Case of the Galactic Vacation

[Music] 3 2 one blastoff get ready for another funfilled Journey on the NASA SCI files as The Treehouse detectives take off for an out of thisor vacation hi I'm astronaut Barbara Morgan and I'm training here at NASA's Johnson Space Center to fly into space I am also a teacher and not long ago I was teaching math science and technology to third and fourth graders in Idaho that's why I'm hoping you'll pay close attention as The Treehouse detectives use all three of those subjects to plot their way through the case of the galactic vacation [Music] and learn about math science [Music] [Applause] [Music] technology discovering the world we're in doing [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] yeah in the case of the galactic vacation you will be asked the following questions what are the five outer planets what is a lightyear what is Parallax and guess what when you see this icon you know you are getting closer to the answer since we're learning so much about Earth Science I have a great activity for you guys RJ what is it do we get to go to Mars well that depends on your imagination I want you to create an Out of This World vacation Bianca are you with us you mean travel beyond Earth like in space we'll have to talk more about this tomorrow so where do you want to go I don't know but I think I have an idea instead of just presenting one travel plan we can present three uh we can divide up into teams there are six of us sorry but you'll have to count me out why I'm taking my own out of this roal vacation to Puerto Rico why are you going there I'm doing a small internship at aroso you know the largest radio telescope in the world but don't worry you'll be hearing from me maybe she can help us with some research a perfect place to start my a encyclopedia a yes A for astrona now let's see uh the first person set foot on the moon was Neil Armstrong in July of 1969 I want to be the first person to set foot on Mars Mars that's far away well to be exact it's 56 million km when it's closest to Earth let's pull all our destinations on the problem board I think Mars might be a cool place to go because I've read that it's a lot like Earth well I just happen to have my M encyclopedia and it says here that Mars is a lot smaller than Earth but has mountains and volcanoes interesting everyone agree we'll put Mars on the problem board under we know we know that Mars will be one of our destinations what should be our next travel destination the moon it's closer to Earth than any other object and if I'm going to travel I'd like to stay close to him why is there some special reason I figured out that I can send and receive a stock report to and from the Moon in 2.6 seconds can you believe that it's not much of a time delay did you know that it only takes 1.3 seconds for a signal to go from the earth to the moon now really Tony do you think NASA astronauts think about the stock market when they decide to go into space no but maybe they should wow we just got a video postcard from Bianca in Puerto Rico check it out hi guys I finally made it to the beautiful island of Puerto Rico I have a history question for you did you know that Christopher Columbus claimed this Caribbean island as Puerto Rico for Spain and 1493 Puerto Ricans are now considered US citizens because the United States took over in 1898 these are the streets of Old San Juan or vijo sanan as I learned to say I love these cobblestone streets and the brightly colored buildings look at the Magnificent old Spanish architecture old s one is not very big but it still has two fortresses that protected them during war time the huge concrete walls took over a hundred years to be built Puerto Rico has beautiful beaches that make up the shoreline there are also quite a few churches and humongous Mansions like cablanca originally built for Puerto Rico's first governor you'll never guess who that was Pon Leon that's right the explorer who was searching for the Fountain of Youth isn't that awesome Bianca looks like she's really having a great time yeah it does now let's see we have the Moon Mars and the solar system maybe we should offer our clients a really adventurous trip beyond our solar system uh we could go to another star in our own Milky Way galaxy let's put that as our third destination good morning I'm Ted t with kids science news network our travel correspondent I am listening is filing a live report from the Royal solar system space cruise ship the solar princess I am Ted this will be the vacation of a lifetime the ship is magnificent and has everything you could want but I don't see any furniture I am where do you sit down oh Ted get with the program we'll be in zero gravity so there won't be any down to sit besides all of the furniture stowed in the walls and deploys for use sounds great I am and what's more you can have water balloon fights without the balloon in zero g water makes a natural sphere watch way to go I am maybe you should hold off on that water fight until you actually get into space well that's all for now I'm Ted tun for KSN poor I am I bet the cost of that hotel will be big bucks next I think we need to know the mode of transportation for each place do you mean how are we going to get there yes NASA's already landed on the moon so we know we can use a Saturn 5 rocket to get there I think we're going to need a a really big rocket to go to Mars um I'm not sure about that maybe we need to learn more about our solar system first I can't make it but you might want to go see Dr D I'm sure he can help us out I'll email let them know that we're on our way then and I can print off a couple action plans so we can organize our investigation go to the NASA files website to print off your own action PL hi Dr D hi kids I got your email you must be working on something exciting we are planning a trip to the Stars really well it's just a school project to design a vacation in space but we want to make it as scientifically correct as possible we need to know the distances between our destinations and Earth where are you planning to go on your imaginary Journey