Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - A Conversation With Jet Propulsion Lab Director Charles Elachi

Episode Date: October 18, 2004

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JPL's Director, this week on Planetary Radio. Hi everyone and welcome back to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan. Cassini-Huygens is headed for Saturn's mysterious moon, Titan. As the huge probes builders at the Jet Propulsion Lab prepare for this close encounter, their boss, Charles Elachi, takes

a few minutes to visit with us. Later on What's Up, join Bruce Betts and me as we give away our new and stunning planetary radio t-shirt, now executed in blue. We'll start with a quick look at space headlines. NASA investigators think they've figured out why the parafoil never opened as the Genesis spacecraft plummeted back to Earth.

Recovery of solar wind samples from that decidedly hard landing continues in Houston. The hills may not be alive on Mars, but there sure are some steep ones. Nevertheless, elderly rovers Spirit and Opportunity continue to carefully pick their way up and down, snapping an ongoing series of stunning images, including new panoramas. Meanwhile, Earth's other planetary neighbor edges closer to hosting a new visitor. Assembly of the European Space Agency's Venus Express has been completed in Italy. The probe now goes to France for final testing, with launch scheduled for about a year from now. You can learn more about these and other stories at our website, planetary.org.

I'll be back with Charles Elachi right after Emily explains why it isn't just your bathtub that has a dirty ring. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, Why were scientists so excited to find dirt in Saturn's rings? It may seem strange for scientists to be thrilled to find a substance in Saturn's rings that most people are not excited to find around their own houses. But, as with so many other terms, when a scientist says dirt, she doesn't mean the same thing that a vacuum cleaner salesman does. And dirt can be a very exciting substance in the outer solar system.

If you consider the whole solar system, the sun and all the planets, by far the most common substances are hydrogen and helium gases. These gases are what makes the sun and the thick atmospheres of the giant planets. Next most common are so-called ices, which are very simple chemical compounds like water, carbon dioxide, ammonia and methane. These materials are usually gases on Earth, but they freeze into solid ice in the cold regions of the outer solar system. Gas and ice make up more than 99% of the solar system.

Everything else can be classified as dirt. But what makes dirt so exciting? Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out. Charles Elachi has been part of many missions of exploration in his three decades at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The planetary scientist's life got a whole lot busier when he was named director of the huge facility in 2001. We met a few days ago at Planetary Society headquarters in Pasadena, not far from JPL's sprawling campus. Dr. Relaci, we are honored to have you join us here on Planetary Radio.

Thank you. That's my great pleasure to be here. Within just a few days after our audience hears this program, another momentous event is going to take place out there at that ring planet. Titan has been a mysterious satellite because when Voyager flew by Titan, basically what we saw is a big ball of haze. But what makes it even more exciting, that Titan is a satellite which has an atmosphere which is about the same thickness as our atmosphere in the question of the pressure and so on, but it has a fascinating feature of having methane in it, which is organic material.

So that got the scientists all excited about understanding and seeing how did that satellite evolve and what is it made of, what's the features on the surface. And the fact that it was completely mysterious with the veil of haze make it particularly exciting. So on next week, Cassini would be doing a very close flyby of Titan. And that's going to be a big surprise that we have been looking for to see what that surface and what that planet look like. Cassini has already given us a better look at Titan than we've ever had before, right? Absolutely. When we did the orbit insertion, we did a far distance flyby, if you want. It was

about more than about 100,000 kilometers. So we got some indication that there is some features that the camera is seeing and the infrared instrument is seeing. This time we're going to be flying about 1,000 kilometers. So it's 100 times or 1,000 times closer. So we will be able to see much more detail on it. And we will have – basically we'll be looking at it with a variety of instruments. You know, the camera, which will look invisible. We have infrared instrument, and then we have a radar instrument.

So we are absolutely sure and confident that at least one of them, if not all three, will be seeing a lot of detail on the surface. Let's talk about that radar instrument and your role in it, because you are the latest in a long and distinguished line of JPL directors who has not given up the research line. And in fact, you may have more to claim in that area as director, because you are the team leader for this radar instrument. Yeah, I guess all the JPL directors, you know, starting with Pickering and Bruce Murray and Ed Stone have that bug in them to do science. Can't quite give it up for the desk. That's right.

