September 7, 2018
Space Debates
The Great Hall
Reflection | Podcast | Photos
As part of the Southwest Astronomy Festival, A.P.E.X. Events Presents Space Debates!
Topics will include:
- Should humans go to Mars?
- Should we clean up space junk?
- Should we continue active SETI?
Event Reflection
by Billy Clouse
Kicking off the Southwest Astronomy Festival, A.P.E.X. Events hosted "Space Debates," which put together a panel of six contributors, including SUU alumni, members of the Master of Public Administration program and a NASA Ambassador.
SUU's Angela Pool-Funai moderated the discussion, which featured three main topics, the first of which was whether or not we should go to Mars.
For the most part, the panel agreed that if we do go to the Red Planet, we first have to work out a number of problems, most of them associated with the lack of gravity and atmosphere. Matthew Smith, who is pursuing his MPA after graduating with a degree in philosophy and history, said the human story is one of conquering our planet, not coexisting with it, and it's not too far outside of the realm of possibility that we could destroy Mars while trying to overcome its challenges.
However, members of the panel pointed out that scientists can use Mars to study the long-term effects of climate change, but the panel agreed that a privately-funded, commercial venture is not the way to go. After some heated back-and-forth debate about the entanglement of science and politics, the group moved to the next topic, which was about space junk.
Currently, hundreds of millions of pieces of debris orbit the planet, which could have disastrous effects on satellites and the International Space Station, as well as make it increasingly difficult and dangerous to try leave the Earth.
Panelists discussed various ways scientists are trying to solve the problem, from harpooning dead satellites to space lasers. Although the latter is the cheapest and most efficient alternative, given the history of human civilization, many fear that this technology could quickly become weaponized.
Following this topic, the discussion shifted to Active SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). For years, scientists have been sending messages into space in an attempt to contact other life forms, and it's now possible for anyone to pay to send out a message.
Many issues were debated, including the possibility that other intelligent life might communicate in ways other than writing or speech, and that it could severely harm our perception of our own role in the universe if we discover we're not alone.
Following the Friday debate, the Southwest Astronomy Festival continued with events throughout the weekend.
Space Debates Podcast Transcript
[00:00:01] Hey everyone. This is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the APEX hour KSUU Thunder 91.1. In this show you get more personal time. The guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and to turn you onto new sounds and new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3pm or on the web at suu.edu/apex. For now. Welcome to this week's show here Thunder 91.1
[00:00:43] OK. Well oh my gosh. Did you miss me? This is our first live show back here at the apex hour. And we're so happy to be back on line and live an apex hour during the fall and spring semesters is Thursdays at 3:00p.m. here on KSUU Thunder 91.1.
[00:01:03] My name is Lynn Vartan and this is the show that talks about everything that's going on on campus particularly regarding Apex events and we have guests from all over the place who come and speak on campus. This hour you get a chance to really interact with them and listen to them on a real personal level. This week it's all about space here for apex and we are so excited to be partnering with the second annual Southwest astronomy festival. We're going to talk about the festival. All of the events and we have two representatives here to talk about the festival and also the Apex event that we're doing associated with the festival which is space debates space debates is going to be tomorrow from 12 to 2p.m. at the Great Hall here on campus. So let's get right into it and I'll let my guest go ahead and introduce themselves. Lee tell us about yourself. Hi.
[00:02:03] My name is Lee Ricci and I work with the Cedar Breaks National Monument and the Park Service. And so this year and last year we decided to put on an astronomy festival so we're working with a bunch of other parks Parashant is in there. And Zion we had last year and then a bunch of organizations in the area to put on essentially a three day space festival.
[00:02:29] Yeah. And you were just saying before we were chatting you have something like 105 partners.
[00:02:35] Yeah we have a lot of partners. So it's over 100 people it's over 100 volunteers at this point. And then I think we're above 25 organizations this year. And that's amazing. It's crazy.
[00:02:49] That's so cool so tell me a little bit about just this is the second one and tell me from your perspective in your role a little bit about the planning and how just how did this all come to be.
[00:03:01] So what happens this is true for basically I think most of the government is that someone wrote a grant. They begged for money about five six years ago and that grant finally got funded. The person who made the grant no longer works here.
[00:03:17] Oh my gosh.
[00:03:19] So she did not get to see her. Her name is Daphne suing and she did not get to see her baby turn into something anything real she went on to bigger and better things but it was sort of. So it got funded and then basically my boss came and said hey we've got all of this money now that came through for this festival. Do you want to do this.
[00:03:42] And I said do? Absolutely!
[00:03:46] Now. Have you been in touch with her since to kind of tell her.
