New space telescope, and celebrating Wally Funk

24:52Sue Nelson:And you were at the launch, weren't you? I was. It was fantastic. It was phenomenal. What is this space telescope actually going to do? It'll investigate things like dark matter and dark energy as well as exoplanets and this is i guess the most widely known part of its missions because it's it's a it's part of its main missions but it will do a lot more like looking into things like black holes and it actually has it's teamed up with sedi in a way there's there's a there's a sedi uh based program where it will look for planets transiting planets that can also see earth transiting so like if there was life there you know that it would be like it would be a way to kind of communicate with that said life.

25:36I think it's just really interesting what's coming out of this telescope. But generally what the main missions are, it's going to provide a huge survey of cosmic structure because one of its main things is to figure out how dark energy works as well as dark matter. Dark energy is one of these big questions that we have. It's like something that's causing the universe to expand faster and faster with time. But as we continue to make observations, we are finding different answers for how it accelerates. And so the Roman is set to answer one of these questions or give us a little bit more, I guess, detail on that because it's really important what dark energy is.

26:19Basically, the fate of the universe depends on what dark energy is. So it's a really big, big thing.

26:25Sue Nelson:I was going to ask you, actually, it might be good to describe what the difference is between dark matter, because we always hear about, oh, you know, the universe is missing a great big portion and this is dark matter. And then all of a sudden you get this introduction, it feels like, of dark energy. And you think, well, that must be related, you know, E equals MC squared. There's a relationship somewhere, energy and matter. But what actually is the relationship between the two? That's a fantastic question. So dark matter and dark energy are only related in the sense that they have the sort of placeholder names dark in them.

26:59They are completely different. So they're completely different things. I mean, dark matter is part of what I did for for my thesis, actually, my PhD thesis. So dark matter is, as you said, it's like missing matter, essentially, if it's a particle, which my my work, it went on the hypothesis that it is matter, then it would be a particle. So it would be just like everything that you know, that you're used to, except it doesn't interact with the same forces. So like the reason why we see things and can feel things is because of the electromagnetic force and the strong force keeping, keeping things together and, and reflecting light.

27:35But dark matter wouldn't do that. So it's essentially stuff that interacts in different ways. And there's a lot of it. There's like 80 % of all the matter in the universe is essentially dark matter. And 25 % of the universe's mass energy, if you will, is dark matter as well. We're only 5 % of that. The remaining 70%, that giant piece is dark energy. And dark energy is just this, we understand it even less than dark matter. It's this sort of like a field that kind of just causes the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. And it's something that we understand even less. And so Roman is going to give us insight into that, which is incredibly important, as well as dark matter, because dark matter provides essentially the base for how structure formed and how it became what it is today.

28:30It just seems to me that it's just the wrong word. Dark is the wrong word. It should be missing.

28:39Sue Nelson:Ah, Sophia doesn't agree with you there. Dark matter is not so much missing as it is invisible. so invisible matter that would be quite cool yeah exactly so i was just thinking invisible would would work actually instead um just because it's something we can't see right and we can't see either of them you know so i would say invisible would make more sense and i think a lot of people agree with that especially in the scientific community and we're certain they exist or they should exist yes i mean you know we don't have a detection and i'm not you know there's been recent news with a possible detection of it it's not enough to call it an actual detection so we still have to wait for more data but this is like one of the biggest closest things to actually detecting the particle that we've seen so you know pay attention in the in the coming you know months because it's going to be really uh it's it's going to be really important but there are two sort of i guess streams of thought if you will on this um one is that that dark matter is actually a particle.

29:42So it's stuff. And the other is that it's gravity behaving in a different way. Now, when we look at all the different evidence that we have, so it's like, you know, galactic rotation curves. So how fast stars move in a galaxy versus like comparing it to like how planets move in a galaxy. We see that stars move too fast. They move too fast in galaxies. And so without dark matter being there to hold it all together, galaxies should fall apart. But that's just one piece of evidence. There's also evidence in the cosmic microwave background, in gravitational lensing. So gravitational lensing comes from Einstein's theory of general relativity.