That's right. That's what makes it really fun. Yes, I'm the team leader for the radar instrument on Cassini. The reason the instrument was put on the payload is specifically to look at Titan because of the observation during Voyager that Titan is completely cloud covered. the observation during Voyager, the Titan is completely cloud-covered. And the feature of the radar instrument, similar to your radio that you are listening on it now, it doesn't matter if you have clouds or not. We don't need the sun to illuminate the surface. We actually, the radar instrument itself, illuminate the surface.

So about 16, 17 years ago when the payload was selected, you know, I proposed, you know, the experiment, you the experiment to have the radar on that mission. And that was selected. And even after I became the director of JPL, I always had that attachment for the science. So I'm looking forward, again, next week. I have more interest than just being the JPL director for the Cassini mission is to look specifically on what that instrument will be able to unveil for us. But you are also JPL director, and this is taking place, I mean, during your tenure is the climax, the ongoing climax of what has so far been a perfect mission. Yeah, no, Cassini has been so far a perfect mission. And already we had the, I won't say the climax, but it was a tension when we got Cassini in orbit.

Very exciting. Because that reflected basically 20 years of effort of many, many people at JPL and outside of JPL. And we already are reaping a lot of science, you know, from studying the rings to studying the planet itself. And clearly this will be the first major step in looking at Titan. And the reason I say first is because we're going to have about 40 to 50 flybys of Titan over the next four years. And then even the mission might go even beyond that. As of now, everything is working so well that this mission might last eight years, nine years around Saturn. Well, and we won't have to wait too long for what may prove to be an even more exciting event.

And of course, we'll be covering all of this on Planetary Radio. But talk about what happens in early January. This is a joint NASA-ESA mission, which is European Space Agency. The Europeans have developed a probe, which is carried on the spacecraft that the U.S. has developed, and that will be deployed and dropped into the atmosphere of Titan. The event will happen as follows. Literally at Christmas Eve, we will be separating the probe from the carrier spacecraft and targeting it toward Titan.

And then on the 14th of January, actually, the probe will enter the atmosphere. It will be a similar kind of entry, not exactly the same, but similar to what we did on the Mars rovers, you know, earlier this year. So first we have the heat shield, which will slow it down. Then a parachute will open. And as it's descending, it will be taking images and measurement in the atmosphere of Titan. So we have in-situ chemical analysis, if you want, about the composition of the atmosphere, but at the same time taking pictures as we are descending. And we are hoping, even that was not designed for that purpose,

that once it landed, it actually survives the landing. Now, this is a fixed lander, not a rover. So we expect it to survive maybe up to about two hours because we are battery powered. So that's going to be a very exciting moment, you know, on January 14th, of actually not only seeing the planet from orbit, which we'll be doing next week, but actually seeing it close and intimate, you know, down all the way down to the surface. You opened our conversation by talking about how fascinated scientists have been with Titan for a long time. There's still enormous speculation about what we're going to find there. Everything from something that may be fairly featureless to something that could even have seas of a sort. Those seas, not like anything we've known in the

past. Now, this is typical of exploration, I'm sure. Any explorer always should expect the unexpected because you're opening new doors. You don't know what's on the other side of the world, and that's what makes it fun and exciting. So every time we flew by a planet over the history of the last 30, 40 years, we always found something completely different. I remember very clearly when we found that there are volcanoes on Io, I mean active volcanoes. I mean, that was unbelievable. I mean, people didn't even expect that at all. So here, again, there is a whole spectrum of what to expect on Titan, and most likely all what we expect, we're going to find something different.

Expectation goes from a completely covered ocean, and in this case we're talking of an ocean of methane, liquid methane or acetylene, different components. So you can think about it like petroleum. Now, considering the price of petroleum here, that would be a very good supply for petroleum. But that's some kind of derivative of petroleum of a large ocean or lakes. But it's a very different environment than what we have here on Earth, because we're at a very low temperature environment. Things which are gaseous here on Earth could be liquid on the surface of Titan. So that's what makes it particularly unique and exciting.

So safe to say that whatever we find, it's going to be a surprise that will be completely different from what we've seen elsewhere in the solar system. That's, I would bet very high that that will be the case, you know, in that situation. Now, we might see features similar like, you know, rivers or ocean, but most likely the composition and the whole dynamic of them might be significantly different. Dr. Charles Elachi is our guest. He is the director of JPL, also a vice president at Caltech and the team leader for the radar instrument that is going to, we hope, just a few days from when you hear this, take a

very good look at that mysterious moon of Titan. Dr. Elachi, if you don't mind, when we come back, can we bring it back to Earth a little bit and talk about your roles with NASA, not just JPL, but from NASA headquarters as well? This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure in the solar system. That's why I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets. We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first-ever solar sail.

