Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - A Conversation With Congressman Lamar Smith

Episode Date: September 30, 2014

The Chairman of the powerful Science, Space and Technology Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives joins us for a talk about planetary science, Europa, a human flyby of Mars and much more.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Congressman Lamar Smith talks space exploration 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. Texas Congressman Lamar Smith and his Space Science and Technology Committee hold the purse strings for much of the government-funded research in the United States. That's why we're happy to have him as our guest this week. Bill Nye reports on a major success in the testing of the light-sail solar sail, while later Bruce Betts and I will discover just how hot a moon rock can be, and not in the

way you may think. We begin with senior editor Emily Lochte-Wallace's celebration of two arrivals at the red planet. Emily, a big, big week last week for Mars. It really was. We had not one, but two orbiters successfully arrive into orbit, and that is always such a huge relief. The last big dangerous milestones on these missions. And now the way is clear for them to start doing science. And according to your September 24 blog entry, already some results, I hesitate to call them science, coming from MAVEN. That's right.

In fact, both MAVEN and Mars Orbiter Mission have returned their first images from Mars. Now, it might surprise you to hear about images from MAVEN. MAVEN doesn't carry a traditional camera, but you can make images using its imaging ultraviolet spectrometer, and they show exactly what MAVEN went there to study, which is how far into space the cloud of hydrogen goes that surrounds Mars. And we'll learn a lot from MAVEN about how atmospheric loss happens. And I guess resolution really wasn't, or you were told, is not all that important.

No, because things don't change very much from point to point in the atmosphere. It's all kind of smeary anyway, so it's okay if you don't have a very high-resolution image. I particularly enjoyed your blog entry on the same day, the 24th of September, about Mom, because you obviously were, shall I say, touched by this achievement. Well, I was just thrilled and excited and caught up in the enthusiasm online of all of the people who were celebrating the arrival of this spacecraft in India. So many Indians on my timeline, so proud. And it really was such an amazing moment for that country because this, after all, is their first foray beyond Earth orbit. They really arrived as an interplanetary

spacefaring nation. And it's such an important moment for the nation and they should be rightfully proud of their achievement. And you've been to India, right? Yeah, of course. I have relatives there, in-laws there. So I've been there. I've seen both its highs and its lows. And they have a lot of things to work on at home. But by achieving, by attempting to achieve greatness, like achieving orbit around another planet, they have nowhere to go but up. It's going to be really fantastic to see what they do in the coming years. And clearly, both of these missions just getting underway. What's ahead in the immediate future? Well, for MAVEN, actually for both of them, they have a comet coming at them in their immediate

future. So I think in the short term, that's what's going to be high on the list of things to watch out for. That's Comet Siding Spring, which flies past Mars on October 19. And MAVEN is really in a unique position to study how that comet interacts with the atmosphere. We don't know yet what Mars Orbiter missions plans are for the comet's encounter, but it will also be starting to take data. And I'm looking forward to seeing more and more new images of Mars from their Mars Color Camera. Thanks, Emily. Thank you, Matt. She is our senior editor and the planetary evangelist for the Planetary Society, also a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. Up next, the CEO, Bill Nye. Bill, I know we catch you in the car on the way to the airport, but I'm glad

to be able to talk to you about the completion of a critical test for light sail. Well, or maybe the critical test, the day in thelife test, the DITL. And so we passed it. And so this is something that the team has been working on literally for years. There are a couple aspects of it that are striking. First of all, we had this antenna problem. It's gone way back, and we solved it. And the word antenna, it's not just a wire sticking in space.

It's got a circuit board or circuit board and software at the base of it. Finally got squared away through diligence by the team. And the main thing, I guess we were all concerned, is the deployment with this crazy, tiny Swiss watch gear train pushes out these very, very long cobalt steel spring-loaded booms. And the sail's been folded up origami fashion for two years. And it worked. Everything worked. It worked perfectly. So everybody's very excited about that. And we at the Planetary Society writ large are very excited about this because we're going to fly. We're on a manifest for a launch in 2015. And then again for another launch in 2016. So we're going to, let me just say, in space travel, a year apart, that's pretty fast.

So embedded reporter Jason Davis has a blog entry that does a great job. Embedded is what we call it. I think he's called himself that, but I love the term. Yeah, yeah. He's up there with the crew as they solve these problems. He traces the detective story as they work their way through these problems. It's fascinating. It's the process of science, Matt.

