Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - A Gala Evening With Galileo and His Daughter

Episode Date: September 29, 2003

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This is Planetary Radio. Ladies and gentlemen, we present Galileo Galilei. In our time, it has pleased God to concede to human ingenuity an invention so wonderful as to have the power of increasing vision four, six, ten, twenty, thirty, or even forty times. And so, an infinite number of objects which were invisible, either because of distance or extreme minuteness, have become visible by means of the telescope.

I tell you, I have discovered four stars, neither known nor observed by anyone before me, and not of the common sort and multitude of the less notable fixed stars, but of the illustrious order of wandering stars. And these four new ones make their journeys and orbits with a marvelous speed around the star of Jupiter, the most noble wonder of them all. Those were Galileo's words, brought to life by the distinguished actor John Rhys-Davies. You may have most recently seen him playing Gimli the Dwarf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy,

but there was nothing small about his performance this time. He gave it at the historic Pasadena Playhouse in Southern California, before an audience that had come to celebrate Galileo the man and Galileo the spacecraft, or rather those latter-day Galileos who are adding to our body of knowledge about the universe. Welcome to a special edition of Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. It was just a day after the Galileo probe had plunged into Jupiter, sent to a fiery death to avoid contamination of other bodies, including the Galilean moon Europa. The Planetary Society wanted to mark the end of this marvelously successful and dramatic mission with a little drama of its own. Deva Sobel authored the worldwide bestseller, Galileo's Daughter. She prepared the script for a special staged reading,

entitled An Evening with Galileo and His Daughter, and personally provided a live introduction to the performance. The night also offered an opportunity to congratulate and thank the team of engineers, scientists, and others who shepherded the Galileo mission. Claudia Alexander, the mission's last project manager, and our guest on this program two weeks ago, was one of those on stage to accept a special plaque. Hours before showtime, John Rhys-Davies was joined by yet another accomplished performer,

stage and screen actress, Linda Pearl. Ms. Pearl would portray Galileo's beloved daughter and brilliant correspondent, Sister Maria Celeste. There was just enough time for one more rehearsal under the skilled direction of Robert Picardo, another recent guest on Planetary Radio. So you'll be coming from this side. John will be coming from stage right,

and you will be cued to come on during the last three or four lines that Davis speaks. There's a perfect point for you to enter. You will both be cued on. Yeah, and that's all going to happen now. So you'll be cued and told when to come out. All you have to do is remember to have the lights up full before you begin to speak, and it should work out beautifully. Okay? Let's give it a try. With the rehearsal completed, cast's give it a try. With the rehearsal completed, cast and crew had a couple of hours to relax.

I sat down with Linda Pearl and John Rhys-Davies to talk about the experience. We're actually below the stage in the green room at the historic Pasadena Playhouse, the State Theater of California. Linda Pearl, you're a Californian now, right? I've been living here for some time, yes, so long so that this certainly is home, yes. Have you performed in this theater before? I have on a few different occasions, and it's a great treat to be here. It's one of the great, as you said, one of the great old theaters.

A great theater and a work of genius I mean really defining genius as captured in this book, Galileo's Daughter Yes, well first of all I have to say that playing daughter to John Rhys feels completely wrong Because I've had a mad crush on John Rhys since the first time I met him You know, years ago, over many years ago. And the reason not to take anything away from what I think is really a beautiful piece of writing and certainly Galileo's brilliant mind, the reason I'm here is John and Bob Picardo, our director.

Bob has been a friend for many years and he called and that was reason enough. But then he said that John Rhys was reading Galileo and I, you know, I mean, I said, where do I run as fast as I can to be here? So I'm just very thrilled that they brought me in. John Rhys Davies, you're the one she ran to. In my dreams.

Ah, cruel nymph, cease your disdain. Ah, cruel nymph, cease your disdain. Whilst I can dream you scorn in vain. Asleep or waking, you must ease my pain. We've been friends and colleagues for an awful lot of years, though you would never tell by the look of that youthful face. And, I mean, I was jumping up and down with joy, because we so seldom get the chance to work with each other.