[00:03:50] No idea where she is. I've never met her. She left before I came on board. So but her reputation precedes her. Everyone has heard of Daphne because she just had such great things.
[00:04:03] Well that's amazing. So Daphne if you're out there listening we are so happy that you had this idea. OK we have another guest in the house. Andy tell us about your role with this festival.
[00:04:15] Yes my name is Andy Andy McAfee. My role is I'm an executive board member for the Southern Utah Space Foundation and our role is we are one of the primary partners. Fortunately unlike the Park Service we deal in much shorter periods of time than the epic long periods that it takes to get a festival going home. And we deal in a lot of small things big things star parties most of our goal. As a foundation is to try and make sure that equipment and educational items that would normally be outside of the reach of most people are able to be well you know within their reach. For example things like solar telescopes are usually frightfully expensive but we have one we take it to all of our events. Our equipment gets used it doesn't get used half as much as we would like. But. But you know it is one of those things where commute where the community help where we in conjunction with the community help to fundraise for you know a cut above your sort of amateur equipment so that people can have access and have droned on far too long.
[00:05:35] No that's awesome so I'm actually going to ask you more questions because I'm excuse my ignorance didn't know about the Southern Utah space foundation and how we mean what. It's an organization of civilians is it how do you become a part of it. How can people get in touch with you. I mean I'm imagining that people might be driving home or there might be teachers listening who are like wow there might be this great resource available to me and my students so tell me a little more about that organization.
[00:06:09] Absolutely. In that we're not military I would characterize this as civilians definitely. But we're all enthusiasts. They're there. Most of us are from completely different different walks some of the board members. Let's see we've got a botanist. We've got we've got an accountant. Oh yes a physicist a couple physicists in training. And and also some a few artists as well. So it's kind of just a group of people who really love and like astronomy. It got started a few years ago to help actually to help fundraise money for an equipment repair at the Ashcroft observatory. And then just kind of when it was done moved on and you know found our new goal of trying to get that equipment available for more and more people. So I think that it answers hopefully. And as for getting in touch.
[00:07:10] Yes exactly.
[00:07:12] For those of you out there. If you go to susf.org That's short for Southern Utah space Foundation of course. Then there's a contact form as well as a list of all of the events we tried to do at least one thing monthly that's free and open to the public. And of course if there are things that people need if you're a teacher and you want to show your students the sun you know without burning their eyes out. Give us a call and we can try and set something up.
[00:07:44] That's fantastic. I'm so excited to know about the foundation. That's great. Well let let's get on to talking more about the festival and so give me sort of a short synopsis of what's going on for the festival and then we'll get into some of the big events because there's a lot happening there.
[00:08:02] There is a lot. And this year last year was our first year 2017 and that was a two day festival. It was Saturday or Friday and Saturday and unfortunately we know Friday was OK in the daytime. And then we kind of got rained out. And by Saturday the weather was terrible. And so this time we thought let's do three days and that way if one of them has to get canceled we still have two other days. And so we were sort of banking on the weather being terrible. Looks like the weather's going to be great and we're going to get through all our clouds probably today. And so by tomorrow evening we are going to have just a ton of events and every single day Friday Saturday Sunday every single day there's a star party somewhere. And so tomorrow night we actually have what's called the astronomy extravaganza that's going to be our first really really big event at North Elementary. Everyone's invited one of the really cool things about that is we will have some NASA ambassadors there but we'll also have the planetarium the indoor planetarium.
[00:09:04] Oh wow. What is that?
[00:09:07] So Andy mentioned the Ashcroft observatory. Yes well they actually have an indoor planetarium.
[00:09:12] I didn't know that.
[00:09:13] They do and they set it up.
[00:09:15] It's it's a pain to set up once it's set up you know you just go in and it's like you can see the stars projected on the inside of it. And it's really cool. We also have a really cool set up. This is provided by the Parks so go us. This was my idea. We do have a giant blown up poster of Mars so that you can take pictures of yourself on Mars. It's great it's like a planetarium but it is it does look pretty cool it does look like you are on Mars if you take the photo right.
[00:09:46] Well it just sounds like a great Friday night.
[00:09:49] So again that's tomorrow night that's tomorrow night and tell tell us all the details.
[00:09:54] North Elementary is on 200 or Hamburger highway as they say. Yeah it's going to be at 550 West 200 North North Elementary is basically we're going to have the indoor stuff in the gym and then the outside stuff we will have telescopes set up outside they're going to turn the lights off for us so that we can actually see the sky.
[00:10:18] Oh my gosh what a great Friday night. It starts around 6:00. It looks like.
[00:10:22] Yes.
[00:10:23] And I'm kind of reading in the notes you can build your own constellation.
[00:10:28] Yeah. Well that is a kids one. That is.