You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration in The Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS. That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, planetarysociety.org.

The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Dr. Charles Elachi is our special guest on this edition of Planetary Radio. We have been sort of previewing some upcoming events on the Cassini mission because he is heavily involved with that, both as the director of JPL and as the team leader for the radar instrument. We're going to jump over, though, to some of your other involvement with NASA, because you have a lot of hats to wear. You are the head of what is known as advanced planning for NASA across the organization. Yeah, as we are looking at the next couple of decades, the vision for NASA and the nation is basically for humans and robots to move

beyond, you know, Earth's orbit, particularly in the case of the humans. This is moon, Mars, and beyond. It's sometimes been called or the vision for space. That is correct. It's called the vision for space. But what is particularly important and what my role comes in, that this is a commitment from our nation to do exploration over the long term. And you have heard the administrator of NASA saying, this is not a race, this is a journey. This is a commitment for the next 20 to 30 years of actually exploring our solar system and beyond, starting first with the moon, then going to Mars and beyond that. So when you are undertaking such a big national kind of endeavor, then it's very important to lay out kind of a strategic set of roadmaps of how do you go to the moon,

what are the kind of technologies you need to develop, what kind of capabilities you need to develop, what kind of investment need to be made. And then the same thing for Mars and then the same thing for achieving all the objectives that we have in that journey. that we have in that journey. So my role is supporting the NASA senior management, working with them on laying out the options for these roadmaps or what we call strategic roadmaps, and to engage a broad community in bringing all the best ideas around the country, be it from academia, from industry, from private organization, from the government. Bring the best ideas of saying what are the steps that we need to take, what are the kind of, if you want, the different pathways that we envision, and what kind of investment we need to be making, meaning NASA, what investment should be made in a strategic way.

And that's a key role that Sean O'Keefe formed or the key office that Sean O'Keefe formed called the Director for Advanced Planning. or the key office that Sean O'Keefe formed called the Director for Advanced Planning. And that's a function that I'm doing at NASA headquarter or facilitating to do at NASA headquarter. Clearly, NASA was given a mandate by the President of the United States. But I wonder, as you do this work, which is at the core of this new mission for NASA, a new path, a roadmap, as it's being called. Where do you strike the balance? The old, old argument, of course, between manned and robotic spaceflight. No, that argument has been in the past and will continue in the future. The way I look at it is that our role, we want to do exploration. And then is what's the best way of doing that

exploration? I mean, we have on one hand human and the judgment that humans bring and the intelligence and the feeling and the extension of ourselves. But also we have robots which are very sophisticated now. And the challenge on us is how do you bring the robot to help the humans, both directly or indirectly, indirectly meaning as our agents, or directly as we progress in our exploration. So I don't look at it as humans or robot. I look at it that we need both to be able to accomplish our vision.

There are certain areas where it would be very hard for humans to go. Taking an extreme case, going to Io would be very hard for a human to go because of the radiation environment and so on. and so on. So the robot could be a pathway or if you want a precursor as an extension of ourselves which will prepare the groundwork for when we do humans. If I take the example of Mars for instance, I would envision that before we send the first humans to Mars we want to put a whole infrastructure in place to be ready for them when they get there. Making sure we develop ways of getting the in-situ resources

so we don't have to carry it with us, and do these in preparation for them, and that will be done with robots. But ultimately, I think we are going to get, as we are studying a planet like Mars, that we are going to need humans to do some very sophisticated research and activities similar to what we have, let's say, in Antarctica. So I look at it as a complementary effort between the robotic mission and the human mission. And before men and women arrive on Mars, your lab, one of the NASA centers, JPL, is already hard at work preparing those future robots that will do this work of preparing the

way for humans. And I have seen some of this work, robots that cooperate, robots that build. This is part of an amazing tradition at JPL, isn't it? Absolutely. I mean, our goal is to open new frontiers. And our plan in the case of Mars is to prepare the groundwork for human expansion, you know, in the solar system. So we have laid out and we are in the process of finalizing a 20-year plan where effectively we go to Mars every two years or every 26 months, which is about what we from Celestial Mechanics approach that. Whenever there's a window.