And we were just commenting before you came up how marvelous it is in our profession that we can go for years without working with each other and things like that. And we always perk up when we suddenly realize, oh, it's an old friend, an old chum. Just such joy. But the reason I'm here is that I'm wholly behind the aims of the Planetary Society. As with most little boys, it started off from reading science fiction and Ray Bradbury and then progressed to actually doing some good science, well, interesting science at school. I did think for a number of years that I might very well want a career in science, and then I realized, of course, that I am quite innumerate, and that would preclude me from getting a Nobel Prize, and at that age, not getting a Nobel Prize seemed to be quite insufferable, so I settled for being an actor after an Oscar.

Ha! That seems to have eluded me as well, yes. So far. Oh, yes. Well, there's still another 50 years left, isn't there? I hope. Anyway, the Plenary Society is a wonderful collection of people with good, bright minds and and good open imaginations.

And it really is true that we should be trying to get a foot on another planet as quickly as we can. I think somewhere in the Book of Kings or in, is it Proverbs? I can't remember. There's a remark that goes like this. It is the glory of God to hide a thing. It is the glory of God to hide a thing. It is the glory of kings to seek it out. And that's the real right dance that there sword-bearer on the left way, I'm here to beat a drum and stamp my foot for the really marvelous and noble minds that we have around that are actively pursuing the big questions and filling in all those little spaces in between.

and filling in all those little spaces in between. You are getting to speak on stage the words of one of the most marvelous and noblest minds of all time. The genius that comes out, just in having heard what we've been listening to in the rehearsal upstairs, is incredible. And I wonder if that's, have you ever had an experience like this before? I played a number of geniuses. I wish I had it. It's a delight to be doing Galileo. I knew a little bit about Galileo before this began.

I'd actually read David's book within a few months of it actually being published. So I was not unfamiliar with the project when people asked me if I would like to do it. He is a remarkable, one of those great remarkable Renaissance minds that is able to look and reason the picture. I mean, just see the picture. Say, I don't understand. If this is bigger here and then it's smaller there, that means it must be moving away from us, surely, as things do. Right, so then if it, you know, and he slowly puts together. And once you put together moons going around one of the wandering stars, then you just kick right out that argument from under its feet that in fact the Earth can't possibly be doing that because it's got a moon in tow as well.

Then on January the 10th, only two stars were near him, both to the east. The third, as I thought, was hidden behind him. As before, they were in the same straight line with Jupiter and exactly aligned along the zodiac. When I saw this, and since I knew that such changes could in no way be assigned to Jupiter, and since I knew, moreover, that the observed stars were always the same ones, for no others, either preceding or following Jupiter, were anywhere nearby,

I moved from a doubt to astonishment, realizing that change was not in Jupiter but in the said stars. Therefore, I decided that henceforth they should be observed more accurately and diligently. And so on the 11th, I saw this arrangement. There were only two stars on the east, and this one was three times as far from Jupiter than from the other small star. And this easternmost one was about twice as large as the other,

although the previous night they had appeared about equal. I therefore arrived at the conclusion, entirely beyond doubt, that in the heavens there are three stars wandering around Jupiter, like Venus and Mercury around the sun. This was at length seen as clear as day in many subsequent observations. And also, as I discovered on the 13th of January, there are not merely three, but four wandering stars making their revolutions about Jupiter. You have lines on stage where he talks about, in a sense, almost the madness of this thought,

that the entire universe could be revolving around our little earth. Yes, indeed. But you must also make it clear that Galileo is not an irreligious man. And he, like many other people, finds no contradiction in Genesis, for instance, and in science. If a geologist looks at a mountain, he will tell you, well, that's a piece of igneous rock that, you know, was formed, and then there's a piece of sort of metamorphic stuff attached to this. But on top of that, there were a lot of sedimentary deposits and things like that.

