Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - A 35th Anniversary Party With Neil Tyson!

Episode Date: November 3, 2015

It was a grand night at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. CEO Bill Nye led the Planetary Society’s 35th anniversary party with guests including Neil deGrasse Tyson and Deputy NASA Administrator Dava Newman. We present a very brief sampling of the celebration.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neil Tyson and more at a 35th anniversary party this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. The Society was turning 35 and we wanted to party with 3,000 of our best friends. You'll hear just a few minutes of that celebration on today's special show. First, though, we'll check in with Jason Davis and Casey Dreyer. They participated in NASA's just-completed first landing site workshop for human missions to the surface of Mars. We'll hear their report right after this week's visit with Senior Editor Emily Lakdawalla.

Emily, you do a lot of speaking all over the place nowadays, but you spoke to a new group and delivered a new presentation, you told me, last weekend. Tell us about it. Yeah, we were approached by an organization called the California Map Society, and I thought that was a cool opportunity to deliver a new talk because maps are really what got me into geology in the first place. I love geologic maps. I love the idea of mapping

and naming new territory across all of these solar system worlds. And so I thought it would be cool to give a talk to this organization. What did you talk about? I mean, just that we have lots of places to map? I did mention that, but I thought it would be interesting to talk about how we go about generating new maps of new worlds and how you have to begin with a flyby mission that tells you something about what the surface of the world looks like, but generally gives you only a very incomplete view of the world. And then you go back with orbital missions and you build up different kinds of maps, photo maps, topographic maps, mineral composition maps. And then how the third

step is to take that map of an entire globe of a world and pick one spot to put a lander down. And the Map Society was very interested in the talk. They had a great time. I, of course, closed it with one of my famous montages of lots of images of places in the solar system and pointed out how many of them we haven't mapped yet. I was just thinking of the great tradition of mapping new worlds and legends like

here be dragons or sea monsters. What a great thing to do. If dragons lie in unmapped areas of worlds, there's a lot of dragons in our solar system. Well, we can only hope. Emily, I'm very glad to mention once again that we will be together on Wednesday with Mark Raymond of the Dawn Mission at Cross Campus Pasadena. And there will be a live webcast for anybody who can't actually join us for that free event in our hometown. And when do you leave for the DPS conference next week? That's coming up on Sunday. I'll be there all week long.

All right. I hope we get the chance to talk to you and get another report direct from that Division of Planetary Sciences conference. Thanks very much, Emily. Thank you, Matt. She is, of course, our senior editor, the planetary evangelist for the Planetary Society and a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. Up next, a special report. We're going to talk with Jason Davis, digital editor for the Society, and Casey Dreyer, our director of advocacy, about the workshop they just attended about finding a place for humans to walk around on Mars. By the way, that live program about the Dawn mission Emily and I talked about is on the evening of Wednesday, November 4th.

The recording of the webcast will be available on demand at planetary.org. Guys, I catch you at the end of this workshop. I guess you're getting ready to fly home from Houston today. I read a little bit about it, and it said that NASA is trying to pick these EZs, or exploration zones, but if you'll pardon me, there's nothing easy about landing humans on Mars. This is at least 20 years away. Jason, Mars. This is at least 20 years away. Jason, why is NASA beginning the conversation? Yeah, it does seem a little early when you first look at it, but there's a growing realization that NASA has some great assets in Mars orbit right now, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter with its wonderful high-rise camera that takes these gorgeous images of the surface. These spacecraft aren't going to be around forever. MRO is already more than 10 years old. So NASA wants to start using some of its

current assets to start scouting out some of these potential landing sites while the spacecraft are still around. And then at the same time, start looking forward to the next generation of spacecraft and define what types of instruments the science community needs to further refine these landing sites. That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Casey, tell me about the workshop. How was it? It's really interesting.

I think so many people came into this, like I did, hesitant or tentative to see where is this going to go? And I'm actually coming out of this very hopeful. NASA seems very committed to following up and really starting a long-term commitment to figuring this out. As Jason said, it takes a long time to properly characterize these sites. It's not even just the fact that we have old orbiters. It's that it takes a long time to take high-resolution images of a single landing site.

We're talking years to properly characterize the site. So we need to get started. And then the other interesting thing that I really enjoyed was that the community here today wasn't just scientists. It was scientists and engineers and mining experts and all sorts of people who usually don't talk to each other in the room learning how little they know about each other's sub-disciplines.

