How does one become an astrophysicist? What are the challenges and rewards of that kind of career? Are there even any jobs? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!
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Hosted by Paul M. Sutter, astrophysicist at The Ohio State University, Chief Scientist at COSI Science Center, and the one and only Agent to the Stars (http://www.pmsutter.com).
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION (AUTO-GENERATED)
you know what time it is it's time for ask a spaceman i'm your host paul sutter you've got questions and i've got answers you know how the show works but let's ask the question and get the answer again you go online to twitter or facebook use the hashtag ask a spaceman and Fire those questions away, and I will catch them. I will catch them with my space internet powers, and I will put them in a file, and then I will peruse the file, and I'll pick ones to answer on this show. It is that simple. You can also email me directly at askaspaceman at gmail.com or visit... Ask a spaceman.com. That's the website. There's all the show notes, links to all the episodes. You can start to see if I've already answered the question. Maybe before you ask, you know, all sorts of stuff. You also, you can also go to youtube.com slash Paul M Sutter, where there's all sorts. Thank you so much for watching. At 92 Rufino asked, what does it take to be an astrophysicist? And we have Vicky K via email asking, what kinds of non-academic jobs are available in astronomy or physics? And how do I become a spaceman and or space woman? excellent excellent question i get these questions a lot especially from kids so if you you it may be too late for you to become an astrophysicist you're already set in your career and you're already living a a healthy and happy and productive life uh but maybe you have kids or maybe you're maybe you're not quite at that stage where you're set in your career and you're wondering about physics and astronomy and usually when kids are asking me this question they typically tend to be middle schoolers and high schoolers and they're worried.
They're stressed out. We talk so much to middle schoolers and high schoolers about careers and options and setting your path in life that I think they tend to get stressed out. They're worried about making the right choices, about picking the right classes, about extracurricular that and club this and what do I need to do? What's the best choice for college, et cetera, et cetera. I get it. I get it. If you're young and you know what you want in life, you don't want to screw it up. You want to hit every right note to maximize your chances of having your dream job. So to ease those fears, so when I get those questions, I tell my own story. I tell my own story of how I became an astrophysicist, and I think that might ease some of the fears. Or if you have a youngster in your life that you know that is interested in a career in physics and astronomy, you know what? The path might be a little bit different than you expect. And the number one thing I say, and this is 100% true, I did not take a single physics class in high school.
I am not joking. My high school had two options. You could either take a track of physics and chemistry, or you could take a track of computer science. And I picked computer science. And I was one of like two kids that did it. But there we were taking computer science when everyone else was taking physics and chemistry. And I didn't take any physics, any chemistry in high school, which is interesting because I had always loved reading books about science. As a kid, I loved astronomy and dinosaurs. And as I got up in the middle school and high school, I liked more technical subjects. So I was reading books about astronomy and physics and history and biology and all that good stuff. And two books I remember in particular, one is Elegant Universe by Brian Greene and And the other is Godel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstetter, both very influential books into my life, my upbringing, and my current mental state. And I did have a telescope that I barely knew how to use. I got it for my birthday when I was 12.
12 or something. And, you know, I could use I could I could look at the planets. I figured I was able to pick out some nebula and some globular clusters and things like that. But I didn't I didn't bust it out a lot. But thinking back, I really don't know. Why I didn't take the physics track. I was also a computer geek, to be fair. I do love computers and programming and all that kind of stuff. And so it was natural for me to pick computer science. And so I went into computer science in college. I wasn't even on a science track, a physical science track. And... I really don't know why. I never took an interest in it. I never thought it was for me. Maybe I just never realized that being a scientist was an actual job. It was just something that other people always did. Maybe there were feelings of inadequacy. They're like, there's no way I could do something like that. Like, oh, this person's figuring out string theory. This person's figuring out dark energy. There's no way I could do that.
I'll just have to sit in the back and program some computers. And computer science was nice. And if you're a computer scientist, I'm very happy for you. But it wasn't really fulfilling for me. The kinds of problems we were using to develop our skills just weren't very intellectually stimulating for me. And the third year of college, I took an elective in astronomy. And I still remember the teacher, Professor John Poling. And I barely remember the content of the class. It was an astronomy course for... Like engineering majors. So it's slightly more technical. There was a decent amount of math involved and some jargon. But it was an overview of astronomy. And something about the class just clicked. And I remember having conversations with Dr. Bolling. And in the first... three weeks of the class so this is like before we even had our first test i'm like well i'm really digging this like i had taken physics classes in my freshman year and sophomore year and they were just physics class i didn't really think much of it but it was in this astronomy class that something really was pulling at me and in three weeks into the semester no joke i woke up one morning and i this thought popped into my brain i just woke up and said i'm gonna be a physicist Boom.