And that's one way of describing the mountain. If a poet looks at it, he sees the blue remembered hills. If a painter looks at it, he sees patterns of green and blue and dark and light. I have a farm in the Isle of Man, which in the old Manx Gaelic is called Lurgivrek Farm, the farm on the speckled hill. Now, all these are different descriptions of the same thing.

Genesis, with its wonderful description of the creation of the universe in seven days and all that, is a wonderful poetic way of saying how it really all happened. Our job is to piece out the other detail and see it from the other point of view, and that's the function of the curious monkey. Linda Pearl, if Galileo never lost this overriding sense of the divine that he found in the universe, then your character, Virginia, his daughter, how many more times that, I would say, in your part in this and in their actual relationship, there's sort of a counterpoint, I think, with him spouting these incredible rational visions of genius

and yours much more down to earth but also much closer to God. Yes, I'm so glad that they had each other, certainly that she had him in her life, that she had someone to love and that she had someone whose imagination could transport her outside the bounds of her own existence. I beseech you not to grasp the knife of these current troubles and misfortunes by its sharp edge, lest you let it injure you that way, but rather, seizing it by the blunt size,

use it to excise all the imperfections you may recognize in yourself, so that you rise above the obstacles. And in this fashion, just as you have penetrated the heavens with the vision of a lynx, so will you, by piercing also through baser realms, arrive at an awareness of the vanity and fallacy of all earthly things, seeing and touching with your own hands the truth that neither the love of your children nor pleasures, honors, or riches can confer true contentment being in themselves ephemeral, but that only in blessed God, as in our final destination, can we find real peace. Oh, what joy will then be ours when, rending this fragile veil that impedes us,

we revel in the glory of God face to face. By all means, let us struggle hard through these few days of life that we have left so as to be deserving of a blessing so vast and everlasting. Wherefore it appears to me, my dearest Lord Father, that you must keep to your own right path, availing yourself of opportunities as they say present themselves and especially those that allow you to perpetuate your beneficence toward those who repay you to perpetuate your beneficence toward those who

repay you with ingratitude. For truly this action, being so rife with difficulty, is all the more perfect and virtuous. Indeed, I think such behavior, far above any other virtue renders us in God's image. Since, as we know from experience, while we go about offending his divine majesty all through the day, he responds by constantly showering us with blessings. And if he chastises us now and then, he does so for our greater well-being in the manner of a good father who keeps his son in line with the whip. in the manner of a good father who keeps his son in line with the whip. Let me ask both of you. Neither one of you had a lot of time to prepare for this.

You'd never know it from having watched you upstairs in the rehearsal because it was magnificent, your performances. But am I right in that this is the first time you've been able to practice this together with the director, Bob Picardo? Yes, yes. But, you know, that's why she gets the big bucks. You were best, John Richards. There are two things. Actors have to achieve an instant intimacy

because the amount of time that they've got to create something and put it together means that they have to be open something and put it together means that they have to be open and flexible to each other immediately. You can't take 15 weeks to sort of form a relationship with someone who you're going to be filming a love scene with in 25 minutes. But the other thing is

the real reason we do this is actually we love it. We love playing. We love trying to create these things. We like the puzzle of making these things come alive. And that gives us a huge rush of creative joy that actually just fills our soul with richness. In truth, most actors would do what they do for free

if they could afford to. It's just marvelous. Sometimes being a professional actor, you sometimes get paid for it. We do not get paid for this one, however. Any contributions could be... Linda? I'd like to just add to what John is saying,

that when the characters are as rich as these, when the material is as beautifully crafted as this is, it makes it so much easier. It makes us look much better than we are. This is sort of a one-day vacation or a step outside of your normal lives for both of you. Where do you go from here? Oh, boy. Well, I go back to being mommy. That's my main privilege right now. I've also been chewing John

Reese's ear off about a project that I have underway out in Colorado called the Colorado Festival of World Theater. It's an international summer theater festival. We have our inaugural season in 2005 and contributions for the festival may be sent too. It's an exciting project that has just completely captivated my life energy right now.

