TOURIST IN SPACE
AND
AN EPIC JOURNEY

Greetings and welcome to The Deep column and the deepest radio show on Earth. The Deep is the science talk radio program that takes you from the depths of the ocean to the farthest reaches of the universe. This week on The Deep, aired at 6:00 this evening on K-57, we’ll talk about Gregory Olsen, who spent an incredible amount of money to do something. Then we’ll have some expedition calls. Maybe we’ll have an expedition wrap-up call from Bob Silver. Or perhaps we’ll talk to Andrei, our Russian news correspondent. We’ll also have some science news updates and we’ll be taking your phone calls. Tune in tonight and join host Jim Sullivan, Pam Eastlick and our expedition coordinator Peter Melyan for the latest in scientific news! Then log on to www.thedeepradioshow.com for more information on all the latest and deepest news!

SPACE ADVENTURES
So, you’ve finally become a multi-millionaire so here’s the big question. What do you do with all that money? Do you buy the mansion on the hill? Do you increase the alimony payments to your ex-husband? Endow a charity? Buy your own island?

Gregory Olsen did none of those things. He did exactly what I would do if I had the coins. He plunked down $20 million and went to space. And he’s having the time of his life. Olsen, 60, joined Valery Tokarev and William McArthur for a little rocket ride aboard a Russian Soyuz to the International Space Station on Saturday 1 October. There they joined the current occupants American astronaut John Phillips and cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who have been in orbit since April.. Phillips, Krikalev and Olsen were scheduled to return Tuesday morning, 11 October, Guam time.

Although Dr. Olsen is technically a paying customer, he isn’t just along for the ride. He’s doing several science experiments for the European Space Agency. One of them involves microbes in space. Every human being is a complete ecosystem. Millions of bacteria live on us and inside us. Most of them are benign and many of them are absolutely essential. You wouldn’t be able to digest your food if it weren’t for the bacteria that live in your gut.

These creatures from our own personal zoos also live all around us and many different varieties now live in the International Space Station. Dr. Olsen is collecting samples of these bacteria because scientists want to see how space flight affects them; particularly whether their genetic mutation rates are being changed by their exposure to higher levels of radiation aboard the station.

Another of Dr. Olsen’s experiments is looking at the mechanisms behind ‘space sickness’ a malady that affects many space travelers. Dr. Olsen may not be the ideal candidate for this experiment however since he reported no motion sickness at all.

One of his companions in the International Space Station has set an amazing record. The Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev has spent more time in space, by far, than any other person. He started his career with a trip to the Soviet space station Mir in 1988. He was on the station again in 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated. Because of the chaos, his scheduled return flight didn’t happen and he was on Mir from May of 1991 to March of 1992 when the Russian government was able to send a craft for him. There was talk at the time of rescuing him with an American space shuttle.

He became the first Russian to fly a Shuttle mission in February 1994. He flew on the Shuttle again in December 1998 and was a member of the first expedition to the International Space Station where he stayed from October 2000-March 2001. He is the commander of the current Expedition 12 and on 16 August, he set the current record of 749 days in space. By the time he returns to Earth Krikalev will have spent 865 days in space or roughly two years and a month. As the ground controller said when Commander Krikalev set the new record “Fly on, Sergei!”

Sergei Krikalev

WHAT A LONG STRANGE TRIP
While Sergei Krikalev was setting a new record for space flight, another kind of creature was setting another kind of flight record, but this flight was in the ocean and the creature is a great white shark.

Great whites get a lot of negative publicity and we’ve featured the baseless slaughter of sharks several times on The Deep, so it’s nice to have a positive shark story for a change. In a paper published in the journal Science, South African marine scientist Dr. Ramon Bonfil, says that in 2003, a young female great white shark left her home in the waters off South Africa and made an epic journey across the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean.

Nicole the Shark Photo Courtesy Science

The shark, known as P12 and nicknamed "Nicole" in honor of Australian actress Nicole Kidman, a marine advocate, made “the fastest transoceanic return migration recorded among marine fauna”. Return? That’s right, folks, she swam from South Africa to Australia and back again in less than nine months. That’s a journey of 12,400 miles, the equivalent of halfway around the world. Although she was swimming a little slower than the ISS orbits (they go halfway around the world in about 45 minutes), she was still traveling at a respectable three miles an hour. Her pace was similar to that of fast-swimming tuna and is the official “fastest sustained long-distance speed known among sharks”, according to the article in Science.

Ramon Bonfil and a great white. L. Staverees/MCM

Her speed wasn’t the real surprise however, it was where she swam. Nicole was tracked by satellite after she was darted with a 6 inch long tracking device and although she plunged to depths of 3000 feet, she spent about two-thirds of her trip less than 15 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. Since sharks don’t have to come to the surface to breathe like a whale or dolphin, this raises questions about how sharks navigate in the open ocean. Dr. Bonfil speculates in the article that sharks might rely on “celestial clues’ like the Sun and Moon to help them navigate. Current theory holds that sharks and other fish follow the Earth’s magnetic field lines in their open ocean travels.

However she did it, Nicole navigated with astounding precision. She traveled in almost a straight line between South Africa and the west coast of Australia. The tag automatically detached three months after Nicole was darted, but her distinctively notched back was photographed in the waters off South Africa just nine months after she began her epic journey.

Why did she do it? Well, scientists speculate it may have been for love. Nicole arrived in Australian waters just in time for the mating season. It has long been known that there were genetic similarities between the great white populations of South Africa and Australia. Scientists didn’t really understand this since the two groups are so widely separated.

The findings also contradict earlier assumptions that only male sharks migrate great distances and suggest that females may travel across the ocean to mate and then return to their home waters to give birth.

Nicole’s epic journey proves that open ocean is no barrier to the queens of the sea. It also points up how little we know about the life that inhabits 70% of our personal spaceship.

Whether we’re learning about spaceships in space or Spaceship Earth, The Deep, hosted by Jim Sullivan with Pam Eastlick and Peter Melyan is the place to be on K-57 tonight at 6:00 p.m. Don’t miss it!