That's right. And then we'll get more and more sophisticated. First, we just had the two rovers, you know, a spirit and opportunity. We're moving the next step to do orbiters with very high resolution imaging of the surface down to a fraction of a meter to look at sites which could be the right sites for future exploration. We're looking at rovers in the 09 timeframe, which will be able to go over many tens of kilometers and survive over many years with orbiting communication satellites, which can get you high definition TV. orbiting communication satellites, which can get you high-definition TV. And then what I envision, and we had a number of discussions, you know, with people from the Planetary Society, like Bruce Murray, who's the president,

and Wes Huntress, who started thinking about having basically a robotic outpost by the end of next decade, which basically will prepare the groundwork, both scientific and practical, for humans, hopefully, in the following decade. The motto on Mars, as it was elsewhere, was follow the water. You sure found the water. Now, do we look for the life? That's the next step. So what we are looking at, in effect, we look at the spiritual opportunity effectively have

been what I call a robotic geologist. The mission we are flying in 09 is going to be a robotic chemist, and we are hoping in the next decade we'll be flying a robotic geologist. The mission we are flying in 2009 is going to be a robotic chemist, and we are hoping in the next decade we'll be flying a robotic biologist. So we are doing this in a methodical way of understanding and exploring the planet, first understanding the geology, then understanding the chemistry which have evolved on it, and then how that chemistry then would have maybe evolved to a biology kind of thing. So we are not doing, again, we are not doing a race here. We are doing a comprehensive exploration of our neighboring planet

in preparation for human exploration. You run quite a facility, perhaps one of the greatest collections of scientists and engineers in the world. That has to give you pause now and then. No, no question. JPL people, I mean, everybody who comes and see what we do at JPL, they say this is a jewel in the crown of our nation, you know, in space exploration. And that's both for me humbling and exciting.

Everybody I talk with, they tell me, you have the best job in the world. And I tell them, I know it, that I have the best job, you know, in the world. And what makes it the best job in the world is really the people. We have 5,000 people who have absolute passion for exploration. I look forward to go to work every day in the morning. I don't recall a day in my 30 years at J-Prize I didn't look forward to go, even when things were not going well or they are going well, because of the excitement of that place. We're just about out of time.

Let's go back out to Saturn. When are people going to see those images coming, not just from those cameras you mentioned, but your radar instrument? Yeah, the radar images will be coming the following days. That means by mid-next week. And these will be images very similar to what we obtain on Venus, you know, with the Magellan mission, as well as we are obtaining now regularly on Earth. So they will look very much like black-and-white photography,

but they will be piercing through the clouds, and it doesn't matter if the sun is illuminating the surface. So we are hopeful that if, for whatever reason, the haze blocks the camera and we cannot get the images with the camera, the following days the radar will actually be obtaining some very high-resolution images of the surface. Dr. Elachi, we wish you continued luck in this and all of the other missions there at JPL and your own research. And thank you for joining us on Planetary Radio.

Thank you very much. It was my pleasure. Dr. Charles Elachi is director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near, not in Pasadena, near Pasadena, and vice president at Caltech, not in Pasadena, near Pasadena, and vice president at Caltech, and has many, many reasons to follow the Cassini mission over the next few months and years. We'll be right back with Bruce Betts and what's up after this return visit from Emily. I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A. Why are scientists excited about seeing dirt in Saturn's rings?

Dirt is a term used by outer solar system scientists to mean carbon or silicate-rich material, which is usually dark in color. Silicate material is the stuff that rocks are made of, and carbon compounds form the building blocks of life. So everything that's interesting on Earth is made of what scientists call dirt. At Saturn, the dirt is interesting because it likely did not form within the Saturn system, but instead represents meteoritic material falling in from outside. The most likely origin for the dirt is the Kuiper Belt, the region of dusty material beyond Neptune's orbit that is

left over from the formation of the solar system. What's more interesting, though, is that Saturn's rings are not uniformly dirty. Some parts of the rings are cleaner, made mostly of ice, and others are dirtier. But Saturn's rings are made of uncountable millions of individual particles, each orbiting the planet at a slightly different speed, colliding with each other, some migrating towards Saturn, some traveling away. So how do the dirtier particles and icier particles stay separated? This is one of many questions that the Cassini mission hopes to answer. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org.

And now here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. And we finish today's episode of Planetary Radio, as we always do, with What's Up? Featuring Dr. Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects at the Planetary Society. And Bruce, I hear you have a bunch of things to tell us. Let's start with our traditional planets in the night sky. All in the pre-dawn sky, but you go out there in the pre-dawn sky you can see some really easy planets to see venus in the east extremely bright brightest star-like object up there but now it's starting to be joined by jupiter also uh vying for title of brightest though it loses but still really really bright far to the lower left of venus so fairly low down on the horizon right before dawn and you can also look look for Saturn much higher up to the upper right of Venus.

