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## **Starcast Transcript: January 4, 2026**

 Happy New Year, and welcome back to the Starcast for the week of January 4th, 2025. I'm your host, Jay Shaffer, and with me is my co-host, Mike Lewinski. Happy New Year, Mike!

**[Mike Lewinski]**: Happy New Year, Jay! It's great to be back.

**[Jay Shaffer]**: Yep, it sure is. We're looking forward to a nice 2026. Mike, what's our space weather looking like over the next couple days?

**[Mike Lewinski]**: Well, Jay, we are keeping an eye on Sunspot 4325, which has a beta-gamma magnetic field. Which poses a threat of M-class solar flares. So, it's heading away from us but still in the active region. We do have a C6 flare that went off on January 1st that may arrive today and spark a minor G1 geomagnetic storm. Really, unless you're up in the very northern latitudes, it's unlikely to be visible here, given the full moon. But officially, our forecast says we have a 50% chance of an M-Class flare over the next 24 to 48 hours and a 10% chance of an X-class flare over the next 2 days. For geomagnetic storms, our probability here at mid-latitudes is: Active conditions at 40%, minor storm would be 25%, and a mere 5% chance of a severe storm. Whereas up at high latitudes, that chance of a severe storm is as high as 65% today, dropping down to 35% chance tomorrow. So, the full moon is really our biggest obstacle to seeing Northern lights here at the lower latitudes right now. So, what's happening in space this week, Jay?

**[Jay Shaffer]**: Yeah, so we're starting off the new year with a rare triple alignment. Last Friday, of course, was the first full moon of the year, sometimes called the Wolf Moon. And it was a supermoon. It also coincides with the Earth's closest approach to the Sun, an event called the perihelion. That means that the Earth, Moon, and Sun were all unusually close and aligned as the new year begins. This triple event—the closest moon, the full moon, and the closest sun—is rare. The last time that this actually happened was back in 1912. Some people actually blamed the calving of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic on that alignment and the gravitational pull that would cause. But that, of course, is totally speculation. And the second brightest thing in the night sky after the moon is still Jupiter, and so you can see it this week, grouped with the waning gibbous moon and the Gemini stars, Castor and Pollux. So if you look up, the brightest thing next to the moon is the planet Jupiter. So, Mike, what do we have for us in space news for the new year?

**[Mike Lewinski]**: Jay, before I jump into that, I just want to comment. I was out last night for that, using my Seastar to record it just as it emerged over the edge of Crestone Peak. It was a beautiful sight. It made for a nice video. I also watched as Jupiter rose a little bit to the south of that, and I was filming that with the Seastar and captured the rise of the Jovian moons as they were coming over the mountain. That's always a cool thing to watch as they come popping out one at a time. Also, before we leave night sky happenings, I think we should give readers a heads up now that the only total lunar eclipse this year is happening on March 3rd. That's just two months away; folks might want to make plans if you're going to go somewhere to watch it, make your reservation now. Here in the western United States, in New Mexico and Colorado, the moon will be setting that morning of March 3rd while still eclipsed, although it will no longer be in totality. This is, I believe, the last total lunar eclipse we're going to see until 2029. So, hopefully, we're going to have good weather for that.

**[Jay Shaffer]**: Oh yeah, lunar eclipse, okay. Yeah, I was thinking solar eclipse, and I was like, wait a minute, Mike. Okay, yeah, we'll keep an eye out for that in March, and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about that as that day comes closer.

