Other environmental topics visit our home planet and stuff but. That technology credit union our mobile app is available everywhere your family needs us young did you tell taxi you will be traveling I just notified a. Did you make your car payment a mother and how long do you. If you find an a.t.m. There is one out block away from the hotel in Rolodex see you savings reward promotion and earn up to $1000.00 go to Texas dot com slash save more. Options that can be accessed from anywhere on your schedule a s c one line includes an entire team of professors and advisors dedicated to helping you discover your own path and create your own opportunities unlock your potential today with Arizona State University online and learn more about Arizona State University degrees offered 100 percent online tech school 266597 that's as c h l o l 266597 this is w b h b Huntsville w h o s Decatur and w d r m f m h d to Decatur and i Heart Radio station. More backpedaling by the president's acting chief of staff I'm Pam who sailed Fox News there was no quid pro quo that's the assertion being made by Mick Mulvaney when it comes to military aid to Ukraine Fox says Colonel Scott has more lives and Pam on Fox News Sunday Mulvaney reiterated why he said the aid was being withheld the 1st was what he called rampant corruption in Ukraine corruption's a big deal everybody knows that the president was also concerned about whether or not other nations specifically European nations were helping with foreign aid to the Ukraine is what the accusation of delaying aid has come mostly from Democrats who say the president wanted an investigation of Joe Biden and his son well then he says the main reason there was no quid pro quo aid slowed the confusion came after Mulvaney White House briefing on Thursday after which a Justice Department official says he knew of no link between the aide and the investigation Pam thanks Cornell both sides digging in over the most recent dust up between President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week a video that went viral showed the speaker. Or pointing a finger at the president during an explosive meeting at the White House I've been in many of these meetings this is a pattern of the speaker when she doesn't want to come to a solution she really is unbecoming of a speaker throws a fit and then leaves the room that's not a sign of a leader a leader stays in the room and solves the problem House minority leader Kevin McCarthy on Fox's Sunday morning Futurist Palosi like in the president's behavior to a meltdown a developing story out of Fort Stewart in Georgia Fox News confirming 3 u.s. Soldiers were killed and 3 others were hurt during a training accident this morning involving a Bradley fighting vehicle the commanding general of the 3rd Infantry Division says today is a heartbreaking day we are extremely sad and America is listening to. That technology credit union our mobile app is available everywhere your family needs us job did you tell taxi you will be traveling I just notified a magazine. Did you make your car payment a minor and I want to. Thank you 5. There is no luckily. In Rolodex e.u. Savings reward promotion or not a $1000.00 go to Texas dot com slash save more. Patrick was way behind on his arrest taxes I was and way over my head at the total amount and it up and some were just over 30000 dollars 30000 dollars then the i.r.s. Came to collect started getting letter after letter Alina been filed against me and they were going to basically like hang it completely out to dry he had to do something that's when I reached out to optimum tax relief Patrick's life quickly got a lot easier it was very easy pretty much hands off you know they picked up the ball and ran with it and how to go I couldn't believe it I had to ask like 2 or 3 times I saved an incredible amount of money how does Patrick feel about Optima couldn't be happier they definitely help me Optimate Actually it's the best place to call their the best in the business do what Patrick did and call Optima tax relief for a free consultation call $870959668709596623536128.00 Optimate. Free. Discover something new on the i Heart. Streaming free and exclusively on i Heart Radio now it's stuff to blow your mind. After. The stuff to blow your mind My name is Robert Lamb and I'm just making today we've got a very special episode there we're doing a partnership with National Geographic Yeah so they've got a new show coming out called one strange rock and it is produced by darn near enough. It's all about the science of planet Earth and the sort of intricate interconnected processes both geological and biological that keep the earth stable as a sanctuary for life as we know it and so because of our partnership with National Geographic for this episode we got an opportunity to talk to one of the astronauts on the show Dr Jeff Hoffman who flew 5 space shuttle missions including a Hubble Space Telescope repair mission and this is a great interview we're just delighted to share with everybody yeah Dr often is very knowledgeable from multiple vantage points about the thing that we're going to be focusing on today which is the radiation risk from space and how Earth protects us and he's knowledgeable in a couple of different domains because he's done higher energy astrophysics and knows all about the radiation environment of our solar system and the universe at large but he also has a direct experience of what it's like to be an astronaut out in space to sort of go beyond our protective barriers and that kind of perspective is kind of hard to come by because I would say one thing it's really easy to lose sight of in your day to day life when you're reading about politics or playing with your dog or making some dinner is that your body is made of molecules and in order for molecules in your body to do what they do they have to remain what they are and most of the time the internal chemistry of our bodies is pretty stable right but we have to recognize that the chemical stability of our bodies is an enormous and unique privilege provided to us by virtue of the fact that we live on planet Earth and this we get into a truth that we touch on a quite a bit on the show and that is that Earth is just the right planet yet for life as we know it kind of unsurprising of course being creatures that evolved on planet Earth that Planet Earth is just the right planet for us but despite realising the kind of anthropic obviousness of that fact it is still a kind