30:16So essentially, it's kind of like you have a giant mass in space that bends space-time kind of in the same way that a bowling ball would bend your mattress. And then, you know, we compare that to like a billiard ball bending your mattress. The bowling ball will bend it more. And so the heavier objects bend space-time more. And when you use dark matter to explain it, it fits well. So most of the evidence points toward it being actual stuff.

30:43Sue Nelson:It's amazing, really, how much we've still got to learn. I mean, you mentioned earlier on about, you know, Nancy being known as the mother of Hubble. How does this telescope compare to Hubble? Is it as important or more important in your eyes? there's a couple of things. So one, it's that one is that Roman has a really, really wide field of view. Let's say you, you know, Hubble could take, let's, let's say it's field of view was, was that the size of a stamp, for example, in the same snapshot, the Roman could get an entire sheet of paper. Wow. And this is why, you know, if you've heard things like, or in part why, if you've heard things that a survey, you know, that would take Roman one month would actually take a century to do with Hubble is in part because of its wide field of view, as well as its speed and everything.

31:35And so, Roman is essentially a telescope that can look at things, see much more of it, and then find something interesting and then say, either Hubble or JWST. Let's go look at that a little bit deeper. That's what I find so extraordinary. And what's so remarkable about this point in time, we've got Hubble, JWST, and soon the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, three significant space telescopes at the same time. Yes, much of the best work that will come from it is going to be with all the flagships kind of teaming up and doing the work together. One thing that was interesting I saw from somebody who pointed this out is that this is the first time we don't actually have a flagship being built at the moment.

32:25Whereas every other time that we've launched a telescope, there's been a flagship that's been being built, right? Like right now, we know that the Habitable Worlds Observatory is the next sort of idea, but we're not building it yet, right? So it's kind of this, a special time, but also a little bit of a fragile time because you don't know what your next flagship really is going to be. Whereas, you know, when we launched JWST, we knew that Roman was going to launch. So it's an interesting time.

32:50Sue Nelson:That was a good use of word there with the word fragile. It's not just with NASA, it's across other space agencies and particularly jobs in science. So let's end on something, I think, slightly more hopeful. You're also known, although you may not have your hamster right now, for your love of hamsters. And I must say, I've really enjoyed a lot of your posts because they they often have names, don't they, relating to subatomic particles or your area of interest, don't they? Yeah, so I have a special place in my heart for hamsters. You know, just as you said, I call them names after particles. So my latest pair were Charmini and Muini.

33:39So Charmini after the Charm Quark and Muini after the Muon. They were just, I adore them. And they're all like, They all have their very specific personalities. They behave differently. It's pretty wonderful. So I created this sort of like a big habitat for them with little couches and a living room and a tiny little globe as well. And Mewi would love it. She loved it. I had a table with silverware on it as well as a bowl. And she would go and eat from the bowl. And it's just adorable. Yeah. So I loved hamsters. um one was neutrini which was named after the neutrino um you have a gravitini at one point or i did i had a yeah yes i i had a gravitini and a gluini that's after the gluon and the graviton it's a hypothetical particle but she would beg to differ but yeah i had that i had um sterlinia and axini so axini is an axion and sterlinia is the sterile neutrino, both hypothetical particles that could be dark matter.

34:45And they themselves would also beg to differ that they are not hypothetical because they're real.

34:53Sue Nelson:That's a perfect place to end with a hamster named after an aspect of dark matter. Sophia Kad-Nasa, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. By the way, I met Sophia in December 2014 at a NASA social where we got to watch the flight test launch of the Orion module. And I'm pretty sure I gave her an ESA space patch. But it's amazing how many space fans from that one NASA social have stayed in touch. And some of them have become friends. And in fact, I saw one of those people, Mark Strybeck, recently in New York. And I see the only other British person who was on that NASA social, Gabrielle Lane Peters, regularly as she's now become a really close friend.