And that's the really important part here, too. This was co-run by the Human Exploration Office at NASA and the Science Mission Directorate. This is the essence of the cooperation that needs to happen in order to successfully land humans on Mars. It's going to be a mix of both. And we really saw that today. And I think a lot of people are coming out of this with a clearer sense of what needs to be done going forward for this long-term effort to explore Mars. Any astronauts participating? Yeah, we've seen a couple.

Believe I saw Terry Virts make a brief appearance yesterday, and Stan Love as well has been here and talked to the crowd. And don't forget, of course, the Hubble repair astronaut himself, John Grunsfeld, who's also the associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate. He was here, gave a nice opening talk, and has been sitting through a lot of the talks. We had a post-day event out, going out to see the Martian, and John Grunsfeld was there in the theater with us. It was his idea. We got pizza and saw the Martian with a real astronaut. It was great.

Now I'm incredibly envious. Okay, Jason, will people be able to read a blog about this at planetary.org? Yeah, we already have some preliminary stuff up there now and some information from the two co-chairs of the workshop, one person from the science directorate and one person from the human spaceflight directorate. So that's already up there at planetary.org, and we'll keep covering it as we get more.

And we'll keep talking with you guys. Thanks very much, gentlemen. Hey, thank you, Matt. Thanks, Matt. That's Casey Dreyer, the director of Advocacy for the Planetary Society, joined by digital editor Jason Davis, embedded with LightSail, but also reporting on human spaceflight and commercial spaceflight. Up next, highlights of the 35th anniversary celebration for the Planetary Society

and the More to Explore party. A different sort of show this week as we join a fun party. The Pasadena Civic Auditorium is nearly across the street from the Planetary Society's new headquarters. It's a beautiful and historic theater, and it was filled to bursting on the evening of Saturday, October 24th. 3,000 space geeks had shown up to hear Bill Nye welcome an amazing array of guests to the stage. They included author of The Martian, Andy Weir, Star Trek Voyager stars Robert Picardo and Jerry Ryan, and NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman. Topping the bill was astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium, and host of Cosmos, a space-time odyssey, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

You'll hear Neil join his buddy Bill in the first of the brief excerpts we have time for. The grand night opened with a dance performance, and then these words from an onstage announcer whose voice you may recognize. Now, please welcome our host for this evening, Bill Nye the Planetary Guy. Woo, woo, woo. Woo. Bring it in.

Bring it in. Woo. Welcome, welcome, welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for being here this evening. I am the CEO of the Planetary Society. I'm so glad you all could be here tonight. We are going to have a fantastic time. It's our 35th anniversary.

We were founded by Carl Sagan, my old professor, Bruce Murray, head of the Jet Propulsion Lab, and Ruth Friedman, an engineer there. And so we have now been an organization for 35 years. So we are celebrating with all of you. And 2015 has been a very exciting year in space. I'm sure you all heard the big news recently. After years of searching, NASA scientists believe they have finally found evidence of present-day liquid water. In California! Welcome my very good friend of the last 20 years neil degrasse tyson

but neil we go back we met i guess it was um lou friedman yeah i met you through the planetary society i mean Bill. But Neil, we go back. We met, I guess it was Lou Friedman. Yeah, I met you through the Planetary Society. Of all the great memories I have of the Planetary Society, I must candidly and with warmth say that my greatest memory of joining the Planetary Society Board is meeting Bill Nye, and who has become my friend. Woo-hoo! Woo! No, I mean, we're kindred spirits in our life's missions,

and so it's fun just comparing notes at the end of the day. I convinced him to move to New York on... I know it's your loss, but our gain. Are you Star Trek or Star Wars? Holding aside the fact that Nichelle Nichols is gracing the stage offside for the moment, okay? This is holding that aside. I, as a scientist and as a rationalist, if you're going to do the Kessel Run you should do it in a unit of time

not a unit of distance just one thing oh wait I gotta cool myself down off of that so as we know Han Solo said I'd do the Kessel Run in 30 parsecs or whatever the number was.

It was like, no. It's 3.3, that's like 9, 10, 10 light. What I'm saying is, it's a unit of time that he should have been speaking, not a unit of distance. And you should know by now how I react to movies that don't get their stuff straight. Pull back, Neil. So I'm Star Trek. Of course I'm Star Trek. You are.