of strange and comforting feeling well wait a minute is it comforting or is it discomforting the fact that. Most of the universe is going to be so hostile to us so unbelievably hostile so incredibly violent that it's just impossible to even consider and I'm not even talking about the vaporizing heat of stars of the cold airless void of deep space I'm talking about the fact that the universe is an acid bath of killer radiation including ionizing radiation which often takes the form of these high energy charged particles that blasts through animal bodies damaging and changing the molecules within them as they go along and even changing the d.n.a. Of our cells altering the blueprints for cell replication and bringing about tissue damage sterility and cancer and so that body integrity in chemical stability we so take for granted to keep living is only possible because of the planet we inhabit which shields us from being blasted by the sun near by and by the galaxy at large Yeah it's interesting to think about this that we we are creatures of the shallows So life is we know it essentially thrives in a tide pool protected from the full onslaught of winded way you know if you've ever been to a to a number of beach environments you seen those areas right where where where the waves are crashing but then but there's this pool this this area of calm water that is protected from all of that yeah and that's where a lot of life can thrive that otherwise would not be able to bear the hostilities Beyond the Rocks Exactly and it actually reminds me of this quote by John Steinbeck and he's not directly talking about what we're talking about here but the comparison is is just beautiful he he wrote the knowledge that all things are one thing and that one thing is all things plankton a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planets and an expanding universe all bound together by the elastic string of time it is advisable to look from the tide Hul to the stars. And then back to the tide pool again yeah earth is protected not from wind and waves but from the full blast of solar and cosmic radiation instead of rocky sea walls were protected by a robust atmosphere and most importantly the magnetics fear Yeah the interesting other side to the fact we've got this kind of connected consciousness that we're aware of like there is no real division between the Earth and the heavens they're just different places the only real division is distance and so all the universe really is connected and does have a common origin in the Big Bang but at the same time that connectedness. We use the word connected in such a happy way it's like nice to be connected to things but you can also think about that as extreme vulnerability like you are right next door to everything in the universe that would crush in a nihilist you and what we've got standing in the way of those those crushing annihilating forces beyond our power to control is essentially a big magnetic field and a thin layer of gas around the rocky surface of the planet that's right so basically what we have going on here is your Earth solid inner core and liquid outer core they play a crucial role in protecting life as we know it from deadly deadly radiation differences in temperature and composition in the 2 core regions drive a powerful dynamo emitting Earth project protective electromagnetic field Yeah and remember this is one of the key factors we have to consider in proposed interplanetary space travel and establishing stations on other worlds the only planets in our solar system with some form of magnetosphere in place or Mercury Earth Jupiter Saturn Uranus and Neptune right so then of course you've also on the surface of the earth got the atmosphere to count on because that means that there's more stuff that radiation has to get through to get to you and so the atmosphere will block some kinds of incoming radiation but the other big protector is the magnetosphere that keeps these particles directed away from the earth some of course still get through right and also the magnetic fear serves. To protect the atmosphere as well yes because if you don't have a magnetic fear your atmosphere over time can be stripped away which is one of the things that they think probably happened to Mars long ago right so it's our protective barrier against the elements it's our battlements and the only humans who have walked of these battlements are astronaut's such as Dr Jeff Hoffman now most astronauts never even go beyond the shield that protects us right we know that astronauts in space are exposed to extra levels of radiation and that's one reason you want to limit your time in space you like you can't go live in the I s s forever they want to bring you back eventually because the more time you spend up there the more you're exposed to the Stayner as radiation that could harm you in the long run but even up in the I assess you're still you're still benefiting from a large part of the Earth's protective shield right yes it gets a lot worse if you want to go to the moon right to Mars or colonize another planet you have because then you are going beyond Earth protection so I guess we want to go now to our conversation with Dr Jeff Hoffman to talk about the radiation risks posed by the universe and what astronauts have done and can do to protect themselves but 1st I guess we should give you just a little bit of background on Dr Hoffman Yeah so his original research interests were in high energy astrophysics specifically cosmic gamma radiation x. Ray astronomy and in his doctoral work at Harvard entailed balloon borne low energy gamma ray telescopes and design and then the testing of this technology from 172-2175 during post-doctoral work at Leicester University he worked on several x. Ray astronomy rocket payloads and he worked in the center for space research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 10752178 as project scientist in charge of the orbiting h.e.l.o. One a for a hard x. Ray and gamma ray experiment which launched in August 1907 but in $78.00 he was selected to become an astronaut and he went on a total of 5. Different shuttle flights so in 85 you went on on and discovery 990 on Columbia 92 on it Lantus 93 on Endeavor and then in 1906 on Columbia all told 1211 hours in space 21500000 miles that's a lot of miles yeah frequent flyer Yeah so he is a not only a pedigreed scientist a pedigreed astronaut 5 shuttle flights that's impressive That's 5 more. The vast majority of