Episode 4: Sarah Gallagher - Endless Space for Discovery

Sarah shares what it's like to be a professor of astronomy, the Director of The Space Institute at Ontario's Western University and the first Science Advisor to the president of the Canadian Space Agency.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to Andover Alumni Now. I'm your classmate and host Mike Miners. This episode I caught up with Sarah Gallagher in London, Ontario, where she's lived since 2007, when she took an astronomy position and her husband a philosophy of physics position at Western University. In the years since, they've come to consider Canada their home, holding dual citizenship, with Sarah rising to become an integral scientific advisor to a Canadian governmental agency.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

So I had a job as the science advisor to the um to the president of the Canadian Space Agency. So it was kind of like a secondment. So I was there, I was working formally halftime.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

So I imagine that if you're the science advisor, that the president is not a scientist.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Right. That's often the case in the Canadian government that the head of a the government departments they're typically not scientists. Occasionally they are, but but they're often not. They're sort of career civil servants. And so a lot of them are either lawyers or, you know, studying political science, that sort of thing. So, you know, a lot of the departments have um a research cohort that's an important part of their mission. And so um having a scientist at the, you know, who's advising the president and sits on the executive, but then also, you know, can work with the program people to liaise with the community, that sort of thing, is um yeah. I was the first one, so it was a new, they sort of trialed the position, and I got to do that. It was super fun. I got to go to Baikonor and see a um a launch when the Canadian astronaut went to the space station. So it was really cool. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Uh on a Soyuz, I imagine.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was so that was in 2018.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

In 2018, yeah, because that was the only way anyone was getting to space.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

That's right. There was nothing else. That was before the Face X rockets were able to carry people.

unknown 2:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Man, what an experience. How was that?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

It was really cool. We went to um we went to Russia first. So um we flew into Moscow and then we had to take um a charter flight to get to Baikonor. And while there aren't that many Canadian astronauts who've David Saint-Jacques was the Canadian astronaut, and he was the first one who had been in quite a while. So yeah, we were the whole contingent. So I'm not exactly sure how many people there were. And then also, of course, the astronauts' family travels as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

That's really important that the families are looked after. So that's an important part of what happens. But we got to visit Star City, which is the part um in Ma Moscow where they train the astronauts. And that was really, yeah, I felt so lucky. It happened, the launch happened right after I started the position. And so before my I formally started, you know, they called me and they're like, Do you want to go to Baikonore to see the launch? I was like, Yeah. No thanks.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

I'm good. Wow. So that was your introduction to the role.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was basically the first thing I got to do. So that was, yeah, it was, it was very, very cool. And I feel that that's one of the bonuses of being engaged in space stuff, right? We get to do cool things.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah. So when you went to Baikonor, what was your role on that trip?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Um, my role was basically to be part of the Canadian contingent. Um, and I will say it was also wonderful because I spent a lot of time with a lot of the people um in the executive. So I got to know them, which was really nice. And um, it was super helpful. Um, the Canadian astronauts are all trained in at Johnson with the American astronauts.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Um, so we were traveling with NASA um and the NASA contingent.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

So it just it was wonderful insight to see how how things work and and get to know the um just the people in a in a setting. But we were, I mean, we're representing Canada um at an international, you know, an important international event. So I didn't have any um I didn't have any official duties other than to sort of, you know, be there and not get into trouble. So and it's also, of course, it's been going on, you know, since um, I mean, that was the original spaceport was by Kenor. So they also have they have the um historic uh they have museums because that's where the the research was done by the Russians on the on the early rockets.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah. Are you following Artemis?

