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trent martin the johnson space center's

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project manager for the alpha magnetic

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spectrometer is here with us in mission

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control today for an interview

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and so uh welcome in trent

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thanks i appreciate it

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great to have you here today and to talk

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about ams as we call it on the

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international space station

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can you start off telling us a little

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bit about what an alpha magnetic

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spectrometer does

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sure the alpha magnetic spectrometer is

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a high energy physics experiment

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that was built by a collaboration of 60

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different institutes from 16 different

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countries and led by a nobel laureate

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from mit

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that

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combines a system of state-of-the-art

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high-energy particle physics detectors

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uh to sift through the particles that

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are constantly bombarding the earth

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we do it in space simply because most of

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these charged particles would not make

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it to the ground

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so the space station provides a perfect

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test bed for us to

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to utilize and

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actually measure these particles as they

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come through the detector the detector

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what type of particles we have so you

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can you can tell the difference between

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a helium atom and or an anti-helium atom

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um

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the the main science that we're looking

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for is anti-matter science dark matter

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science uh and and other cosmic ray

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propagation in the universe

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and i got to ask you why should i care

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about dark matter and antimatter and all

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those cosmic rays

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well ams

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is a detector that's essentially

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designed to probe the foundations of the

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universe

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so

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the data that we'll gather from ams we

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will we will utilize for years to come

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to help to identify

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what was the universe like at the

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beginning what is it like now and where

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are we going um how was it made up is

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half the universe made out of antimatter

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what is dark matter what is that 90 of

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the universe that we now know exists but

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we don't know what it is

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okay well tell us a little bit about

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yourself uh how did you get to this

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point in your career where are you from

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um i'm from

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all over the midwest and texas

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i

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houston clear lake

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so why would i be working with a bunch

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of physicists

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well mainly because nasa has the

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responsibility to do the the project

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management and integration of this uh of

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this high energy physics experiment

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so as an engineer i have to work with

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600 physicists engineers and technicians

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across the globe

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most of them being funded by other

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agencies

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to work together to build this

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experiment to operate this experiment

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it's a very interesting

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process and it's been a learning

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experience for me

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tell us a little bit about what it was

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like growing up as a kid when you grew

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up and and did you ever think you might

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be here doing this

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no absolutely not

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i grew up in small towns

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um

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never thought i would ever say that i've

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been to

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as many foreign countries as i've been

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to

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um

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no there was no way that as a kid i ever

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said i would be doing this but nasa has

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afforded that opportunity

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because of the international

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collaborations that we have

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in particular with this international

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space station

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ams is interesting in that we have as

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many countries as the space station has

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countries

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they're typically not the space

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institutions so they're not

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they're not jackson those types of

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agencies instead they're the physics

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institutions from those different

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countries

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so certainly i've met a lot of people

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um

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very interesting people that

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that are learning things about this

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universe

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that

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there's no way i ever thought i would be

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part of that

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okay

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tell us a little bit about why ams

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can take advantage of the space station

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what's important about the space station

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for the being able to conduct this

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experiment

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so the biggest advantage that we have

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with the international space station is

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that the space station provides us

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power and data

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if we had to provide that on our own if

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we decided to make the ams a free-flying

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satellite we would have had to have

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provided our own communication systems

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data systems that that we currently get

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from the international space station so

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that allowed us to focus the amount of

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weight that we had available to launch

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into science

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so

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more detector weight

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basically means we get better science

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because we're on the international space

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station okay

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hey we had a couple of twitter questions

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we advertised your interview in advance

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and we got several different good

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questions from folks out there

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i'd like to ask you those right now and

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and the first one is pretty basic it's

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from

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cory mcdonald

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and

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corey asks how many particles has ams

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collected

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so that's a fairly easy question to

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answer and actually you can look for

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yourself if you go to ams.nasa.gov

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i put a particle counter on the front of

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our website

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and i just looked just prior to this

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interview we are currently at 12.8

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billion particles measured

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we are measuring at a rate of about 1 to

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1.2 billion particles per month

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on ams we're measuring particles 24

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hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a

