Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - A Happy 20th Anniversary for Planetary Radio

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

Join our celebration with Planetary Society chief executive officer Bill Nye, Society co-founder Louis Friedman, and chief operating officer Jennifer Vaughn. Incoming Planetary Radio host Sarah Al-Ahmed calls our attention to several of the Society’s biggest accomplishments in 2022, and Bruce Betts shares not-so-random space facts about our public radio show and podcast. Discover more at  https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2022-planetary-radio-20th-anniversarySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Celebrating 20 years of Planetary Radio with Bill Nye and others this week on, well, you know. This is the premiere of Planetary Radio. Hi, everyone. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society and host of Planetary Radio. Part of the Planetary Society's mission is to explore new worlds, and you could say that's what we're doing with this new radio series. Another part of our mission is to share news and advocacy of space exploration with a world full of space enthusiasts. Whether you're hearing us live on KUCI in Orange County, California,

live via the KUCI website, or on the Planetary Society's website, planetary.org, we welcome you to this experiment. We also hope you'll be with us every week as we explore the exciting potential of this series. And we think we've got a great beginning planned with today's show. We'll talk with Dr. Louis Friedman, Executive Director, and one of the founders of the Planetary Society. Later in the half hour, you'll hear Bruce Betts, the Society's Director of Projects, tell us what's up in the sky in his regular segment called Just That,

What's Up? Have you heard about the Society's contest that will allow a young person to name NASA's new Mars rovers? Bruce will have that story too. But first, let's get underway with another of our regular features. I'll be back in just a minute. That's how it began on November 25, 2002. A very special show this week as we mark two decades of planetary radio and begin a third. You'll hear Planetary Society co-founder Lou Friedman, Chief Executive Officer Bill Nye, Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Vaughn, and, well, would it really be planetary radio without Chief Scientist Bruce Betts and what's up?

We'll forego the usual space headlines in this already long episode. You can always find the latest in our free weekly newsletter, the downlink. It and so much more are at planetary.org. This is also the time of year when we celebrate the Planetary Society's accomplishments across the last 12 months. Sarah Alamed is ready to help us acknowledge the biggest among these. Sarah, it has been a productive year for, well, for us, for our colleagues at the Planetary Society, for all of our members and donors. We're going to be telling people how they can find out a lot more about

some of our major accomplishments. But I know you've got a few that you want to go through just in a couple of minutes here today. Where do you want to start? Yeah, well, it has been a really exciting year. And as we approach, you know, the end of 2022, it's always good to look back on all the things that we've accomplished together. One of the major things that I'm really excited that we finally got to do this year is award our first ever STEP grants. That's our Science and Technology Empowered by the Public grant program.

And this year we awarded our first two projects. So those are shaping up awesome. And we're really looking forward to seeing the outcome of those projects. We also awarded our Shoemaker NEO grants this year. We award those grants to help advanced amateur astronomers who like to help protect Earth from asteroids so they can upgrade their technology and have better ways of tracking these objects. So we had eight winners this year from seven different countries, and already they've made huge strides in finding new near-Earth objects to protect us, which is amazing. And of course, the Shoemaker-Neo grants have a long history of benefiting amateur and even professional astronomers and terrific results that they've been able to achieve with these

grants, these little bits of assistance that the Planetary Society has been able to provide. Where do you want to go next? Well, next would be our day of action. This is something we do each and every year. It's our largest annual advocacy event, and it's also the largest of any independent pro-space organization in the world. And in the United States alone,

we met with 161 different congressional offices to advocate for different NASA programs. These moments have a huge impact on the funding for space missions. So if anybody wants to join us for next year's Day of Action, highly encourage it because it makes a huge impact. I so look forward to going back in person to Washington, which I know Casey is planning to do. We're going to go back to doing in-person Day of Action in the fall of 2023. Not quite ready for that for a variety of reasons in the spring

when we'll do a virtual one. Got to bring up light sail, right? Got to bring up light sail. It was a huge year for light sail. Yeah, our crowdfunded light sail, solar sailing spacecraft really exceeded our expectations. We only really thought it was going to be up there for maybe a year or so, but this year it celebrated its third anniversary in orbit around Earth. And we got to put a model of our solar sail in the Smithsonian Futures exhibit in Washington, D.C., which was a really wonderful moment for us.

And we got to gather with a bunch of our members there to actually see the exhibit and celebrate, which was a great moment. But of course, lightSail came to an end just a few weeks ago when it deorbited and burnt up in Earth's atmosphere, which of course was something we planned for. And we actually learned a lot of great science about how to deorbit spacecraft with drag sails. So that was cool, but also a kind of bittersweet moment for us because our LightSail mission is now over. I remember when we thought it was almost impossibly

optimistic to think that it would last in orbit for a year. Well, we did pretty well. Okay, bring us back home. How do you want to close? For me, the biggest thing and for you as well is that, Matt, you're retiring after 20 years of amazing shows here on Planetary Radio. And as we turn over into the new year, I'm going to be stepping up as the new show host. So I think that's a big moment for both of us. Absolutely. And hopefully for our audience as well. Although we hope it'll be a more or less seamless transition. And I think everybody out there, you probably have just heard great evidence of why we are turning over the show to Sarah. Sarah, thanks so much. Great review.

I should mention that for our members and donors, we will be doing our annual review of the Society's Big Accomplishments. That'll be a live webcast with the boss, CEO Bill Nye, and a bunch of other great folks. I'll be moderating it once again. Keep an eye on your mail. We will let you know when that's going to happen. It will probably be in mid-December.

And there is an article you can look for at planetary.org that also goes through all of this. Sarah, thanks again. Thanks, Matt. Bill, Jennifer, a pleasure to have you on this 20th anniversary program for Planetary Radio. It's not the only thing we'll talk about, but I'm honored to have you sitting at the microphones here in the Planetary Society studio, ready to talk about, well, I don't know, what else would you like to talk about? Well, we've been around 42 years, and you've been broadcasting, making the showing for half of that.

Yeah. It's really amazing, man. I'm going to jump in and make a slight correction because we're celebrating the 20th anniversary on November 30th. Yeah. And November 30th happens to also be the incorporation date of the Planetary Society. So it's two in one.

So it's 43 years for the Planetary Society and 20 years for Planetary Radio. I was going to bring it up if you didn't. So just notice, this is what you get by having Jennifer Vaughn as chief operating officer. She has corporate memory. So it was November 30th, 1979. We keep saying 1980. That's like about the time somebody bought a desk or something.

