Matthew S. Williams's Blog, page 6

Episode 69 of SfS – Rendezvousing with an Interstellar Object (with Dr. Alan Stern) – is now live!

Hello all, it’s been a while, I know. Life has been crazy lately. Luckily, I’ve managed to find the time to podcast again. For this latest episode, I had a conversation with Dr. Alan Stern, an astrophysicist from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission. In a recent paper, Stern and his colleagues performed a concept study for an Interstellar Object Explorer (IOE), a mission that could rendezvous with interstellar objects (ISO).

In 2017, the first-ever ISO detected passed through our system – ‘Oumuamua – leaving astronomers intrigued and baffled. Based on the available data, the object defied classification, leading to some rather exotic explanations! Two years later, a second ISO (2I/Borisov) was detected, which was clearly identified as an interstellar comet. In the near future, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will become operational and will begin detecting dozens of ISOs a year.

Hence the desire for a spacecraft that could rendezvous with the next ISO that graces us. As Stern and I discuss, an IOE mission could have profound implications for astronomy, cosmology, and astrobiology. Studying ISOs would tell us a great deal about other star systems without actually having to go there. And if just a tiny fraction of those happened to be debris from an extraterrestrial civilization, as Prof. Loeb has suggested, the implications would be astronomical (no pun!)

Check out the links below to hear the entire conversation…

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Episode 68 of SfS – The STASH Experiment and Hibernation Technology for Space, with Dr. Ryan Sprenger – is now Live!

This week, I sat down with Dr. Ryan Sprenger, the Senior Research Physiologist at Fauna Bio Inc., a California-based biotech company specializing in genomics research. Sprenger and his colleagues have developed a new concept for testing hibernation in space, the Studying Torpor in Animals for Space-health in Humans (STASH) experiment. Their concept was selected by NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program for Phase I development this year.

With NASA’s support, Sprenger and his team will develop a technology demonstrator that will be sent to the ISS. Their concept has the potential to revolutionize space exploration by allowing astronauts to enter synthetic hibernation during the long voyage to Mars and beyond. In essence, astronauts could sleep for the duration of long-term spaceflights, reducing the physiological impact of exposure to microgravity and radiation and the psychological impacts of months spent in a cramped spacecraft.

It will also reduce the amount of supplies missions need to bring along and the amount of waste produced. It will also have applications here on Earth, helping to mitigate aging, disease, and genetic disorders. Follow the links below to learn more!

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Episode 67 – “Swarming Proxima Centauri: A Conversation with Marshall Eubanks” – is now Live!

This week, I sat down with Marshall Eubanks, a former engineer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), an astronomer with the U.S. Naval Observatory, and the CTO of the Lifport Group – a company dedicated to building a Space Elevator! Nowadays, he is the chief scientist of Space Initiatives Inc. and has been working with the Institute for Interstellar Studies (i4is) on Project Lyra, a spacecraft that could rendezvous with interstellar objects (like ‘Oumuamua) when they enter the Solar System.

He and his colleagues are also working on a concept that would send swarms of tiny spacecraft using direct-energy propulsion (lasers) that could travel to Proxima Centauri to explore the nearest exoplanet – Proxima b. Their concept was recently selected for Phase I development by NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which includes a grant to develop the concept further.

But this was just one topic we discussed during our chat. Follow the links below to learn more!

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Episode 66 of SfS – The Cosmic Philosopher: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky – is Now Live!

This week’s episode is dedicated to the life, times, and enduring influence of Russian rocket scientist, philosopher, and cosmologist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). To many, he’s known as the “father of rocketry and astronautics,” whereas others credit him with being one of the “forefathers,” alongside Hermann Julius Oberth, Robert Esnault-Pelterie, and Robert Goddard (namesake of the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center).

Regardless of titles, Tsiolkovsky’s influence was immeasurable, and his contributions to science are still felt today. His many treatises on spaceflight, his famous “Rocket Equation,” and his designs for rockets and space stations remain foundational to spaceflight. His speculations about the future of humanity in space inspired generations of futurists, rocket scientists, and science fiction writers – in particular, Sergei Korolev and Werner von Braun, the lead Soviet and German-American rocket engineers during the Space Race.

In addition, Tsiolkovsky’s philosophical ideas were groundbreaking and anticipated future developments, such as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and the Fermi Paradox (“Where are all the aliens?”). For those who believe humanity’s future lies in space, Tsiolkovsky was a pioneer and progenitor who was ahead of his time. As he famously said, “Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever.”