[00:10:31] Wait I want to do that.
[00:10:33] You can. We're going to have a little constellation station and show that that way people can make their own constellations it'll be fun.
[00:10:42] And it sounds like every thing is free and open to the public.
[00:10:45] Yes everything is free of charge there. There's only one or two events that cost money and those are in pipes spring Arizona. And that's because the pipes spring National Monument couldn't really get around the fees. So if you're in there you kind of have to pay the fees. We had the same problem with Zion But this year it's really just pipe spring. OK.
[00:11:06] But tomorrow I mean for everybody listening if you know are looking for great activity or family activity or something to do North Elementary 6 to 9p.m. There's so many indoor and outdoor activities. The weather's going to be great. It just seems like a real magical time.
[00:11:24] Yes. Yes. And then Saturday for us. I mean there's a bunch of events down inSt. George too. So if you're in the St. George area or you want to go to St. George you can get on our website. It's on the Cedar Breaks National Monument Web site. But also if the cedar you go to either the Cedar Breaks Facebook page or you go to the Southern Utah space foundation's Facebook page there's a list of events on there the upcoming events under that area. There are a bunch in St. George as well. But for us here in Cedar City the next one after that is going to be awesome is recalling at the library in the star's library in the. So it's going to be at the library. It is the main the Cedar City Public Library not campus.
[00:12:08] Right.
[00:12:09] Not SUU, this is the main library. But there's just going to be a ton of stuff going on there from noon to 6p.m. on Saturday. OK. And then after that we'll have a star party. And then on Sunday we only have one event and that is a star party it's our star party finale. Here's the thing about the Sunday event. This is a big deal. The University of Utah is bringing down their gigantic telescope.
[00:12:33] Oh wow.
[00:12:34] They're taking it up to Cedar Breaks National Monument. So if you can make it to Cedar Breaks National Monument on Sunday night you'll be able to not only look at the sky in a fairly dark location which really matters when you're looking at things like nebula and galaxies but you'll be able to use an enormous telescope. I mean this telescope is probably twice as tall as I am I could crawl inside there live there comfortably for a while.
[00:12:59] Wow.
[00:13:00] It's big and it has to be hauled in by a trailer and it's amazing.
[00:13:04] Oh my gosh. So Star Parties Friday night Saturday night Sunday night. There's the whole afternoon on Saturday and then on Sunday. You also have the star party with the massive telescope up at Cedar Breaks.
[00:13:17] Yes.
[00:13:18] How cool. Well I'm so excited about all these. There's a couple other ones that I wanted to ask you before we take our first musical break and this is in the St. George area. Is there going to be a bat chat. There is. There's going to be a bat chat down in St. George. But we will also have a bat chat up here. So we will we should have essentially a bat expert at the astronomy extravaganza tomorrow night. And he is from Great Basin National Park. And so we've got just a bunch of rangers who a lot of rangers are really into animals kind of. I mean it was one of those things where it's like yes this is not terribly related to us but it's nocturnal animals. Yeah we have a lot of people who can explain bats to you just because we have so many Rangers that are a part of this.
[00:14:10] Well that just sounds amazing. Well there you have it. That's kind of the the scope of the bird's eye view of what's going to be happening this weekend for the second annual Southwest astronomy festival. Again you can find out any of these things on the web. I think there's a hash tag.
[00:14:29] Astro fest astrophysicist.
[00:14:34] And then the best Web site to go to again is.
[00:14:37] It's the Cedar Breaks National Monument Web site. And it is a really long URL so it's just that's the government. So if you just google Cedar Breaks National Monument it'll come right up.
[00:14:49] Okay perfect. Well we are also having part as part of this we're partnering and we're going to take a musical break right now but then we're going to come back and talk about what's going to be happening on campus tomorrow which is space debates. So I chose some music for this show and of course I had to choose space music or star music. And so I have three songs that I'm going to play for you the first one is counting stars by one republic. And again this is the apex hour and you are listening to KSUU Thunder 91.1.
[00:19:34] Well welcome back. This is the apex hour. This is Lynn Vartan and you were listening to KSUU thunder 91.1. Today we are talking about space and the Southwest astronomy festival and we're going to turn our attention to our event tomorrow which we are so excited about and we are calling it space debates and that's going to be tomorrow from noon until 2:00p.m. in the Great Hall on Southern Utah University's campus. It's completely free and open to the public. And here with me are Lee and Andy who are both involved in the event. And we're going to we're going to tell you what this space debate is all about. So let's come to tell them the story you sort of approached me. I don't know it's probably been eight months or nine months ago and kind of said you know we had this event last year it was really great and we kind of outgrew it. We really want to sort of partner and get grow and get bigger and we want to do space debates. So tell me how it how it went last year and the feedback and then and then we'll sort of fold into this here.
[00:20:41] Well last year we did have some we had a little bit of different topics. We did keep the SETI topic because that was easily the best. I mean everybody loved that one. But we just we expected a smaller crowd than we got. And it was at the library the main library which they are wonderful partners. But there's just not the space there kind of we were kind of running out of space for bodies last year. And so we basically thought OK we can take this to you and probably probably involve more students because that was the other thing is we found that a lot of people who showed up for the debates were in that age range they were in. They were SUU's students and they were very interested.
[00:21:24] Great. Well we're so excited to host it. We're apex events is functioning as that as a host for the debates. And and Andy jump in any time. Also if you want to get into the topics and I know you have some strong opinions about that but we're basically going to have six to eight or five debaters plus a moderator and we have some preset topics so maybe let's let's share with the audience what some of those topics are going to be.
[00:21:53] You're going to do the first one.
[00:21:55] Sure. Well one of the topics that we're going to discuss is you know I won't take the big hot button. OK first of all I'll save that for you guys. But one of the ones that we're going to talk about is about space junk. Yeah and you know there's lots of discussion about Earth junk at the moment and space junk is absolutely a thing. Not surprisingly we've put a lot of stuff up into the up into Earth orbit and. Naturally you don't want to run into stuff right. You're putting new things up. But the question you know becomes who's responsible for that junk. How do you get it down in an effective and efficient manner and even is it necessarily worth that sort of investment. A good example of one type of thing. I definitely wouldn't call it this space junk because I feel kindly about what happens to be the Iridium satellite network.
[00:23:02] I Was going to bring that can I..
[00:23:05] Absolutely please tell.
[00:23:07] In the 1980s there was a company Iridium LLC and they decided that they were going to provide essentially satellite phones worldwide with sixty four satellites going around Earth. It was one of those ideas that was ahead of its time because they got them all up there and then it was and they and they work you know how your phone does not work in some areas. Well if you hadn't Iridium phone it would. But the problem is they were prohibitively expensive because of course they were.
[00:23:38] Right.
[00:23:39] So and the plan started at like 3000 dollars a month it was crazy.
[00:23:43] oh my gosh.
[00:23:44] And so this the 70 80s or 80s.
[00:23:49] In the 80s. So and so then they went out of business like you do. And Verizon was the carrier and they said look we mean we've got these satellites up here but they're not ours and we're going to take them down you know. And so the military stepped and the Pentagon came in bought the company and said Fine we'll buy this. They bought it a fraction of the price CNO and so now we actually that's why you you have people in the service people even you know wildlands firefighters who can use these phones and they work anywhere in the world because of the Iridium satellite stuff. Here's the thing is they actually have these giant door sized panels that as they turn they catch the light of the sun. So if you ever are looking up and you see this bright growing flash in the sky brighter and then dimmer and dimmer. That's probably an Iridium satellite because it's those door sized panels that are catching the sun. Here's the thing is that the current company has decided that they're old they're from the 80s and they have to come down. And the problem is the problem is that they we've already had a problem with the Iridium in 2009 Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2 2 5 1 Cosmos is obviously a Russian satellite. They crashed into each other they actually hit each other and they and there's over a hundred million bits of debris up there in space. And so now if you have satellites crashing into each other that just makes even more. More of the debris and what ends up happening is that debris is traveling very fast right these probes were traveling at 20000 miles an hour. And so what you end up having is sort of earth is engulfed in this halo of bullets and even just last week. And this is a problem with the ISIS right the International Space Station there are people on it. There was a hole that was put in the ISIS last week. And you know one of the Russians up there. He put his finger on it.
[00:25:52] No he did not that's not true.
[00:25:54] He put his finger over it was a very small hole. But then they ended up patching it with epoxy and duct tape. I'm not making this up.
[00:26:01] Oh my God. Duct tape does fix everything.
[00:26:04] Epoxy. I mean it's probably like really good epoxy. But they also put duct tape over it so they don't know if it was from debris. But the ISIS has had problems with debris in the past because all of this stuff that they're traveling very very fast.
[00:26:20] So how would you even go about bringing safely one of these satellites down let alone 64 of them.
[00:26:29] I don't think you can. I believe the. I mean now I'm Lee is more of the expert than I am but I think the plan is just change the orbit of them enough so that so that it comes down and burns up in the atmosphere.
[00:26:44] That's exactly it.
[00:26:45] Whoa.
[00:26:46] It's kind of the only thing you really can do.
[00:26:49] But is that reasonable is that OK is that
[00:26:51] That's kind of the question right is especially with these larger satellites with a very very very big and heavy. You don't want any pieces getting through the atmosphere. The reality is our atmosphere is really really good at burning stuff up. We were hit literally by tons of meteorites all the time so the atmosphere is a really good way to break stuff up bringing it down. You can do that but you have to bring it down at an angle and it has to be done carefully so that ends up being an expense right. Especially if you haven't originally programmed the satellite to do that so I mean there are satellites out there that were programmed in Fortran. Right. Who who who's out there programming in Fortran?
[00:27:36] I don't even know what Fortran is.
[00:27:40] Old old Computer language.
[00:27:42] There is sort of this cost problem where if you say to a country look you know if you want to start sending up satellites then you are going to have to pay to bring them down or you're going to have to pay to destroy them. And that puts an extra burden on developing countries or countries that are just now getting the space race whereas Russia and America the problems that we have really largely come from Russia and the U.S. right. All the stuff up there that's being a problem. That's that's our stuff.
[00:28:13] So what's the conversation I mean is this conversation actively happening all the time or is it one of these topics that sort of cycles around every once. I mean is it a hot topic right now in this world in your world.
[00:28:26] I would say with the crash between the Iridium satellite and the Cosmos satellite it's become a bigger topic. And that was in 2009 so almost 10 years ago. Wow. But there is technically there is a branch of. You know it's like NASA's JPL. There is of of trying to ensure safety when it comes to these satellites and so they're always talking about it. But in everyday hot topic. I mean I don't know that most of the public is really aware.
[00:28:59] Right. Well I certainly I mean it's news in a way. I mean I knew it was sort of a peripheral issue but I didn't hear about what happened last week with the finger in the hole and all that and nor I don't really have a good recollection of the collision in 2009 either. So is that and this is slightly off topic but is that something that that you in your field worry about that these these topics these issues are not as in the forefront of the public's minds as they should be. I know that's not exactly a debate.
[00:29:35] Absolutely, I think that ties into a lot of that ties into you know Astronomy is one of those fields that is extremely narrow and very few people go into it very few people can go into it. You know but the universe space belongs to all of us. And so this idea of of like who gets to talk about this and be interested in it and there's just not a whole lot of Pathways to being an astronomer. And I think that that is probably the reason that so many people it's like you love space when you're a kid and then you grow up and you say well I'm not going to become an astronaut that's not a feasible thing. I guess I I'm not going to sit and think about space as much. You know we're also losing the night sky in a real way because of light pollution. And so it's hard to get.
[00:30:27] It's That out of sight out of mind thing.
[00:30:28] Yeah it's out of sight out of mind to thank for a lot of people. And now I mean what kind of going back to it and he was saying with the Southern Utah Space Foundation and the equipment. Now you do have a lot of people getting into astronomy outreach with because we've never heard tech. Technologically we've never been in a better time to do astronomy for everybody because I mean you can get yourself a radio telescope for less than a thousand dollars. Nobody could do that. You know 20 years ago right.
[00:31:01] Right. Well and I guess another question and we'll take another music break before we get into some of the other topics is what. What would you. This is kind of the outreach part what would either of you say to the public what's the most important thing that you would like the public to know about astronomy or the night sky. Is it is. Is it. I mean I don't know is it. You know turn off all your lights at night or tell your city people to turn off. Less life. What what would you want. I mean you have this form of the show today and the debates tomorrow. What's the most important thing for you right now that you would like people to know or to be aware of.
[00:31:41] Oh man that's a tough one.
[00:31:42] I know sorry.
[00:31:45] You know I'm trying to think for my part I feel very passionately about the night sky as a resource that's being more or less not really well you know well taken advantage of especially in the Southern Utah area. So I certainly feel strongly about people making better lighting decisions. There are some places in Cedar City that made very poor lighting decisions. And I don't I'm not even going to name them because you can see them from miles away. And then there are those of us that have made very good lighting decisions like tropical cafe smoothy actually has really good exterior lighting. But either way that being not sponsored by tropical cafe smoothy. But. But that being said it is one of those things where where that's something I feel very passionate about particularly because at least once a month sometimes even once a week I've got a telescope out and I'm looking and I can kind of see the change over time and it would be a real shame to lose that. Yeah but but that's just me.
[00:32:54] And is there anything that we can do.
[00:32:56] I mean is it like write to your city councilman.
[00:32:59] Well you can come to that there's actually tomorrow as well. It's called the dark sky discussion that'll be at the library the main library at 3pm.
[00:33:06] OK.
[00:33:06] And we're actually we have a panel of dark sky defenders there and there will be a representative from the International Dark Sky Association there and they're talking about the nuts and bolts of how you go about I mean if you look up and you say oh my goodness I can barely see the Big Dipper. This is crazy. The big dipper should be extremely bright right.