John Rhys-Davies, are you done being a dwarf? I think technically I'm done with being a dwarf. I have to go and promote it, I think, sometime before Christmas. But I'm here in the States right at the moment because I'm promoting the DVDs of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. And quite coincidentally, almost at the same time, they're doing the DVD release of Shogun. Just finished something in Brazil and St. Louis, and I'm just going off to do something up in Toronto for a bit. And then I think maybe Russia for a bit.

Now, this will be interesting. This might interest some of your listeners. I had dinner with a man called John Daly the other night who is producing a film in Russia based on the life of Gagarin. Is it Kurolov, the great Russian rocket scientist? Yes. I'm sort of groveling on my knees and asking John to let me play in that. So with luck, we might yet have another connection with the Planetary Society.

I hope so. Thank you very much, and break a leg upstairs. Thank you very much. Thank you. John Rhys-Davies and Linda Pearl stars of An Evening with Galileo and His Daughter. I wish we could play more of the performance for you. You'll have to take my word for it when I report that it was magnificent. But the evening didn't end with the show.

Much of the audience joined the cast and the director at a crowded reception. That's where I got to speak with Deva Sobel, the author of both Galileo's Daughter and An Evening with Galileo and His Daughter. Tonight is the first and I'm exhilarated. I thought they did a fantastic job. You probably know as much about Galileo Galilei as anyone alive, and probably more than almost anyone about his daughter. Does it mean anything special to you to be in a group like this? Many of these people are really his descendants in a direct line. Absolutely. That's why I agreed to do this,

because I'm such a fan of the Society and such a supporter, and I was flattered that they wanted to build their evening around my book. So I'm only too happy to do this and thrilled to be here. I was particularly struck by your comment in your opening remarks as you introduced the performance. When you said that Galileo's telescope or many telescopes that he put together were the Galileo spacecraft of his day that's right those were the forerunners that was the first time someone used an instrument to explore

the heavens it's a remarkable feat Even though other people were inventing the telescope, using it, they were not using it to look at the sky. I guess all we can do is thank you for having brought this work to everyone's attention. And it's still selling very well, isn't it? It's still selling. We were very fortunate. There was a Nova production made of Galileo's daughter. It was called Galileo's Battle for the Heavens. And it won an Emmy just a few weeks ago. So that was a thrill.

And I feel great to be here because I feel that Carl Sagan really was the person who got me started, and I'm eternally grateful to him. And I know his role in founding the society, so I'm where I belong. It's exciting to know that the search that Galileo was so much part of continues today. Indeed it is, and may it continue and grow with more support and more interest. You've been waving this fork. You've got to get to the wonderful food here at the reception.

Thank you very much for taking a minute tonight and congratulations. Thank you very much. Deva Sobel, author of Galileo's Daughter. We'll close by visiting with an old friend, who was having as much fun as anyone that

night. Time for What's Up. We've done this on a mountain. You claimed to do it once from Middle Earth. We happen to have a denizen of Middle Earth here. Claimed? Claimed? I saw Gimli when I was there. Bruce Betts, welcome back for What's Up. Thank you very much. I'm excited to be here tonight. So what do you have for us this week? Well, up in that night sky, we've got Mars rising and up already in the southeast at sunset. And still the brightest object up there except for the moon. And you can see it looking reddish-orange, a star up there in the sky. We've also got Saturn rising around midnight considerably dimmer. Jupiter's starting to make its presence felt just before dawn in the east.

And that's kind of your big fun in the night sky these days. You having a good time? I am having a fabulous time this evening, surrounded by friends and members and pseudo-famous people and famous people. Truly famous people and very talented people. Wonderful evening tonight. And we are at the table of Michael and Linda, longtime Planetary Society members. They're letting us make this the base of operations for what's up this evening.