the first place is the moon let's see the moon is about 400,000 km away so if there was a road to the moon and you wanted your parents to drive you there how long would it take a couple of days maybe a week or two if you drive to the speed limit which on the inter States is about kmph would take 4,000 hours or more than 165 days that's almost 6 months and that's without taking any breaks or sleeping not to mention the lack of gas stations along the way so how did the astronauts do it well it only took them about 3 days cuz they were traveling at thousands of kilm per hour what else might you want to visit we were thinking about Mars by car it would take you 64 years when Mars is at its closest that's a long time I think I get bored Mars is actually a very good choice why is that well you wouldn't want to go to the other inner planets Mercury the planet closest to the Sun has a rocky cratered surface that is almost 430° C in the daytime ouch that's really hot doesn't water boil at 100° C yes and a very hot pizza oven is about 430° because Mercury doesn't have an atmosphere to retain heat at night it can cool to about -1 1 73° wow I'm glad we're not going there the next planet out from the Sun is Venus it surface is covered with lava flows isn't it also completely covered with clouds yes it's mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere is very dense on the surface it's hot enough to melt lead isn't Jupiter the next planet after Mars it is Jupiter is over 11 times the diameter of the earth it's mostly made of hydrogen and helium doesn't even have a solid surface Saturn Uranus and Neptune are also larger than the earth and they are similar to Jupiter that there is no way to walk on their surface but Dr D you haven't mentioned Pluto that's my favorite planet Pluto is very different than the other planets in the outer solar system it's small even smaller than our moon some astronomers think we shouldn't call it a planet I wouldn't like that well Pluto is 15,000 times further away from the earth than our moon and it's very very cold but compared to the nearest star Pluto is close what's the nearest star to Earth it's the sun okay Dr D what's the next nearest star it's called proximus centuri and it's 4.2 Lighty years away what's a lightyear let me explain Catherine how far do you live from your grandparents about 2 hours you just described the distance with the time the time it takes to get there light travels at 300,000 km/ second so it goes about 10 trillion km in a year that's what we call a lightyear so if proximus centu is 4.2 Lighty years away then it would take us 4.2 years to get there if we are traveling at the speed of light yes but we haven't even come close to traveling at light speed which is the ultimate speed limit if you drove your car to proxy to Centura it would take over 45 million years even our fastest space Pro would take over 60,000 years to get there wow I had no idea space was so big thanks Dr D you're welcome I have work in my office that I have to do you can start your research here I'll see you later bye Dr bye I can't do research now my brain is way too full of information let's call Bianca hey guys I'm at my cousin's School the Antonio Gonzalez sues Bilingual School in Nasco Puerto Rico they're doing an experiment in their teacher Miss Alisa Sao science class learning how to measure distances in space cool Dr D just told us about the great distances in space can we take a closer look sure I like Kim and I to tell you all about oh I'm sorry I'm Kimberly and iest we are here today with our mentors Brenda FES Alexis Alisa Carmen Garcia and jeli cladio from the Society of women Engineers they are assisting us with a paralax experiment to help us understand how astronomers measure distances space excuse me we need to listen to my teacher for a minute okay I'm back what's Parallax is there apparent change in the positioning of an object try this hold your thumb out in front of you and close one eye then close the other eye looks like my thumb is moving that's neat even though your thumb really didn't move it looked like it did and that's Parallax so how does the experiment work first we lay out our Baseline of rope 10 m long one end is marked a and the other end is B then we place an object not more than 25 M away from the Baseline I know this is a protractor but how is it going to help you measure distance you sit on the Baseline as at points a and make sure that the protractor is parallel with the Rope why' you put the pencil on the vertex putting it there helps you line the object up as you look at it what comes next now move another pencil around the outer edge of the protractor until it lines up with the object how do you read the protractor your partner will actually reader for you and record the angle next we move to the other end and repeat the steps notice how the flat pole seems s changed its position and appears as a different angle now what do you do with your data plot it on graph paper draw a 10 cm Bas line at the bottom of the paper and then draw in our angles do the two lines intersecting mean anything yes it is telling us the distance that the object is from the Baseline how do you determine the distance draw a perpendicular line from the point of intersection to the Baseline and then measure it what's the scale we use the scale that means 1 cm on the graph paper equals 1 M outside I get it so if the line measures 15 cm the distance from the object is 15 M astronomers are able to see an apparent shift in the nearby stars as the her revolves around the Sun that's really interesting and thanks to the Society of women Engineers for providing us with mentors visit the NASA sci-fi's website to learn how to get your own classroom mentors thanks kimid I've got to go to my next meeting k it's 300 p.m. I better run adios to guys with planets and stars so far apart it sure is good to have a way to measure the distance it looks like you're going to have to travel a long ways in space just to get to Mars we better talk to someone about what it's like to live in space email NASA Johnson Space Center and