I got nothing against the Star Wars people. It's just that don't ask me to comment on the science of Star Wars, because there is none, all right? So Star Trek has a science officer. Star Trek has engineers. Star Trek has people whose job it is to figure stuff out, okay? That's good, Neil. Neil, that is good. Neil, you have captured the essence.

You have understood what Star Trek is about. Meet me in the transporter room with... Wait. Matt, you're wearing a red shirt. Yeah, Matt, that's not good, Matt. Yeah, meet me in the transporter room with the science officer and a couple of expendables.

No, let's deal. I regret that I have but one life to give for my Federation. The evening turned slightly more serious, though no less celebratory, when Bill and Neil were joined by the beautiful and elegant Nichelle Nichols. Nichelle, of course, originated the role of Uhura on the original Star Trek series.

It was her job to present the Planetary Society's Cosmos Award to Neil Tyson. She began by recounting Neil's many accomplishments over the last couple of decades. And, of course, the magnificently updated Cosmos show. There is no one more suited for this than you. So on behalf of the Planetary Society, please accept our great thanks and this, the Cosmos Award. Where is the Cosmos Award? With all of my banter with Bill, I now find it hard to speak following Michelle Nichols, who has essentially sanctified this stage with her grace and her intelligence and her legacy. She made it that much more special for me to receive this award. An award only has the gravitas of who has won it before, really. And for this to have been won by Stephen Hawking, James Cameron,

even though he got the sky wrong over the sinking Titanic, he would later fix it for his centennial release of the movie. I'm just deeply honored. What is now my almost 20-year association with the Planetary Society, a 20-year relationship with the public that continues to grow. And it grows. I don't get big-headed about it. I say to myself, I'm helping to reveal the geek underbelly that exists within us all.

And so... And that geek underbelly, in almost all cases, leads to ambitions about what tomorrow might bring. And the only people who are thinking about tomorrow are the engineers, the scientists, the science fiction writers, the actors who perform in those dramas. It is a community of people who are bringing visions of tomorrow to us all. And not all are utopians. Some are dystopic. But then I'm reminded of a quote by Ray Bradbury who said, when asked, why are your futures so

bleak? And he says, I'm showing you the future that I want to make sure you don't inhabit. You need to know the future you don't want just as much as the future that you want. And so I don't know that I would ever want to live in a world without people dreaming about what a future may bring. And we know that the future of our species must include some ambitions that reach for the stars. Without it, we are surely doomed here on Earth. Thank you all for your warmth. Thank you. Neil deGrasse Tyson on stage with Bill Nye and Michelle Nichols

at the Planetary Society's More to Explore 35th Anniversary Celebration. When we return, Bill will welcome NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman. This is Planetary Radio. Casey Dreyer here, the Planetary Society's Director of Advocacy. The New Horizons Pluto encounter was NASA at its best. But did you know that it was almost canceled twice? It was saved by thousands of space advocates who wrote and called Congress nearly a decade ago. Today, more missions are threatened by budget cuts,

including a journey to Europa and the Opportunity rover on Mars. You can learn more at planetary.org. Pluto was just the beginning. Mark, is that right? Planetary TV. So I can watch them on my television? No. So wait a minute. Planetary TV is not on TV? That's the best thing about it. They're all going to be online. You can watch them anytime you want.

Where do I watch Planetary TV then, Mark? Well, you can watch it all at planetary.org slash TV. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan with more of More to Explore, the Planetary Society's 35th anniversary celebration on October 24th. I wish we had time to bring you more of that wonderful evening at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. There's video coming, but you can hear the entire nearly two-hour audio recording of the show right now. The link is on this week's show page at planetary.org slash radio.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage NASA Deputy Administrator Deva Newman. Deva, oh my dear, look at you. Thank you, thank you. Let me do this for you. You really run the show and the other people just sort of do what you tell them. Second in charge. Second in charge. With Administrator Bolden.

It's a great job. Way to go. Way to go. She had to say it. Thank you. So we have the staff and members have a few questions for you. And I've got a feeling this is right up your alley. These are not tricks.

These are not hilarious comedy gags. This is a real question. So, how far along on the journey to Mars is NASA? We're on our journey to Mars 50 years in the making. 50 years in the making. Yes. And today, we have five rovers and landers

at Mars, everyone knows. Our journey to Mars with humans starts at International Space Station. We're there doing amazing things. Scott Kelly's one-year mission. Scott Kelly's the twin. Scott Kelly's the twin. First time we get to do genomics. First, we're doing genomics.