For our highly advanced technical equipment that Matt has brought with us and our portable setup. How about a little bit of random space fact? I don't know how the echo is going to work with this crowd, but we'll find out. That's why I thought I'd give some of my own echo. Galileo discovered for us that three of the Galilean satellites discovered by Galileo. I never got it. Really? Yeah, it turns out they're called that because Galileo saw them first.

Anyway, we can go over that some more later. He had to be there. Yeah, well, three of them turn out they appear to have subsurface oceans, water or salty water. Now, before Galileo got there, people thought Europa might, but it also turns out that Ganymede and Callisto probably do, though perhaps much, much deeper, and Europa is still the biggest interest for near surface.

But good fun with oceans aplenty. Thank you, Galileo. And, in fact, that's why we're here tonight, to protect that ocean and whatever might be in it. We're marking, of course, the occasion of Galileo being plunged into Jupiter. Exactly, to preserve those moons and keep them from being contaminated by Earth cooties. That's not the official NASA terminology, by the way, so don't quote me on it, but it gives you the general idea. So Galileo plunged into Jupiter to destroy it and end its glorious multi-year mission. Now, have I missed anything, or can we go right on to the trivia contest?

Oh, let's go right on to the trivia contest. I look forward to it. Well, you had a great question last time, but not everybody understood it. That's because I mumbled like this when I said, why is it Zamama? Now, it turns out the question was, where is Zamama, Z-A-M-A-M-A, and what is it? And why was it named that? And what should have been named Zamama? All right. How did we do?

Well, we did great, and the listeners did great. It's just that they didn't all hear it as Zomama. They heard The Mama, and we had some great answers. Well, that must be a very different answer of who's The Mama instead of Zomama. Well, here's Pierre Keeland Lund. I think it was a past winner. He said The Mama is short for multi-Anode Microchannel Array. I can't even say it.

Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. It's part of that system on the space telescope. So if indeed we had asked that question, you would be getting a 3-D poster of Mars this week. But we didn't ask that question. 3D poster of Mars this week, but we didn't ask that question. And if we had asked which galaxy is the Mama, well, then it would have been Liam Turley's chance to win because Liam said that it's a galaxy, and I'm not going to be able to say it right,

Encarnis Venetici. Anyway, it's out there and it's a galaxy, but that's not what Bruce said. He said Zah Mama. So the winner and still champion tonight, if I can find his name fast enough, is Alan Siprich. Alan Siprich, a past winner, Zamama, was also a Babylonian sun god deity dating from the time of Hammurabi. Why is this particular volcano named Zamama? Because any ancient god or deity that waits long enough

will eventually have something in the universe named after it. Well, that's correct. And did he tell us that it's on Io? He did indeed. The Galilean satellite without the liquid ocean underneath, but the one with a whole lot going on. Well, that takes care of last week, and Alan will be getting another wonderful prize, and in fact, it's going to be a calendar, a Planetary Society calendar, not a poster.

Well, I'm, I'm, that's great. Congratulations. Well, it's especially good because he's already got the poster. Ah, oh, okay, great. Is it a three-dimensional calendar or just one of those one-dimensional things? Only in the sense that you can pick it up. But anyway, try it with the glasses on. But remember, all of you, do not drive with those glasses

and do not attend any parties that you don't want to have a great time at. Now, what about this coming week? Let's talk about what is the smoothest object in the solar system. No, we're not talking about someone's head. We're talking about in terms of a moon or a planet-sized body. What's the smoothest body out there? What do you all think here? Okay, no one's listening, thankfully, because otherwise I would have given away the answer.

So go to planetary.org, follow the links to Planetary Radio, and have fun. Bruce, we're done. Go party. All right, let's party. And everybody, look up in the night sky and think about nuking Jupiter. Bruce Betts is the director of projects for the Planetary Society, and we are coming to you from this wonderful reception following an evening with Galileo and his daughter. I hope you'll join us again next week for Planetary Radio. We may not be at a party, but I guarantee we'll be having fun, and we hope you will, too.

Thank you. Good night. Back next week in our regular format with news about Europe's mission to the moon, Smart One. I hope you'll join us. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology