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Ray D'Arcy Daily

Ep24; Weekend Catch Up

11 Apr 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

2.866 - 14.318 Ray D'Arcy

We had a great week. It was such a good week, we decided to put together our first weekend catch-up for people who may suffer from FOMO when all their friends are talking about our podcast. Yes, FOMO, the fear of missing out.

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Chapter 2: What is JOMO and how does it differ from FOMO?

15.119 - 44.884 Ray D'Arcy

The joy of missing out is called JOMO. And Colman talked to us about that earlier in the week. We met the wonderful Gary Power and talked to him about his tribute to Don Conroy on the side of the N11. We laughed out loud, LOL, at the 1994 Castletown Donkey Derby. Yes, death is one of the topics we covered with the great Siobhan McSweeney. But first, it's to the moon we go.

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45.466 - 72.646 Ray D'Arcy

And we talked to physics lecturer Kevin Nolan. about the re-entering of Artemis II. So the stats for people, and people I think are a bit like you and me when it comes to this sort of thing. So it's re-entering at a speed of around 40,000 kilometres per hour. That's around 25,000 miles per hour in old money. And the temperatures reached will be between 2,700 and 2,760 degrees centigrade.

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73.427 - 77.473 Ray D'Arcy

What is that? What does that compare to? Go on.

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77.639 - 85.989 Kevin Nolan

Well, I mean, it's enough to melt iron. It's half the temperature of the surface of the sun. Right. Extraordinary warm.

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Chapter 3: Who is Don Conroy and why is he significant?

86.009 - 104.231 Kevin Nolan

So they are basically going to be sitting inside a fireball for around five or six minutes. And they will actually see, though the old polyp acid is good, I suspect that they will as well because it's the same shape capsule. They'll be able to see the melting material go by them through the window as they're passing through. So it's just friction with the Earth's atmosphere.

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104.251 - 117.652 Kevin Nolan

But again, as you say, they're travelling at 40,000 kilometres an hour. That's seven miles a second or 10 kilometres a second. So click your fingers from the centre of town to Hoth. That fast, in a second, they're travelling.

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Chapter 4: What happened at the 1994 Castletown Donkey Derby?

117.933 - 127.073 Ray D'Arcy

That's very fast, Kevin. I also asked Kevin the question... Why has it taken us so long, as in over 50 years, to go back into space again?

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127.654 - 149.123 Kevin Nolan

Yeah, I can. I mean, the answer is actually just basically that it's so difficult. I mean, to get people to the moon in 1969 to 1972, it cost the USA about 4% of their GDP. And actually, the way I like to say it is, when you break that down, each Saturn V launch was the same cost as Ireland's GDP at that time. Right. Now, that's how expensive it was.

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149.524 - 169.138 Kevin Nolan

Now, currently, NASA gets less than one tenth of that budget wise. Now, not only not only is that the issue of expense, but actually they didn't want to go back in the meantime just to do that again. So what they've been working on really, I suppose, since around 2004, actually, is the idea of doing it sustainably so that you can go forever more.

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169.118 - 180.711 Kevin Nolan

People don't quite realise the origin of this did come from the actual Columbia shuttle disaster in 2004, when basically the second shuttle destroyed, remember Challenger in 1986.

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180.932 - 183.078 Ray D'Arcy

Seven, I think it was, seven astronauts lost their lives.

183.098 - 184.562 Kevin Nolan

Yes, 14 in total actually.

Chapter 5: What insights did Kevin Nolan share about Artemis II?

184.542 - 214.077 Kevin Nolan

from both of them yeah so the thing is that for the fairness of George Bush Jr he actually called the bipartisan committee together they formed a thing called the Vision for Space Exploration and that was the origin of what was to become the space launch system for Artemis they just decided not safe enough we're not really going anywhere anyway in Earth orbit let's go back to doing as you say what we were originally intended to do and go deeper into space and it has just taken that long to do it now effectively each Artemis launch is somewhere between one sixth to one tenth the cost of the original launch

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214.529 - 226.531 Kevin Nolan

or Apollo. Some people would debate that figure, but it's a lot cheaper. They can do it forever more. In fact, it's less expensive to do each of these launches than it was to maintain the shuttle itself. So that's why they can do it continually.

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226.751 - 228.655 Ray D'Arcy

Bernard was on on Thursday.

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228.975 - 249.685 Bernard

You were talking about going to the moon, right? Like, you don't need to go to the moon if you watch the following. The Castletown Donkey Derby. Have you seen that? Which is the greatest thing. Please, for all your listeners, YouTube, Castletown, Donkey Derby, it's actual real. And it's the it's it's no one's Tommy Tiernan and Alan Partridge.

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249.765 - 274.894 Bernard

No one's going to surpass how brilliant and beautiful and amazing that is. But one of the other things is the poor man in the Phoenix Park. whose dog got off the lead and he got Fenton. Have you seen Fenton? Oh, you haven't seen Fenton? No. Oh my God. So I actually, I fell for the guy, right? Because you could obviously see that the dog had broken the lead, right? So he had it on the lead.

275.093 - 287.372 Bernard

And I just saw the deer and tore after the deer. And he's just trying to run after it. It's like, Fenton! Fenton! Fenton! Fenton! And I was thinking, like, it went viral a few years ago.