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Yes. We have a space institute at Western at the university where I work, and I'm the director of the of the space institute. So we we are engaged in that. One of our uh one of our members is um the scientist for the Artemis III mission. He's a geologist, and also he trains the Canadian astronauts. Um they do they do field studies and remote um impact craters so they can learn about geology. Uh there's some places on the earth that have, I mean, it's not the moon, but they have similarities to the places on the moon. So it's a good place to go and you know develop some expertise of what the different kinds of rocks are, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

So the work now that you're doing, you're on the faculty at so I'm uh yeah, so I'm I'm in a department of physics and astronomy. So I'm still teaching, um, I still teach astronomy and physics, and then I'm also running the space institute. And so we have a lot of different kinds of research projects that are going on that are astronomy is part of it, but we also do space technology, space and remote health, and then uh earth observations as well. So looking down on the earth, not just out into the universe.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Oh, okay. You mentioned one with health, it went too quickly for me to process.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Oh, yeah, space and remote health.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Space and remote health, meaning caring for an astronaut.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Well, it's that that's a piece of it, but there aren't that many astronauts. And there's certain things about um care, you know, keeping an astronaut healthy and alive. Yeah. There's some parts of that that are weird and some parts of that that are normal.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Like the weird part is how the body responds to microgravity and the risks of radiation. And then the normal stuff is that it's very remote. So they're isolated, they don't have access to all of the supports that you would have, you know, at a major medical center.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

And that touches on a big kind of debate point when talking about the importance of space exploration and space programs. I hear this debate all the time. It's like, what's the point of going to space? We have problems here on Earth. And the the other side of that debate is the things that we develop when we go to these remote places have direct impact, positive impact on life on Earth.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yes. So I th so I think that is certainly the case. I don't think sometimes I think those arguments are a little tortured in the sense that they can be a little weak, I think, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

But what I do think is that when you're talking about space, you get people who are outside of the the normal domain of the people who typically work on those problems. And so they often have a unique perspective. And also people are think space is awesome. So they're very motivated. And I think that can also be something that really brings it brings new energy to some of these problems that otherwise don't necessarily have it. Yeah. Um, the other thing is that when you're dealing with things related to space, um it's the constraints are a little a little bit different in the than they are when you're dealing with people on Earth in terms of, you know, you're dealing with a a a group of people, astronauts, for example, who have chosen to do something incredibly risky and also to be engaged in science and trying to figure out new things. So that population isn't representative of the sort of average person, but it does mean that there's sort of a scope for experimentation that is greater, I think.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah. So you think the argument is not a strong one though? That the value of a space program is is not in what we develop for down here on Earth.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Well, I think that's I think what people, when they talk about a space program, they're just usually talking about a human space program. And I think limiting it to the human space program really misses actually the vast majority of activity that's related to space. And it's just a it's like a piece of it. So there's also, I mean, I'm an astronomer, so there you the James Webb Space Telescope, for example. And you might think, why did we spend$10 billion on the James Webb Space Telescope? We're just going to learn more stuff about the universe. Who cares? And it sort of doesn't recognize the piece of that in the overall ecosystem of space overall. So there is, and this is an example where if you, you know, if you've spent very much time with astronomers, I don't know if you have, I have. Um, I mean, nobody chooses to be an astronomer because they want to get a patent and they want to make a ton of money, right? They're just really want to learn about the universe. And so you just you have a group of people who are highly, highly motivated to make something really awesome. And astronomy pushes the envelope. Like the James Webb Space Telescope in some ways is a million times better than the Hubble Space Telescope. It's not like 20% better, it's a million times better. And you just don't get that those sorts of jumps when you're kind of just talking about like commercial markets and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yeah, I'm connecting with that. Um the scientists who are doing it are doing it because they're curious, not because they're trying to make a buck or because they have some technology that they want to further. They're doing it because they want to know how the world works and what's really going on. And that that has value that can't be predicted. You just go looking for the way things are, and you can't put a dollar amount on it. You can't form a prospectus and sit say these are going to be the outcomes. But the things that are discovered have tremendous positive effects on humanity that just can't be predicted.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the that's that's the risk and the promise of discovery science, right? Yeah, is that something's gonna come and it'll be big, but you don't know which one. So yeah, you sort of have to place like a bunch of bets, and one of them for sure will pay off. You just don't know which one in advance. So that's why you have to put you know lots of irons in the fire.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

And so the web is really doing that right now. It's like from what I hear, challenging our conception of what the universe of the universe was like. Are you uh obviously it's your field, so you're yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