Statue of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, part of “The Monument to the Conquerors of Space” in Moscow.

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Episode 65 of SfS – Mars by 2040? Why Must We Wait? – is Now Live!

This week was a bit of a treat for me because it allowed me to talk about something that has been unfolding over at NASA for many years. As a science communicator, I have been privileged enough to watch it unfold and have had the opportunity to comment along the way. I am referring to NASA’s long-held plans for sending crewed missions to Mars in the next decade and the many decades’ worth of planning that went into it.

Since 2010, the plan has been to send missions back to the Moon in this decade, build habitats and other infrastructure there, and use it as a testing ground to prepare for Mars. The next step was to send the first crewed mission in 2033, followed by additional missions every 26 months (coinciding with Mars being at its closest to Earth). While there have been doubts for years that NASA could accomplish this goal in that timeline, it was announced this past summer that 2033 won’t happen.

While a flyby mission could occur that year, a crewed mission where astronauts land on the surface is not likely to happen until 2040 – and that would be an ambitious goal. Meanwhile, China is still hoping to make it there by 2033, and SpaceX wants to land there even sooner. But they aren’t in any position to promise that right now since they are dealing with similar challenges and delays. Check out the episode below to learn more about how we got here and what’s likely to follow:

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Episode 64 of SfS – “The Europa Clipper Mission: A Conversation with Dr. Steve Vance” – is now Live!

In this week’s episode, I had the good fortune to sit down with NASA scientist and astrobiologist Dr. Steve Vance so we could talk about NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission. This mission, which was decades in the making, will launch this coming October, sending a spacecraft to Jupiter to explore its satellite Europa. Ever since the Voyager probes flew past Jupiter and its moons in 1979, scientists have speculated that there might be an ocean beneath this moon’s icy crust.

The mission will arrive around Jupiter by 2030, where it will begin making flybys of Europa and studying its surface with an advanced suite of instruments. Among its objectives are the characterization of Europa’s surface, investigating surface plume activity, and determining the existence and chemistry of its interior ocean. Another major objective is the search for potential biosignatures, indications that this interior ocean may harbor life!

We got into all of that and a number of other things – including Europa’s depiction in Arthur C. Clarke’s famed Space Odyssey series. As Vance told me during our chat, Clarke played a role in the mission planning, and (contrary to the monoliths told humanity in his stories) we do have permission to “attempt a landing there.”

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Episode 63 of SfS – “The Rare Earth Hypothesis” – is now Live!

This week’s episode revisits the Fermi Paradox, the question that launched a thousand scientific papers! To recap, this paradox takes its name from Erico Fermi, the physicist who helped build the first nuclear reactor and one of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project. In 1950, during a lunchtime conversation with colleagues, Fermi famously asked: “Where is everybody?” (aka. where are all the aliens?)

One proposed resolution is the idea that the conditions for life are far more stringent than we think. When it comes to astrobiology, scientists tend to be optimistic, thinking that rocky planets with fluffy atmospheres that orbit within their suns’ habitable zones have everything they need to give rise to life. But using Earth as a template, things like plate tectonics, a large moon, a large gas giant in the outer reaches of the system, and other factors may be necessary.

If this is true, then life (and, by extension, intelligent life) is likely to be rarer than previously thought. Perhaps that’s why we’re not hearing from any of them! Check out the links below to hear more.

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Episode 62 of Stories from Space – Living on Saturn’s Moons – is now Live!

This week, as part of my continuing series, The Great Migration: Settling the Solar System, we took a look at Saturn and its system of moons. With the right technology, know-how, and the right kind of advancements, humanity could someday settle on Saturn’s largest satellites! Much like Jupiter’s icy moons, these satellites are icy bodies, many of which have interior oceans that could harbor life!

Another thing they have in common is their abundant resources, which include water, volatile elements, silicate minerals, metals, hydrogen, and helium-3. But whereas Jupiter has three satellites that could be settled (Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto), Saturn has six – Titan, Rhea, Tethys, Dione, Enceladus, and Mimas. And unlike Jupiter, Saturn has a mild radiation environment that makes harvesting hydrogen and helium-3 from its atmosphere easier and its larger satellites more habitable.

As famed aerospace engineer, science communicator, and space exploration advocate Robert Zubrin has said (many times), Saturn could become the “Persian Gulf of the Solar System,” providing the fuel for nuclear propulsion and fusion reactors across the Solar System. Take a listen to learn more!