The process of science. You have a hypothesis. You construct an experiment. You try it. If it doesn't work, you compare what happened with what you expected to happen. That is science. That's engineering. Bill, I will see you live in Toronto on the evening of Wednesday the 1st at the University of Toronto.

I'm sure all of our listeners are excited to go to the International Astronautical Congress this year in Toronto. No, it is. I mean, it is a niche for nerds, I will say. These are all rocket people and the Planetary Society. And we're up there talking about space exploration and getting coordinated. Who's going to do what in space to maximize, if I may, the discoveries per month. It's always exciting for me, but this will be especially exciting because so many people from the United States can get there without extraordinary effort. It's going to be a great meeting. And we're going to celebrate the Canadian space program. Which is fantastic.

It really is. Talk about niche. Talk about succeeding in niches. Talk about niche. Talk about succeeding in niches. Anyway, that live show will be Wednesday at 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time, 4.30 Pacific. We'll be in Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto. A nice big hall that I think we have a shot at filling up. More information at planetary.org. Thank you, Bill, and have a good trip.

Yes, sir. See you in a couple days. He's the CEO of the Planetary Society. Bill Nye, the science guy. Up next, the chairman of the House Space Science and Technology Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives is a key center of influence over NASA's plans to explore the solar system and much, much more. That committee's chairman is Republican Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas. I don't think he'd mind being called a conservative, but there's nothing conservative about the chairman's support for planetary science. As I heard in a recent phone conversation,

Congressman Smith can be excused for confusing millions and billions, just as I was confused saying wide when I should have said deep. Now, are you confused? Listen in. Congressman Smith, it is indeed an honor to welcome you to Planetary Radio. Matt, good to be with you and your listeners as well, and thanks as always for your interest in such a wonderful subject. I think you still have that big, beautiful print of the Hubble wide field on the wall in your office. I do indeed. I'm looking at it as we speak right now as the deep field view of the Hubble, as you know,

and maybe your listeners know as well, was taken a number of years ago by scientists who sort of control the Hubble. And they just decided one day, I think purely out of intellectual curiosity, to point the Hubble at a speck of sky where nothing was thought to exist. I mean, absolutely void, black, nothing there. A speck of sky being so small that if you held a penny out at arm's length, Abraham Lincoln's eye, which you can hardly see, would cover that speck of sky. So we're really talking about a pinpoint of a piece of the heavens. And they exposed it for a number of hours.

Every time the Hubble came around, they lined it up and exposed it. In this tiny, tiny dark speck of sky where nothing was thought to exist, there actually turned out to be something like 3,000 points of light. And each point of light was not a star. Each point of light was a galaxy, which, of course, consists of an average of 100 million stars. So in that speck of sky, 3,000 times 100 million gives you an indication of what's out there and why we do explore, why we do want to discover, why we are inspired by space. But that Hubble Deep Field, which will always be on my office wall, is a wonderful reminder of all that.

Congressman, my boss, Bill Nye, could not have given a better explanation himself, not only of that picture, not just of that picture, but why we do this. Good to be in his company anytime. Let's talk a little bit about things a little closer to home than most of what is in that big, beautiful picture. You were part of the Space Committee, which is really the subcommittee of your committee of science, space, and Technology, that had this hearing. As we speak, it was just last week. And, in fact, we featured a week or two ago Jim Bell, who testified before you on that committee, the president of the Planetary Society.

I know you're not its chair, but you certainly have oversight of that subcommittee. Why did the Space Committee decide to hold that hearing? The whole Space Committee, subcommittee, and the full Science, Space, and Technology Committee, we've had 18 hearings on space just this year alone. That's how important the subject is. That's how fascinated we are by the subject. And I might throw in here, too, that there is a reason why the Air and Space Museum in D.C. is the most popular, most visited museum in the United States today.

Over 8 million visitors go to air and space. And to me, that explains why we have so many hearings. It explains or is an indication of why the subject does fascinate us, why it even inspires us. And so we are always going to have hearings on planetary science. But the reason for this last hearing was to point out unfortunately that the administration continues to cut funding for planetary science while we in the house and even the Senate has funding that exceeds what the president has requested for planetary science in the house we passed the NASA reauthorization bill, a huge overwhelming vote.