We're going to compare his... Scott and Mark is here on Earth. After he gets back. Well, we're already taking data right now. Don't need to get that. Personalized medicine. Does he know that he doesn't need to come back to really do this? He's going to come back. But then we leave from the International Space Station. Where do we go? Beyond the Earth orbit.

So we go to Cis Lunar. Earth Moon orbit. Which is around the vicinity of the Moon. Absolutely. And how do we do that? With the SLS, our space launch system, and the Orion capsule. Ready to go? Ready to go. Exploration mission one. So understand the Planetary Society members have supported the space launch system. If we use it for planetary missions and increase the launch cadence to lower the price,

increase the frequency, and inspire people the world over. Okay, Bill. That just gets us to Cislunar. That just, I'm only getting the word. 2020, then we do all of our technology investments. 2020, just four and a half, five years. In the next decade, we're in Cislunar. And then? Doing in-space propulsion first, solar electric propulsion.

We're going to have long-term habitats, life support system, suits. Now, life support systems. You have a couple of patents on space suits, but you as a NASA administrator can't just go on and on about Deva and her space suits. But just, you know, you saw the Martian. I did. Shout out to Andy. Shout out to Andy, who will be here later. But how good were those suits? They were pretty good. They had two suits. Everyone keeps asking me, you know, why were there two suits?

Kind of the big white gas-fired ones. Because you're the deputy administrator of NASA, you would know all about a science fiction movie. Yeah. Well, it's where science fact gets closer to science fiction and vice versa. So the suits on Mars were great. We need mobility. We need lighter weight. You know, you have to be very, very, very mobile. So you're imagining suits that are newer and cooler. Much cooler. Yeah. For kind of more for the runway. Well, we're going to lope on. We're going to, for the runway, fashion, fashion design. Yeah, fashion. But seriously, the Martian suits have to be lightweight.

Now, you know, we're bipeds. We're getting to Mars to explore, right? Search for life. There you go. You're going to lope, actually. Lope. Because 40% gravity. That's actually great. It's great.

It's going to be great. It's fun. You can run a marathon on Mars. Even I, with my knee. Bill Nye. You can run a marathon on Mars. Now, there's a very good chance, at my age, I won't be asked

to be a Martian astronaut, but there's kids, there are kids in the audience tonight who very reasonably may be among the Martian astronauts. What are you all... Do you have a plan?

Are you engaging young people? We have a plan for them. I like to call it steamed, actually. I need everybody. Science, technology, engineering. I bring to call it STEAMED, actually. I need everybody. Science, technology, engineering. I bring in the arts, math, and design. I need the entire maker community as well. STEAMED.

We're STEAMED to get to Mars. So I need everyone. Everyone's invited. We need to tell the human story. We need the writers, the storytellers, and, of course, the technology investments we make in the 2020s, improve those systems out. Then finally we get to Mars in the 2030s.

And then we're Earth independent. We're Earth independent. We're all about Mars. We'll be interplanetary species. Now, you are a woman. You're an engineer. Are you working hard to engage young women, girls in engineering? No, it's not hard.

We just have to be inclusive. I'm working hard. Yeah. No, it's not hard. We just have to be inclusive. I'm working hard, yeah. As I like to say, half of the humans are women and girls, so why not have half the scientists be engineers? I think this is what a rocket scientist looks like. As far as I know, this is what all aerospace engineers look like. I've got to say, the heads are pretty stylin', girlfriend. That's pretty sharp. Now, one last question. What do you see as the role of NASA and international partners? This is going to be a NASA-US-led journey to Mars,

and we're looking to partner with anyone who wants to come along. So right now the model for International Space Station is fantastic. You know, 15 partners from around the world. So that's a great model. For Mars, everyone's welcome. We can't wait. And it's also private industry, governments, and citizens. We get to Mars globally. Globally. It's a different model from the old days. David, do you like your job? I love it. I think I have the best job in the world. Thank you so much, David Newman, Deputy Minister of the USA. Thank you so much. David Newman, Deputy Administrator of NASA. Thank you so much.

Just time left now to hear how Bill Nye ended the evening. There are these three sundials on Mars, and these carry with them the first message to the future that people have put on a spacecraft since back in the disco era. And they say, we sent these spacecraft here in 2011, they ran up here in 2012. We built these instruments to study the Martian environment, learn about Mars' past, prepare for our future. And then it says, in very small letters, it says, to those who visit here, we wish a safe journey and the joy of discovery. And my friends, that is the essence of what we do. We want people all over the world to feel that joy of discovery,

to be part of this larger idea that will change the world in the same way that Newton and Copernicus and Galileo changed the world, but it will not be an individual that will have done it. It will be all of us. It will be a society that felt this was a worthy use of our intellect and treasure so that working together, we can know the cosmos.