Exactly, because not much work happened in that last month of 79. And I went on the payroll 22 years ago. So 21 years into the existence of this organization. And for two years, I was doing other stuff. But I had this dream, which, you know, we're going to talk to Lou Friedman in a few minutes and find out why he let me make it real. So while we're talking about making it real, when I just changed the subject back to me. When I first took over 11 and a half some years ago, I went on for a few months, this and that.

And I said to Jen Vaughn, you know, we should hire Matt full time. And she said, yeah, I did that a couple months ago. You were part-time, everybody. Matt was part-time here at the Planetary Society and part-time at Cal State, California State University Senate, Long Beach.

And you were going back and forth, doing both, teaching video production and maybe radio production down there. I say down there, south of here. We taught a little bit, but mostly I ran a television studio that had the cable channel and did the professional production work for the organization. You did professional production. I tried. I had good people.

I had good people. Like you, I had good people. And it was a lot of fun. I was part-time here at the Society longer than I've been full-time still. Lou Friedman tried to get me to go full-time very early on. And I kind of went- What were your responsibilities at the beginning? Oh, this and that. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of – You were working on the website.

Yeah. You were writing a lot. I had no idea what I was doing. I was made webmaster the day after I think I arrived on the payroll part-time. And I had never – I didn't know any HTML. I didn't know what I was doing because the webmaster had just left. And she was the one who had said, hey, you should hire this guy. And I was just going to write. I was going to do content. And maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, I was thinking

of doing this radio show because who knew from podcasting back then? And I did. I commuted up for a long time. You were here, Janet. And the timing wasn't right. I stayed part-time at the society and went back pretty much full-time at the university, and they gave me more stuff to do there, community relations. I had the IT group, which was kind of a laugh, but I knew how to talk IT even if I couldn't do it. That's information technology? Yes, sir. For us old guys.

I remember, I'm glad this came up about the part-time status because one of the things that we just marvel at today with you and trying to think about how do we move along with Planetary Radio without you is that you do it all. You do so much, man. You are a one-person band.

You do it all. And then to think back and think that you were doing it all on a part time gig, that's amazing. I'm not that you were doing it all on a part-time gig, that's amazing. I'm not sure how you're doing it on a full-time position, but wow. You were managing Planetary Radio as a part-time person. That is amazing. It's been interesting.

We'll go with that. And, of course, it's developed a lot too. Your role has developed as well. So you've always had the radio show, but you've become the voice ambassador for the Planetary Society. So you've always had the radio show, but you've become the voice ambassador for the Planetary Society. So you are our emcee. Well, present company accepted, I think, because yeah, I mean, we were doing an event a couple of weeks ago and somebody was so excited to see me. And I said, hey, you know, Bill Nye is coming. You're excited to see me?

They're excited to see you, Matt. Matt, you've grown this audience of people. They love you. But the other thing that I find striking is you book all the interviews, interviewees, and the people generally want to come back. They want to come back on your show because you do such a good job preparing and, how to say, letting them talk. a good job preparing and, how to say, letting them talk. That's the part I love the most. It's meeting and getting to talk to and share conversations with heroes every week.

You know, heroes that are famous, that have walked on the moon, heroes that maybe have never been heard of outside of their own university or lab until they come on the show. And that's the great joy of doing this. So how did you, Matt, really what got you hooked on planetary science? How did you find the Planetary Society? Well, here's a secret I shouldn't reveal. I was a member of the National Space Society before I was a Planetary Society guy. It's a different bunch. And I did a little bit of stuff for them. We even did a TV project with the NSS. I knew the Planetary Society was out there.

I don't know if I read a Carl Sagan book or if I got something in the mail. And I joined up. And then there was this search for PlanetFest volunteers. And I thought, oh, yeah, maybe I can help out. And I ended up running all of the media stuff for that PlanetFest. Wait, so, oh, yeah, maybe I can help out. And I ended up running all of the media stuff for that Planet Fest. Right. So that was Planet Fest 99. Yeah.

Yeah. I have some pictures of you I remember seeing with running the AV for Planet Fest 99. This was in the Pasadena Civic Center. This is Buzz Aldrin. This had Mars Polar Lander. Except on Mars, we don't know quite what it would sound like. And Mars Climate Orbiter, which also crashed. Yeah, tough time. We still had a good time. We did. It was a great party, even though we didn't know what we were celebrating,

other than just being together and loving space. Well, that's it. I mean, and you asked me, you know, how did I fall in love with planetary science? I'm old. I go back to Mercury. I remember running to see a Mercury launch, you know, to watch an atlas take off. On television.

Yeah, on television, black and white television. I caught the bug then and never lost it. You know, got my first telescope when I was 10. Still don't really know how to use it nearly as well as most people who have telescopes, but I do love digging it out now and then. And it's just, you know, I quote you all the time. I always credit you, the PB&J, the passion, beauty, and joy. Love the PB&J. We have been through changes over the last 20 years, 22 from my start. The organization has certainly evolved a lot.

What did you say, 11 years for you now, Bill? I think it might be 12. Yes, I believe it is 12. It was September of 2010. Yes, it's been 12 years. Tempest, foo, git, man. And, you know, there were some difficult times. Really? You would know better than me.

And I am very grateful because everybody stood by, if not me, at least by Planetary Radio through thick and thin. And times are— Well, the thinness, everybody. We had overinvested in a spacecraft and that was not working. This would be the early versions of light sail. You can't run an organization like this without some money and people working. And so we had to think carefully about where we were spending our money and redirect it. And we, thanks to you all listening, we found supporters who thought that the solar sail spacecraft would be pretty great.

And we pulled it off. And this is after you were there for both failures, right, Jen? You were there. Oh, yeah. Cosmos 1. Me too. Yeah, I remember. We were all living that together, waiting for those signals that never came.

Well, I'm glad you went in this direction because this, of course, is the other thing we want to talk about. We're late, if anything, talking about this because by the time people hear it, LightSail will have met its demise, its glorious demise, for a couple of weeks. This is another just wonderful success story to come out of those difficult times. I think that's the word I used a few moments ago, right? To become this truly glorious success. I thank and congratulate the two of you. I mean, I'm a member. And so I, you know, had my little piece of that spacecraft.

And I just couldn't be more proud of what it was able, what we have been able to accomplish. We did. We accomplished the mission. We raised altitude, increased orbital energy using sunlight. We took these pictures. I keep going on about the pictures. They're astonishing. I know it's a radio show, but the light sail pictures, everybody thought they'd be good, But the LightSail pictures, everybody thought they'd be good, but they're so impressive to me. And it's because of everybody listening. So thank you. Thank you for supporting LightSail.

We have advanced our mission, advanced space science and exploration. And the same day, maybe the same 24-hour period that LightSail burned up, Artemis I launched, carrying near-Earth asteroid scout, NEA scout. Everybody, the solar sailing community is a small one. Everybody sees each other at the conferences and stuff. And so Les Johnson, who will be on the podcast pretty soon. Very soon. Yeah. He finally got his dream solar sail to launch the same day that ours burned up. It's a passing of the atmospheric incineration torch. So feel good about that. But as of this recording, we haven't heard from it.

Well, maybe it'll get hit with a cosmic ray and it'll fire up. So everybody, one of the things they told me, and by they I mean the engineers on LightSail 1, it wasn't working. We couldn't hear from them, couldn't communicate with it. And they said, oh, don't worry, it'll get hit with a cosmic ray and the computer will reboot. I don't know how else to express it.

Are you high? What do you mean it's going to get hit with a cosmic ray? Apparently it did. And then it did. And then it rebooted. But then on LightSail 2, everybody, Bruce and the crew, made sure that there was a system that didn't need a cosmic ray to reboot. Exactly.

We could manually reboot. So Near Earth Asteroid Scout may be by the time this airs, it'll have gotten a jolt. I sure hope so. Well, hope's not a plan, but I'm sure people are working on it real hard. Yeah. We nudged space exploration along because everybody thinks, this goes back to Carl Sagan and Lou Friedman, everybody thinks that solar sails have their place in exploring the solar system especially,

and perhaps way, way out there beyond the solar system. Yeah, well, that's what we've always heard from Lou Friedman. Solar sails, or at least light sails, may be driven by lasers, the only practical technology we have for reaching the stars. And Voyager is at, what, 22 light hours? Yeah, something like that. That's what she said.

That's right. That's right. That's right. Wow. That's a long way, everybody, at the speed of light. And so I'm not changing the subject. It just shows you that space exploration is where we accomplish mighty things. And that's what Charles Elachi, who was the head of JPL for a while, liked to quote Teddy Roosevelt, of JPL for a while, I like to quote Teddy Roosevelt, dare mighty things. Yeah. It's a good motto. Jennifer, were there times before we started to see LightSail 1 coming together and the success, troubled, but successful test, were there times when you wondered whether

we'd be able to achieve this great success? So, so many times. So it's, going back to what Bill just said, dare, what did you say? Dare mighty things. Dare mighty things. Yes, yes. We knew what we were trying to do was difficult, was complex, it was audacious,

it was all those things. It was going to cost a lot of money and take a lot of time. And there were so many times along the way where we were at a crossroads and having to ask the hard questions of, do we continue? Everybody, we talked about giving the hardware. This is the CubeSat, 10 centimeters by 10 centimeters by 30 centimeters less. It really is literally smaller than a loaf of bread. We're going to give it away to the Air Force Research Lab? Maybe those guys want it.

Is there a university in Utah who would want to take it apart and see if they could make it work? This went around and around for a while. It's part of the job of having to question all the time. Are you the right ones to be doing what you're doing? Or is it really better to be involving someone else or partnering? So we had to examine it a lot. Anyway, this is all whiskey under the bridge, as we say in country music. But it's really gratifying. And, Matt, you've been through the thin and then now the pretty thick.

I mean, we're not out of control, but things are pretty good right now for the organization because you have engaged so many listeners. And so thank you for that. People love your show, man. You're very welcome. It takes one to know one. And it has been a thrill. It has been the greatest professional thrill of my life. I am also thrilled to know who's coming in to take over this microphone. Oh, Sarah's going to be great, everybody.

Yeah. You know, was it 400 applicants? Yeah, I think it was about that. Something like that. It was over 300 for sure. That's a lot. Anyway, Sarah has the creds. She won fair and square. She did. She's the enthusiasm

and the professional expertise and that the thing you want is this academic experience being a real astrophysicist and then science communication coming from the Griffith Observatory. Everybody, if you've seen the movie, what is it? Rebel Without a Cause. They drive the Griffith Observatory like the real deal in Los Angeles. And for those of you around the world who've never seen the Griffith

Observatory, go on the electric internet and see where it is. It's perched on this hillside, which in the 1920s was this extraordinary way above the clouds. I use the word perch. It's a good word. Of this beautiful facility, and she worked under all the real deal people over there.

And we were able to get her to come here. So yeah, Rebel Without a Cause. Don't forget The Rocketeer. Key scene in that wonderful movie. What a great movie. And I think there have been a few others. Is there anybody in the space business that you haven't interviewed?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. How many times you had Homer Hickam on, right? Oh, only a couple. Only a couple. Only a couple. We haven't talked to Homer in a long time. Well, he's really – You know, I told – as I told Andrean two, three weeks ago at this desk, at this virtual desk. I was going to say, she wasn't here.

No, she wasn't here. All that aside. My greatest professional – well, there are two people, Neil Armstrong, but that's an easy one to understand because he hardly talked to anybody in the media business. But Carl, and I'm really sorry that I missed out in talking to Carl. I came close. I was in the same room once in 1976 as Viking 1 landed on Mars. And I've told this story. It's in my newsletter that here I was the scruffy college guy.

Hold it, Viking. It was 76. Yeah. Absolutely, it was 76. And there he was across the room, you know, surrounded by network people and major newspaper people. And we were these college punks. We did kind of ask, but it was clear that we just did not measure up. And it would not have been a good use of his time to talk to us.

But he loved talking to everybody. When you're in love, you want to tell the world, as he so often said. So Matt, he would have talked to you if you had time. Well, and then Anne said that thing, which just blew me away and will be with me the rest of my life, that she was sure that he'd have been as fond of me as she is. Oh, come on. Come on. That's fabulous. No, I heard that. That was great. That was great. What does it mean where we are? I'm going back to LightSail now and away from me. Where the organization is now, that we were able to achieve this,

what it says about this organization, that we made this happen, and we're moving on to other things. I'm actually going to bring it back to you, too, in that answer, which I wanted to share that kind of emotionally where I've been sitting for a while with both LightSail and the recognition of this 20-year mark and the shift of handing the baton over to Sarah and seeing you move into different roles. It is this moment of deep pride for the organization and what we've been able to accomplish. And so often you don't know what you're accomplishing in the moment. You only see it when you're looking back sometimes. And you recognize, in the case of Planetary Radio, how valuable it's been to people around the world,

the people that you have touched and inspired and motivated to become more deeply involved with space. It's countless. We have no idea how many people you have touched over this period of 20 years. It's astounding to look back on that. And I feel so proud and excited and so sad all at the same time. It really has a bitter sweetness to it all. And LightSail does the same thing. LightSail outdid itself. It performed so much better than we ever imagined. It lived two and a half years longer than ever anticipated. And it's such a beautiful thing that it's coming to an end in the right way. And it's so sad all at the same time. And so I've been very,

I've just been contemplating this a lot, I think recently, and this shift for the organization on multiple fronts. We are starting anew. We're starting anew with Planetary Radio. We're starting anew with new projects. We don't yet know how those are gonna develop. And we might not know the impact that we're having until we're looking back at it one day saying,

wow, that was really good stuff. But with all that in mind and the bittersweet nature of this week, Matt, two things. First of all, none of it would have happened without Bruce Betts. And you have him on the show every week. Every week. And he is a character every week. And he led the science and technology of both light sales. And those cameras.

Those pictures. Shout out to Bruce or gentle voice talk out to Bruce. This is natural. That is to say, I will miss holding up my phone, waving it in people's faces. Look at LightSail. Here's the map. Here's where it is, the app. We had an online app, I mean a phone app, where you could see the map of where LightSail was at any time. I'm going to miss that badly.

But on the other hand, it's a stepping stone. The best I still think is yet ahead. And if you're going to pass the baton to anyone, we picked a good person. Sarah is going to do fine. Yeah, she is. You'll never be forgotten. But it's part of the growth or change of the organization. Jen and I have mumbled to each other from time to time, we want the Planetary Society to be It is. I mean, the guy wanted to get on with his life. The organization's changed a little bit. It couldn't help it. But it has to change.

So I'm sorry LightSail's burned up. I'm going to miss it. And it does bring you to this thing. Well, what are you going to do next? What's next? Well, the step grants are pretty cool. Yeah, they are. And I just tell everybody again, yes, I want to explore planets writ large.

Yes. But I thought about that interview that you went within that you did a couple weeks ago, talking about Carl Sagan and his message to Mars. You guys, I want to be alive when life is found elsewhere. Oh, gosh. Please, let it be so. And if I'm not, I did my best. And then I want to have the Earth

not get hit with an asteroid. That's a really important thing to me. As a science educator. That's a very good goal. Well, as a science educator, the mystery and the story of what happened to the ancient dinosaurs is amazing. It's compelling. There was no explanation for it. No good explanation.

My whole life. Then when I, as I say, in the 1980s, I was a productive member of society, paying taxes and all that stuff. I was in the workforce when it was discovered that it was almost certainly an asteroid that finished them off. And so the only preventable natural disaster, and very reasonable to me that solar sails will have a role in finding them, going way out, station-keeping with the Earth at an orbit closer to the sun than we are, and looking for asteroids. I can just see it. Ooh, I can see it.

So anyway, are we rambling or are we staying focused on the future? This is the future. There's so much more that I'm looking forward to, and I'm glad that, you know, I'm not going to disappear. What, are you going to be sticking around? A little bit. I'm going to camp outside. Some of the stuff that Jennifer has very kindly, generously asked me to become involved with is very exciting. In particular, some of the work that we're going to be doing with our member community, which people will be hearing more about soon, is very exciting. And, you know, planetary defense, there's another planetary defense conference coming up. I know we're going to be involved with that. It's every two. And, you know, Planetary Defense, there's another Planetary Defense Conference coming up.

I know we're going to be involved with that. It's every two years, everybody. I am very excited about Planetary Academy. Oh, yes, of course. So I was in meetings when I first joined the board in the 1990s where Bruce Murray would slap the table and say, young people, we've got to get young people. It's pretty clear we've got to get young people. It's pretty clear we got to engage people before they're about 10. And so that's what we're going to do now, finally. I'm excited. I'm so excited about the future. Yeah. You know, if only we had a leader who has done more than any other

individual that I can think of to introduce young people to the PB&T. Well, that's right. Just to be well-positioned. To get revved up. I have seen these materials. My grandson and his new stepsister, they're going to be members. They're going to be part of the academy. And I am thrilled to go through all that material with them. It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. And we're going to grow.

And that's key to the future. We're going to grow. Tell all your friends. If you tell five people and they tell five people, pretty soon we'll be here. And so on and so on. I think that's illegal. Oh, telling them is not illegal. It's getting their cash.

Now we're rambling. I want to close by thanking the two of you because of what you have done for this organization and what you have done for Planetary Radio. We hired you full time. And look, you grew it to the top 1% of science podcasts, right? You did that, Matt. Yeah, it's you. You did that. You're finding the interviewers, interviewees, interviewing them expertly.

And you did all the editing taking all the out and uh it's took a lot of your time for years and years 20 years been the voice of the planetary society in a very personal way so you've been part of people's lives for 20 years well fortunately that the voices of the Planetary Society will carry on. Your two are among them. You've proven that again just in the last few minutes. Thank you both. Thank you, Matt. Thank you.

Thank you, Matt. A quick break, and then I'll be back with the man who gave me this dream job, Planetary Society co-founder and solar system explorer, Louis Friedman. Hi, everybody. Bill Nye here, CEO of the Planetary Society. Everything we do, from advocacy for missions that matter, to funding new technology, to grants for asteroid hunters, and sharing the wonder of space exploration with the world, only happens thanks to friends like you who share our passion for space.

When you invest in the Planetary Fund today, a generous member will match your donation up to $100,000. Every dollar you give will go twice as far as we explore the worlds of our solar system and beyond, defend Earth from the impact of an asteroid or comet, and find life beyond Earth by making the search for life a space exploration priority. With you by our side, we'll continue to advocate for missions that matter for years to come.

How about powering our work in 2023? Please donate today. Visit planetary.org slash planetary fund. Thank you for your generous support and Happy New Year. Thank you for your generous support, and Happy New Year. Lou, thanks very much for being the first and very appropriate first guest on this broadcast version of Planetary Radio. Well, thanks, Matt. I'm certainly glad to be here and certainly glad to talk about things planetary and the Planetary Society. And I really love the name, Planetary Radio, and let's make that our goal, to make this a planetary radio show.

Twenty years later, we're still trying to make this a truly planetary radio show each week. It is a pleasure and an honor to welcome back that first guest, Planetary Society co-founder and our executive director emeritus, Dr. Louis Friedman. Lou Friedman, my first boss, the man who— First boss at the Planetary Society. Yes, first boss here. First boss of any note.

I hope my old boss at Cal State Long Beach isn't listening. The man, though, who got this started, who allowed me to begin this experiment 20 years ago, almost to the day, not quite, and two years before that brought me on the payroll from being – I think I'd been a volunteer for about two months. So I guess I've owed you for at least that period of time. Thank you. You owe me your career. Yeah. Now I can think about how you should pay me back. Yes. Give that a lot of thought. Well, Matt, I'm certainly very glad I did it.

And as we were kind of talking at another time, I wasn't sure what I was doing at that time. I wasn't sure that planetary radio was a thing that would have any legs to it. It was an experiment for the organization. And I wasn't its biggest backer. There was people on the staff who much more, and of course you, but there were people on the staff who much more strongly supported the idea. But I think one of the things I did right was allow things that I wasn't sure of to continue. It wasn't doing any harm, that's for sure. And it did very well. And I congratulate you on the 20 years of producing it and doing it.

It certainly has become terrific with a lot of legs. Thank you. As I said to Bill and Jennifer minutes ago, as people are listening to this, it has been the greatest joy of my professional life to be able to do this show for 20 years and meet the people that I have met because of this program. And it started with you. You were also the first guest. Well, thanks. it started with you. You were also the first guest. Well, thanks. I also think about how I felt when I was allowed to join the organization. At least from my viewpoint, it worked out pretty well all around. Well, it was a good time for the Planetary Society. As you know, we were at that point, and this is all history, but we were full of optimism about the Cosmos 1 solar sail effort we were doing.

And that was a big venture. That was the first time any private organization was trying to do its own space mission. And it had a lot of complicated interfaces with the Russians, of course, and we were in testing programs with them. And I think that was the year, well, 2002, I think, was the year we had our test launch with them. Well, 2002, I think, was the year we had our test launch with them. It was also a time of optimism about getting the Mars program to recover from the 1998 mission failures.

And the Planetary Society had played a significant part in getting a redefined Mars program, of course, with the help of Dan Golden, the administrator, and Wes Huntress, the associate administrator for space science, but a commitment to sustain continuing Mars exploration, which, of course, resulted in a spirited turn of a lot of things in Mars exploration for the Society and conducting a solar sail mission and in your activity and getting Planetary Radio started. I think back even further, too, well before my time with the Society, except maybe as a member. As Jennifer pointed out a few minutes ago, 43 years on the day that this show comes out, 43 years since the three of you, Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and you got together and said, we need this organization.

You make me think of it again when you talk about what was happening 20 years after that or 20, what, 23 years after that, when we were still in the business of making sure that NASA stayed in the business of making sure that NASA stayed in the business of exploration. Well, that's right. The society was formed at a time when NASA was actually, the very highest level, was making a decision not to do planetary exploration and to get out of it. And that's why we were formed.

And that was the basis of our advocacy. and that was the basis of our advocacy. So that was a crucial time, and I think we played a role in keeping planetary exploration in front of the nation as the program got rebuilt. It was also a crucial time in world affairs. The U.S. and Soviet Union were in the middle of the Cold War then, or not the middle, and it was very early in the first couple of years that we took on the challenge of international cooperation, not just as a way because international cooperation is good, but as a way of stimulating interest in planetary science and planetary exploration. exploration. The Soviets at that time were doing Mars missions and Halley's Comet mission and had a space station. The U.S. had none of those things. And we were trying to accelerate our program by bringing international cooperation into it. And we were very successful in that too. And there's great documentation of this in your book. We're going to talk about your new book too

that's not out yet, but the one called Planetary Adventures and your personal role in all of this, including all those trips to what is now Russia, was still the Soviet Union back then. Well, Planetary Adventures from Moscow to Mars that I wrote is really a book that's written for you and me. It's not a bestseller. It doesn't have that broad appeal to the general public, but it does document in a way that I think means a lot to those of us here and to what was going on in the world and what was going on in the organization at that time. on in the world and what was going on in the organization at that time. And I was very fortunate, extremely fortunate to have adventures like that as part of my job here. Do you know my colleague, Casey Dreyer, our chief advocate, senior space policy?

He actually started work while I was here. So I brought him on too. I forgot that that was still happening. It was after we had the place on Catalina, that beautiful old house. Right. And we had our interim facility on Grand Avenue here in Pasadena. I just, I think of how Casey,

he's the embodiment of the advocacy work that you three founders began way back in 1979. And just how that role continues for the society. I mean, that must make you pleased. It's grown a lot. And I can remember the first tentative move when I went to Bruce and Carl and I said, you know, I think we need a Washington consultant. And then we get recommendations from all our advisors. Well, you need to have a Washington office. And I said, no, we're not going to do that because people who have Washington offices get diverted right away. They get sucked up by politics. And knowing me, I would get sucked

up by politics instantly. So I said, I know better than that. So we hired a Washington consultant. And then we hired a couple of others. And we had various people who worked with us for years. And that was the extent of our advocacy. Bill Livingston was our first Washington consultant. And then, of course, Lori Garver, was our first Washington consultant. And then, of course, Lori Garver, who became deputy administrator of NASA. She was our Washington consultant for a while. One of my favorite people.

One of my favorite guests. Of course, I spent a lot of time in Washington in the political world, even though I was living here in California. But now you have several people here at the organization involved in advocacy. And I'd say that it's different. When I was executive director and when Bruce and Carl were here, we didn't want it to be the dominant part. It was important, but we didn't necessarily think of it as the dominant function of the society. And that's probably good. I'm not sure. But it is a difference

now. I wonder if that's, I mean, I'd love to ask Bill Nye or Jennifer Vaughn if they agree with you that it's the dominant part of what we do now. I'm not sure, but it's certainly big, right? You don't have things like the Mars rover testing and the Mars balloon testing and the major kind of big activities we were doing like that. And, of course, ultimately the solar sail, but that was started even back in 2008 and 2009 and continues to that day. So I think the projects – I mean you have good projects, but I think right now advocacy is a bigger part of the organization. I see what you mean.

And what about the outreach side of what we do, which Planetary Radio, I hope, is still a good example of. Sure. There's so many channels that we have available to us now, which nobody even dreamed of back then. We didn't. We were very proud of the planetary report, which got out to between 60 and 100,000 over its time. And so over the years, it's gotten out to over a million people in many ways. That was our outreach, of course, before the internet. And now you have many more other things. And that's a whole subject way beyond the scope of this show, Matt,

with all due respect, way beyond maybe the scope of any such show. The whole notion of how different it was in the days when there were four or five broadcast channels, dozens of newspapers in various cities, several science magazines, and there was no such thing as the internet. Was that outreach more effective, less effective, or is there too much noise now? I could argue there's just too much noise now, and it's not as effective, but I could also argue the other way is that it reaches people that it never reached before. Yeah, yeah, I absolutely see your point. How did solar sailing fit into the mission of the society? Was it there from the beginning, at least as a dream? That's a very hard question to answer succinctly. Bruce

Murray, as my boss at JPL, was an enthusiast of solar sail. And when I was working on solar sail at JPL, he was like the chief advocate. He made me go on trips with him to make the pitch to NASA management. He saw that as a great opportunity. Of course, in the context of rendezvous with Halley's Comet at that time. Very ambitious solar sail. So Bruce was, in that context of rendezvous with Halley's Comet at that time. Very ambitious solar sail. So Bruce was, in that sense, an enthusiast. Carl was always enthusiastic about, I think a lot of people don't realize this,

Carl, first place I ever met Carl was as a chair of a technology committee for NASA. And not as a scientist. And he was looking into the ways of using advanced technology in missions. So he was also enthused with the idea of it. But none of us had saw any practical role that the society could play in its development. And there were a whole lot of private groups in the 1990s trying to do solar sales, and we didn't have any part of that. There was no clear case that it fit our mission, which after all isn't about technology. It's about going to the planets. But what happened was

opportunity. And the opportunity was we were working with the Russians by this point in the late 1990s on a number of innovative ideas, including the microphone that ultimately went on the 1998 Mars mission. They said they had these inflatables they were developing, and they could make inflatable booms. If we could provide sail material, they would do all the work of getting the launch and developing the spacecraft for us. So we had a job of just providing the sail material. Well, that's something we knew how to do because we had actually done that in connection with the Planet Fest in cooperation with the World Space Foundation years earlier. It looked like a good opportunity, and so we jumped on it. I remember Carl and I walking, I think it was here in downtown Pasadena, and he looks at me one day and says,

We're doing pretty good. We've got this program and we have this thing and the organization seems okay. We might possibly someday get to the point where we could do privately funded space mission of our own. Really? This was from Carl. That's great. And I said, well, Carl, that's pretty ambitious.

It was. Before commercial spaceflight talk and all these other things. Yeah. I said, but, you know, so immediately then, 1998 or 9, when the Russians made this thing and I talked to Bruce about it, and Carl sadly was no longer with us, we said, okay, it's worth a try. And we got funding for it. We got some key funding. Here's a story I don't know that you know very well.

There's a group here in Pasadena called Idea Lab with two Caltech founders, people from Caltech who had founded it. And they were trying to do a private mission to the moon. a private mission to the moon. Tom Svitek, who ultimately was our light sail spacecraft designer, was actually their chief engineer working on this lunar mission. So he introduced me to Bill and Larry Gross, and I made the pitch that the Russians had this idea, and if we could get a $50,000 study to see how much substance was behind it, you know, it might go somewhere. And so they said, well, okay, that sounds interesting. Well, let us think about it. Well, they had a board meeting, and on their board happened to be a guy by the name,

maybe you've heard of him, Elon Musk. And I knew Elon because he had been very interested in Mars exploration at that time. Still is. Well, we might argue that anyway. Maybe not exploration, but yeah. So I went up to Elon at a thing we were at, and I said, Elon, it really would help if you could push this solar sail idea with Bill and Larry Gross because I think they'll come up with the seed funding for us to look in and whether there's any substance behind this.

And Elon was interested because he was also flirting with the Russians to figure out if they could do launch vehicles for his idea for private Mars missions. So he said, oh, maybe. And he did. And so Elon was – I give him a little credit for pushing the idea with them. And we got the study. And the study came back quite positive. We took a couple of us, went over to Russia. Bud Schirmeier was a key guy, and Jim Cantrell and I, and we went over, and we were impressed with what we thought would be

the good work that could be done on the spacecraft, and we came back with a positive report. Unfortunately, the person who took over as CEO, anyway, he didn't want to do it. And so we had to come up with other funding, but we did. And that worked out. And, of course, among our great funders on the whole Cosmos One effort was Annie Andruyan and Cosmos Studios, and she got behind it, and that made the whole thing a go. I am still very proud of my windbreaker, my Cosmos One windbreaker. Oh, I almost wore it today.

I thought about it, too. It has a wonderful Cosmos Studios logo on it in addition to some others. I had never heard that story about Elon, that Elon Musk helped get us. And, you know, he joined the board. He was on our board at Planetary Society for several years as well. I still remember with tremendous fondness and with great pride that day in 2005, even though it didn't come out the way we had hoped, it wasn't the spacecraft's fault. When we were all in the carriage house at the old headquarters.

Lucky you. I was over there. I don't know. I'd say lucky you with your satellite phone in your hand on that ship. No, that was not the satellite phone. That was 2002. The satellite phone on the ship was the 2002 launch of the test flight. Of the test flight.

In 2005, I was in Moscow at the Mission Operations Center. Boy, that shows you how bad my memory is. But, yes, we were talking to – we were in touch because that was the control center for the mission in that old carriage house, 100-year-old carriage house, at that time 100 years old. And as I said, I'm still very proud to have been part of that. And I do wonder if it had not been for that Cosmos One effort, would we have gone on with this revolutionary idea of doing it as a CubeSat, which you also got underway? I'll tell you that story too because I came back from Russia very unhappy. Of course.

Not just unhappy because I've had a lot of missions associated with it. I know about missions failing. I was at JPL when the Mars missions failed. I saw delays on missions. I know that didn't bother me, but what bothered me is there was some flim-flam in our launch vehicle situation that I write about in Planetary Adventures.

I won't repeat it here. So I was pretty unhappy, and I came back, and I said, we're not going to do this again. No, first of all, we don't have a plan to do it again, and we're not going to do it again under the same situation. Everything's different. Furthermore, the Japanese had already launched Icaros,

and so I knew we wouldn't be the first solar sail. So I was kind of negative, and Charlene was pumping me up. Charlene Anderson. No, our editor of the Planetary Report. And your deputy, right, as executive producer. Yes, yeah. And so we talked, and everybody was saying, we've got to try, we've got to try. And Ann Druyan was, bless her heart, she was strong.

We'll raise money. I know this. I'll try this. I'll do that. And so what was I going to say? No, no, we're not. And then out of the blue, the folks at Marshall Space Flight Center call us up and say, NanoCell D failed, also on launch from a NASA launch.

Ironic, isn't it? Marshall folks called us up and they said, well, NanoCell D, we have a spare spacecraft. If we give you the planetary site, if we give you the spare spacecraft, you're pretty good at getting launches, maybe from the Russians, maybe from the French, or maybe even commercially here. Would you take the responsibility of launching it? Because our program is being discontinued. So I thought about it for a day. I talked to the staff. I talked to the board. And I called them back. And I said, yes, we'll take it. We spent nine months talking to them and they never could figure out how to take yes for an answer. They never could figure out

the transfer mechanisms. And then they decided to give it to DOD or something like that. I don't know what happened. But meanwhile, Jim Cantrell, Tom Svitek and I were meeting going over the nano cell. And we said, you know, this is just nothing more than a CubeSat. It doesn't have a radio. It doesn't have cameras. It doesn't have a good attitude control system. So it's not that good a spacecraft. We could do that. We can build the CubeSat. We can get a CubeSat and build these things ourselves. So that's what led to the decision to do light sail. And the road ahead was still long and hard. Now, here we are speaking about two weeks after the end of that LightSail 2 mission. Three and a half years in space, in orbit, constantly

reoriented itself, proving that a solar sail, even of the scale of a CubeSat, that could raise its orbit as it circled the Earth. I sure hope that you take some pride in all of this, this long, long road that led to this success. Pride and humility, I mean, because I didn't predict anything like this. Pride and humility, I mean, because I didn't predict anything like this. I predicted it would have a few months in orbit. It would do its little energy maneuver and then it would be done. We didn't think of it as a resilient spacecraft.

We thought of it as a fragile spacecraft. We also knew that it had donated mylar sails that we had to do a lot of deployment tests on. We knew it was built in a small facility up in San Luis Obispo. And there was a lot of things that we had to make. We were doing it as not an amateur effort, well, in a sense an amateur effort, but by professionals, but a privately funded effort. So I never predicted it would be this resilient and long. And so hats off to the team that did it and the team that operated it and everybody else. I was talking to Dave Spencer just a week ago about it,

and it remarkably well. Also proved something about solar sails that we didn't know when we first got in the business. also proved something about solar sails that we didn't know when we first got in the business. Both Icaros and LightSail, the only two solar sails that have ever flown missions, solar sailing missions, worked longer and better than expected. They were resilient. Space is benign once you get up there.

You have to get up there, and that was the long, arduous road that you referred to. But once you get up there, if you have a good vehicle, it's fairly benign. And I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned from light sail. One of the disappointments, not disappointments, one of the jobs remaining to be done, if I can still task the Planetary Society to do anything, is they got to do better at getting the word out about it. It's not that well known in the professional community. I had a leader in the space agencies come up to me and say, did that light sail ever fly? Oh my goodness, really? This was just a few months ago. I go to meetings now. I'm doing some work already now in a different area,

but also involving solar sails. And they show pictures of NEOSCOUT, and they show pictures of NanoSail, which is not a solar sailing vehicle. And then they mention the Planetary Society is doing one also. But this is the one with results, and it hasn't hit much of the professional community, engineering community, the way I think it should. So that's a job to be done. Okay. I'm just the radio guy, but I'll pass it on. And it's so interesting that we may have done a better job with the general public than we did within the space community. That's true, because the general public doesn't know the first thing about NeoScout or nano sales, and they do know the light sales.

And the leadership here will tell you, just as I told people in my day, our constituency is the public, not the engineers. And that's correct. And so I'm not saying anything is being done wrong. Don't misunderstand that. I'm just saying I want to see it more recognized, technically. I'm with you on that. There's one more thing I want to bring up regarding solar sailing, light sail, and that is the guy who has been the program manager for quite a few years now. You were just in his office and he was updating you on light sail too. It's Bruce Betts.

Why? Because he's another guy that you brought into the organization. You know, he could not be prouder of his project there, LightSail 2. Well, that's great. And give credit where credit is due. Again, yes, I did bring him into the organization. But again, it wasn't my idea to bring him into the organization. It was Bruce Murray's idea to bring him into the organization. But again, it wasn't my idea to bring him into the organization. It was Bruce Murray's idea to bring him into the organization. Bruce and Charlene at that time too, advocates of

getting that kind of help. And Bruce was known and very good. And I always say about myself, I never have good ideas. I know what to do with other people's good ideas. And that's what I think my strength was. It sounds good in principle. I probably would only say I think I could name a couple of good ideas that originated from you. But hey, even if you're right about that, that's something to be proud of in itself. You have another reason to be proud. You have a new book coming out, which I know next to nothing about because I searched the internet. There's no word about it yet. What is this book and when and where are we going to see it? Well, it's going to be published a year from now. It's being published

by the University of Arizona Press. I just got the page proofs today, so I know it's real. Congratulations. And the title of the book is Alone but Not Lonely, Exploring for Extraterrestrial Life. And I have also got the very good news today that a very dear colleague of mine, Mae Jemison. Oh, yeah. Of course. Is writing the foreword for the book, and she's written it. Oh, that's lovely. And I just read it today, and so I'm in a good mood. Well, we picked the right day for this conversation.

Yeah. And anyway, but the book is Alone But Not Lonely, and it started out in my mind with a negative thought. Because of solar sailing, I used to think that solar sail was the segue to interstellar flight. But as I got into the subject more and more deeply, both from a point of view of what solar sails can do, but also what laser sails, which was going to be the way to do interstellar flight, could do, I realize that's just not the case. Laser sails, there's an effort by Starshot. They call Starshot. Sure, Breakthrough Starshot.

Breakthrough Initiatives. And I'm on their advisory committee, so I'm supportive of the study. But think about it. The mission they came up with can send one gram, not one ounce, nothing as big as one ounce, one gram to the nearest star, not to the desirable star, not to the best exoplanet, not to the most habitable exoplanet,

just to the nearest one. So one gram to the nearest planet, it takes a 500 gigawatt laser operating on a farm in the southern hemisphere to do that and so you can't go to it's not a way to explore it's a way to do a one-shot mission and it's and at that it's one gram that'll pass by that planet at 30 percent of the speed of light it's probably not going to see much of anything. So I realized that's the best interstellar flight can do. That's not the future. Meanwhile, I got working on a project with Slava Turashev at JPL looking how the solar

gravity lens, which is caused by the bending of light as it goes around the sun, comes to a focal point. If you fly at that focal point, which is really a line, a focal line, you can magnify an exoplanet by 100 billion times. And that's the way to explore exoplanets. So that's why the title of the book is Alone. We're not going to get there. so that's why the title of the book is alone we're not going to get there i don't think i think also that there's no likely ever discovery of intelligent life in the universe but what we do

know or what we're pretty sure of the universe is teeming with habitable planets and we have a lot to learn there and so the whole book is basically starts out with the negative idea about interstellar flight and the negative idea about no other intelligent life in the universe and comes up with a whole new field of comparative astrobiology, studying exoplanets for the different forms of life that are in the universe. And haven't you been working the last few years on concepts that could get us out to that focal point on that focal line using sail technology. Yeah, that's where the solar sail work has come in. I stayed active in Adam and consulting with JPL and Slava Turyshev and the Aerospace Corporation on that, yes.