I think we passed it 4-1 to 2, only two votes against it. By the way, there are two votes against everything. You never get everybody for everything. So we had the NASA reauthorization bill passed the House floor. We also had the Appropriations Committee pass a bill that had increased funding beyond what the administration had requested. And then even the Senate, in the hands of the other party, passed a bill that provided more funds than the administration had requested, which again, over the last several years, the amount of funds requested by the administration has been trending down. So I wanted to point this out.

I thought it was important to have a hearing saying, wait a minute, Congress believes in human spaceflight and discovery. We believe in planetary science and all the promises that it has for us. We're disappointed that the administration did not continue to fund it at the same levels or even increase funding as we wanted to do. So this is just a way for us to push back a little bit against the administration and try to convince them to increase the funding for planetary science. There was some speculation by some of the very distinguished planetary scientists who appeared before the committee on that afternoon about what's happening here. Why would NASA not make planetary science among its highest priorities? There seem to be different opinions about that.

Do you have thoughts about that? I mean, planetary science was praised by Jim Bell as sort of the crown jewel. Exactly. And I agree with that description of planetary science. I can only speculate at this point, but it seems to me that the administration and maybe the president himself either doesn't have that much of a personal interest in space, or they just are indifferent. In any case, the results are clear and their actions speak for themselves with the cuts to planetary science. That's Texas Congressman Lamar Smith. When we return, I'll talk with him

about support for several exciting missions around our solar system. This is Planetary Radio. Hi, this is Casey Dreyer, Director of Advocacy at the Planetary Society. We're busy building something new, something unprecedented, a real grassroots constituency for space. We want to empower and engage the public like never before. for space. We want to empower and engage the public like never before. If you're interested, you can go to planetary.org slash SOS to learn how you can become a space advocate. That's planetary.org slash SOS. Save our science. Thank you.

Hi, this is Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society. We've spent the last year creating an informative, exciting, and beautiful new website. Your place in space is now open for business. You'll find a whole new look with lots of images, great stories, my popular blog, and new blogs from my colleagues and expert guests. And as the world becomes more social, we are too, giving you the opportunity to join in through Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and much more. It's all at planetary.org. I hope you'll check it out. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. We're on the phone with Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas, chair of the powerful Space, Science, and Technology Committee. That group's space subcommittee held a hearing about planetary science a couple of weeks ago.

Planetary scientist Jim Bell was there to testify. Jim and I talked about it in the September 16th episode of our show. That hearing also included discussion of asteroid exploration and maybe someday exploitation by some of these fledgling companies that hope to bring some of those asteroid resources back to Earth. What are your thoughts about that? Right. That was a subject of the hearing as well, and we really had a hearing on basically the commercialization of space

in the sense that when our private companies spend millions and maybe even billions of dollars going to an asteroid and mining that asteroid for rare Earth minerals, they have a right to keep those minerals and bring them back here and sell them. Otherwise, there'll be no incentive to go retrieve them. And right now, it's really unclear what the private property rights would be. And if a commercial entity did bring back rare earth minerals from an asteroid, we don't want the federal government knocking on their door and saying, thanks for getting that for us.

It's really ours. And so this will be continued in the next Congress. We have a bill that's been introduced that does establish private property rights for those commercial entities that mine these types of minerals from the asteroids. And we'll, I think, need to address it. I think it's an important subject, and certainly we need to have some legal framework for private sector companies that will encourage them to go on and mine these minerals and bring them back where they can be used by people here on Earth. You mentioned, Matt, one other subject that I could real quickly talk about some other missions that we might engage in. And I think there are a lot of big ones out there, but I think there are two that really

justify further research and, frankly, justify further funding and need to be made a priority. One would be a Mars flyby, perhaps in 2021 when Mars and Earth are about a year and a half apart as far as the time required to get there and back. I really think that's got to be one of our next goals is to send a human to Mars. We know we're not ready to actually land on Mars yet, but do a flyby and come back. That would be the equivalent or even a greater and more ambitious goal than, say, Apollo in the 1960s. And we don't know how it would be done right now, just like we didn't know how we were going to land on the moon either. But if we don't set a deadline, if we don't establish the goal, the only thing certain

is that we'll never do it. So I think we ought to do that. Also, I think we ought to go to Europa and figure out some way to sample the ocean under the miles of ice that are on the surface of Europa and find out if there's any kind of microbial life there in the ocean underneath the ice of Europa. And if so, that would be the first discovery of any form of life outside or besides Earth. And that would be the news of the century.