Absolutely crystal clear thought. And by the end of the week, I'd switch majors and I had to drop half my classes because they were computer science classes and no longer applicable to my new newly declared major. I was going to be a physicist. I didn't know if I was going to be an astrophysicist or a high energy theorist or, you know, or a whatever. I just knew I wanted to push in this direction. This direction made more sense to me for reasons that I can't really describe yet. The very next semester, I regretted my decision because that's when I started taking the serious physics classes, the physics classes for physicists, the physics classes designed to make you question your life choices, right? that are deliberately hard. And it was just a course on classical mechanics, rotational motion, drag, fancier things like Hamiltonian formulation of mechanics. And it was really tough. I mean, there were tears. I'm honest enough to admit I cried during that class. It was rough going, but it was clicking.
It was fitting. It was tough, but I kind of liked it. I never got 100% comfortable with the mathematics in pretty much my entire career. I don't consider myself an exceptional mathematician. I at least had ceasefire agreements with the mathematics so we could make progress together. And I started taking more classes. The more classes I took, the more I enjoyed it. I started taking classes on special relativity and general relativity and thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, all the guts that goes into doing lab classes and recreating famous experiments. And I was having a really good time. It was mind-blowingly tough, but I liked it. And as my bachelor's in physics was approaching, I was approaching graduation. Now what? And I decided to aim for grad school. Why? To be a professor, to be a researcher. I don't know. It just seemed like a good idea at a time. I think the thoughts I was having was, I'm feeling good. I'm liking this. Let's see how far I can push. Then I get into grad school at the University of Illinois.
And... When you first show up for grad school, you know, you have to write some essays like, I've always wanted to be a physicist. And it's really special to me. And I'm really interested in insert research topic here because of this childhood experience there, blah, blah, blah. So I wrote some essay. I don't even remember. It was probably horrible. But I got in. It was good enough, I guess. I got in. I didn't have a focus. Like, is it going to be cosmology? Is it going to be astronomical surveys? Is it going to be particle physics? It took me a few months to decide. But eventually I settled on astrophysics and cosmology. I found a good advisor and we had a really good time. And when kids ask me how long I went to school, how long did you go to school to become an astrophysicist? The answer is 11 years. And they usually lose their junk. I mean, it's just of all the space facts I've related to them, nothing blows their minds more than telling them, yes, I went to school for 11 years after high school.
But I have to explain because that sounds like a big number. It is a big number. It's a good chunk of my life. It took me five years to get my bachelor's and then six more to get the Ph.D. But in graduate school, in that six years of graduate school, you're only in classes for about two years. And this changes school to school. You're only in classes for about two years. And then the rest is basically a job. You're a trainee under a mentor, your graduate advisor, who's guiding you through a research project and teaching you how to become an independent researcher. And that's much more like a job. Like, you know, here's the list of things we got to do. Let's let's get to it. And then you have weekly meetings with your boss and you have colleagues and you have reports to write all the usual stuff. So it's much more like a job than it is school. And that advisor relationship is key. You pick your advisor in the first or second year of grad school, and it's basically your science parent, your science mom, your science dad, for half a decade.
For five, six, in the experimental physics, this can go to seven or eight years. Theory tends to be a little bit shorter, more like four or five. And It's like so important that you get the bones of your education in your classes. You're going to learn the basics of physics that every physicist needs to know. But it's up to your mentor, your advisor, to bring you up to speed in the discipline you choose because you're not going to learn about the latest in astrophysics research forever. from a class because it's changing all the time. It's changing literally every single day. And so it's up to the advisor to bring you up to speed and show you how to make advances in the field, show you how to become a researcher, how to write papers, how to coordinate with collaborators, how to present at conferences, how to ask intelligent questions, all the guts that go into being a functional member of the academic community. So you have the bones in your classes and you get the guts from your advisor.
