the Massalia family has now been identified as the source of 37% of all known meteorites.

[00:17:07] The authors were also able to confirm the sources of other types of meteorites,

[00:17:11] allowing them to basically tick off the origins of more than 90% of meteors which reach the Earth's surface.

[00:17:17] While more than 70,000 meteorites are known to have reached the Earth,

[00:17:22] previously only 6% had been identified by their composition,

[00:17:25] and they're known as the chondrites, coming either from the Moon, Mars or Vesta,

[00:17:30] the largest asteroid in the main belt other than Ceres.

[00:17:33] The source of the other 94% of meteorites, the majority of which are ordinary chondrites,

[00:17:39] that is meteorites containing silicates representing approximately 80% of all known meteorites,

[00:17:44] had remained unidentified until now.

[00:17:47] The new discoveries were made possible thanks to telescopic surveys

[00:17:51] analysing the compositions of all major asteroid families in the main asteroid belt.

[00:17:56] This was then combined with computer simulations of the collisional and dynamical evolution of these major families

[00:18:02] in order to determine their trajectories.

[00:18:05] Of course, the origins of the remaining 10% of all known meteorites is still unknown.

[00:18:11] To remedy this, the authors plan to continue their research,

[00:18:14] this time focusing on categorising all young families that were formed less than 50 million years ago.

[00:18:21] This is space-time.

[00:18:23] Still to come, NASA's Europa Clipper mission set sail for the Jovian Ice Moon

[00:18:27] and later in the Science report.

[00:18:29] A new study has found that high temperatures and air pollution are driving an increase in stroke cases.

[00:18:35] All that and more still to come on Space Time.

[00:18:54] NASA's Europa Clipper mission has embarked on its long voyage to the Jovian Ice Moon

[00:18:59] and its global subsurface liquid water ocean, where it will investigate whether life could exist there.

[00:19:05] The Galilean moon Europa is about the same size as the Earth's moon,

[00:19:09] but it contains twice as much water as all the Earth's oceans combined.

[00:19:14] The 5,900kg spacecraft was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket

[00:19:19] from Space Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

[00:19:23] The flight had been delayed several days because of Hurricane Milton.

[00:19:26] The Falcon Heavy comprises three Falcon 9 core stages strapped side by side,

[00:19:33] and this provided the extra power needed

[00:19:35] because Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft ever built by NASA for a planetary mission.

[00:19:40] The probe will travel some 2.9 billion kilometres

[00:19:43] on a trajectory that will leverage the power of two gravity assists,

[00:19:47] the first to Mars in four months' time

[00:19:49] and then back to the Earth for another gravity assist flyby in 2026.

[00:19:54] About an hour after the launch, Europa Clipper separated from the upper stage of its Falcon 9 rocket

[00:19:59] and ground control received a signal establishing two-way communications

[00:20:03] through NASA's Deep Space Communications facility near Canberra.

[00:20:07] So just after an hour after the Europa Clipper launched,

[00:20:10] it comes up over the western horizon here in Australia.

[00:20:14] So as part of the Deep Space Network and the three stations around the planet,

[00:20:17] it comes up over us first.

[00:20:19] So shortly after it separated from the launch vehicle,

[00:20:23] we were able to then make direct contact with the spacecraft

[00:20:25] and form mission control that they had a spacecraft operational

[00:20:28] and able to do two-way communication

[00:20:31] and to be able to relay any commands to the spacecraft

[00:20:33] that they wanted to do in this early phase of its cruise to Europa.

[00:20:37] And that's a six-year cruise

[00:20:39] and it's coming back to Earth for a gravity assist that's also visiting Mars.

[00:20:42] Yeah, so two flybys.

[00:20:44] So to conserve fuel for this very large spacecraft,

[00:20:46] in fact, the largest interplanetary mission that NASA has ever built,

[00:20:50] the spacecraft will need a gravity assist from Mars in February next year.

[00:20:55] And about 11 months after that, it will get a gravity assist of the Earth

[00:21:00] and then that will slingshot it out on its trajectory towards Jupiter,

[00:21:03] arriving there in April of 2030.

[00:21:06] It must be a busy time for the Deep Space Communications Complex in Canberra right now.

[00:21:10] Yeah, well, there are already over 40 missions representing 27 nations around the world.

[00:21:15] There seems to be a new mission launching every other day at the moment.

[00:21:18] So Europa Clipper is sort of the latest of those spacecraft.

[00:21:21] We have so much more coming up with missions from Japan

[00:21:24] and from the European Space Agency

[00:21:26] all heading out to different locations across the solar system.

[00:21:29] And even looking forward to in future years New Zealand's Rocket Lab company

[00:21:33] who's now announced that they're going to send a mission to Venus.

[00:21:36] And of course, listeners can follow on what's happening with Europa Clipper

[00:21:39] with the Eyes on the Solar System website.

[00:21:41] Yeah, this is a great website that NASA produces.

[00:21:43] It's part of a whole suite of Eyes programs

[00:21:45] where you can actually find out about where all our spacecraft are across the solar system

[00:21:50] and see that happening in real time.

[00:21:52] So if we send a command to the spacecraft,

[00:21:54] you'll actually see a model of the spacecraft on your screen do that manoeuvre.

[00:21:58] So if you want to watch the flyby of Mars and Earth and its arrival at Jupiter,

[00:22:03] you can actually watch that entire journey just by using Eyes on the Solar System.

[00:22:07] That's Glenn Nagel from NASA's Deep Space Communications Complex near Canberra.

[00:22:13] After Europa Clipper arrives at Jupiter in April 2030,

[00:22:16] the spacecraft will undertake 49 highly elliptical orbits of the Moon,

[00:22:21] swooping close to the Ice Moon's surface

[00:22:23] before quickly heading back out into deep space

[00:22:25] in order to avoid as much of Jupiter's toxic radiation zones as possible.

[00:22:30] NASA's Associate Administrator Nikki Fox says the Europa Clipper mission

[00:22:34] will deliver new science for generations to come.

[00:22:38] Fox says everything in NASA science is interconnected

[00:22:40] and Europa Clipper's scientific discoveries

[00:22:42] will build upon the legacy of America's other missions exploring Jupiter,

[00:22:47] including Voyager, Galileo and Juno,

[00:22:49] which is continuing its mission in the present day.

[00:22:52] Europa Clipper's three main scientific objectives are to determine the thickness of the Moon's icy shell

[00:22:58] and its interactions with the ocean below,

[00:23:00] to investigate its composition and to characterize its geology,

[00:23:04] to determine if the Moon Europa has conditions that could support life.

[00:23:08] Data gathered by NASA's Galileo mission during the 1990s showed strong evidence

[00:23:13] that under Europa's ice sheets lies an enormous salty liquid water ocean.

[00:23:19] And scientists also found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds

[00:23:23] and energy sources under its surface.

[00:23:26] Now, if the mission determines that Europa is habitable,

[00:23:29] it may mean there are more habitable worlds, not just in our solar system, but also beyond.

[00:23:34] In 2031, the spacecraft will begin conducting its science-dedicated flybys of Europa.

[00:23:40] Swooping down as close as 25 kilometres above the icy crust,

[00:23:44] Europa Clipper is equipped with nine scientific instruments and a gravity experiment.

[00:23:49] Included are ice-penetrating radars, specialised cameras, spectrographs

[00:23:53] and a thermal instrument to look for areas of warmer ice and any recent eruptions of water.

[00:23:59] There is growing evidence that geysers,

[00:24:02] ejecting water from deep below the ice sheet, might be present.

[00:24:06] As the most sophisticated suite of scientific instruments NASA has ever sent to Jupiter,

[00:24:11] they'll work in concert to learn more about the Moon's icy shell,

[00:24:14] its thin atmosphere and its deep interior.

[00:24:17] To power those instruments in the faint sunlight that reaches Jupiter,

[00:24:21] Europa Clipper also carries the largest solar arrays

[00:24:24] NASA has ever used for an interplanetary mission.

[00:24:27] Fully extended, the spacecraft and its solar arrays

[00:24:30] extends more than 30 metres end-to-end.

[00:24:34] This is Space Time.

[00:24:51] And time now to take a brief look at some of the other stories

[00:24:54] making news in science this week with a science report.

[00:24:57] Scientists have found that high temperatures and air pollution

[00:25:00] are driving an increase in stroke cases.

[00:25:03] Although stroke is highly preventable and treatable,

[00:25:06] there's been a rapid rise in global stroke burden over the last 30 years.

[00:25:10] Globally, the number of people having a new stroke rose by 70% since 1990.

[00:25:17] Stroke survivors have risen by 86%

[00:25:19] and stroke-related deaths have risen by 44%,

[00:25:22] making this condition the third leading cause of death worldwide.