human beings are and we're going to take a quick break and when we come back we will be heading straight into our interview with Dr Jeff Hoffman. The technology credit union our mobile app is specifically made to keep up with the modern family. I lost my credit card would be a good thing. To work for and that's all how I just want to Purcell can we afford it. Let me be your Rolodex see you Cities reward promotion and earn up to 1000 dollars go to Texas dot com slash save more is own a state university offers over 200 highly ranked degree programs 100 percent online to learn the same degree as you would on campus from wherever you are on your schedule on line except most transfer credits for information tech school to 355.7 learn for yourself why The Wall Street Journal ranks 5th in the nation for producing the best qualified graduates and why 88 percent of a.s.u. Grads are recruited within 90 days of graduation learn to grow learn to succeed and learn to thrive at Arizona State University to learn more about a.s.e. One line degrees tech school 2355.7 That's s c h o l 235517 welcomed as it polled USA attack of the drones additional . You're listening to one of the best podcasts on the i Heart Radio at On w b h b i Heart Radio be a podcast player i Heart Radio and with thousands upon guests all of history. You are listening to all the best podcasts now on your radio now it's stuff to blow your mind on the i Heart pod cast channel exclusively and I hire radio. A doctor often welcome to the show we're really glad to have you well nice to be here looking forward to it I was wondering if you could start off by telling us a little bit about your research from before you became an astronaut what made you interested in high energy astrophysics and what were your pursuits in that field Well I grew up with an interest in space I lived in or near New York City my dad used to take me to the planetarium to see the new so every month. I saw the birth of the space age you know I was alive when Sputnik was 1st launched Yuri Gagarin and John Glenn flew and. I was also interested in human spaceflight although it was a parent to me that all the early astronauts were military test pilots and that was not a career for me but space in general I was fascinated with it and went on to become a an astronomer I got a doctorate and after physics at Harvard. And I was attracted by. What we call high energy astrophysics it was a totally new field at the time. The discovery of x. Rays from. Less gel objects and gamma rays and it was a new branch of astronomy opening up just like radio astronomy opened up back in the 1930 s. And. That struck me as being. An area where we were almost bound to make new discoveries because we had never looked at this type of radiation before so my. Professional career as an astronomer consisted in designing x. Ray telescopes and then putting them into space 1st with I was using high altitude balloons when I did my Ph d. Thesis and then. I spent 3 and a half years at Leicester University in England and we had both sounding rocket experiments where we would put our telescopes up above the atmosphere you have to go by the atmosphere because x. Rays and gamma rays are absorbed in the atmosphere which is a good thing for us here on the ground but it makes life difficult for us trying to Mars because you have to go above the atmosphere to to see this radiation then and that was kind of cool as well because I was always interested in space and rockets and so. I was combining the technological interest with what I thought was a very exciting scientific field and then I came back to mit and we had actually our own x. Ray satellite and the most exciting research that I was doing we discovered these things called x. Ray bursts you look at an extraneous object giving out Llewellyn a very low level of radiation fairly consul in and then all of a sudden you know Pam it increases by hundreds and hundreds of times and then gradually fades away over the course of anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes and we discovered lots of phase and this is a completely new phenomenon and. It was probably the most exciting thing that I did scientifically was finally figure out what was what was causing Nazeer was actually neutron stars. Orbiting around regular stars and the gravitation of the neutron star was such that it would suck hydrogen off the regular star in the hydrogen would accumulate in a layer on the surface of the neutron star and then eventually the whole thing would detonate and then in a huge storm a nuclear explosion so all we were looking at were hydrogen bombs you know 10 miles in diameter you know it's face spectacular stuff so that was really exciting and I was all set for a. Career as an astronomer and but at that was now in the mid to late seventy's when NASA was getting ready to fly what was then the brand new space shuttle and the neat thing about the space shuttle from my point of view was that it had a crew of 7 but they only needed 2 pilots the planets were still going to be military test pilots but it really opened things up for engineers scientists and medical doctors and when NASA put out a call for for astronauts for the space shuttle and indicated that yes they really did want scientists and engineers and doctors. And I thought well I'll apply and I was lucky enough to get selected the 1st time around so that they sickly was the end of my career and astronomy research and I had a. You know I'd say it was quite successful and and had I not been selected I would hope I would have had a good career as a research as a physicist but. Getting selected by NASA as an astronaut certainly changed my life interesting before we ask you about a little bit of your. Space flight experience I just wondered does research into high energy astrophysics like if you're looking at neutron stars and bursts of x. Rays and gamma rays and stuff in the universe does that change the way you feel about the sky when you look at it and most people look up and see twinkling sky stars and the feels kind of nice and cool and calm do you do you envision the universe emotionally as one full of radiation and danger and high energy. Oh absolutely I mean you know when you look up just a simple look up at the stars everything looks pretty constant and unvarying and when you realize that there's things exploding and going off all over the place that tremendous areas of high gravitation high magnetic fields charged particles. The universe is a pretty violent place. And you don't see it with your naked eye but. Modern astronomy has as opened as up to us Dr Hofman can you tell us about some of your spaceflight experience so what was the Hubble service mission like well let me let me start a little bit further back with my 1st spaceflight because. That of course for any astronaut is an exciting moment when you get the call from management and they say Oh you've been if you've got an assignment your 1st spaceflight. We were supposed to take up 2 satellites and put them into orbit another is popping out of the cargo bay of the Shuttle which was what the shuttle was doing in the early days and then come home it was going to be a short relatively short mission 4 days or so. And. As it turned out the 2nd of the 2 satellites that we popped out of the shuttle didn't turn on you know had nothing to do with us all we were supposed to do was. It was get out of the shuttle into orbit but when when we reported that it did not seem to have activated NASA went into a whole big study mode and they figured out the there was only one single point failure that we could possibly do something about there's a little switch on the outside of the satellite that maybe had gotten stuck and so they scheduled for the 1st time in NASA history an unplanned spacewalk where my partner and I went out see I had been trained to use spacesuits but we weren't planning to do a space walk on my 1st flight but they sent us out to fix it and. So that was a. Totally unexpected and incredible experience you know getting to go out and do a spacewalk which you know if all astronauts would like to go out it's the most intimate experience that you can have of being in space is actually putting on a space suit and going out of the airlock and it's you know kind of you face to face with the rest of the universe it's an incredible experience and we did a good job and so. I got identified as as somebody who is good at space walking and I worked on a lot of advanced spacesuit development in various things and then when it came time to. Select a crew to go up and try to repair the Hubble telescope and of course nowadays people who weren't alive at the time when Hubble was put in orbit don't don't really appreciate what a disaster it was for NASA I mean this 1000000000 and a half dollar telescope which had been launched with great expectations about how was going to revolutionize our view of the universe and then to find out that it couldn't focus properly I mean how could NASA make our huge mistake like I was what everybody was was asking and and it was actually. Critical I mean and as I say people don't remember what it disaster it was but NASA and Hubble were the joke of late night comedians. Hubble was denounced in the halls of the u.s. Congress as a techno Turkey NASA was trying to get Congress to approve funding for the International Space Station at the time and as you can imagine NASA wasn't very popular with Congress so. Basically they were told you know go do something about Hubble and then come back and talk to us about the space station in any case NASA wanted to do everything possible to reduce the risk of failure in this rescue mission and one of the things that they decided was that only people who had previously done space walks would be eligible to do the spacewalks for the Hubble rescue and because of this one planned spacewalk that I did way back on my 1st flight. And I had 2 subsequent flights in stand So Hubble for me was my 4th flight and I had my space walkers union card so I guess I was fortunate enough to be on the crew and I was certainly of all the things I did as an astronaut the one with the most lasting impact was obviously rescuing Hubble and turning it from basically Nasa's worst disaster. Scientifically to its most successful and productive scientific mission ever so it was a and and of course as a former astronomer as well as being an astronaut being able to put my 2 hands on the Hubble telescope up in orbit was I mean it was the thrill of a lifetime and we fixed it and a great thing you did well I I I know that many of my past from our astronomy colleagues after the mission they would come I can't tell you how many people would come up to me is out Jeff thank you so much because you know my my professional career was depending on s.n. All I could say was well. It was a pleasure you know thank you it was a pleasure it really was so you mentioned that when you were out on space walks in Evie a that you had this kind of intimate experience with the universe it was like putting you face to face with the outer universe and I wonder about some things so there was a sigh finally read a couple years ago where a character is born in live their whole life in simulated environments inside a generation's starship and she finally one point comes back to Earth late in life in she's outside in discussing the idea of getting sunburned and she's so unfamiliar with the concept of earth in the sun that she calls this she's horrified and she calls this getting burned by radiation from a star I wonder is there a moment in space where you know outside vehicle activity where you begin to think of the sun not as the sun but as a star and other kinds of a alienation f.x. You know absolutely I mean this is something I when I give public talks I often show a picture of the sun in space and then I asked the audience there's something very strange about this picture can you figure out what it is and most people don't quite get it but what you're seeing is the sun in a black sky and think about it you've never seen the sun in a black sky because every time the weather is clear you go out and of course our atmosphere scatters the blue light preferentially And so the sky is blue and so every human being throughout human history until the Space Age has only seen the sun in a blue sky we see the stars in a black sky because there's not enough light really from the stars to be scattered and make the sky look blue but not the sun but in space you really see the sun as a star in a black sky. Course it's because it's bigger and brighter than any other stars because it's close to us but yeah you really do appreciate the sun as a star and that that that was something I didn't have to go out in and just looking out the window of the shuttle you you get that appreciation but it's a totally different perspective as are so many other things that you see I mean that's one of the things about being off the surface of the earth is that you look with a totally new perspective just like most people don't remember the 1st time never flew in an airplane but if you if you pay attention and look out the window you also get a totally new perspective on the on the earth although most people don't bother to look out the window these days but for face we spent a lot of time looking out the windows and I never got tired of it it was a completely. Different perspective not only on the earth but on on the Heavens it was great flying during the nighttime you know we'd start we didn't or darkness in the northern hemisphere and you could look up and see all the familiar northern constellations the Cygnus the Swan Which is the Northern Cross and then 15 minutes later you'd be in the southern hemisphere and see Alpha Centauri and the Southern Cross and that's something else that you never do when you're on the surface of the earth is to see the northern and the southern skies at the you know within a half hour of one another would you describe this. As being a can do the overview effect where the overview of fact maybe some of the listeners don't who aren't familiar with that but it was coined by Frank Ryan he's an author who saw a lot about I guess he had to skin of inspiration during a half airplane flight when he was looking at the ground then and feeling a little bit removed from the earth but. Then he started thinking about how what what must it be like for the astronauts so he came down to huge. Just and then. I was one of the 1st astronaut said he interviewed and you know the idea is that it really does change your perception of planet Earth 2 to look at it and actually see the Earth as a planet. To see from an airplane you can look out the window and see entire cities spread out below you but from an orbiting spacecraft you can see the entire country or continents really the earth is very beautiful and so you to get this relationship that develops between you and the planet at the same time you can see examples of environmental degradation caused by humanity which is you know now visible from a cosmic perspective and that's pretty scary you know that the fire station of the Amazon the silting up of harbors and rivers and. Just all sorts of things and then you realize that. He definitely got a feeling of the the finiteness of planet Earth and this sense of what it is to be removed from the earth and how that changes your feelings for Planet Earth is what Frank called the overview effect and many astronauts have have reported this there's now actually a movie that that you can find on You Tube or Vimeo and that. About the overview effect of May by. Cinematographer and in the u.k. Interviews of a lot of different astronauts myself included So yeah it's. It's a totally different perspective you get when you're hundreds of miles above the surface of the earth so going back to the idea of radiation risk beyond the surface of the earth on the mission. As you flew in the eighty's and ninety's were what did you and the other crew members understand about radiation risk in space and what kind of measures were in place to protect you other than just limiting the duration of missions the shuttle flies do like the International Space Station in what we call low Earth orbit so we are basically below the Van Allen vent radiation belts where inside the Earth's magnetic fields which heals us from most cosmic radiation so. It's a much more benign environment than when you actually left the earth to head out to the moon and you're outside the Earth's magnetic field and then you're exposed to the direct. Impact of collect the cosmic rays and. Charged particles coming from the sun. Ultraviolet light of course is not deflected by the magnetic field and we have to have protection against ultraviolet light otherwise it would destroy our eyes which is why the space helmet spacesuit helmets have those those gold visors which protect you and there's also Violet protection on all of the windows of the space shuttle and the international space station windows so. You know electromagnetic radiation cosmic. The the ultraviolet rays we have to protect yourself against and then of course there's the infrared radiation from the sun the heat and when you're in a the. Direct sunlight temperatures of things exposed to direct sunlight in space can go up above the boiling point of water and so when you're at your spacesuit you need good cooling and we do that by stubble mating ice and that. Cools off the water which we then circulate in liquid cooling garment with lots of 2 was were where you can run the cold water right over your body and take away heat and you can adjust status because when you go into the dark side it gets very very cold and there you don't want this extra cooling sorrow from the electromagnetic point of view of how to protect ourselves against ultraviolet radiation and we've got to have good thermal control for heat for the charged particle radiation as I say we're in a relatively benign place when we don't know how to make him Hubble was put as high up as the shuttle could go above 400 miles 600 kilometers and we were kind of scraping the bottom of the Van Allen intervent Allen radiation belt so it was calculated that we were going to get about 10 times the normal exposure for a shuttle flight which which still was nothing to be concerned about from a you know cancer point of view but. They had a swearer radiation monitor as the whole time and particularly when we went outside and they tried to schedule the space walk so that we would not be outside when we went through what what is known as the south atlantic anomaly which is a part of the orbit where the radiation is much higher and then the rest of it that's about all you can do obviously if there were ever a huge solar eruption. We always have the option of coming home and you know getting underneath the atmosphere for the extra protection but we never had to do that what about extended future missions how did the risks change and what sort of solutions are being developed to protect future astronauts in the radiation risk is recognized as being one of the most serious if you're going to be outside the Earth's magnetic field for a long time. There on the surface of the moon or on an extended trip to Mars on the surface of the moon actually getting to the moon is not such a big deal because you can get there in 3 days and so your exposure time is limited but if you're going to spend any