I'm using I'm using web for for research. It's it's extraordinary. And I have to say, when um so I was the I was the science advisor when Web was launched. So part of what my job was was to be like a booster because Canada contributed two of the instruments. Oh and it was in when it launched, it was the winter of 2020. I think it was winter of 2020, and um it or 2021, I can't remember now, but it was when COVID was kind of having like a resurgence, and you know, it wasn't clear if like the kids would be able to go back to school and that sort of thing. And so it was so wonderful to just have something to celebrate. It's this like amazing international um engineering, extraordinary, extraordinary feat. And to have something to celebrate, and and the and everyone was so proud and so excited. And that's another thing I think we forget is that it's really lovely to have things that we're all really proud of. And you know, there were thousands of engineers. And here is a here's a story about the the web launch that I just think illustrates this point. So when web launched, and I watched the launch, it went up, and you were tracking it the entire time. And at some point, um, the the solar panels like popped out, and they popped out earlier than people expected. And the reason is that there was uh like an algorithm for when they would pop out, and it was when the trajectory had reached a certain point, and it hit that point early. And the reason it hit it early is because the launch was so perfect, and everyone was everyone who worked on that wanted it to be perfect. So they put the best parts in the rocket, they did the best, you know, calculations for figuring out the trajectory, all of that stuff. And so it actually hit its um its nominal position early, and then that actually meant it had more fuel left over, so it extends the lifetime of the mission as well, because where it is out in orbit, it has to, you need a little bit of propulsion to keep it in the right spot. But it had more fuel left over than was predicted based on this like beautiful initial trajectory. And so that was just, you know, the commitment of all those people to to make that just perfect was so remarkable. And I have to say, like, I I figured it was like 50-50 that it actually make it out there. You know, it's 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. And it had, it was all folded up like an origami and it had to open up. And uh I mean, and it just perfect. And it's working like better than it was supposed to. Because again, everybody who worked on it was so committed and so ambitious. And so I do think it's one of those beautiful, beautiful things that just says a lot about sort of what we're capable of in a really positive way. And in terms of the science return, it's been phenomenal. The data are just so beautiful, and there's all sorts of amazing things that are being discovered, amazing and challenging things that are being discovered. And just having those beautiful eyes on the sky is is really remarkable.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

What have you been surprised by in the data?

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Uh, let's see. A big piece of it is just how sensitive it is. So here's an example of something that's just remarkable. So when you have um when you have a galaxy cluster, galaxy cluster has like thousands of galaxies in it, and it can act as this giant cosmic magnifying lens. So it means that things behind it are made both brighter and larger. So it allows you to see things that you would never ever be able to see because they'd be too small and too uh too faint. But it's you have this giant cosmic magnifying glass. And there are examples where individual stars from the early universe can be detected. What?

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Really?

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yes, because of because of because of gravitational. Because of gravitational lensing. And so, and you know, they're crazy bright stars, and but just you know, being able to uh to to see that kind of um I mean it's a combination of the beautiful instrument, but also this like amazing cosmic advantage, right? That that you're actually able to um to have this magnification that's happening. So that's an example of something that's really remarkable. There's another example of a galaxy that has a black hole in it, and there is um the researchers were able to actually measure the mass of the black hole based on gas that's swirling around it. So they could measure it in a really a more direct way than some of the other measurements. And so again, just the fact that you're able to do that at something that's, you know, billions of light years away is is pretty remarkable.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Unbelievable, yeah. And the things that you're seeing in it, are you seeing things that you weren't expecting to see?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Oh, absolutely. So the um the data I've been looking at are images of this nearby collection of galaxies that's called Stefan's Quintet. And so it's um it's a group of galaxies and they're interacting with each other, and they've had this massive uh galactic scale collision where you have one galaxy that's smashed into another galaxy, and there's this huge arc of gas that glows in X-ray and radio, and there's a whole bunch of star formation. And so what we're doing is looking at the uh the star clusters that are formed in this giant cosmic collision. And one of the things that's remarkable is that it's this huge structure that's about um it's about a hundred thousand light years um long. And but we see that there is star formation that's happening all along this structure all at the same time, which is quite surprising. I thought we would actually see that there might be like that one end was a little bit older than than the other end, but it's happening all at the same time, which basically means that this collision has to be like totally like square, right? That it's smashing all at the same time. Because you usually don't see um you don't see things that are triggered on such large scales all at the same time. That's pretty pretty unusual.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Do you think that's just a total coincidence that just it happens to be hitting perfectly square and that that would just be a unique moment in the universe, or is something else at work?