see if there's any possible way that we can talk to the International Space Station crew yeah right good luck you never know NASA does want to inspire the next generation of young explorers and we are the trios detectives that's right so what's up which destination is ideal for an outof This World vacation will distance be a deciding factor what else should the trios detectives consider before choosing a destination in this episode of the galactic vacation be prepared to answer these following questions how does gravity most affect the ISS crew how are the phases of the moon created and what causes the seasons on Mar wow I never thought it really happened hope they got my message to get here quickly hiob hey guys you will never guess who we are going to talk to today is Bianca calling today no better than that better not let Bianca hear you say that I think even she would agree with me okay so who is it the crew on board the International Space Station no way yes I came through again he's going to be hard to live with the email said we were to dial them up at we need to call now audre house detectives greetings from International Space Station I'm Ken Bowersox on my left is Don P to my right Nikolai budarin hello uh greetings from The Treehouse sir I mean sir no one's going to believe we're talking to you I hope I remember to tape this can you tell me how living in space is different from living on Earth living on Space Station we are weightless and so all the effects that you see of gravity on Earth you uh don't see here on space station so things will float off you have to keep keep all your little tiny Parts coralled you set something down on a Surface it'll float away Commander can you tell me if you've been sleeping any differently no not really here in orbit I sleep uh pretty much the same as I do down on Earth um I dream and I sleep very comfortably and almost the same amount every night um how do you use the bathroom the bathroom here on space station is not that much different than what you'd find on the ground except we use fans and and moving air to replace uh many of the functions that gravity provides thank you very much that was awesome I think we're ready to start planning our trip to the moon email the others and let them know that I'm going to talked to Dr prior with NASA Langley Research Center okay I'll also print off a get up and go sheet from NASA SCI files website for you to take with you you like to be an astronaut yeah maybe say aren't you one of the Treehouse detectives sure I am and you must be Mr prior from NASA Langley yes I am and I understand from your email that you want to know more about the Moon yes I was I was looking at the moon the other night and I was wondering why it had different shapes the different shapes are called the phases of the moon step over here and I'll show you what I mean what do you do with the lamp lamp represents the sun think of this ball as the moon and you're the Earth okay now hold the ball in front of you and towards the Sun what do you see there the side that I'm looking at is dark that's right that's called the new moon phase now turn to the left a quarter turn and keep holding the moon in front of you and tell me what you see now half the side that I'm facing is left that's called first quarter keep going okay now the whole thing is lit this must be a full man keep [Music] going now only half is lit but it's the other side yes that's called the moon's thirdd quarter phase okay I get it so the phases of the moon are created when the moon revolves around the a the same side of the moon is always facing the Earth and as it revolves around the Earth Earth different portions of the surface are illuminated by the sun those are the lunar phases why do we only see one side of the Moon the Moon rotates on its axis once every 27.3 days turns out it's also 27.3 days that it takes to revolve around the earth that's why the same side of the moon is always facing the Earth how old is the Moon the Moon is a lot older than you and me it's about 4 and 1/2 billion years roughly the age of the Earth but that's where the similarities end what do you mean well there's no atmosphere on the moon and the gravity is much less it's only about 1 Sixth the gravity of the Earth at the surface of the Moon so if I weigh 90 lb on the earth then I would weigh 15 lb on the moon cool that's right and uh the surface of the Moon is very different too so what are those big circles that I see when I look at the Moon those circles are craters from the meteors and the asteroids that have impacted on the moon over the years there's no water or weather erosion to help get rid of them so they're all still there so what's the surface like surface is generally gray in color and Sandy feels very much like this [Music] concoction it feels like dust you're right there was a real concern early in the moon program that it might be like quicksand and the astronauts could sink in it but of course that did not happen good thing they didn't does the moon affect the Earth at all oh yes the moon affects the tides and if we were on the beach how did that happen I don't even want to ask the moon's gravitational pull depends on the distance it's greater on the oceans closest to the moon than on the center of the earth this tends to pull the oceans into a big bulge anything else actually the Moon is increasing the length of our day by 0.16 seconds every Century we can measure that wow I'm impressed how does it lengthen the day the Earth's Tides act like a break to gradually reduce the speed of the Earth's rotation that's so interesting thanks Mr P you've given me a lot of useful information now I wonder how we're going to get back to the museum we're learning all about the moon and Mars the Moon is a really cool place there's a lot less gravity there and that's going to make things so much easier to do you think so you might be surprised how difficult living in an alien environment can be how is that there are a lot of things you might not think of have you ever gone camping in the mountains that's an alien environment well not quite