287.392 - 299.43 Ray D'Arcy

You'll find it easy. So while we're looking for those clips, Bernard and I are going back to the moon. Bernard, would you like to go to the moon? Maura and Bantry wants to know.

299.748 - 324.822 Bernard

no no absolutely no interest there's no football up there there's not even a shop so no no interest in seeing the moon none I look up at the moon it's nice and all that but like there's nothing up there there's nothing to do the adventure of it all though No, you're stuck in a metal box for weeks and you're just like, oh, we're on the moon.

325.683 - 346.96 Bernard

It's like, I don't disagree with people that want to go there, right? Or I know it's really important for the human race and for the planet to go around to the dark side of the moon and to, you know... But is it? Is it? It is, yeah. For satellites and all that kind of stuff. For developing technology, it's so important. But I don't want to go... I've no issue with people going into space.

Chapter 6: Why has it taken so long for us to return to space?

437.635 - 444.602 Bernard

But two weeks later, you're going, how much? How do we turn off all the radiators now? Like, would I like to go? No way.

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444.642 - 472.254 Ray D'Arcy

More in Bantry. Bernard says no. OK. So we found the clips and I filled Jenny in on the details of the Castletown Donkey Derby from 1994. So it's a donkey derby. Three participants in Castletown. So there was... Billy and his sister Jennifer. They were Lees. Billy being the younger of the two. And they look like they're probably, you know, nine, ten. And then there's CiarƔn or CiarƔn.

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472.654 - 489.477 Ray D'Arcy

And he's a teenager. He's participated in the Castletown Donkey Derby in previous years. He's on the third donkey, which is called Miss Ellie. But the star of the show is Joe O'Brien. So he's the presenter stroke commentator. And seemingly the guy who was shooting it on the day, Kevin Daly,

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489.457 - 490.759 Unknown

Yeah, there's a lot of names here.

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490.799 - 514.53 Ray D'Arcy

Yeah, I know. Just handed Joe the mic and said, will you do the commentary? So Joe had no past experience and that's what makes it brilliant. He was just himself, very much himself. And he got the name of Miss Ellie wrong through the whole thing, called it Marcelli. They had to do two laps at the park and we take up the action. I mean, they're coming around the final bend.

515.051 - 521.32 Ray D'Arcy

They're coming around the final bend. So you know enough there, I think. Right, here we go. Joe O'Brien, commentating on the Castletown Donkey Derby 1994.

521.34 - 526.668 Joe O'Brien

They're starting their second round now, and Bill Lee, Bill is on person.

Chapter 7: What tribute did Gary Power create for Don Conroy?

526.708 - 565.127 Joe O'Brien

He's in second place. And Harry Muller's still leading. Harry Muller's... LAUGHTER LAUGHTER And Marceli has, it's about time Marceli threw after him. And now we go back to the leaders. And Harry Mullers, Harry Mullers up.

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570.575 - 578.404 Ray D'Arcy

Yeah. So that's just an excerpt of it. And seemingly one of the donkeys got a little bit aroused during it.

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578.624 - 580.686 Unknown

Oh God.

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580.706 - 582.308 Ray D'Arcy

There was all sorts of things going on.

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585.031 - 586.412 Unknown

I've never heard that before.

586.472 - 598.906 Ray D'Arcy

It's brilliant, isn't it? The other thing that Bern mentioned was that Fenton, because we were talking about dogs names. Yes. Because somebody from Loch Rea wanted to know from Bernhard what they should call their dog.

598.986 - 599.907 Unknown

Yes.

599.887 - 618.587 Ray D'Arcy

It was a terrier. Anyway, I hadn't seen this either. Not as funny as that, but still interesting. So there was a guy out in Phoenix Park and he was just shooting the deer as you do. And then from the right hand side, you know this one, Fenton. So Fenton the dog had got loose off the leash, as Bernard described. And this is the audio.

639.492 - 655.29 Unknown

so Fenton is chasing the deer Fenton my favourite is the Jesus Christ Fenton is so getting a reef up the arse for a man when he's gone where is Fenton now

Chapter 8: What is the impact of social isolation on community connections?

726.732 - 737.083 Unknown

Even though nothing came away, And I've tried fixing it. Louis tried fixing it. But I need, what are they called? Is it a horologist? I need a clock fixer.

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737.103 - 738.224 Ray D'Arcy

It's battery operated, is it?

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738.845 - 749.095 Unknown

It's a battery operated clock. And I've tried everything to make the hands move again with different batteries. It's just, it's like broken, broken.

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749.756 - 755.201 Ray D'Arcy

Okay. Like, because you can just buy those little mechanisms, the little square thing where the battery goes in.

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756.923 - 757.063

Mm-hmm.

757.297 - 770.396 Ray D'Arcy

And then just you fix the hands to that. Like most clocks, the face is completely different, but the mechanism behind it is the same. It doesn't have any moving parts. It's a battery operated clock.

770.416 - 773.4 Unknown

So what, I have to buy the back part of the clock?

773.961 - 778.527 Ray D'Arcy

Yeah, I could take that one off the wall and show you. Look, this part.

778.547 - 783.795 Unknown

This is not reflecting people's Friday's mood at all. Why don't I just bring it over to you?

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