**[Mike Lewinski]**: Yes. So, in space news, 2026 is looking like it's going to be a landmark year of lunar exploration, starting with the return of human flights to the moon and also a surge in robotic missions from both private companies and international powers. First up, leading the charge is NASA's Artemis II mission, which is currently scheduled to launch in February. This 10-day mission will take a crew of 3 Americans and 1 Canadian to the moon for the first time in over 50 years. While the crew will not land, they're going to execute a flyby, zipping past the moon and performing a U-turn behind it before returning to Earth. Mission Commander Reed Wiseman notes that the crew will have a unique opportunity to visually survey large areas of the lunar far side that were missed by the Apollo astronauts. These observations are expected to provide vital data for geologists and experts who are selecting future landing sites for the Artemis III program, which will finally put boots back on the lunar surface. Following the human crew, there is a fleet of commercial robotic landers that are preparing to launch, signaling a major shift toward private sector lunar access. Blue Origin plans to launch a prototype of its Blue Moon lander early in the year. The demo vehicle will stand 26 feet tall, taller than the Apollo lunar modules, with the final crewed version expected to be nearly double that height. Two other companies, Astrobotic Technology and Intuitive Machines, are targeting 2026 for return missions that will carry scientific payloads to the lunar surface. And Firefly Aerospace is setting its sights on a technically challenging landing on the moon's far side. Now, on the international front, China is advancing its lunar ambitions with a mission targeting the Moon's south polar region. That mission aims to deploy both a rover and a hopper—a spacecraft designed to jump into permanently shadowed craters. Their primary objective is to search for water ice, which is a critical resource for future sustained lunar exploration. Some say that we have already explored the Moon and should be looking on to Mars, but the lunar environment still holds many questions and opportunities. I think also it's likely that we're going to use the Moon as a jump point to get to Mars. So, today we're going to take a look at just how challenging the lunar environment is, and how we might inhabit a moon base, or even a colony, and why the race to the moon is so important. Jay, why is the moon so difficult?

**[Jay Shaffer]**: Well, to the naked eye, the moon is a serene silver companion. But to a spacecraft engineer or a mission planner, it is a hellscape of thermal extremes, razor-sharp shrapnel, and lethal radiation. As we stand on the precipice of a new era of exploration in 2026, it is vital to understand that returning to the moon is exponentially harder than history makes it look. When we look back at the Apollo missions in the 1970s, they almost made that seem easy, and I think we had a more optimistic view. We've actually had quite a few spacecraft fail recently in trying to land on the moon. We've had one or two lunar landers that have basically tipped over, and we've had a couple that have augered in. Just landing on the moon isn't as easy as you might think. Before humans can even inhabit the moon, our machines have to be able to survive it. It is hostile to electronics and mechanical systems in ways that are difficult to simulate here on Earth. First is what we think of as the lunar dust, or regolith. It is actually not like beach sand because there's no wind or water to erode it or atmosphere to melt micrometeorites. Every particle is a jagged shard of glass. It is electrostatically charged by solar radiation, meaning that it clings to everything—solar panels, glass camera lenses, and spacesuits. It's an engineer's nightmare. This dust can destroy seals and bearings, and during the Apollo missions, it wore right through the outer layers of the spacesuits in days. For a permanent base, dust mitigation is a Tier 1 engineering crisis. If the dust gets into the controlled atmosphere within the spacecraft, it can wreak havoc on the electronics and the astronaut's lungs. Another huge challenge is the temperature. The moon lacks an atmosphere to distribute heat, so a spacecraft can have boiling temperatures on one side facing the sun of 250 degrees Fahrenheit, and then on the other side of the same spacecraft, it can be minus 208 degrees Fahrenheit. In the permanently shadowed craters of the South Pole, the temperatures can drop to minus 414 degrees Fahrenheit. Electronics freeze instantly and lubricants shatter. Robots like the upcoming Viper or its successors will require nuclear heating or advanced battery loops just to wake up in the morning. They will be using nuclear power just to even keep heated up so they can keep operating. Finally, there's the gravity paradox. Physics of arrival is a unique hurdle. You would think that landing in 1/6th gravity would be easier, but it presents a treacherous paradox. While the spacecraft's weight drops drastically, its internal mass remains identical to Earth's. All the momentum associated with internal mass will be the same, so it requires that the engines throttle down with extreme precision to prevent a floaty vehicle from bouncing off the surface or tipping over like a top on touchdown. This has actually happened in three cases in the last couple years. I don't know if our listeners remember the computer game Lunar Lander, but it's a lot easier to crash than successfully land in the game, and the game would probably be quite a bit easier than actually doing it on the moon. So, Mike, why don't you talk about some of the challenges that we would face as humans on the moon?