the same thing but you do have to think a little differently for example on a 10,000 ft Mountain the air pressure is low and water boils at 90° C instead of 100° so food doesn't cook as quickly oh I get it so on the moon where there isn't any atmosphere the water would boil at an even lower temperature wait a minute if there isn't any atmosphere then we would have to bring our own oxy oxygen supply actually you couldn't just bring an oxygen mask you would have to have a spacit I have one in my closet why would you need that a space suit protects you from temperature extremes on the moon it's about 130° C in the daytime and- 170 celi at night more importantly because there's no air on the moon your blood would boil without a spacit oh I see you found it okay you sold me on the spacit is there anything else well now you will find that tasks are tougher with the spacit I'll give you a few simple things to [Music] do even easy tasks become difficult let's try something else and suppose you're on a planet where the gravitational force is very strong for example if you could stand on Jupiter you'd weigh 2 and2 half times your Earth weight now I'll cut you some slack and just make you weigh one and 1/2 times your normal weight 30 lb and four more here and here thanks a lot now it's really hard to move imagine living on a world like the moon where it is dark for two weeks at a time and then light for 2 weeks it'll be pretty hard getting used to going to sleep when it's light for that long of a Time that'd be a lot easier to live with than wearing these weights so what have you learned about Mars well I haven't done a lot of research on Mars yet why don't you go see Dr Bobby braa with NASA Langley Research Center he's done a lot of research on Mars thanks Dr D that's where I'm headed next see you later guys oh hi Dr BR hi RJ I hear you want to learn about Mars yes we're trying to plan the ultimate Future travel trip one of the places that we wanted to stop on our cruise was Mars Mars is a an excellent choice because of all the planets in the solar system Mars is the most like the Earth how is it like Earth just like Earth Mars has a solid surface with mountains valleys volcanoes and even craters Mars even has the largest known volcano and Canyon in the solar system wow those make great tourist attractions for our Travelers isn't Mars smaller than Earth yes it's about half the diameter of the Earth but it has the same land area since Earth is covered largely by oceans is there water on Mars there's evidence that a vast amount of liquid water flowed across mars' surface in the past but there's no liquid water on the surface today however there is frozen water beneath the surface does Mars have seasons just like we do here on Earth yes just like the Earth Mars is tilted on its axis it's this tilt that causes the different seasons astronomers have even noticed that the polar ice caps shrink in the Martian Summers and get larger during the Martian Winters what's the atmosphere like on Mars now that's very different from Earth's Mars atmosphere is very thin has only about 1/200th of the amount of gas that we have on the earth and it's mostly carbon dioxide yes in the Earth's atmosphere is 21% oxygen 78% nitrogen and 1% Trace gases so I guess we have to bring oxygen for travelers yes or you can make oxygen from the water buried beneath the surface of Mars that's right water is H2O two part hydrogen and one part oxygen right and because Mars is 1 and 1/2 times farther from the Sun than the Earth you better make sure you're outfitted to withstand the cold temperatures I'm wondering if that's going to be a problem cuz I read that the space suits and the backpacks that the Apollo Astronauts wore were almost 200 lb fortunately the gravity on Mars is less than that of the earth we learned from Mr prior that the moon's gravity is 16 in out of the Earth is Mars less than that no actually Mars's gravity is about 1/3 out of the earth to compare unlike denominators first you have to find a common denominator for example with the fractions 1 16 and 1/3 the common denominators six then you multiply 1/3 by 2 over 2 which is actually 1 then you get 2 over 6 then it's easy to see that 26 is greater than one 16 that's right I have an idea let's go see how much you would weigh on Earth and on Mars it looks like you weigh 100 lb here on the earth and the space suit's 200 lb so what would that be on Mars I know you wouldn't weigh 300 lb cuz then you couldn't walk around well that's right it would be 1/3 of 300 lb that's 100 lb that's the same as a weigh on Earth oh that's too bad I was hoping that if I weighed less I could jump higher then I'd be a great basketball player right but if you had an indoor basketball court and didn't need the space suit you'd weigh a lot less I can see it now basketball camp on Mars we guaranteed to slam dunk there you are I've been waiting for you guys to get here what's the hurry Bianca's ready to give us another video postcard okaya in other words what's up I'm back again this time in Louisa Puerto Rico and part of the Puerto Rican tradition is the dancing take a [Music] look this is Carnival Ramba check them out they're called the happy dancers they told me the reason they're called this is because when you dance you're happy don't you love their colorful costumes but they weren't the only ones performing tonight tyo Indians Africans and also Spaniards brought their dance to Puerto Rico meet my new friends and watch closely as they use their fancy footwork to proudly Express their Heritage and their [Music] history I guess it's time to bomba all right I'm ready to go I think we have enough information to plan our out of this World vacation I think we need to go to the problem board what do we know we know that living in space is a lot harder than living here on Earth and that it will definitely change our sleeping and eating habit we know that gravity is different on the moon and on Mars we've learned how to measure distances in space we learned how far away our destinations are we need to know more about space travel how are we going to get