And that's where the magic happens. That's where you're transformed into a scientist. It's not in your classes. It's not by getting the bachelor's. It's not by your first couple years of graduate school. It's not the degree itself. It's not the PhD itself. That's like the certification. That's the stamp. The transformation to becoming a scientist happens under the guidance of your advisor. And the coolest thing to me, something that seriously blew my mind, is that your advisor doesn't know the answers. When you pick a problem to work on, Usually your advisor will have say, OK, you know, here's a few things that I'm interested in. You know, pick one of them. That's going to be your focus. That's going to be your specialty. So you work on this together. You pick your dissertation topic together. And it's an intersection of your advisor's interests and your own interests. And your advisor doesn't know what the result is going to be. I remember multiple times and the first time this happened, it really blew me away.
When I would develop some new method or get some preliminary result, you know, I'd be working for a couple of weeks and I did computational astrophysics for my PhD. I run some simulation. I get some result like, OK. And then, you know, I have my meeting with the advisor, Paul Ricker, by the way. At University of Illinois. And, you know, I had to figure it out on my own. And then we'd have the meeting. And then I would have to tell my advisor how I figured it out and what the implications might be. And he would start asking me questions like, well, how did you do this? Well, how do you figure this out? I'm like, wait a minute. Don't you know? Oh, no, he doesn't. Because this is brand new stuff. Nobody's done this before. And the two of us, first me, I'm the first one to ever do it. And then my advisor is the second person on the planet to know about this fact or this insight or this method. And that blew my mind because I thought my advisor was most likely the smartest human being in the world.
And I still think that might be true. And he was light years ahead of me in knowledge. But we were pushing on this problem together as partners, as co-workers, as colleagues. And it was a very, very different relationship where he went from being Professor Ricker or Dr. Ricker to just Paul. Actually, there was a joke, North Pole and South Pole. But it was a very, very strange transition over the course of those six years. And I don't think that kind of relationship happens a lot in other lines of work. It's something very, very special in the sciences. It's a tradition that we've had since forever. since there's been a sciences. You can trace back your academic lineage, your advisor's advisor, your advisor's grand advisor, on and on and on. And this is how science is done. This is where scientists are trained in a very personal, very long-term relationship with an advisor. It doesn't really happen in the classes. It happens in that relationship with the advisor. So I wrote my dissertation, got my PhD.
And remember, when I went into grad school, I didn't exactly have a long-term plan. But as my PhD was approaching, OK, now what? OK, I'll give a crack at being a researcher. And that means getting a postdoc position, what's called a postdoctoral research position. These are temporary jobs used to see if you're really good enough, if you're as good as what you say you are, where you fly out from the nest of your advisor. You try to fly on your own a little bit before you're considered for a long-term faculty position. I had a chance at a job. I took it. It was accepted. And I was on a complete 100% academic research track until about two and a half years ago when I started Ask a Spaceman, this show that you're listening to. I started the show on a whim. I'd always been interested in trying it. And I just had a do or die moment. Let's give it a shot. And it changed my life. You've changed my life. And if you thought there was going to be a Patreon pitch, that's not here. It comes later. And I fell in love with outreach.
I fell in love with communication. I fell in love with sharing what I know and what I love about the universe with anyone who would listen and quite a few who don't want to listen, but they're going to hear it anyway. So now I still do research, but I am focused on outreach and communication. And I definitely wasn't trained in any of this. I didn't get a PhD in science communication because that's not a thing. I didn't have high school classes. I was taking computer programming in high school. I'm not trained in any of this. I'm learning as I go. I appreciate your patience over the past few years. This journey that you've gone on with me of I'm training myself to become a better science presenter so I can make science more accessible, more communicable, more There's a joke about diseases in there somewhere better for you so that you can understand the world that I've been immersed in for a really long time. Here's the point of my story. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a plan and I did all the wrong things.
I made all the wrong choices to prepare myself with where I am right now. So looking back, I can tell where developing some skills, getting some practice would have been beneficial. But really, I was just winging it. I've been winging it like this feels good and I'm going to push as hard as I can in this direction. Oh, this feels good. I'm going to push as hard as I can in that direction. This feels right. I want to try it. And if it doesn't feel right, I'm not going to push in that direction anymore. And that's been the story of my career, of just my gut instinct, of what I seem to enjoy intersected with what my latent skills are. And then can I develop those skills and refine those skills over the course of my career? That was my experience. I can't tell you. That was a while ago. I got my PhD in 2011, graduated high school back in 2011. as practically ancient history may not be 100% relevant today. So maybe it is the case today that you need to make all the 100% right decisions. You know, if you're 13 years old, you need to start picking your classes, picking your extracurricular activities to get you down the path and that locks you in for the rest of your life.
I really hope that's not true because that's horrible and dystopian because human lives are fluid and imaginative and fun. And, uh, my life has been fluid and imaginative and fun. And I really hope the next generation scientists, uh, have are able to push in the direction of their dreams. That said, I do sit in meetings where we discuss new underground graduate evaluations and, and, uh, applications. I am on a graduate school fellowship committee for the Department of Energy. And so I see the applications I do every year. I get to see the crop of what the high schools and colleges are producing and how they're approaching these careers. So that gives me a little bit of basis that I can offer some recommendations. And these are recommendations in response to specific questions, specific questions like, do I need to take special math or astronomy classes right now, whenever right now is? Not necessarily. Obviously, you should be interested in this subject. But if I compare what I know about physics and astronomy and math and even computer science in what I know now to what I knew in 2011 when I got my PhD or 2011 compared to 2005 or 2005 compared to 2000, I would be frightened.
It seems like an unimaginable amount of stuff. And so I do have people emailing like, please help me. I want to read books. I need to get started. I want a career in astrophysics, so I just have to consume all the knowledge. It comes a little bit at a time, one class at a time. one homework set at a time, one exam at a time, one office hour at a time, one page of a textbook at a time, one conversation at a time, one video at a time, one article at a time. It's a little bit built up over decades where you build the base of knowledge so that you can talk about astronomy, so you can partake in the astronomical or astrophysical or physical conversation. professional world. It doesn't happen instantly, and nobody expects it instantly. Being a physicist is a skill that takes time to develop, a lot of time, maybe more time than most professions, so there's no rush. When I work with an undergrad research assistant, I give them different sets of problems. I have different expectations than when I work with a graduate assistant or when I work with a postdoc, when I'm collaborating with faculty, you know, a professor.
There's different levels. And even professors, maybe this is something outside their normal research line. It's always very fluid. We're always learning. There's a culture of you are always learning. There's also a culture of you are always wrong, which has some negative consequences on your ego, but also liberates you to be open to learning more. There's a culture of you are always learning. You're never done asking questions. Another question I get, is it important to get into a good school? Good is always hard to quantify when it comes to schools. There's various metrics that various organizations use. It's always recommended, of course, but it's not a deal breaker. And when it comes to good, especially when we're talking about graduate education, you're looking at good as usually means a large department, well-funded, good reputation. And your choice of graduate school has much more impact than your choice of undergrad. Nobody cares where I went to undergrad. Basically, nobody cares anymore where I went to grad school.
They care about the work I'm doing right now and the work I've done in the past few years. They don't care where I went to undergrad. But it's a ladder. Like, you know, every step matters for the next step. And then once you've reached that next step, nobody cares about the earlier steps. Quality of education in a graduate institution will be roughly the same. Of course, there are caveats. In fact, if you go to a large research-focused university, you might get a worse education than if you go to a university that only offers, say, bachelor's degrees where they're focused on education. That's because at the research universities, you might be taught by TAs more than the professor, teaching assistants more than the professors. The professors themselves will be more focused on research than actual teaching and education. There may not be a tradition of good pedagogy, of good teaching practices at the university. It varies from school to school, so I can't make general statements. But generally, at an undergrad, you're going to learn about the same stuff as any other place.
So you don't need to fret too much about undergrads. During your undergrad career, I do recommend you try to get at least some research experience. In fact, the National Science Foundation has a program called Research Experience for Undergraduates for exactly this purpose, where you spend a summer somewhere doing some small research projects so you can build up some credibility. So really when it comes – and so that's all I have to say about undergrad is do a good job, impress your teachers, and try to get some undergrad research in. Grad school is a little bit more important and it is better to get into a better school because those schools will have more funding. There's more options for advisors. There's more visitors giving seminars and more opportunities for travel to conferences. Why is this important? Because like all careers, it's all about the connections. You need to do good work. But it really helps to have someone very well-known vouch for you to say, yeah, yeah, this one's the one.
This one's pretty awesome. You should hire them. Those connections are very, very important, especially in a relatively small, relatively tight-knit community like the astrophysics community, like the physics community, like the astronomy community. A letter of recommendation from a rock star in the field is a golden ticket. that can open up many, many, many, many, many, many doors for you. And it's easier to get access to become a student of a rock star in the field because the rock stars in the field tend to be at the larger, better-funded universities. This culture of letter of recommendation writing is very strange indeed. It's very different from what you might experience or expect in the business world. Letters of recommendation, again, these date back for centuries in the scientific world, and it is how you get jobs, really. Because pretty much everyone has roughly the same GPA, like that even matters coming out of grad school, because most of it is research, it's not even your classes.
Just about everyone's done some level of research by the time they get their PhD. You know, they've written a couple papers. They've participated in a large collaboration, maybe. They've been to a few conferences advertising what they do. It's the letter of recommendation. And these are written in a very, very odd way. They are always exceedingly positive. If there is a hint of negativity in the letter, then that applicant is immediately dropped. And I should say, I should clarify, this is more the American style. The European style is much more cut and dry. And there can be issues if there's a European graduate student applying to an American school and their advisor writes a European style letter saying, oh yeah, this person's pretty all right. that will immediately sink their chances of getting into any job in the U.S. But these letters are very quantified. The letters will straight up say, and I've read and written letters like this, like this student was the third best student I've ever mentored.
But my fourth and fifth best students were so-and-so and so-and-so who went on to this university or this research position. And they had solid lives for themselves. So even though this person is number three, they're a really, really solid bet. They're great. And it's those letters that are the first and last thing they're read. Like you read the whole application. You pour through their academic history. You read their essays to make sure they are competent. You look up their research records. And it's just those letters are so important. And so that's why picking your advisor is so important because your advisor will give you The best letter. This is the person that knows you the best. They've had a direct experience with you for years. And so they're the best judge of your future prospects, of your quality. So getting into grad school, getting an advisor, having a good relationship with your advisor is incredibly important. And those letters just give you the better shot of making it to the next rung.
And if you make it to the next rung and do well there, then that opens up your chances of making it to the next one. Another question I get is, do I need money? Well, undergrad, typically, yes. You know, you need to pay for college unless you get some sort of scholarship or there's some financial assistance. Graduate school, no. You actually get paid to be there, usually from teaching assistantship. So you'll sign up for some department or you'll apply to some department. The department will take you on. You're both a student and an employee of the department. You usually have to teach on the side a few hours obligation per week. In exchange, that department will pay your tuition and give you a stipend. And if your advisor is well-funded, like they've got some money from grants floating around, then they can convert that teaching assistantship into a research assistantship. And then that means that instead of having to teach on the side, you get more time for research. And so that's why...
It's better to go to large, well-funded schools because there's more money sloshing around. There's a better chance your advisor is well-funded or your potential advisor is well-funded so that they can support your life directly and you don't have to teach on the side. But either way, you can always apply for fellowships. from National Science Foundation, from NASA, from Department of Energy. Fellowships are great because it's free money. They usually pay better than teaching or research assistantships. They are naturally very, very, very, very competitive, very difficult to get. But if you get them, you can pretty much say you can set your own agenda in grad school because it's your money. It's not your advisor's money. I can't tell you what to do. And so those are nice. Like I said before, it is exceedingly important to have a good advisor. They're your number one guide through the actual world of academic research. Their evaluation of you will make or break your career. Their connections will become your connections.
The people they collaborate with, the people they write papers with, the big collaborations that they're members of. Those are your initial set of contacts for the next job, for a faculty position, for an opening, for a postdoc, for whatever. They will be your champion. Remember, they hired you. They're spending money on you. They see you as an investment. They want you to do well. Their name goes on all the papers you write to. So they will defend you. They will defend your work. They want you to succeed. So they will, in general, write, unless it's a really toxic relationship, they will write you a very glowing letter. And they will push other people. They will call people and say, hey, I think you should hire this person. Oftentimes in a postdoc review committee or a faculty committee, they will straight up call your former advisor, your former mentor, and say, like, you know, tell me about the, you know, I read your letter. Is there anything you didn't put in the letter that you need to talk about? You know, because we're trying to make this decision.
And they'll be honest. They'll be honest. And that's just the way it is. Another question, what are the skills I need? There's an impression that you need to be really good at mathematics, that you already need to be good at science in order to become a scientist. But, you know, mathematics is incredibly important in the physical sciences, and the book of nature is written in mathematical characters. That's what Galileo said, and it's kind of accurate. But... Being good at mathematics is a skill that you develop over time. Being a research scientist is a skill you develop over time. And you don't get it all at once. So you don't need some great, incredible aptitude at the outset because you train, you spend 10 years figuring this stuff out. You will become a decent scientist whether you like it or not just through sheer force of will over the course of 10 years. And that, I think, is the number one skill. Force of will. Grit. Determination. You've got to want it. I'm going to be honest.
Being a physicist, being an astronomer is not an easy job. Doesn't really pay that well either. Patreon.com slash PM Sutter to help support this show so I can keep going and I can keep supporting all the education and outreach activities I do. Patreon.com slash PM Sutter. Thank you so much for your support. It's not a job that pays well. It's a pretty thankless job. It's not a very glamorous job. Scientists do it for the love of science because they're curious, and this is what it takes to be curious. And so the number one skill – and I've asked around. I've asked other faculty. I've asked postdocs. Just what do you think is the number one skill? And they say to a person, they say determination, grit, perseverance. Yeah. You need it to survive and you need it to break through because it's tough to justify the months of fruitless labor to get that one aha result. That takes guts, grit, determination, perseverance. You need it. It's the only way to make it through. Other skills, the mathematic skills, the analytic skills, the comprehension skills, the debate skills, the speaking skills, that comes with time.
You don't need it now. After 10 years, you'll have it. And you need hustle. You need to do good work and put it where people can see it. I mean, that's true in pretty much any job. There's about 50 papers written in astrophysics every day. Every single day, there's 50 new papers in astrophysics, plus or minus. Nobody can keep up with that. So you got to get to conferences. You need to talk to people. You need to introduce yourself. You need to give talks and defend your work and show people why it's a good idea and why their idea is a bad idea and be open to those debates, be open to being wrong and issue corrections and updates. And that takes hustle. You got to be out there. You got to be visible in the community so people know who you are. So it's like any other career, really. When it comes to careers, there's nothing that special about physics or astronomy. You need an interest or a passion. Otherwise, you never survive. And some base skills, at least a base level of aptitude, at least a base interest in willing to have an aptitude.
The rest comes later. It's part of the training. So I'm pretty much at the limit of how much I wanted to talk. I do have a few more notes about how there's basically no jobs in astronomy. What I think I'm gonna do is I'm gonna save that for a future episode. It won't be the next episode, But I do want to talk about the problems with the modern astrophysics career, physics and astronomy career, of how there are some institutional problems in the community that prevent people from succeeding. I do want to get into that, but I don't want to belabor that today. And so stay tuned. I'll do another episode. It might be a bonus episode. I may not go in the mainstream or something. Just stay tuned to that and we'll get through it. Before I go, I do have two quick announcements. One is Space Radio is live. It's happening. In fact, I just recorded an episode like an hour ago. And you need to go to spaceradioshow.com where you get to talk to me live. We record the show every Thursday at 4 p.m. Eastern.
You need to call 888-581-0708 to talk to me. Just go to spaceradioshow.com. There's all the instructions and info you need. So you can get on the radio and we can have a conversation about science. And the second announcement is AstroTour is back. That's right. With Fraser Cain. I know we're going to Iceland in February 2018. Now we're going to the Caribbean in September of 2018. And you need to come with us. You get to see Kennedy Space Center. Don't go on tour. You get to see the night sky like you probably have never seen before. You get special lectures and talks and show tapings with me, with Fraser Cain of Universe Today. And you get to explore mine ruins in Mexico and Belize. How awesome is that? It is significantly awesome. You need to go to astrotouring.com. Or you can just go to pmcenter.com, my website. That has links to everything. Thank you so much to my top Patreon contributors this month. Justin G., Matthew K., Kevin O., Justin R., Chris C., and Helge B. Thank you so much for your support and the support of everyone on Patreon and all the support for you for listening.
Please... Thank you for watching. adds up and it really, really helps. And I'm extremely grateful and keep those questions rolling in at 92 Rufino and Vicki K. Thank you so much for today's questions. You can keep those questions coming to Facebook and Twitter. My name is at Paul Matt Sutter. You can also use the hashtag ask a spaceman or email ask a spaceman at gmail.com or just visit the website, ask a spaceman.com. And I will see you next time for more complete knowledge of time and space.