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Well, I mean, we always ask that, right? Is it's it's like how typical is this one weird thing that you're studying? Yeah. Um, so part of it is we're just fortunate that we have the right uh point of view. So, you know, we're looking at something that's basically like a head-on collision and we have the right point of view. Um, it could be the case that if we would look elsewhere in, you know, the universe is a really big place. So there are probably other things like this that have happened. Yeah. The other thing about this system that I think is remarkable is that almost all the star formation is happening outside of the galaxies. So usually, you know, star the gas is in the galaxies and the gas turns into stars. Um, so I often I think like imagine being like a planet, and instead of just looking up and seeing mostly stars, and we can see our Milky Way, of course, and our night sky. But imagine if you had these like huge, bright galaxies that you know just spanned huge big swaths of the sky. Yeah, it would be it would just be it would be really wild to have that be sort of your night sky. We're used to our kind of mundane. I mean, we have a very nice moon, I will say.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

We have a special moon, but you know, and the Milky Way is fine, but it's not this thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Yeah, I mean, imagine you could look up and see that. How cool would that be?

SPEAKER_01 18:41

So when you were young, were you the type of person who imagined things like that? Is that kind of what brought you to this field?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Um, so I was not one of those kids who like had a telescope and always wanted to be an astronomer.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Um, I would say I I always enjoyed uh, you know, science fiction and fantasy and that sort of thing. So, you know, speculative fiction, all of all that sort of thing. I always enjoyed that. And I've always been um, I'm definitely someone who's very curiosity driven. So my research area, in addition to the star clusters I mentioned, I primarily study supermassive black holes. So those are um uh I mean, there's no universe in which like supermassive black holes are relevant to like our life on Earth, you know. I I would have to do a pretty convoluted string to get you there. But they're pretty awesome. And and you, you know, it's it's a sort of thing like you can't study that in the lab, right? You you have to go out and you have to look at the universe. So I um I mean I wound up uh studying astronomy, I um because I I was studying, I was studying physics. Um, and what I like about physics, I I sort of started in sciences and I wasn't sure exactly what I was gonna do. But what I like about physics is that it you're sort of distilling it down to the to the essence, right? And physicists can be very arrogant, uh thinking that they can solve all the problems because they're like the best thinkers, right? The best problem solvers. So so I'm not there, but but I do like it that you're sort of distilling things down to their essences in terms of thinking about motion and um you know quantum mechanics, that sort of thing. Like quantum mechanics underpins chemistry, right? So, so if you if you're interested in in those sorts of things, like why not just go to the source in some sense? Yeah. And then what I and I wound up taking an astronomy course. And what I love about loved about astronomy, and what I still love about astronomy, is that even if you just study it as a um in a sort of non-science role. So we have lots of science, uh, astronomy courses for non-science students, um, like you're you're confronted immediately with all this stuff we don't know, right? Yeah, like we don't know what most of the universe is made out of. Like that's it's kind of a problem.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Like Yeah, and you're you're talking about dark matter, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Yeah, dark matter and dark energy. Like, yeah, we just don't know what it is. It's clearly there, it's clearly affecting things, but and it behaves in a in a weird way, which we can we can we can study, but we don't fundamentally know what it is. So that's something I really loved because it's not it's not a science where you're like, oh, I don't know what to do. Like, what can you know what what are the questions? Like the questions are totally obvious. Like, are there planets like the earth that can sustain life? You know, what uh how do you make these really big black holes? What is most of the universe made out of? So for me, that's really exciting because you just you're con the bounds of knowledge are just in your face, and so you're never worried that you're not sure what to do next because there's a lot of things you could work on.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah. So you started in physics, and it was this fact that there's so many unanswered questions. That captured your imagination, and that's why you went into that field?