[00:25:26] A report in the Lancet Medical Journal claims the jumps due to a combination of factors,

[00:25:32] ranging from a growing global population to air pollution and higher temperatures.

[00:25:36] For example, the authors noted that the impact of high temperatures on poor health and early death due to stroke

[00:25:42] has risen by 72% since 1990,

[00:25:46] a trend that's likely to continue to increase in the future.

[00:25:50] A new study warns that the H5N1 bird flu virus is mainly spreading in the United States through dairy cows

[00:25:57] and it's through the process of milking them rather than respiratory spread.

[00:26:01] Researchers used a bird flu strain currently circulating among US cattle to infect six calves by way of the nose and mouth.

[00:26:08] They also infected six lactating calves by way of their udders,

[00:26:13] three with the same US strain and three with the strain circulating in Europe.

[00:26:16] The calves had mild respiratory symptoms and didn't transfer it to others,

[00:26:20] while the lactating cows with either strain had severe udder infections

[00:26:24] and high levels of virus in their milk for several days.

[00:26:28] But no evidence of infection in other organs such as the respiratory tract.

[00:26:32] The findings reported in the journal Nature also suggest that other strains of bird flu

[00:26:37] also have the potential to replicate in cows udders.

[00:26:41] Well, it seems your life satisfaction in adulthood could well be influenced by your relationships as a teenager.

[00:26:48] A new report in the journal Frontiers in Developmental Psychology surveyed 180 four teens attending an American middle school at ages 13 and 14,

[00:26:57] then again at 17 and 18, looking at the quality of their close friendships,

[00:27:01] their perceived social acceptance and their likability as reported by their peers.

[00:27:06] The researchers then caught up with these participants as adults when they were aged 28 to 30

[00:27:11] in order to ask about their physical and mental health, their job satisfaction, their romantic insecurities, if any,

[00:27:17] and their experience of aggression.

[00:27:19] They found that self-perception was especially important, with teens who thought their peers like them,

[00:27:25] reporting far lower levels of social anxiety and aggression, better physical health, professional and romantic satisfaction,

[00:27:31] and feeling more socially connected as adults.

[00:27:34] Overall, the authors say that for the promotion of future wellbeing,

[00:27:38] general social acceptance was more important for teenagers aged 13 and 14,

[00:27:43] while 17 and 18 year olds needed a close circle of good friends.

[00:27:48] The Western Australian branch of the Cancer Council has been nominated for the 2024 Bent Spoon Award

[00:27:54] for their promotion of pseudoscience therapies based on Reiki and reflexology.

[00:27:59] The Bent Spoon Award is the highlight of the Australian Skeptics' annual Skepticon Conference.

[00:28:04] It's presented to the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal pseudoscientific piffle.

[00:28:10] Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics says neither Reiki nor reflexology have any medical benefit,

[00:28:16] and detailed scientific research have proven both are useless from a medical point of view.

[00:28:21] Yeah, it's very sad actually. The Cancer Council is a very impressive charity. It does a lot of good work, etc.

[00:28:26] But the trouble is what they're offering in Western Australia, and it seems to be only in Western Australia,

[00:28:30] the Western Australian branch of the Cancer Council, is offering therapies to cancer patients.

[00:28:36] Not just advice on where to go, they're actually offering these things,

[00:28:38] and they're using people from outside obviously to give various therapies.

[00:28:42] So one of them is a beauty therapy, get your hair done, etc. That sort of stuff, make up, make you feel good.

[00:28:47] Massage, make you feel good, etc.

[00:28:48] And then they're also throwing in Reiki and reflexology.

[00:28:51] Now Reiki is a form of energy medicine, which is a red flag straight away,

[00:28:56] and it's supposedly wafting your hands over someone and rebalancing the energy in their body.

[00:29:00] And it's junk. It is pseudoscience.

[00:29:02] There's absolutely no mechanism or reason to suggest it works.

[00:29:06] Reflexology is about massaging parts of your foot, which supposedly link to other organs in your body.

[00:29:11] And you say this will affect your heart, this will affect your brain, your kidney, whatever.

[00:29:15] So neither of those have any scientific basis.

[00:29:18] Pseudoscience, pseudoscience.

[00:29:19] But the reasons given by the WA Cancer Council is that it will make people feel good.

[00:29:24] So they almost admit that there's no scientific value.

[00:29:27] The New South Wales branch of the Cancer Council says specifically there is no scientific value in here.