[00:33:27] especially here in southern Utah.
[00:33:29] yeah. If you are you know concerned about that. There's a lot of processes you know going to City Council but also personal things he can do. And we're going to be talking about the nuts and bolts of that tomorrow.
[00:33:43] OK great.
[00:33:44] I'm at the dark sky discussion.
[00:33:45] 3:00p.m. tomorrow at the library if people are interested. And do you share the same. Is that your most important sort of mission to get out there right now.
[00:33:55] Yeah I do think that it is sort of a tragedy. I agree with Andy I think it's one of those things where it's like you know human there's no country on earth that hasn't done astronomy. It doesn't exist right. There's not a single society that we know of that hasn't done astronomy that hasn't looked at the sky and charted things and planned things around what is going on in the sky. And to think about it's really only in the last hundred years the invention of the bulb is really only in the last 100 years. You know before then every single human on the planet could see the Milky Way could see our galaxy. Yeah. And now very few people can see the Milky Way about 80 percent of Americans do not get to see the Milky Way from their backyard. Cedar City residents and St. George residents are no different. We cannot see the Milky Way from where we are and so that is an interesting it's almost like. We've lost I think part of what it means to be human on earth.
[00:35:00] Wow that's powerful. Well on that note we're going to head into another little musical break and also about stars. This is a great song Stars Fell on Alabama. And in this particular version is done by the amazing Billie Holiday with Louis Armstrong on trumpet.
[00:39:39] Welcome back KSUU Thunder 91.1. This is the apex hour. My name is Lynn. And that song that you were hearing was Stars Fell on Alabama and then by the great Billie Holiday with Louis Armstrong on trumpet I am joined with Lee and Andy in the studio today and we are talking about the second annual Southwests astronomy festival but also we're talking about our space debates which are happening tomorrow here on campus at the Great Hall 12 to 2:00p.m. free and open to the public. There are so many great events this weekend. Definitely check it out. Like we said that there are going to be astronomy's extravaganza tomorrow night. And there's all kinds of viewing parties in and weekend activities so definitely take part in this southwest astronomy festival but as the space debates tomorrow in addition to talking about space junk we have a few other topics and maybe we can just give our audience a little teaser of what those are going to be.
[00:40:42] So Andy should we go to Mars.
[00:40:47] If you really are interested in putting that much time and effort into it and money I'm not going to stop you. But I don't want to pay any money to go to Mars personally.
[00:41:00] Fascinating.
[00:41:01] and the Mars One is interesting because yeah there are people who are like we need to go to Mars and then people like nah I'm good.
[00:41:08] And I'm good.
[00:41:10] Yeah. And why are you good. Is it just the expenses just outweighs the value.
[00:41:16] That basically I mean there's not too much that I think we're going to learn from Mars by getting there that we haven't already found with with probes or with rovers and the. I mean sure it would be cool in a sense. I think all of us sort of really felt hey it would be cool to go to Mars. After we rescued Matt Damon from from his unfortunate stay on Mars.
[00:41:44] I want to rescue Matt Damon.
[00:41:49] But it's one of those things where I where I think we're not going to get gain that much from it. Mars is incredibly inhospitable. Yeah there is. Yeah I'm just worried that anybody who goes there is going to be a one way trip and if that's if that's what you're into Hey I'm not going to stop you.
[00:42:09] Right.
[00:42:09] It's kind of Mars Ones big thing
[00:42:11] Yeah.
[00:42:12] They'll sign up anyone and a lot of people with terminal illnesses have signed up because they sort of. Which is interesting I think because it's like you know you don't need a terminal illness to know that you will die someday. So there are people who are also just like I'm in it for the long haul. But it's an it's a one way ride you know.
[00:42:30] And Mars Ones is that the the group that's already planning on going.
[00:42:34] Yeah that's the private industry. They are struggling with funding. Even though they have a lot of money they're not making a lot of money. So whether or not Mars One will ever get anybody to Mars is debatable in and of itself. Me personally I would not go because.
[00:42:53] Oh come on don't you want to die on Mars. You don't want to die in Martian soil.
[00:42:59] Absolutely not.
[00:42:59] That's OK.
[00:43:00] I just I feel like it's the lack of gravity if you look at the lack of gravity and what that does to astronauts how difficult it is to combat that. I feel like.
[00:43:08] I mean Buzz it still alive.
[00:43:12] Buzz it's fine but I feel like you still have some health problems related to the low gravity or the lack of gravity. I think there's a lot of science out there that has sort of given this false impression. What a problem gravity is. It's the biggest problem it's insurmountable.
[00:43:31] Yes.
[00:43:32] If I may interject though aren't women less impacted by the problems of living in microgravity that men are.