significant amount of time on the surface of the moon. Obviously the moon blocks about half of the galactic cosmic rays but but you're still exposed to all the rest of them and it may be that we'll they're talking about possibly having underground habitats in Waba tubes which we know exist on the moon you have to do something to shield yourself from the radiation because the exposed to it for a long time is going to be dangerous that's something that's very difficult to do if you're on a trip to Mars because you can't carry that much mass with you to protect yourself and. So NASA is interested in other ways there are some. I think very interesting research going on about. Pharmacological protection against radiation if there were some way that we could enhance the body's ability to repair d.n.a. And that would make the impact of radiation much less serious We know that there's bacteria which can withstand hundreds of times the amount of radiation that a human can and they've developed the ability to repair much more significant damage to d.n.a. Than we're able to do. They may be genetic. Clues about how to protect against radiation so the point being that we've got to look for other ways besides just shielding and of course developing better. More powerful propulsion systems so that we could get to Mars quicker would be a big help as well not just from radiation point of view but logistically you know you've got to carry everything you need you can't get resupplied once you're on your way to Mars so all the food the medical equipment the spare parts everything the quicker you can get there the better so there's a lot of ways that that we're looking at that will make longer race in space flight outside the Earth's magnetic field safer but most of these things are still work in progress right now we don't have those solutions available now and correct me if I'm wrong but once you get to Mars on a Mars mission on the surface you're not a whole lot better off than you are in space or right as far as radiation where it is going because 1st of all Mars just like when you're on the surface of the moon Mars is blocking half of the radiation just by its mass and then Mars does have a bit of an atmosphere which gives you a little bit of protection but you're right there's still the radiation environment on the surface of the law or of Mars is. More severe than being in low earth orbit and so radiation protection on the surface of Mars will continue to be an issue just like it will be on the moon. You will have to have a certain amount of protection in your habitats but again the other thing the other thing you know there's 2 aspects of the dangers of radiation and one of them is that in the long term it will lead to an increased incidence of cancers like leukemia Well one of the things that we're realizing is that our ability for early detection and treatment in cancer is continually improving and so maybe you know 2030 years from now that's just. Not going to be as much of a problem the other potential problem from radiation are acute impacts there are there have been some experiments that have shown a potential loss of cognitive capability for rats when they're exposed to radiation. He certainly would not like to get to Mars and find out that your i.q. Is decreased by 20 points. There are potential effects of acute effects of radiation on the circulatory system on the nervous system and that's an area of very active research now it's relatively new traditionally we were just concerned with the long term impact of radiation that is that ultimately causing cancer unless of course you had a huge solar flare and you know if you get enough radiation all at one time you're going to die or have serious. Illnesses and that. You know we would like not to be in space when they have a huge solar flare but you know statistically those don't happen very often and so far we've been lucky so we've discussed the ambient radiation risks in space obviously within our solar system you've got solar radiation to worry about and you've got charged particles from the from the galaxy the universe to worry about but also apart from these ambient radiation risks does it make sense to also for space fairs to worry about anomalous radiation risks I know for example like x. Ray bursts Ingemar a bursar extremely rare in the universe or are they so rare that that we just don't have to think about that or will the future of space exploration need a really think about it I mean if if if. If there were a sea. Huge black hole merger like was observed with the gravitational radiation you know billions of light years away if something like that happened right near as in the galaxy it would be bad news but there's absolutely nothing we can do about it and so it's just not something. That we even bother to think about and what about solar anomalies and you mention like a solar a valid surfer I mean Center fans all recognize I mean there is a big solar flare in 172 in August which just happened to occur between a policy Eckstein and a policy 17 had it occurred when astronauts were on the lunar surface there's been a lot of discussion of whether with would have been fatal or whether it would have just been very bad for them but it would have been a very serious effect but that solar flare in 1972 was not nearly the strongest solar flare that's ever existed I mean there was the Carrington event back in the mid 19th century which was set up at our full course that was if we didn't have satellites we didn't have electronics going there but they did have telegraph lines and that solar flare collapsed the Earth's magnetic field to the extent that the moving magnetic field induced voltages in the telegraph lines which cause fires in telegraph offices I mean if it's a flare like that hit us today it would cost Lloyd's of London did an estimate of that I mean it would be like a trillion dollars worth of damage to all of our satellites would be destroyed electronic systems all over the world to electrical power grids would go down and when there's nothing we can do about it except that statistically something like that happens maybe once every 500 years or so so far we've been lucky. And not too much more you can say about it. We are people are still doing research to try to be able to predict solar flares so far without. Many positive results but. I just read recently some new research is indicating that you know maybe they've made a breakthrough. Being able to predict