Or if you're up late at night, you can start catching Saturn rising in the east-northeast somewhere around 11 p.m. or so. Now we've got an exciting event coming up on October 27th, and I'll mention it again next week, which is a total eclipse of the moon, a total lunar eclipse. It will be visible from all of North and South America. Portions will be visible from Western Europe and Western Asia, from most of Africa. It will not be visible in Eastern Asia or Australia. Look for that.

It's October 27th Pacific time. It is October 28th UT. And the totality, the peak of the totality is at 8.04 p.m. Pacific time or 3.04 a.m. UT. For more, go to planetary.org where you'll find a story that will tell you more on all the details of times and where you can see it from. So check that out October 27th or 28th, depending on where you live. What a shame it couldn't come four days later on Halloween. That would have been really cool, of course. Wouldn't that have been fun? It was.

Planetary Society, actually, we had a letter-writing campaign to try to change the date, but although we've succeeded with others, we have a mission to Pluto, but we have no total lunar eclipse on Halloween. Maybe next time. Maybe next time. Maybe next time. I'm going to give you a human space update. We've got a switch happening at International Space Station for the first time in six months. Expedition 10 crew has successfully launched their Soyuz rocket up to the space station.

That is commanded by Leroy Chow and has flight engineer Salajan Sharapov. We also will have a temporary visitor there of Yuri Shargin. And after six months in space, Commander Gennady Padalka and Science Officer Mike Fink will be returning to Earth from the International Space Station. You've been practicing those names, haven't you? Not enough. Not enough.

I'll find out if their families are listening. On to Random Space Fact! All channels and valleys on Mars are named after the word Mars in other languages. Interesting. Except the valley system, Valles Marineris, which is named after the Mariner 9 spacecraft that discovered it. Thales Marineris, which is named after the Mariner 9 spacecraft that discovered it. But all the others, like Eris, Ma'adim, Al-Kahira, all sorts of other good stuff, mean Mars in various languages. That's amazing.

Aren't there too many? Didn't they run out of languages? I guess not. Not to my knowledge. Silly question. Yeah. They started making up languages just for that purpose. They named some of them in binary, which is kind of weird.

Is there a pig Latin channel? Yeah. Ars May. Yes, I'm studying Ars May. Ars May Anal Che. On to something. On to the trivia contest. There we go.

You threw me with the pig Latin. I always try. Those dead porcine languages really confuse me. What did we ask last time? We asked you what was the name of the first U.S. satellite. How'd we do? Lots of entries. Lots of entries. Everywhere. Texas, Czech Republic, South Africa. Amazing.

And everybody that I read, and I read them all, so I guess everybody had the correct answer. And here's our winner for this week, Ingrid Seigert. Ingrid Seigert, or Seigert. She is in Atlanta, Georgia. Ingrid, congratulations. You got it right. Explorer 1 launched January 31, 1958.

You're going to be getting that Planetary Radio t-shirt. Congratulations. Explorer 1 came from JPL, where our esteemed guest in this week's show currently heads. What a history, that place has. What a history. On to the new trivia contest. For this week, tell us, what two asteroids did Galileo fly by on its way to Jupiter? What two asteroids did the Galileo spacecraft fly by?

To give us your answer and win the fabulous Planetary Radio t-shirt, go to planetary.org slash radio. Find out how to email us. Tell us your fun and festive answer, asteroids, Galileo flew by. And get those entries to us by Monday, October 25 at noon Pacific time, if you would. Noon Pacific time, October 25, and you'll be in the contest to win. And I think we're giving out those new blue Planetary Radio t-shirts. I haven't seen them yet.

We do have them. They are stunning. I'm going to go right in when we're done and take a look. By the way. Don't forget to pay. Sorry, Ingrid. It's Siegert. She did put the pronunciation right there.

Ingrid Siegert. Okay? All right. I apologize. Fabulous. You're still only getting one shirt, though. All right. We done?

Yeah, I think we are. All right, everyone. Go out there. Look up at the night sky and think about time and why it keeps on slipping. Thank you. Good night. Bruce Betts. He's always timely on What's Up, our special feature at the end of Planetary Radio.

He is the director of projects for the Planetary Society and joins us each week. Join us next time as we take a closer look at Cassini-Huygens' close encounter with Saturn's moon Titan. Have a great week, everyone.