And maybe it would be the greatest news in more than one century, just because it would be the first time we've had an indication of life outside of the boundaries of Earth. Congressman, you surprised me with the mention of that human flyby of Mars, but that's a very exciting option. But you read my mind regarding the Europa mission. Do you think that the mission that is currently known as Europa Clipper might satisfy the requirements that you're looking for? It's a good start.

The Europa Clipper, and that's really going to be the next mission. That's what I'm talking about. If we take a sample of the water that's spewed out in these geysers, we still might get an indication of whether there's microbial life on Europa or not. So that's the next thing to do. I think we're able to do it now. We just need to put some dollars in that direction and some expertise, and we'll get it done. I just don't think we ought to ever underestimate the human ingenuity, the innovations that we can come up with to explore space.

To make missions like that out to the outer solar system, as you well know, it's pretty tough to do that with solar cells. And there was brief mention during the committee hearing of the renewed effort to develop, create the plutonium resources, plutonium-238, that are required for almost all of those missions, the current Juno mission being the only exception. Is that something the committee also has been involved with? Since I know that your committee also has responsibility for the Department of Energy. We do have jurisdiction over about a third of the Department of Energy's budget, $7 or $8 billion, all their research and development money. And what we really need to do is to continue to put money into research and development. That's an investment in the future.

It's going to pay dividends. And that's why it's exciting being chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee because 80% of the $39 billion in agency funds we oversee is research and development, and a lot of that is found at NASA, and that's why we're going to continue to have exciting missions and exciting discoveries in the future. NASA, of course, is also working on that really humongous rocket, the SLS, the Space Launch System. And I think there was brief mention during the committee hearing, and certainly there's been discussion elsewhere, of using that rocket not just for a very limited number

of human missions, but as a much quicker way to get to these places like Europa, the outer solar system. What do you think? I think that is exactly right. And those are good uses of SLS, which is going to be a much more powerful, faster rocket than we've ever had before. It is going to save time, whether it's a Mars flyby or whether it's going to Europa. It's going to save time, and also because the cargo carrying ability of SLS is so greater than anything we've had before that if we ever were going to, say, SLS is so greater than anything we've had before that if we ever were going to, say, supply a colony on Mars, we would be able to do it with fewer flights.

And, of course, that hopefully increases the safety and reduces the risk and makes these kinds of missions easier in the future. So the SLS will be used for lots and lots of good reasons. We just need to make sure it stays on time, it stays according to budget, and again, the administration in reducing the funds, I hope they are not jeopardizing the ability of us to build the SLS and keep it on schedule because that is a concern of a lot of us, but it can infinitely be justified. We need to go forward with it, and we need to have the administration support us. I want to leave you with this thought. Those planetary scientists who appeared before you were pretty much unanimous in their support for Congress and Congress's really bipartisan support of planetary science. You know, considering the kind of heat that Congress takes nowadays,

was that kind of refreshing to hear? Well, it was. It's always nice to have witnesses come and agree with you. But in this case, they had great credibility because they really are the experts. They really know more about this subject than anyone. And here they're all saying that, in so many words, that the administration is shorting planetary science. It ought to be supporting it. We ought to be increasing the funding, and we agree with what the House and the Senate are doing as far as funding the program beyond what the administration has requested. So that was a reassuring hearing to

have, and it was gratifying to hear these witnesses all say that they agree with the bipartisan support for planetary science that we have in Congress today. Congressman, it has been a great pleasure. I hope we can talk to you again here on Planetary Radio. Anytime, Matt. The Honorable Lamar Smith has represented the 21st Congressional District of Texas since 1987. As you heard, he serves as chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee that has oversight of NASA, as well as other agencies, including the Department of Energy, the EPA, the National Science Foundation, and the Space Subcommittee, part of his wider

committee, met last week to consider planetary science and a bill related to commercial mining of asteroids. He is a former chairman of the Judiciary and the Ethics Committees, and in the last Congress, Congressman Smith was named Policymaker of the Year by Politico for his work on patent reform legislation. That is probably an award that will never be received by Bruce Betts, but we certainly can expect to get a good look at the night sky in our What's Up segment that is just moments away. Bruce Betts is the director of science and technology for the Planetary Society,

and it is time to talk with him once again about what's up in the night sky. And to reveal shocking sordid news about moon rocks. Shocking. Really, it's absolutely fascinating. But that's coming later. Hi, welcome back. Can hardly wait to get to that. But first, night sky, evening sky, low in the west.

In the early evening, you can check out Saturn, although it's getting lower and lower over the coming days towards the horizon. And you can also see Mars hanging out still near Antares, looking very similar, both reddish objects. One a planet, one a star. Mars will be the one that's higher up, and then they'll be getting farther apart soon. But, Matt, so excited.

Two eclipses coming up in October, and both of them visible for us. Oh, yes. Even better. So, October 8th, coming up really soon, we've got a total lunar eclipse that will be visible for most of North America, South America, Eastern Asia and Australia, as well as the Pacific in between. And then October 23rd, a partial solar eclipse visible from almost all of North America. I'll be out there. All right. We move on to this week in space history. It was this week in 1957 that Sputnik 1, the first ever artificial satellite of Earth, was launched.

You know, I've always thought it was an interesting coincidence that the space age and rock and roll were born at about the same time. Yeah, yeah. It seems like coincidence, but it does involve rock, and we will be talking about space rock, so maybe it's not. Anyway, in 1958, NASA was founded in this week, and 10 years ago this week, Spaceship One won the X Prize. You were there, weren't you, Matt? I was. I was standing on the tarmac. What a great day. I hope to do it again for Spaceship Two. Rolling on here, rocking and rolling on. Random space fact, Rolling on here, rocking and rolling on. Random space fact.

Random space fact fact. Dragnet, that theme is from that ancient television show and radio show. You thought you'd stump me, didn't you? No, no. I knew I hadn't stumped you. Anyway, having nothing to do with Dragnet, I point out that 20 years ago, no exoplanets were known. No planets around other stars. Now there are more than 1,700 confirmed exoplanets and another additional more than 3,000 candidates.

It is a wonderful world we live in, pondering other worlds. It's thrilling. Absolutely thrilling. Here's what you've been waiting to get to, Matt. I asked everyone what country's goodwill moon rock was stolen but returned in 2003 after it was recovered by a U.S. sting operation. Background is the U.S. gave leaders of pretty much every country in the world as well as every state in the United States a fragment of a moon rock. And you got a lot of interesting responses. So let's go straight to those, Matt. I was, I got to say, kind of shocked. There were, according to the Wikipedia, and this was pointed out by a number of listeners, 270 Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 moon rocks handed out

around the world. Guess how many of those are missing? At least two, maybe six. Try 180. That seems very, very bad, if that's actually true. And apparently quite a thriving market for black market moon rocks, if this is any indication. I heard from a bunch of listeners from countries that have lost their moon rocks, and they want them back. Damn it. Brazil? Thailand? Do you have them, Matt? I really don't,

and I haven't seen them at the Planetary Society either, so don't look at us. We'll check the file cabinets, but I don't expect to find anything. There's some interesting stuff there, but no, no moon rocks that I know of. I do not recall, Senator. Here's our winner, Scott Schlieper.

Scott Schlieper of Colorado Springs, Colorado, who said that the one whose rock, the country whose rock was recovered in a U.S. sting operation was Honduras. That is correct. Scott, we're going to send you a Planetary Radio t-shirt. You lucky guy. Try not to lose it. There will not be a lunar rock enclosed. Well, probably. We'll see what we find.

But I wouldn't count on it. What do you got for next time? What was the nickname given to the first pulsar ever discovered? Nickname of the first pulsar, go to planetary.org slash radio contest and get us your entry by... By the 7th of October, that's Tuesday, October 7 at 8 a.m. Pacific Time. You might win yourself a

Planetary Radio t-shirt. Alright, everybody go out there, look up at the night sky and think about fish flakes, fish food. Thank you and good night. And you know that fish flakes look right on the little bottle, they have less than one-tenth of one percent lunar soil material. That's true.

Quite a bit less. Yeah. He is Bruce Betts, the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society. And if all goes well, he will be joining us on Wednesday, October 1st, live via Skype. The rest of us will be at the University of Toronto for that celebration of the Canadian Space Program that we mentioned earlier in the show. And you can find out more at planetary.org. We'll have highlights on the radio show as well.

See you then, Bruce. See you then. Have fun in Toronto, Matt. I'll be holding down the fort back here in California. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California and is made possible by the good citizen members of the Society. Clear skies. Thank you.