solar flares in advance would be a big help so that at least you could get ready for it and if you had astronauts on the moon at least they could try to get inside their shielding but other than that . It's statistics and so far we've been lucky Well thank you so much it's been such a privilege to talk to you Dr Hoffman We really appreciate you sharing your time with us in a pleasure and I hope it's given. Maybe a new perspective to some of the listeners who haven't heard some of this stuff so . Thanks for your interest and. It's been fun Yes thank you so much Jake you have a great day there all right well thanks once more to Dr Jeff Hoffman international Geographic for enabling us to have this wonderful chat We're going take a quick break and we come back Joe and I will discuss the interview a little bit before we close out the upset. That technology credit union our mobile app is available everywhere your family needs. You will be calling I just notified him. Did you are part of the money right now law. If you find an a.t.m. There is a block away from the hotel in Rolodex e.u. Savings reward promotion and earn up to $1000.00 go to Texas dot com slash save more. Your home for upscale consignment jewelry and watches beautiful one of a kind fine jewelry and watches at incredible prices unlike any other online site does will be dug out like you actually talked to the jeweler that evaluated the peak Internet pricing with brick and mortar security take a look it's free death will be dot com. It may not be stomach issues for me it's intense gas pain or diarrhea sometimes all at once over and over I spent years with the symptoms but could never figure it out no matter what I did they never went away so I decided to break it down for my doctor and get really specific about my symptoms we discovered that x. Accrued pancreatic insufficiency e.p.i. May be the reason for my stomach issues e.p.i. Is caused by my pancreas it leads to diarrhea gas bloating stomach pain unexplained weight loss in oily stools the symptoms just don't go away but a.p.i. Can show up with even one symptom the good news manageable but to get to the right diagnosis you have to break it down for your doctor and get specific about the severity of your some tips visit identify e.p.i. Dot com to learn more and use the symptom checker to help change the conversation with your doctor brought to you by Abhay you remember the last time you cleaned out your fridge and threw away all the expired food don't worry I do it too but guess how much food we waste each day actually guess the answer is 150000 tons it takes 23000000 football fields worth of land to grow that food that ends up in the garbage I'm not telling you to spoil leftovers I'm here to let you know that the world has agreed on a set of global goals to end poverty and make our way of life more sustainable for the planet join us at un d.p. Dot org slash global goals to find out more about what you can do and next time you go to get groceries stick to your shopping list and if you're anything like me don't know the buy cool very many Democrats are looking for a president. They're looking they're Ok there are a number of people in this country to cobble together a coalition there are enough white liberals who are ready to dissolve into tears angry tears at a moment's notice and hold you all along it is not about the political issues it is about their problems their own inability to deal with the opposite sex their own Or Amazon Echo just say Alexa played w.b. H.b.o. And i Heart Radio. The i Heart pod cast channel exclusively on i Heart Radio helping you discover the best pod casts right through your radio. Stuff to blow your mind. All right we're back so Robert Dr has been mentioned a few things in that interview that I thought were really interesting and we might want to follow up and talk about a little bit one of the things he mentioned when we were talking about solar anomalies was the idea of the Carrington event or the solar storm of 859 and this just stuck in my mind because this is one of the most fascinating and I think maybe lesser known craziest or astronomical events in history yet and indeed it may have been the largest solar energetic particle event in the past. Several 100 years so why do we call it the Carrington event well it's a name for amateur astronomer Richard Carrington who observed quote 2 patches of intensely bright and white light erupting from a cluster of dark sunspots they vanish within 5 minutes but then within a matter of hours the effects of this event were felt on earth so one of those effects look like well as a Dr Hoffman alluded to telegraph communication around the world began to fail sparks were flying from telegraph machines telegraph operators were in some cases shocked and also colorful auroras in the sky were causing the birds to chirp at night wow yeah. So the solar flare in question had the power of an estimated 10000000000 atomic bombs and ice core samples revealed that the Carrington event was twice as big as any other solar storm within the last 500 years this is the kind of thing where if it were to hit today the estimates are just in trillions of dollars worth of damage it would just be a massive blow and Dr Hoffman alluded to this is well the idea that it would have it would impact our satellites would in fact technology on a scale that to simply did not exist in $1059.00 but of course it would also greatly affect any exposed astronauts or space fairs that you know we're colonists or wherever outside of the protection of our shield that it didn't even fully protect us from this event yeah yeah you know I actually interviewed a helio physicist Dr c. Alex young several years ago about solar storms and he pointed out that there are modern electrical grid in particular is just a highly vulnerable to this sort of thing he told me quote the power grids that we have in the u.s. And actually all over the world are interconnected in very fragile if the current large enough it can short out the largest of the transformers which can knock out the power grid over the scale of a country of a continent or even across the whole globe scary and just a minor example of the sort of thing it can it is a Hydro Quebec power grid experienced a similar shock in 1909 from a particularly powerful sun storm and this guy's the grid to go down for over 9 hours resulting in revenue losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars and that was just that small potatoes