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Talking About Trauma

I’ve been holding back on publishing this post for months now. But with the holidays here, a time for family, love, and reflection, I felt it was time. Four months ago, my darling wife Carla suffered a stroke and has been recovering in the hospital. The experience has left us all permanently changed and has forever altered my perceptions of various things.

I used to think I had lived a cushy life characterized by privilege and good fortune, which I was not particularly proud of. But since this happened, I feel I’ve come to learn a lot about the “real world” and the kinds of things that are possible. So here are my thoughts on the experience…

There’s something about trauma that can only be appreciated by having gone through it. It changes your whole perspective on life and makes you feel older, wiser, more seasoned, and perhaps more damaged. It’s that bittersweet reality that makes it all the more perplexing and helps you appreciate two very salient facts about life. First, it’s full of contradictions, which makes no sense but also does at the same time; and second, you need to be appreciative of what you have because you never know when life will force a change upon you.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on this lately due to a huge health scare involving my darling wife, Carla. Rest assured, she’s alright and recovering at a prodigious rate. But she’s got a long way to go before she’s allowed to return home, and I know for a fact that things will never be the same again. I can’t yet imagine what the “new normal” is going to be like, and I’ve found I still can’t wrap my head around all that has happened. It doesn’t make sense, but here it is. It doesn’t seem possible, and yet it is.

No doubt about it, 2023 is likely to go down in our family’s history as the worst year ever. It began with my father having a mild stroke. Mercifully, they caught it quickly, and he recovered rather rapidly. The doctors even told him he “dodged a bullet.” But of course, he still experiences some difficulties when he’s tired or strung out. And on Labor Day long weekend, my wife suffered something similarly serious. The doctors described it as a “hemorrhagic stroke,” which is also known as a “brain bleed.” This is different from a “clot stroke” in that it involves blood vessels rupturing in the brain instead of a clot blocking blood flow.

Emergency surgery saved her life and stopped the bleeding. However, we were told that she would likely suffer some physiological and neurological damage. Mercifully, after a few days, she was waking up from a medically induced coma and immediately began showing us signs that she was herself. Within weeks, she was able to speak again (the tracheal tube prevented that before) and showed us she remembered everything. We were elated to know that the Carla we all knew and loved was all there!

We also learned the cause: her kidneys had been failing, and this led to her blood pressure spiking up. There were subtle warning signs before she had the stroke, but nothing that led us to think there was a serious problem. This meant that in addition to physio and neural rehab, she would also need dialysis indefinitely until her kidneys recovered or she received a transplant. For the time being, it looks as though the latter is going to be the case.

At the time of writing this, she’s been in recovery for four months and has been making a stunning recovery. In any case, it’s been a slow and difficult recovery process. Carla needed to have a biopsy and two abdominal surgeries. Meanwhile, her dialysis has been a constant challenge. Three days a week, for a minimum of four hours each, she has to be hooked up to a machine that cleans her blood. And I finally hit the wall a few weeks shy of Christmas, otherwise known as “caregiver burnout.” But a break, some great therapy sessions, and I was back in there before Christmas!

We were hoping she would be home in time for the holidays, but that has been pushed into the New Year now. Instead, we’re bringing the holiday celebrations to her! I hope that everyone out there who reads this is having a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hunnukah, Happy Solstice, Happy Holidays, etc.! However you celebrate, I hope that you are surrounded by those you love and are in good spirits. See you all in the New Year!

Episode 61 of Stories from Space – A Mars Sample Return Mission – is Now Live!

This week’s episode is focused on the upcoming Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, a joint NASA-ESA venture to send a robotic mission to Mars to collect the Perseverance samples. This will constitute the first sample-return mission from Mars, something that scientists have been planning for decades. In 2028, the mission will launch and is expected to return the samples to Earth no sooner than 2033. Unfortunately, due to recent budget cuts, the mission may be delayed or scaled back significantly.

Meanwhile, China is planning its own sample-return mission as part of the Tianwen-3 mission. This mission will launch in 2028 but is scheduled to return by July 2031. As we enter the new Space Race, it is clear that the brass ring is the Red Planet! But regardless of who secures samples from Mars and returns them to Earth first, the scientific returns will be immeasurable. Much like the Moon rocks returned by the Apollo astronauts, scientists will be able to study these samples for generations using the most cutting-edge instruments available.

These studies could finally answer questions that have remained unresolved since the days of the Viking missions. Was there ever life on Mars? Is there life there today (and where can it be found)? When did it go from being a warmer, wetter environment to the freezing, desiccated world we see today? Check out the episode to learn more:

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