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year 366 this year

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and we have a a cadre of

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operations team in geneva that are

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constantly monitoring the payload making

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sure that thermally and electrically

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everything is going smoothly and making

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sure that the data is coming down

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through the through the proper systems

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and making its way to the science

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community

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and that's billion with a b right a big

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b um is that more or less than you ex

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we're anticipating we actually are

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measuring a a little bit less than two

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times what we expected to measure um we

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we were a little bit surprised when we

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first got up there and we started

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measuring data at a rate a little bit

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less than twice what we were expecting

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we've managed to um

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deal with that in our systems we had

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some robust capabilities in our systems

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that allowed us to handle that we've

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done some things to ensure that we're

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not overwhelming the space station data

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systems

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but at times we are using as much as one

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third of the bandwidth coming down from

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space station uh particularly at night

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when we're not downloading video uh we

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we can burst down ams data and get it to

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the scientists in geneva

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wow double the data the next question

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comes from uh morgan spice and i'm using

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their twitter handles here i don't know

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if it's a real name but they're asking

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do you think it's possible that our big

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bang is just one of many ongoing big

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bangs

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so that's an interesting question and

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ams

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most likely will not be able to answer

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that question um we can look back almost

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to the beginnings of the universe with

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ams over the time frame that we expect

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to be

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on the international space station

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essentially longer there the further

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back in time you're looking

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so with that we can see back to

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the origins of this universe maybe back

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to the beginnings of this big bang if

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there are multiple big bangs we just

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won't know that answer from ams

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and

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you know you talked about the potential

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for the instrument um the hubble space

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telescope basically rewrote the books on

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uh visible and other uh light ranges uh

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in astronomy uh do you

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anticipate that ams could have that same

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kind of uh effect on our understanding

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of the universe and uh and our thoughts

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about astronomy

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so ams at times has been called the

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hubble telescope for charged particles

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the reason for that is because over the

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last 50 years we've done a tremendous

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light rays uncharged particles

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we haven't done a very good job of

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studying charged particles

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so with ams we built a system that has

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i like to say if you got every high

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energy physicist into a room

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and you had them

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pick out which detector they would put

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on a high energy physics experiment

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we put all those on a list and we put

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them all onto ams

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so with that we have the capability to

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measure a single particle in multiple

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ways usually multiple times with

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different detectors so with that we'll

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be able to

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look at each particle identify it

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and ensure that the data that we're

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getting is accurate

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with that accurate data we hope that

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that we'll be able to potentially

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redefine what we know as high energy

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physics today

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and any idea on when we might be able to

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hear some of those results i know that

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there's a lot of peer review and

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everything that goes through that can

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you explain that process to us so the

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ams collaboration as i mentioned before

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is made up of 600 physicist engineers

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and technicians from around the world

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the way that the the group works is they

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take

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the

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separate physics research uh groups and

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they take the data as it comes down the

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raw data and each one of them takes the

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data and analyzes for particular things

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they get back together every once in a

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while and say well let's let's look at

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this area let's look at that area but

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they want an independent verification of

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that that's what we do within our own

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team

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once that is

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finalized we

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go out for publication and so that will

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happen

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i don't know when uh at with 12.8

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billion particles so far it's a lot of

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data to go through

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and so

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i i certainly would expect that that

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sometime

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you know within the next year or so we

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would have some data coming out

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um we certainly have a lot of of

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potential

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with the 12.8 billion particles

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and you're still collecting more

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1.2 billion particles a month

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okay the last question i'm going to ask

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you today and thanks again for being

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here is uh

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as someone from from humble beginnings

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do you have any advice for

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kids or students or folks out there that

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think they might want to get involved in

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this in the future

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when you grow up in a small town or even

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a big city and and you may have

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disadvantages

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what do you need to do to

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get through school so that you can take

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advantage of these kinds of

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opportunities that might be out there

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yeah the biggest thing that this

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question comes up sometimes and the

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biggest thing that that i always point

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out is you just have to continue

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studying your math and science

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go get an education in in an engineering

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discipline or a science discipline

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and go out there and try