[00:43:38] Only with eyes so there's sort of this weird unfortunate like glaucoma but it's really bad for your eyes to be in low gravity but for some reason in the study it does tend to affect male astronauts more than female astronauts. But there's not. I mean let's be honest this is a bad sample size right. Not that many astronauts to begin with so I'm not sure that I'm not sure that. I'm not sure that that aspect of who I am is going to save me from eyeball problems
[00:44:06] That last one minute of radio was should be enough to encourage anyone to go to the space debates because that was just so fun to listen to. I mean I just feel like I'm like in this great conversation that I know so little about but I'm having so much fun listening to. And that's what tomorrow is going to be. So that's really exciting. There are some other topics and there's kind of a super popular hot topic issue that everybody wants to know about and that is.
[00:44:33] Lee do you think that we should try to contact aliens.
[00:44:40] Yes. It's it was difficult. And I say that it was really difficult to to try and very present this very very seriously right should we stop active. So Setit search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a real organization. OK. That Carl Sagan was a part of. Frank Drake was a part of Jill Tarter still apart of all legitimate astrophysicists legitimate scientists. What they did particularly Jill Tarter is they listen for anything that might be you know quote unquote manmade but alien made essentially not natural like in contact exactly like an attack. In fact Ellie airway is based off of Jill Tarter and Jill Tarter does say she uses the phrase all the time that you know if there's no one out there then it's a great waste of space. That is sort of her catch phrase here. So she you know this is a legitimate idea right there hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. There are probably just as many planets going around any average star than there as there is going round. I mean a good example is the Trappist one system which was discovered just a couple of years ago. Seven Planets all of them their terrestrial just like Earth you could stand on them. They are they are all in the have I mean like three or four of them are in the habitable zone. Liquid water could exist there. And that's not uncommon. Those planets are not. Particularly weird night. So there are other solar systems out there we're finding them we know about them. And so now what's happened is instead of listening to these other solar systems there are people out there that have decided to take it one step further and send signals out there and you can send a high powered digital directed signal to these very close exoplanets. And so here's the thing it's so cheap to do and a signal a radio signal will get to wherever in the same amount of time as the light year. So if you're trying to reach Proxima Centauri and Proxima Centauri our closest neighbor does have a planet Proxima Centauri B if you're trying to it that's four light years away it's going to take four years for that signal to get there. So it's a very very quick to send these radio signals and we have literally I'm not making this up. We have literally sent Justin Bieber to a nearby exit.
[00:47:11] OK allow me to just offer a lukewarm defence of the Bieber and that is by saying that. How do we know that Justin Bieber is not the key to universal peace.
[00:47:25] I don't know. I just I have a sneaking suspicion and I think that that's really what the question comes down to were already doing this. People are. I mean in 2013 Lohnes signal was sent out to a planet that is only took to a stellar system that's only 18 light years away. So in 18 years we'll get there. And it was not done by NASA. It was not done by any space organization. It was done through Kickstarter.
[00:47:49] No way.
[00:47:50] Yeah that's how the raise because it's expensive but it's not that expensive is not prohibitively expensive so anyone can do it. So I guess the question is do we rein that in. Well look yeah bad I don't know.
[00:48:03] And I guess the companion to this which I'm sure you get asked all the time is well if we haven't heard from anybody then what does that mean. Right. And what do you have to say to that. Is that a factor or.
[00:48:17] I for my part I'd say space is a big place and until you receive a signal you don't really quite know where to point it. And you know granted we do like the things Lee was talking about the traps one system or these various systems where life as we know it relies on liquid water and you know it's probably a good idea to send stuff that direction.
[00:48:42] Yeah. But you know it's a good idea.
[00:48:45] Well OK. It is more effective than sending to someplace that doesn't have liquid water.
[00:48:52] I just mean like if there's someone out there listening to we really want them to. I mean there's Stephen Hawking notably said we should not be doing this.
[00:49:01] Right.
[00:49:02] Because it's dangerous. So he he believes that life in the universe was probable but also that you know we shouldn't be going out of our way to make ourselves heard.
[00:49:12] Right.
[00:49:13] And so that's kind of the question there. I would say Yeah I mean I have done a lot of star parties in my life and yeah you always get somebody who's like OK aliens yes or no like that always always you have 100 people show up to some place and you know somebody is going to be like the aliens. Tell me about that. Yes that's just the way it is.
[00:49:38] So Stephen Hawking for one is being a worrywart and he has borrowing trouble and who.
[00:49:44] Also dead.
[00:49:45] Also dead. And two You know you would have to be super dedicated to make it to another planet another solar system.
[00:49:56] I mean we are still waiting on Voyager 2s not even out of our solar system and that's taken for effort to yep you're right.