**[Mike Lewinski]**: Sure, Jay. Building a colony implies comfort, but a lunar base will just be a survival bunker. The primary enemy is not just the vacuum of space, but the radiation that sleets down constantly. On Earth, our magnetic field protects us, but on the Moon, astronauts will be exposed to galactic cosmic rays and solar particle events. I want to give a shout out to the Apple TV series *For All Mankind*. I understand Season 5 is being released this year. They show one of these solar particle events on the moon that imperils the astronauts who have not a lot of time to seek shelter. Long-term habitats are going to be buried using the lunar surface itself as part of the shield. Current plans involve in-situ resource utilization where we would use 3D printers to sinter lunar dust into thick protective shells, or inflate habitats inside of ancient lava tubes where hundreds of feet of rock provide natural shielding. A study published in 2020 showed that astronauts on the surface would be exposed to about 60 microsieverts of radiation per hour, which is about 200 times what we get on Earth. Building habitats that protect our bodies is going to be absolutely essential. We also have a bottleneck with power. A lunar day is 14 Earth days long, followed by 14 Earth days of absolute darkness. During the night shift, the base will need massive energy storage to keep from freezing. Solar panels are useless for 2 weeks at a time, so this really necessitates nuclear fission power. Beyond engineering, there is the psychological toll. There's a "break-off phenomenon" of seeing the Earth as a marble in the sky combined with confinement in a buried, windowless bunker. So, Jay, tell us, why are we racing to the moon?

**[Jay Shaffer]**: Yeah, before I get into that, I was just going to comment on those long periods of darkness. Here on Earth, we have researchers at the South Pole station in Antarctica who experience pretty much the same phenomena. The South Polar Station would be a really good simulation of what a lunar base inside of a lava tube would be. They have learned to do light therapy to mitigate some of that psychological impact. So, why go to the moon? The race to the Moon is no longer just about flags and footprints; it's about money and the economic and strategic future of humanity. The "oil" of the solar system is water ice, and on the moon, the poles contain it. Water is heavy and expensive to launch from Earth—it costs about $1.2 million per ton to get it out of the gravity well of Earth. If we can mine it on the moon, we can split it into hydrogen and oxygen and turn it into rocket fuel. The moon becomes a gas station or a depot for spacecraft going to Mars. A spacecraft could launch from Earth with practically empty tanks and then refuel in lunar orbit using moon-mined fuel. Also, the moon is easier than Mars. Mars is 6 months away, whereas the moon is only 3 days away. If a life support system fails on the Moon, rescue is plausible. On Mars, a failure is a death sentence. We must perfect our habitation technologies—closed-loop water recycling and radiation proofing—on the moon before we make the leap to Mars. Finally, there is a geopolitical reality. The Treaty of Outer Space is vague on mining rights. The first nation to set up infrastructure at the "peaks of eternal light"—areas on the poles that receive near-constant solar power—will effectively control the most valuable real estate in the solar system. So, the moon is not as welcoming as you would think. Spacecraft must battle abrasive dust and thermal extremes. Humans must live underground to avoid radiation sickness. And the prize is energy and a strategic foothold. Any other thoughts on this, Mike?

**[Mike Lewinski]**: You know, Jay, I'm just going to include a link in our show notes to a solar sintering project that was run in the Egyptian desert. This solar sinter used some old plasma TV lens covers and a couple solar panels to run a 3D printer. Marcus Kayser took sand and, using just the power of the sun, made a bowl out of glass. Sintering is something we could readily do using the power of the sun on the moon by heating that regolith up to the melting point to build structures. It's a very neat process.

**[Jay Shaffer]**: Yeah, when it's on the sunny side of the moon, we have an abundance of energy. We could use that for sintering, welding, and actually utilize that energy. Energy is not the game killer; it's actually water. If you have water, you can make lunar concrete, too. We're looking forward to this year where we're going to do a lot of lunar exploration. We want to thank all of our listeners for rejoining us in the new year. Please be sure to comment, like, and subscribe. You can check out our individual websites: Mike's is WildernessVagabonds.com and mine is skylapser.com. The intro music for the podcast is "Fanfare for Space" by Kevin MacLeod. From the Deep Sky Nine Observatory, this is Jay Shaffer, and Mike Lewinski, wishing you all a Happy New Year and clear skies.