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Um, yeah. So I took um I took a couple years off after undergrad and I taught high school physics. And then I just really missed, I really missed being a student. So um I know a lot of people can't wait to get out of school, but I I was not one of them. Uh school, school is not for everybody. I always really like school. So um and I missed I missed the intellectual challenge of it. So I liked um I liked teaching and also I was terrible at it when I started. So it was good for me to have some time to work on that and get better at it. Um, but I really just love the challenge of trying to learn new stuff that's really hard.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Yeah. And it sounds to me like the job of a scientist is to be a perpetual student. You're constantly trying to learn something.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Yeah, exactly. And also, and especially at a working at a university, also to teach things too, right? So you need to, it's the also passing along the knowledge.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah. How do you like important part of it? How do you I imagine you love it, but how do you like the teaching role?

SPEAKER_00 23:13

So I like working with students. I also have research students that I that I work with. Um, I'm teaching a course right now called Space Flight Experiments, which is super fun.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

So I'm Spaceflight Experiments.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Space flight experiments.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

This is about rockets moving.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Not rockets. So what the students are doing is they're designing um payloads for stratospheric balloon flights. Ah, nice. Okay. So yeah, so they're working on teams and groups and they're writing a proposal. That's what they're, you know, so they have to come up with an idea for a payload and then um a science question and then a payload and um and then write a proposal for it. So this is uh first time I've taught a course like that, and it's really fun.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

What's an example of a payload?

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Uh so a payload would be so it's a small instrument, and they're, you know, they're sort of like this big. They're like the size of like a hefty thermos. So they're quite small.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Um, and they uh so they you could have a small camera on it. Uh you could have something that's measuring radiation. Um, you could have something that's measuring pollution.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Um, those are the sorts of um these are instruments that you would send on uh on a space mission mission. So the students are coming up with an instrument that they would put on through a rocket.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Yeah, so and it's the sort not on a rocket, on a stratospherical instrument.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Like you said.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Yep. So they uh right, so they're coming up with an instrument, and then they have to uh they you know, they have a science question, they have something they want to study, and then they have to figure out what the instruments are that will fit within this package. And the balloon gondola, which is like the frame that holds all the instruments, it might have 10 different instruments on it, um, will provide the power and the communications, and the instrument will be operational. It's usually autonomous, so it's something that operates independently. And then they are able to get the instruments. If all goes well, it doesn't always go well, but they are able to get the instruments back after the balloon lands.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Oh, that's great. And so sometimes it doesn't go well while the the gondola crashes into the ground or um yeah, so there can be a problem with the flight.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

So if it doesn't um it's supposed to go up about 35 kilometers, so it may not go up that high that high for some reason. So you might not be able to do what you were planning on doing. And yes, sometimes your gondola lands in the lake. So that and then it can be hard to recover. They track them quite carefully, and they can um you you can't steer um a stratospheric balloon, but you can control usually the altitude, so it can you can either let helium out so it sinks, it has ballast like shot steel shot, basically, which it can drop so it can go higher, but you can't steer it. So you have to they're tracked very, very carefully, and then um at some point they'll they basically release the balloon and then the gondola will drop. It has parachutes, so it doesn't, it's not in free fall or anything, and then they have to go recover them.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Uh and so while the balloon is up, are the students interfacing with their instruments in real time when they're up there, or is there some kind of automatic function of the instrument when it's up there? Are they is there like a mission control and they're like communicating with this thing?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Um it depends on the instrument. So it that may or may not be required in order for the for the science. There is some amount of communication that can be done, which is just saying where the um, you know, where it is, that kind of thing. Um and it yeah, if they need to communicate with their instrument, that would be something that has to be sort of like written into the science case. So not necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

And if they do communicate with their instrument, then they would have to provide some sort of communications. That would have to be a part of the instrument for them to do that. It would have to be built into what they made. Yeah. Sorry?