compared to something like the Carrington event yeah with our earthbound minds it's impossible for us to grasp the real power and magnitude of solar events like if you've never seen one of those pictures of the earth superimposed to scale against a solar prominence it's amazing solar prominences are these events where this monstrous loop of plasma erupts out of. The photos fear which is the apparent surface of the sun and then it curves through the sun's corona guided by solar magnetic fields and this is not even really the core of the Sun itself is just in a vent it's like a whether it's in a vent on the surface of the sun but this event itself is tens of times bigger than the entire planet Earth and you see one of these pictures when you look at the vulnerability and tininess of human scale projects becomes absurdly apparent the comparison that comes to my mind is that if you ever been out in nature as as I know you like to venture out into nature on hikes and so forth you ever observe a bird's nest for a wasp nest some sort of animal structure or a nest and you think yourself that's a horrible place to put that don't you know a tiny bird that eventually the wind is going to blow Don't you know that when it rains that's that's just not a very protected place don't you know that's my front porch and I'm probably going to knock you down eventually just because you're inconvenient to me and in which you think about everything that the that that is life on Earth and then everything that humans have built and you think of the vulnerability that introns that can all of that were really no different from from any wasp The decides to build its nest on the bottom of a porch swing on a geological cosmic time scale our projects are so hilariously short sighted but then again the just how we're built right I mean it's very difficult for us to seriously focus on a project that we think will take place over say 100000 years or even a 1000000 years yet totally We are just we we are short sighted as a species that's what we've evolved to be now on the subject of long time scales and cosmic scale of events I asked Dr Hoffman about whether spacefaring species should really worry about things like gamma ray bursts or x. Ray bursts which I think is kind of a weird question. On one hand it's something that would pose a very serious threat but these things are also incredibly rare in the universe and they're incredibly rare in the galaxy so it's hard to factor into one's idea about something like space exploration how much you should worry about something that is almost never going to happen anywhere near you yeah but if it did it would be catastrophic it's coming to you kind of reminds one of of course the seafaring explorers of old and to say well if you go out on that boat you might very well drown you might run into a hurricane at cetera and the hurricanes are pretty common Yeah those are pretty common in like if it was that you would have to say oh yeah well I. May very well drown we may very well diode die on some distant island but in the chances here are are less but it's also the same scenario like it's of course it's safer to not go out and explore it certainly in the short term but are we the type of species that is going to do that of course then again if there were a nearby game or a burst as unlikely as that is that would be bad even if we were on Earth all right so there you have it don't be shy to get in touch with us and let us know what you would like us to pick up on from that conversation in the future and you can do that or at our various social media accounts We're on Facebook Twitter Instagram and check out stuff to blow your mind dot com That's the mothership that's where you'll find links to our social media accounts that's where you'll find links out to our social media accounts as well as all the podcast episode some blog post etc And hey check out one strange it's a really beautiful show definitely like. Experience big thanks as always to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tori Harrison and if you want to get in touch with us directly by e-mail you can do so as always. And it how stuff works. The technology credit union our mobile app is specifically made to keep up with the modern family. I lost my credit card and that would be a good thing if you only. Actually work for. The total house just went for cell can we afford it. Maybe it Rolodex e.u. Savings or or promotion and earn up to $1000.00 go to Texas dot com slash save more and that can be accessed from anywhere on your schedule a s c one line includes an entire team of professors and advisors dedicated to helping you discover your own path and create your own opportunities unlock your potential today with Arizona State University online to learn more about Arizona State University degrees offered 100 percent online tech school 266597 that's s c h o o l 266597 that smart understands that sometimes your Pet Sounds like this when you want them to sound like this we recommend giving them this delicious and nutritious Merican Canaday 2 of the latest arrivals to Pet Smart selection of natural pet foods give your pets kibble wet food and treats for American Canaday you want it. Where Pet Smart save up to $2.00 on American Canaday dry food in-store only while supplies last store for details $7273.00 x. Huntsville The following is a paid commercial program so this is passed the us government Comrie passed of the Union Hill Primitive Baptist Church located at 2115 Winchester road here in beautiful Huntsville Alabama and I'd like to welcome each of you to the channel of blessings broadcast emanating from the campus of Union he'll primitive back verses 31 through 39. Let us repeated those verses together what did he show we say to these things you know God is for us who can be against us. Who did not spare his oldest son but did.
Related Keywords
Radio Program , Electromagnetism , Human Spaceflight , Solar Phenomena , Space Plasmas , Plasma Physics , Radioactivity , Sun , Magnetism , Radiation , Space Telescopes , Manned Spacecraft , Space Stations , Artificial Satellites Orbiting Earth , Nuclear Physics , Concepts In Physics , Planetary Science , Electromagnetic Spectrum , Space Flight , Space Shuttle Program , Mass Media , Physical Quantities , Neutron , Electromagnetic Radiation , Iarc Group 1 Carcinogens , Media Studies , Organs , Radio Wbhp 1230 Am , Stream Only , Radio , Radioprograms ,
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.