35:39Sue Nelson:So I love the fact that, you know, a shared love of space, what comes from that and what it can start. The beginnings of beautiful friendships. In July this year, Liz Lloyd, also known as Baroness Lloyd of Ephra, became the Ephra? Ephra? Ephra, I'm pretty sure it's Ephra. It's two Fs, so it's like when you say F and L. that's how i sure that's sure that's how she describes herself um anyway she became the minister for space cyber and regulatory reform a former deputy chief of staff for tony blair she recently announced 62 million pounds in space funding to be split into 42 million for new british satellite communication technologies and 20 million for space innovation projects Now, if you remember, the UK Space Agency was absorbed into government last year and previous ministers usually had space within kind of an overall title of science and innovation.

36:37So I began by asking Liz what it was like to be the country's first official space minister. It is an absolute pleasure being the space minister. I believe I'm the first minister to ever have space in their title. it's absolutely great to be able to travel up and down the UK meeting the businesses that are investing that are developing fabulous new technologies from Scotland to Stevenage to Northern Ireland there's just so much going on and also you know you go and visit our universities and people are at the cutting edge of science they're showing you you know what's going on on space weather.

37:19I mean, there's just so much enthusiasm as well.

37:22Sue Nelson:No surprise to us. And in fact, I did see a picture of you at Leicester looking at the space centre there. And as you'll probably know from your visit there, you know, they've been involved in numerous missions, including a current one, BepiColombo, which is pretty much at Mercury as we speak. Was it a sort of surprise for you or a standing start when it came to realising how many missions that the UK is actually involved in? Yeah, I think the fact that the UK is at the heart of so many missions and also the fact of the breadth of our expertise and how well respected we are, it has been illuminating to see that.

38:05Also the fact that so many missions are so collaborative. I think I hadn't quite appreciated the international collaboration that goes into, as it were, your typical mission. And that's both international cooperation and also cooperation even within the UK. The ecosystem is so well connected between commercial, between sort of higher education and so on. It is a really special ecosystem I think we have here in the UK. Now you've got this new space strategy. We've been covering space in the UK for, what, 30 years or so. The Space Moffins podcast has been going for 15 years. Without wishing to sound too cynical, we have seen space strategies come and go.

38:45Many space strategies come and go. And you, Minister, have been involved in government back in the 1990s too. So you must have seen the same. What's different about this? As you will know more than anyone, a lot has changed in the last five years, including in technology, in threats facing our country. and as a new government we wanted to set out the priority sectors to fit the times we live in and it was also the case that those we work with in the UK were asking you know what are your priorities you really need to focus and that is what we're doing we're having a more focused and interventionist approach to space we are targeting investment where it can deliver the greatest impact for defence and national security and economic growth.

39:34We want to be a competitive space power, assertive in protecting our interests and driving growth. That's really the main sort of difference. It's also a highly integrated strategy between national security and, as it were, what you call kind of growth, the sort of economic aspects. So that's putting together the national security aspects and the more civil aspects. So give me some examples of new priorities then in space. So the priorities are around satellite communications, which, as you know, are key to providing internet, phone and data links where ground networks can't reach, helping keep businesses critical infrastructure and our armed forces connected.

40:21The second priority is in orbit servicing and manufacturing. So that's repairing, refueling, maintaining satellites, removing dangerous debris. The issue of the sort of the contested and debris in space is obviously a big one. And also making products in space. There's huge new opportunities to create new industries. The third area is space domain awareness. So that's the ability to track satellites, debris, space weather and potential threats in orbit so that the UK can protect vital services and make decisions on that. And the fourth priority area is assured access to space. So in short, our launch capabilities, ensuring the UK and its allies can reliably launch satellites when needed, including from UK spaceports.

41:17Sue Nelson:And in terms of UK science, You know, not just the people and scientists that do the work. It's their commitment to research. It's funding science, which is going through a pretty difficult period at the moment. Lots of astrophysicists are very concerned about this. What's going to be the approach in this area? I mean, curiosity-driven science is absolutely the engine of innovation and it is a core part of our plans. And we are focused on maximising the benefits of our science activities for growth and national security. And as I mentioned before, I mean, it's absolutely the case that there's a lot of dependency between these things.