there Dr D talked to us about how long it would take to travel to the Moon and Mars maybe we need to ask more about space travel let's call them up so what's up what are the advantages of going to the Moon instead of Mars why would Mars make a good choice for a vacation how will the trios detectives travel to their destination are you ready to answer these questions what is acceleration why do you need to exercise in space what is plasma do you see Dr D yet I wonder why he asked us to meet him here at Gardens Williamsburg oh there he is hi kids welcome to your Astronaut training program Astronaut training I thought we were here to ride roller coasters that's exactly right I want you to be able to experience the thrill of space travel and the best way to do it here on Earth is on a roller coaster what do roller coasters have to do with space travel I know that roller coasters go fast but not nearly as fast as rocket ships that's right but it turns out the thrill of space travel doesn't come from going at high speeds it comes from accelerations we've learned before that acceleration is a change in speed or Direction precisely the important point is that forces are needed to cause accelerations remember the law of inertia I remember it states that objects at rest stay at rest and objects in motion remain in motion very good let's get this bowling ball rolling what if I hit it from the side I would guess that it wouldn't change speed I'm not sure what it would do let's try it it changed Direction without changing speed the same thing happens to the roller coaster car at the bottom of the hill it has inertia and wants to maintain its downward motion but the track pushes the car perpendicular to its motion and sends it uphill what does the push of the track do to the passengers it makes them feel heavy the faster the coaster is going or the tighter the turn the heavier they will feel how heavy will you feel on a roller coaster here on the Alin guys you feel about four times heavier than normal the bottom of the couple of the hills it turns out the space shuttle astronauts only feel three times heavier than normal when the shuttle is taking off so you were right we are going to be in training to be astronauts the difference is on the alen gist you feel heavy for only a few seconds at a time but on the space shuttle you feel heavy for about 8 minutes don't astronauts also feel weightless will we be able to experience that on the op gist you bet once the engines are cut off after about 8 minutes and the shuttle goes into orbit the astronauts are weightless weightlessness is experienced when only gravity AC in an object it's called freef fall let me show you when I jump off this bin the points of my hat will float as if they're weightless and this spring hanging from my hand will collapse wow Dr D what you go through to show us how science works so where in the coasta ride are we going to be falling Free Fall is not always down remember it's when only gravity acts so when I throw this cush Ball Watch which path it follows I've seen that before with the vomit comment when we were learning about habitats I think it's called a parabola very good the coaster goes over a parabolic kill and twists at the same time for a few seconds you're weightless this is going to be exciting can we go on the right now one more thing you can tell how heavy you feel by watching this accelerometer when you feel three times this heavy as normal this mass will be pulled on to this point right here Einstein told us that being heavy on a roller coaster and being heavy on a big planet are the same thing so I guess we're preparing for both space travel and visiting an alien planet let's go on the ride I'm ready to be an astronaut okay it's good to experience the physics and not just talk about it don't forget to watch accelerometer and try to figure out where you are when you feel the heaviest come on let's go ready here we [Music] [Music] go that was so great I felt heavy at the bottom of the hills I noticed the accelerometer read more than three a number of times but I lost count I know noticed I felt weightless a few times I had no idea where I was on the ride but it was exciting thanks Dr D now we have some practical space travel experience you're welcome you'll be great astronauts oh I've got to run see you later bye Dr D thanks that was so much fun wish it was that easy to go into space okay let's organize what we've learned let me get the laptop and then we can fill out at the problem board go to the NAT side files website where you'll find lots of tools to help you in your own investigation we learned that acceleration occurs when you change speed or direction we also learned that sometimes you feel lighter or heavier on a roller coaster depending on the situation so where do we go next we just learned that it's not as easy as we thought to go into space why don't we learn more about space travel I think we should learn more about future space travel why don't you do a search I'll go to the NASA homepage www.nasa.gov now put in future space travel wow NASA's Marshall Space flight center has an exhibit called Starship 2040 here's a list of where there'll be exhibiting look there's an exhibit in New York next weekend my mom and I are going up maybe we can go and talk to them hello Mr Wang hi I'm Catherine my friends and I are designing a travel bisher for a trip into space but we need to learn more about future space travel well Catherine you've come to the right place welcome to Starship 2040 thanks do you really think there will be tourists in space yes and probably in your life lifetime every day scientists engineers and highly trained people are working to make space travel a reality in the next 40 years we're looking at vacationing working and even living in space wow that would be awesome so how do you travel in space with systems like this this is a navigation and Vehicle Health monitoring system crew will need to access information like this throughout the ship that makes sense this isn't what I think it is is it yes it is but it is modified it's more than likely that your ship won't have any gravity so therefore the bathrooms will have to be changed so you can wash your hands brush your teeth or even take a shower is this the toilet yes and you must remember the phrase always buckle up this is really important in using the bathroom in space cuz if you don't a really big mess can happen we don't want that using the bathroom will be kind of weird yes and of course after you finish using restroom you need to wash your hands so you can use this washing [Music] facility why are there chairs on the ceiling that's simple when traveling in Low Gravity every floor can be a ceiling and every wall can be a floor you float from deck to deck I would have a great time floting around but what else can you do for fun well you have your own personal entertainment center you can watch movies play games or even surf a space net or one day you can even talk to your friends face to face that sounds like my kind of travel we learn in the case of the biological biosphere how important it is to exercise do you have any exercise equipment for space travel we sure do without without gravity the human body gets lazy today's fittest astronauts even have to exercise at least 2 hours to stay in shape we have a stair stepper a climbing wall and a treadmill that you can stay in shape with while you're in space how do you eat while traveling in space well the Starship has a self- serving kitchen you pre-select your meals before you go on your trip and once you're hungry you dial them up and they're prepared just the way you like them wow this trip will be so cool I can't wait till the year 2040 thanks Mr Wang for all your help you're welcome send me a copy of your travel sh when you're done we might just want to use it one day what are you doing Jacob I was just investigating a propotion system for our space travel out of the Galaxy with a balloon in a string I was just starting with the basics investigating the problem I just got an email from Catherine in New York she says we should talk to Dr Franklin Chand Diaz he's an astronaut I am listening is on her space cruise and files this live report from space I am Ted we' begun our three-hour tour to Neptune soon we'll be swimming and wind surfing on a whole new planet um I am the surface of Neptune is about -2 200° C and is made of Frozen methane and ammonia if you go swimming you won't be going very fast but if you go wind surfing you'll be going very fast winds on Neptune have been clocked at 2,000 mph what that's not what the brochure says and unless you have a plasma drive it takes about 15 years to get there 15 years well it's a good thing they have an all you can eat buffet I'm headed for lunch dead speaking of plasma drives NASA astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz is working on just such a propulsion system plasma drives will replace today's chemical fuel rockets and make space travel faster than ever he sounds like a man we need to talk to surely he can help me out with my test propulsion system let's try and dial him up hi I understand you'd like to know more about propulsion systems yes we're trying to design an Out of This World vacation and realize because of the great distances in space we might need to get there a different way but how do we currently travel to space we use chemical Rockets to produce a jet of exhaust gases and these gases Propel the ship forward how long would it take a spaceship to reach Mars about 10 months 10 months is not that long why aren't chemical Rockets good enough to an astronaut but 10 months in space is a long time persistent radiation of space will weaken your immune system and also damage your bones so you would like to go there as fast as you can yes we learned a little about physiological losses from Beth Shephard in our last case what will the propulsion systems in the future be like instead of using the heat from a chemical reaction the future Rockets will use something called a plasma what's plasma plasma is a gas which has been superheated to millions of degrees it is even hotter than the interior of our sun that's hot how the rocket not burn up with such a high temperature since there is no known material that can take those temperatures we will not use materials we are going to use an invisible force field that will hold this plasma and prevent it from touching any surrounding material how will it work the magnetic field is like an visible tube that will contain and guide the plasma to provide a much hotter exhaust where will you get the energy to heat the plasma we will get the energy from electricity generated by an onboard nuclear power plant well plasma Rockets be used to travel outside of our solar system eventually plasma Rockets will become even more powerful where the energy of the plasma will be generated by an internal source a thermonuclear reactor called Fusion I've heard of fusion it sounds fast Fusion Rockets will be so fast that it will be possible for people to travel to the farthest reaches of the solar system and be able to return to their families within a couple of years how long before we had this type of space travel it is hard to tell one never knows about progress it could be as long as 50 years but then again it could be less why so long developing new technology takes time and we do want to make sure it's safe I know NASA is very cautious and always put Safety First thanks Dr Chang Diaz for giving us a lot to look forward to in the future you're welcome and don't forget to have fun designing your vacation and be sure to call if you need anything else wow that was cool I think we need to go to the problem board and organize our information what do we now from Catherine's notes we've learned that space travel will be a lot different from today's travel and we know from Dr Chain Diaz that it's going to take a propulsion system unlike any we currently have to go beyond our galaxy I think we need to know more about our galaxy wait guys here's banca from Puerto Rico hi guys I'm up here on top of the Yahoo Tower 1,575 ft in the air overlooking the national Caribbean rainforest or o yonke this is the only rainforest in the US National Forest system according to the ancient tyano Indian legend the good spirit yukiyu protects Puerto Rico and its people from his mighty Mountaintop Throne can you believe that more than 100 billion gallons of rainfalls here every year that's why there are so many rushing streams rivers and there's even waterfalls like this one there are these beautiful and patient flowers and all of these Vines everywhere and they even have over 240 different species of trees I finally made it to the Diego waterfall isn't it great but I think it's time for me to take a swim by the way my next up is my aoso internship Bianca is so lucky she's actually visiting the largest radio telescope in the world maybe she can do some research for us I've heard that aasbo looks for extraterrestrial life do you mean aliens I've heard that they use radio telescopes to listen for them I think we should ask Bianca to research the out of the Galaxy stop on space travel great email her and let now what's up will space travel become common in your lifetime are plasma Rockets the answer to Future space travel which destination will The Treehouse detectives [Music] choose in the last episode of Galactic vacation tried to answer the following questions what is a radio telescope how do we look for life in the universe hi Bianca hi Dr D welcome to Puerto Rico thanks for inviting me to come look VI your telescope glad to have you how does it work this is a reflecting telescope has an 8 in mirror that gathers a lot of light and makes DM objects visible that's cool so we can see the planets and stars yes did you know that at the AO radio telescope in 1992 the very first planets outside of our own solar system were discovered since then we've discovered over a hundred of what we call extra solar planets you mean there are other planets not in our solar system why didn't we find them sooner planets are much smaller than stars and because they don't produce their own light and they're light years away they're very dim and difficult to detect do you think any of the planets have life we don't know yet but a lot depends on what kind of star they orbit Stars I look the same to me except some are brighter than others take a look I've got the star Beetlejuice in the telescope Beetle Juice isn't that a movie Beetle Juice is a giant star it's dying and in its old age it expanded to more than 500 times the size of the sun which is larger than the orbit of Mars I guess that if there were life on any planets around Beetlejuice it wouldn't have survived that's right we don't expect to find life around giant stars do you know that stars come in different colors stars have colors I guess Beetle Juice did look a little red here check out this star called regel [Music] it looks blue does the color mean anything yes the color indicates temperature blue stars are hot and red stars are cooler that's different usually blue is cold and red is hot isn't our sun yellow yes our son a dwarf star is not too hot it's not too cold it's just right very funny Dr D in order to have Life as we know it a Planet must be just the right distance from a star liquid water can exist it's called the habitable zone if the star is too hot there'll be too much ultraviolet radiation I know about that it's what's causes you to get sunburn luckily I know about UV rays and I'm wearing lots of sunscreen out here in Puerto Rico yes and hotter Stars don't live very long so there might not be time enough for conditions necessary for life to develop so does that mean there will only be life on planets that have stars exactly like ours they don't have to be exactly the same as ours just similar they could be a little hotter or a little colder here take a look at [Music] this it looks like a blue cloud it's called the Orion Nebula it's a glowing cloud of hydrogen gas 1500 light years from Earth right now stars are forming just behind this glowing Cloud if a star would War right now we wouldn't know about it for 1,500 years you've been paying attention let me show you you something really [Music] spectacular it just looks like a fuzzy patch of light it's called the whirlpool Galaxy doesn't look very bright because it is so far away how far away is it we don't have an exact distance but we estimated it to be between 15 and 37 million light years has about 100 billion stars in it that's amazing with 100 billion stars there's got to be a lot of Just Right Stu and at least one must have a planet with life on it well if there isn't there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies that might have life Wow trillions of galaxies with billions of stars my mind hurts thanks Dr G anytime see you later bye me Bianca Baker reporting here for my internship you can proceed I'm at The airo Observatory let let me tell you a little bit about its history The Observatory began operating in 1963 it has a 20 acre radar dish and a 1,000 10 platform suspended above it I'm going on a tour later do you want to come along hi Bianca Welcome to our re I'm Dr Jose nice to meet you this place is so huge I can't wait to see everything where do we start I have a perfect spot where you can have a great look at the telescope wow this is amazing I can't believe I'm 550 ft above the dish but I have a question is a regular telescope like a radio telescope the difference is that regular telescope gather light and radio telescope gather radio waves where do the signals come from most objects in the universe like galaxies Pulsar quers they emit radio waves how does the radio telescope work radio signal which are coming from the sky they will be reflected from the very large reflector underneath then they will come up and be gathered into special receivers that will transform them into an electrical signal that signal will then be sent to the control room where our scientist will be able to see them why electrical signals so that the signals can be monitored by these special computers here's an example on how the signal might be displayed it looks like a graph Bianca I want you to meet tapasi go she's one of our astronomers hi Bianca hello Puerto Rico was an island in the Caribbean so why would they choose to build a large telescope here I have some work to do I see you later Bianca bye do you know we can fit 16 football fields in this area 16 football fields they had to find a huge sinkle to put it in also do you think you can move 1,000ft telescope around I wouldn't even want to try we knew we couldn't move such a l large telescope so it had to be put in a place where it points in the right direction where does it need to point it points upwards but one of the main purposes of this telescope is to observe planets and from near the equator you can observe them across the sky for a long time I understand now but where are we going next I'm going to take you under the dish and then we come back to the control room I can't believe they were underneath the telescope but I can see the sky through it why are there holes in the dish don't the holes let the radio waves leak through no it's like bouncing a ball of a tennis racket if the ball were smaller then it will go through the hole likewise radio signal being of longer wavelength bounces of the dish but Optical signal won't that's right we learned about the wavelength of light in the case of the mysterious red light bian let me take you to the control room now you'll meet our director and he's going to tell you about alien r [Music] research hi Bianca I'm Dr aler I'm the director of the AR Observatory are you enjoying your tour yes this place is awesome yes it's an exciting place to work we study things very near like our atmosphere we study things in the solar system like the moons of Jupiter or asteroids and we even search for extraterrestrial intelligence have you found any yet no not yet but we're not discouraged it's a very big place to look for something like this and we have to keep on searching why do you look for life in the universe ever since the beginning of mankind we've always wondered by looking at the stars at night if we're really alone and we would like to really know this would be the greatest discovery ever how do you look for life well one way is to search for artificial signals what's that a signal that is not produced by Nature so if we detect a signal like that coming from somewhere else we will probably conclude that there's somebody who made that signal how do you locate these signals well researchers bring special equipment to connect to our huge telescope and then we point the telescope to thousands of stars that look like and are like the sun Dr D told us that sunlike stars are the most likely to have planets with life he's right and the ones we know have planets we'll be looked at very carefully have you ever tried to send an alien a signal we did that once in 1974 we sent a signal that uh had something to say about who we are and how we are and where we are but usually we listen do you really believe there's life out there it's such a large universe so many stars many with planets it would be difficult to think that we're just all alone in this big place what would you do if you were contacted by other intelligent life it would be the greatest discovery ever but before we go out and announce it to the world we would have to confirm and make sure that it is real that we didn't make a mistake and probably ask other observatories to look also and see that it is true I'm not sure I would even know what to say if I made contact with an extraterrestrial being would you if we ever make contact here with an extraterrestrial intelligence Bianca we'll call you thank you hi guys I'm back well hi Bianca great now that you're back from your out of this world internship we can get to work on the Travel bur sh what did we decide to do for some great ideas on how to present the final report on your investigations visit the NASA SciFi website I think we should create a space Cruise Line that's a great idea the mo Moon could be our first do of call Mars our second and somewhere in the Galaxy our third I had the cruise ship I for sure can read something like this you can begin your Out of This World vacation with a 3-day trip to the moon unfortunately the accommodations in Fon are exactly five star yes as we learned from the ISS crew eating and sleeping are much different from on Earth but Starship 2040 says things will be much better in the future at least we can advertise truthfully that on this Cruise you'll be at your thinnest huh remember because of less gravity on the moon one will weigh 15 lbs instead of 90 and our Travelers won't need to worry about buying expensive Cruise clothing because of extreme temperatures and lack of air space suits are required from the Moon we could head to Mars remember Mars is 1.5 times farther from the Sun than the Earth so it's a lot colder it also has some great tourist attractions such as the largest volcano and mountain in the solar system make sure you sign up for that tour Jacob yeah right finally our last stop will be the next nearest star in our Milky Way galaxy proximo centuri I hope our group has a lot of time because even in our fastest space probe it could take 60,000 years to get there unless we get a new propulsion system I don't think we'll be making our last stop if we do then who knows the researchers from arbo might pick us up on their radio telescope we might even run into extra terrestrial life this is going to be a great for sure we should also take some videoos so we can make a commercial too great idea come with me so what do you think Tony take a bye think you're gearing up for the wrong kind of Crews no just getting in the mood for our Out of This World [Music] vacation I'm glad to give you this key and the logo of Lisa as a present in the name of Lisa municipality the difference is on the AL guys she [Music] you trillions of galaxies and billions of stars all in this universe of [Applause] [Music] ours [Music] [Music] NASA science files was made possible through the generous support of Bush Gardens Williamsburg SeaWorld and NASA langly research Center's Aerospace Vehicles technology office captioning provided by anyc Foundation of America