SPEAKER_01 27:25

It would have to be built into what they made.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Yeah, exactly. And but so having it operate autonomously. Um, I mean, the nice thing about being able to communicate with it is that it can send data down. And then if something happens to the payload, you still have data. But um, usually you can't send a lot of data down. So you would also want to store the data on a hard drive on the instrument and then recover it afterwards. Usually they can recover the payload, just not always, it's not guaranteed.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Sure, got it. And that would be part of the learning too, I would imagine, if you if you can't retrieve it. It's just like, oh, but this is how science is done. Sometimes you get have a successful experiment, sometimes you have to do it again. Uh real.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Yeah, one of one of my colleagues had his instrument land in a lake, and so he learned that in fact the computer was waterproof. He did not know that before.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

That's amazing. That's a good thing to learn.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Yeah, and he tried soaking various things in alcohol to you know get all the water out of it, and some things were recoverable and some things were not recoverable.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

So amazing.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Yeah. Yep, that's the ch that's that's that's what happens when you do things in the real world, right? You don't know what's gonna happen. It doesn't always work.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

What a beautiful lesson.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

So I imagine that's a big part of what you're doing as well. You have no idea what's gonna come of the research that you're doing, and what's next?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

There's absolutely other things coming down the pike. Um, I'll say one thing that we as astronomers are very concerned about is what's happening with the night sky. So that's something um with the mega constellations that are um basically um, you know, there's there's thousands of new small satellites in low earth orbit right now. They reflect the sunlight, they bright put bright streaks across the sky, so they're blocking out part of the night sky. And also there's just there, there's concern about sustainability also with just putting more and more satellites in low earth orbit. It's not, you know, it's not endlessly able to sustain the addition of new things. So I've I've been um I'm I'm quite engaged, and a lot of the astronomers are as well, with this overall concern about sustainability of space.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

I imagine you've seen the movie Gravity about the Yes. Is that a is that a potential outcome? Is that something people are worried about where the things start to run into each other and they and we have all this big? Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

I mean, the the the ISS has had um has had objects that you know have punctured it before. So that for sure crew quarters things have been punctured by or uh yeah, there was a whole, I believe it was in the Russian side of the of the ISS and the um uh Canada arm also has had sustained some damage from I mean, stuff just punches when it's moving in Earth orbit. You also you have not just um uh uh artificial objects, there's space debris, but you also have natural ones too. So there's micrometeoroids as well that can that can have an impact. But absolutely that that isn't that is a real risk that could absolutely happen, that you can wind up with these, they call it Kessler syndrome, where you have um you could wind up with a runaway cascade of debris if if the the wrong kind of collision happened, it would just generate a huge amount of debris and then it would hit other stuff. And um so that's a that's a real concern.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

So, what is done about that? Just really careful tracking of everything that's in space. What how's that addressed?

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Yes, so things are definitely tracked. Um, but the issue is that there's some stuff you have control over and some stuff you don't. So the a lot of the like the small communication satellites in low Earth orbit, they are being operated. They're alive. So, and and there are maneuvers that are happening all the time. There's evasive maneuvers to make sure things don't crash into each other. There are databases that track um track all the debris that that people know about. There are the one of the big issues actually in terms of the risk to life on Earth are the old rocket bodies that are in, and they're not controlled because they were just discarded, right? And some of them are left over from the early um from early space flight. And but they have a lot of mass, so they have the potential to create the biggest problem because they will not burn up in the atmosphere.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

And so we don't really know where they are, is what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Oh no, we know where they are. Oh they're easy to find. You just um, I mean, you can see a lot of them. And you can also um there are uh like NASA, for example, has radars that that are bouncing off all of them. So they're absolutely known where they are, but they're not controllable because nobody's scaring them. Yeah. So we know where they are, but if they start behaving in a in a you can't really do anything about it. So and and there are uncontrolled re-entries that happen. So with with SpaceX, for example, every day there are uh spacecraft that are deorbiting, um, where they just they they lose energy over time because there's drag from the atmosphere, and so they fall down, and there's a limit to um more recent spacecraft um have a ways of deorbiting that are more controlled, but from earlier generations, they don't necessarily have any control over it.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah. Wow. My God. What fascinating work. Well, really great catching up.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yeah, it's great. This has been fun.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Yeah, it's been really fun for me. Thanks so much, and hope to see you on campus.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

I will try to make it. I would really love to come, so I just have to see if I can, you know, make it work with my schedule. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Oh, great to see you, Sarah.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Great to see you, Mike. Take care, have a good rest of the day.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

All right, you too. Alumni and loved ones, join us June 5th through 7th for our 35th reunion. We'll see you on campus.