41:57And we are increasing our core ESA funding by 3.5%, which will boost science programmes that are run through ESA and return more funding to UK researchers. and you know there are other funding available through the UK Space Agency as well. And are you going to be more hands-on as a space minister now that the space agency has kind of been pulled back into government rather than it being its own executive agency? Well so I mean the UK Space Agency has an excellent reputation, has really world-class individuals in it. The benefit of bringing it into the department is also just to reduce duplication so that you don't have, as it were, policy teams in the department as well as in the space agency, and to use the synergy of being in a department to really maximise opportunities for the space sector.

42:58So for example, in terms of conversations inside government about using other levers of government, sort of regulatory reform perhaps, or obviously the British Business Bank plays an important role. So I think what we're trying to do is keep the expertise, the world-renowned expertise of the UK Space Agency, plus harnessing the benefit of being more closely integrated in the department. And in terms of me, sort of personally, I do spend a lot of time with the UK space agency team. I hope not too much from their point of view, but they are really excellent. I think my first kind of in-depth experience was representing the UK at the ESA ministerial last year at Bremen, which I really knew was going to be so critical because that sets the sort of profile for the next three years, as it were.

43:57So really getting that right was absolutely critical. And I had excellent advice from the team on the ground.

44:03Sue Nelson:Now, while I can understand the priorities that the government will put on security when it comes to space and also the economics of it, you know, in terms of producing jobs, producing more money from space, which we know from the pandemic is, you know, one of the few industries that kept going and did well. What about the sort of educational side of space, which we know from Tim Peake's missions have been extraordinary for the UK, for schools, for children and for inspiring the next generation of not just astronauts, but space scientists as well. Is that still part of the mission? Or because let's face it, we've got quite a few astronauts waiting to go up into space with ESA at the moment.

44:47No, absolutely. And there's a lot of continuity, too. I mean, we will continue to support education and skills. And in terms of the strategy, so the strategy is focused on the capabilities Britain needs here and now. But human spaceflight is indeed incredibly inspiring. And that is where we are collaborating with ESA. I think you have had Rosemary Coogan on your podcast. We've had them all. We've had them all.

45:15Sue Nelson:And McFall as well. And Tim Peake several times. Excellent. They are incredibly inspiring. I come across Rose on lots of events. That is incredibly important, that kind of inspiring side of things, as are the missions that you mentioned. Every time we see in the papers that are new photos from space or new angles on our planet, I think this is all very inspiring, as are the capabilities. Also, part of it is connecting the new capabilities that we have with space. You know, I think people take a lot of GPS for granted or rather they don't necessarily know that it's connected to space. They don't necessarily know, you know, every time you touch your phone, looking at maps or weather or, you know, there is a huge amount of space connectivity behind this.

45:59So I think that is also part of the job of the space strategy, which is to underpin how reliant we are on space services for all of our life day to day. Plus, of course, as you say, the more inspiring curiosity end of it. Space Minister Liz Lloyd. Now, I know we've been doing this for a while, but I don't think she said anything new there. I've interviewed every space minister, or between us we've interviewed every space minister over that period.

46:29Sue Nelson:Over the last 20 years or so. It's the same stuff. It's a continuity, isn't it? Sorry, Liz. We liked you. But, yes, what's interesting, I think, with her portfolio is this security and cyber aspect of it. And so I wonder whether that's what's made her a little bit more reticent or as they always do, they never quite say exactly what they're going to do because the stakes seem to be a little bit higher at the moment with so many world wars, so many... That was a Freudian mistake, wasn't it? Well, there are wars going on all around the world at the moment. You might not call it a world war, But when you have several countries all fighting in another country, then I don't know what else you would call it.