[00:50:04] As far as like an alien invasion that's an incredibly incredibly unlikely feature and no worry about that. Exactly but let's let's talk about this what if we did just get a signal back. What if we just got something back you know just like in the movie Contact. What would happen to earthlings. Would we lose our minds. Because I feel like we kind of would.
[00:50:27] we Kind of already are just so not just who would put us over the edge.
[00:50:31] I say maybe the purge happens once and maybe it happened this just just just once and then we and then we get over it and then we get our stuff together and we think hey we got to be presentable for the aliens at this point in time maybe maybe bring us together.
[00:50:46] It just makes us feel like we've got to get our stuff together act together.
[00:50:50] Yeah.
[00:50:50] Well again this is the kind of thing that we're going to to go into more detail tomorrow and it's going to be so excited because in addition to the two of you we're going to have three other panelists are going to five panelists and a moderator. And this kind of conversation is just going to go back and forth on these topics and others as well.
[00:51:09] And one of whom is a NASA ambassador who's going to be there for the debates so that'll be fantastic.
[00:51:15] Oh cool so that's another reason to come in hear it. So and the topics that we talked about we talked about Mars we talked about space junk we talked about the SETI. We have a couple other topics I think one or two if I'm you know actually it's just three this time.
[00:51:29] Right. Okay great.
[00:51:31] So just Mars space junk and active SETI. Should we rein it in.
[00:51:34] And then all of the questions in the subtopics that go along with that. So again we're going to take one last musical break. A very apropos musical break but we want to make sure that you know that those space debates are tomorrow 12:00 to 2:00p.m. in the Great Hall as part of the weekend long Southwest astronomy festival. So the last song I got for you. Very apropos to traveling to other worlds and sending signals out is Elton John's Rocket Man KSUU Thunder 91.1.
[00:56:36] OK well welcome back. So this is Lynn Vartan you're listening to the apex our KSUU Thunder 91.1 And it has been an amazing hour. Today we're back in the studio live and we're talking about the Southwest astronomy festival and our space debates that are happening tomorrow. But we're out of time and to close our show we do our famous little thing which is what is turning you on this week and it really can be anything it can be related to what we've been talking about or not it can be something else entirely. So who would like to start what's turning you on this week.
[00:57:13] I'm going to say new ducktails just got done with the second season. It is amazing and I love it.
[00:57:19] Oh my God. Is that something that you've listened to that you've watched and yet.
[00:57:25] I was a kid and I was definitely the right age in the 90s for the old one. And now it's come back and I just I absolutely love. I love that we live in a time of streaming. I love that we live in a time of nostalgia and I just love to DuckTales so much.
[00:57:40] Oh my gosh. That's great. Well thanks for that. Check it out. Good. Keeping me smiling in my busy days. Andy how are you. What's turning you on.
[00:57:48] Oh my gosh. This is a rough question. I think the best answer I have is I'm kind of a very old school video gamer. So I've been playing through some classics that I didn't beat when I was younger so I just couldn't point to one. But just a bunch of old school video games is kind of my thing this week.
[00:58:14] So how old school are we talking like Zelda and that kind of thing are.
[00:58:17] Yeah. So we're talking late 80s early 90s stuff. I've got a reasonably sized collection and.
[00:58:24] Mega Man.
[00:58:25] Mega Man is the greatest video game of all time. Yes yes that is. That is correct. But.
[00:58:32] Mario.
[00:58:33] I am wearing a see I'm wearing. You can't see it because you're not here in the studio. But I am actually wearing Mario on a T-shirt. So I'm giving myself away when you see me as what was here on the radio.
[00:58:46] So perfect. Well thank you guys so much for participating. Do you have any parting remarks that you'd like to share about the festival or anything coming up.
[00:58:55] We get this question a lot. And that is are all the events free. And I just want to reiterate. Yes. Yup the events are free. So just come to the events. Don't pay anything and have a great time.
[00:59:08] That's awesome.
[00:59:09] And any of the events if you can't make it for a particular one I guarantee you there's going to be something else at any point in time in the festival that's going to be enjoyable. So do come out even if you can't get to your first pick of activity.
[00:59:24] That's perfect well thank you so much Lee and Andy for being here in the studio. And again space debates tomorrow at noon. The rest of the festival is happening all weekend long in Cedar and St. George and even in Arizona. You've been listening to the apex hour and we're going to sign off for this week and we'll see you next week.
[00:59:46] Thanks so much for listening to the Apex hour here on KSUU 91.1. Come find us again next Thursday at 3pm for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you at our events on campus. Find out more. Check out suu.edu/apex Until next week. This is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the apex hour here on Thunder ninety one point one.