[00:29:33] It doesn't work.

[00:29:34] So the Cancer Council, which might be well-meaning in saying it can help you when you feel good,

[00:29:39] is also endorsing a total pseudoscience,

[00:29:42] which might encourage patients to move away from their pretty horrible treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy,

[00:29:48] stuff like that, which is not pleasant, and move into something which feels good,

[00:29:51] but is not going to help you in your treatments.

[00:29:53] And if it takes it away from treatments that do work, then it's a dangerous thing.

[00:29:57] So the WA Cancer Council is endorsing a dangerous thing.

[00:30:00] And that's what our concern was.

[00:30:01] So who else has been nominated?

[00:30:03] We do have some media who are promoting a laser treatment for autism, which is shonky.

[00:30:08] We have a journalist, Ross Coulthard, who actually won last year for his promotion of UFOs.

[00:30:13] He's back doing it again, interviewing Uri Geller and various people.

[00:30:16] There's a pharmaceutical company that are promoting, as opposed to be a vitamin thing, full of sugar.

[00:30:21] There's a hell of a lot of sugar in these things.

[00:30:23] So there's another journalist named Marianne DeMarcy, who's been promoting conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccination.

[00:30:30] A bit of a media watch in a lot of them, because of media people who are promoting these ideas.

[00:30:34] There's some practitioners as well, a psychic using basically what's called a spirit box, which is a radio scanner, flipping through radio channels and saying,

[00:30:41] yeah, I hear voices.

[00:30:42] They're saying things.

[00:30:42] No, no, you're picking up static and tiny fractions of speech and things.

[00:30:46] You're trying to find messages.

[00:30:47] So there's a whole range of people.

[00:30:48] But yes, the Spence Boone is going to be announced at the Skeptic Convention.

[00:30:52] It's our annual convention.

[00:30:54] This is Skepticon.

[00:30:55] In fact, it's Skepticon XL, which is our 40th convention.

[00:30:58] We've had every year in a row.

[00:31:00] So I don't think any other skeptical group have done that.

[00:31:02] It all domains around the country this year.

[00:31:04] It's on November 23 to 24, that's the weekend, at the University of Technology in Sydney.

[00:31:09] And we cover a gamut of topics, everything from classic skeptical topics through to issues of medicine, science, law, responsibility, miscommunication,

[00:31:19] understanding issues that people face when they're facing up to the media or whatever,

[00:31:23] and representatives of the media talking about how skeptic and the public can understand what's going on.

[00:31:28] And we've got some key speakers like Dr. Carl Kuzilecki, which is probably known to a lot of your Australian listeners.

[00:31:33] I know, Dr. Carl is great.

[00:31:35] Hello, Dr. Carl, if you're listening.

[00:31:36] Robin Williams is also on there.

[00:31:39] Just as good.

[00:31:40] Always wish I had a radio voice like Robin does.

[00:31:42] Yes, I know.

[00:31:43] And he's always supposed to be interviewed by.

[00:31:46] Very comfy and calming.

[00:31:47] Oh, he's a lovely man.

[00:31:48] But yes, everything else you can think of from a wide range,

[00:31:51] from people who are proponents of UFOs and unknown animals to people who are skeptical of those things.

[00:31:56] Do you think it's an uphill battle when you look at statistics like 25% of people still believe in astrology

[00:32:04] and almost as many aren't sure but are willing to dabble in it?

[00:32:08] It always has been difficult actually for the last 40 odd years for the skeptics in Australia.

[00:32:12] It's an uphill battle at times and at times you sort of make a few one step forward, two steps back, three steps sideways.

[00:32:17] The issue for us is that we are there to provide an alternative.

[00:32:21] We would suggest is the truth, but an alternative explanation for a lot of things that intrigue or confuse people.

[00:32:27] And therefore we find that those people who are sort of leaning towards might be interested in hearing what we would suggest as the real story,

[00:32:34] behind the misinformation and disinformation.

[00:32:36] The purveyors of that sort of stuff are hard to convince.

[00:32:39] They're sort of committed and they might have their own motivations for continuing with their claims.

[00:32:44] We have a website called Skepticon.

[00:32:50] That's Tim Mindham from Australian Skeptics.

[00:32:54] And that's the show for now.

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[00:34:36] You've been listening to Spacetime with Stuart Gary.

[00:34:39] This has been another quality podcast production from Bytes.com.