47:15Sue Nelson:And the number of cyber attacks and computer hacks that are going on on a regular basis. So actually, having space in that is crucially important. My only concern is the exploration part of it. Understandably, national security is incredibly important for everybody. but you do then wonder that things something always has to go she said no that's really that whole curiosity driven side is important but until I'd brought it up it hadn't been mentioned because I worry about I mean I think it's right to worry about that internationally because as we were talking about with the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope there isn't another one being constructed yes exactly you've had Hubble James Webb now this one there's not another one well America have spent billions on weapons and war yeah but they do anyway they do anyway but now space is not got the amount of money the same amount of money so in expiration it's balancing the books astronomy you've seen you know a lot of um concern over physics astrophysics funding in the uk so yeah i suppose my only concern about the space agency no longer being an agency as such a separate agency is we're not hearing as much about Britain in space now.

48:41It's gone very quiet. Yeah, because being part of government is going to be part of a wider communication strategy. So you're not going to hear people jumping up and down and saying space, space, space, you know, all the time.

48:53Sue Nelson:Which is a shame because we do so much and we have so many excellent companies around the UK that are working within this industry. That will all change in the same Same way I mentioned Tim Peake, all we need is one of our UK astronauts who are in the ESA cohort to go up. And wow, that's going to be great for us. And that will happen sooner or later. And sooner or later, there will be an announcement, I'm sure. You just have to be so patient. Yeah, you do. It must be so hard being an astronaut. just I mean obviously they're they're very tempered people you know because you're not going to have somebody who gets really angry and annoyed and excitable like me when am I going when am I going up when am I going I mean that's that makes a wider point isn't it you would be fine as an astronaut in the early 1960s yes if they'd taken women like Wally like Wally exactly that sort of you know driven shout up and down you know because you're putting your life on the line whereas maybe you wouldn't be the right person now yeah the whole psychological profile of um yes i'm not sure well i'm not sure whether wally i love that description earlier when somebody said you know she would stand up not necessarily in the right place you know but i don't think having i i'm sure i've mentioned this before when i went up um i certainly wrote about it in the book when I went up flying with her.

50:19Sue Nelson:And during the service, they said, hands up here, who's been flying with Wally? And so many of us stood up. It was just absolutely lovely. And she was a different person. All that manic energy, that Wally-ness, where I couldn't control her on the book tour. You know, it was just impossible. And apparently, they mentioned in the service as well that they had, you know, several reps from Blue Origin there. And one of them had said that jeff bezos had told the comms department they said right we need to give wally some media training and he basically and he basically said i'll stop you there you will not be able to media train wally so you think that she would be this sort of crazy person but actually in a cockpit she was like a different personality she was so calm so patient so calm so maybe we're doing her a disservice i reckon she'd be very focused on that if she if she'd got a proper mission you know i say proper as in a you know training for years and then and then going up on the space station or something like that or the shuttle i think she would be a different a different person how do we get on to that we just got back i think that's just a lovely as we said in the piece it's full circle yes it goes back it goes back to wally it was about astronauts though because we were saying that they've got to be patient.

51:42Yes, about temperament. So just to finish that point.

51:45Sue Nelson:Are you going to slag me off just before? No, no, no. You can't do it. No, no, no. Just to finish that point, there will be a British astronaut probably announced, I would imagine, before Christmas. Oh. Do you put money on that? Possibly not. £50 ,000. You heard it here first. £50 ,000. Because that tends to be when decisions are made around November in Europe and European space. So we will see. Okay. Yeah. It's got to be sooner or later. You know, you've got three astronauts, potential astronauts there. And I've made a bet. Please don't put money on, based on what I've just said. Too late. And that's space, I haven't actually got, it'll have to be a little paper, I owe you.

52:26Sue Nelson:I owe you 50 ,000. Yeah, I haven't got 50 ,000. Anyway, that's space boffins. Yeah, please don't bet. Please don't bet. Please don't bet on our behalf. The most betting we normally do is those two penny things at the seaside. I love those so don't bet don't bet on that basis but I'm prepared to say 50 ,000 no I'm not yeah so do get in touch with us send us a postcard we'd love a postcard the address is on the Boffin Media website and we will be back next month we will be back next month thanks for listening