We can know our place in space. And my friends, we can, dare I say it, change the world. Happy 35th anniversary, everyone. Thank you so much for coming here's to another 35 years an incoming thank you all let's change the world good night bill nye the science and planetary guy, wrapping up more to explore, the Planetary Society's gala celebration of its 35th anniversary.

Bruce is next. Music Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. We are joined by Bruce Betts, the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society, and our personal guide to the night sky. Welcome. Thank you. Okay, we have another treat for people this week with random space fact. But before we get to that, tell us what's up. It's our friends, the three planets in the pre dawn east, but they're even going to play with the moon. So we've got Venus, the brightest and then

above that Mars, much dimmer and reddish and above that jupiter very bright but not as bright as venus and on november 6th and 7th the moon will be playing near them as well so there's a whole cluster of goodness out there in the in the pre-dawn east all right great fun on to this week in space history it's been 15 years of continuous human habitation in space. 15 years of continuously having people on the International Space Station this week. Yeah, and congrats to everybody who's been up there and all the people who've kept them safe up there. I know they're celebrating that big anniversary this week. We move on, and I guess I've been replaced by better singers.

Well, yes, you've been replaced by singers. They are really good, actually, come to think of it. All right, here it is, the American Pastime Barbershop Quartet, one of the featured acts at our More to Explore celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Planetary Society with a special little add-on just for Bruce. Random the Planetary Society with a special little add-on just for Bruce. The force of solar pressure on the light-sailed spacecraft in space is about the same as a housefly sitting on your hand on Earth.

So how's that? Nice little package, huh? is about the same as a housefly sitting on your hand on Earth. So how's that? Nice little package, huh? Not only a great musical intro, but a random space fact that entertained all of us at the show. Thank you. You're welcome. And thanks to American Pastime for a really cool thing. Yeah, that's actually the third time that we've worked with them at the Society. They were on two Planetary Radio Lives. On to the contest.

where they were on two Planetary Radio Lives. On to the contest. I asked you as the final of our 35th anniversary of the Planetary Society celebration questions, as of 1980 and 2015 each, how many asteroids had been explored by spacecraft via flyby or orbiter? How'd we do, Matt? Had a little bit of a standard deviation here among those people who submitted answers, but our winner, chosen by random.org org had the number that apparently you did and that was 12 12 at well 0 in 1980 but you gave us that and 12 in 2015 yes indeed excellent all right then our winner is Marcel Jan Kregsman, who entered from his hometown of Gouda, nice cheese there, in the Netherlands.

And so, Marcel, John, we're going to be sending you a Planetary Radio t-shirt. But you've also won Bill Nye's personalized greeting on your voicemail. I don't know how people will take to that. In the Netherlands, I don't think he speaks Dutch. Oh, we haven't asked. That's true. And I would ask in Dutch if I could. But we'll check that out with Bill. I mean, he's a multi-talented guy. Congratulations. And we're ready for the next one. Let me just emphasize, I think that's really cool that we had explored none in 1980. And in 35 years, we now have explored 12. Yeah, and more to come. Indeed.

All sorts of new coolness. OSIRIS-REx launching next year. All right, on to questions. Tied to International Space Station. Prior, prior to the International Space Station, what was the record for continuous human habitation in space? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. So 15 years now and counting with International Space Station. What was the record before the International Space Station?

Got it. You have until 8 a.m. Pacific time on Tuesday, November 10th to get us this answer. The prizes, plural, a Planetary Radio t-shirt. And we'll go back to giving away another one of those 200-point itelescope.net accounts for that non-profit network of global telescopes. You can get time on it. It's worth a couple hundred bucks, American. We'll pass that along to you if you're the winner of this latest contest.

I think we're done. All right, everybody, go out there, look up the night sky, and think about gold. Thank you, and good night. Gold? Ah, R-A-U. That's so nice of you. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. That's the best I can do on a moment's notice.

He's Bruce Betts, the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society, who joins us every week here with What's Up. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by its wonderful members. Daniel Gunn is our associate producer. Josh Doyle created the theme music. I'm Matt Kaplan. Clear skies.