And I'm going to have to dig up the coverage that we've done of this in the past with you and Slava. And we'll put those links on this week's show page. Well, I think you were at the NIAC and you interviewed him in connection with the NIAC study. Yeah, yeah. This was funded by NIAC, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Group that you have advised, right? I'm on their external council.

Yeah, yeah. Exciting stuff. Lou, I don't know who you'll be talking to about that book when it comes out in a year. I hope it will be me, but it could be my replacement, Sarah. Sarah Alamed, who is just going to do a terrific job carrying on this show. I doubt that you've met her. Yeah, I don't think I have. Yeah. Well, you will. You will. And I think you'll be pleased. Good. She certainly represents my hopes for the future of this organization, the organization that you helped to create those 43 years ago.

Well, that's great. I'm very proud of this organization. It's like a baby that's grown up and now is doing things different than I might have, but that doesn't matter. They're doing great, and I'm very proud. Thank you, Lou. Thanks for getting it all underway. Okay. And by the way, thanks again for the job.

Okay. Enjoy your retirement. Such as it is. I should have said that to you. Enjoy your retirement. They're going to keep me busy here. They're going to keep me doing this. All right. We're back with Planetary Radio and Dr. Bruce Betts. Bruce Betts is the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society.

We actually had a little trouble deciding, you know, how do we introduce this guy? Because he's done a lot of things and continues to do a lot of things. Bruce Batts, welcome to Planetary Radio. Well, thank you very much. Of course, we hope to make this a regular thing because this segment, which is at least tentatively called What's Up, not to say What's Up Doc because, you know, somebody else owns that, but What's Up because one of the things we're hoping you're going to be able to talk about every week

is what's up, what's up in the sky? And we're going to talk about what's up in Because one of the things we're hoping you're going to be able to talk about every week is what's up? What's up in the sky? And we're going to talk about what's up in the sky in a moment. But I think you've also got a little bit of space history for us. I do indeed. This week, we're lucky enough to have a truly unusual space history note. On November 30th, 1954, in the state of Alabama, a 10-pound meteorite slammed through a roof and hit Elizabeth Hodges in the stomach while she slept. She was okay, only bruises and scrapes, but it does represent one of the only times in known history that a meteorite actually hit a person.

Fortunately for her, after coming through the roof. Bruce, I just played the first time I introduced you for What's Up back there in 2002, November of 2002. That was fun. You'll have to listen in. No, I fooled you before earlier today. I listened to the whole show. Oh, I'll be darned. Because I knew you were going to try to be tricking me. There's no fooling him. He's the chief scientist of the Planetary Society. What's up?

Oh, there's so much up in the sky. I'd love to gush about our anniversary, and I will. But first, Mars. So Mars is getting closer to Earth, their orbits. And so the closest approach of Mars to Earth this time around is on December 1st. And those of you may know the opposition, the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun for Mars is December 8th. Those indeed can vary and not be the same date by up to two weeks because of the elliptical nature, particularly of Mars' orbit. So anyway, go out and see it. It's almost as bright as Jupiter. It's brighter than the brightest star in the sky because it's at opposition. It'll be rising around sunset in the east and setting around sunrise in the west. It's that really bright reddish thing. And there are all sorts of bright stars in its area, but nothing as bright as Mars. Well, unless you catch it when the moon's nearby.

Well, unless you catch it when the moon's nearby. And in fact, let's talk about that because we're going bold. For our 20th anniversary, I'm going to discuss something that I may have discussed before, but not giving you directions. That's an occultation of a planet by the moon. So the moon will pass in front of Mars as seen by most of North America and most of Europe. If you're on the southeastern side of either of those, never mind. But if you're not, you can check it out. You can learn more about how to do that

if you go to planetary.org slash night hyphen sky and then follow the link to the things that are up in the night sky this month. And we'll give you some links to find out exactly what time on the night of December 7th into the 8th it will be disappearing and then reappearing. Binoculars will help with checking that out so you can actually watch it disappear behind the moon. We also have Jupiter and Saturn up in the evening sky in the Geminids meteor shower, but we'll come back and talk about that next week. It peaks December 13th and 14th. All sorts of stuff going on. Happy anniversary, Matt. We move on to this week in space history. I will mention the same

thing I mentioned in that very first show. 1954 Elizabeth Hodges becomes one of the only people in history known to be hit by a meteorite. A several kilo meteorite crashed through her roof, fortunately slowing it down and just caused bruising. But yeah, it's like, how'd you get that bruise? Oh, I got hit by a meteorite. Yeah, okay, sure. And a couple other quick things. 1998, Unity and Zarya modules were connected starting the construction of the International Space Station. 2014, you know that Orion capsule that's out hanging out around the moon right about now? Its first test flight, with no humans, of course, first test flight was 2014, eight years ago.

On to random space fact to Matt. Random space fact to Matt. Random space fact, random space fact, random space fact. Happy anniversary, Matt. Here's where I get to talk about you. Over its 20-year history, Planetary Radio has had more than 1,000 unique shows. Matt has a thing about not feeding out repeats, so there have been hardly any in the history of the show.

It airs on over 100 radio stations. Last I checked, the podcast has a gazillion people listening. I just checked, has over 1,100 reviews on iTunes with a 4.8 out of 5 average. I expect you to improve that over the next few weeks. I'll do my best. Every single show. This is the amazing thing. This just doesn't happen out there for normal people. But for our Matt, he produced, edited, hosted every single show. He did everything except for those of us who drop in and blather with him and the talented guests. He did everything. You're awesome, Matt.

I'll never say that again. Once is enough. Dang, you're recording. Shoot. Let's go on to a terrific 20th anniversary contest. I asked you, what would be an appropriate gift for a planetary radio? I thought I'd change the pronunciation now. Planetary radio, 20th anniversary for uh weddings 20th anniversaries it says it's china traditionally what uh what what did we find out we found out all sorts of great things man i've read through them myself and uh it's it's one of those cases where it truly is too bad we only can read a few on air because they're cool that is so true we got tons of great ones. We apologize. We just don't. It's already a long show.

We just don't have time for more than three. I will get us started. This one came from Devin O'Rourke in Colorado. Here goes. I'll do my best. Although it isn't celebrating matrimony, I suppose a good gift could be a mattress or maybe a ticket to the matinee. A good match could be some aromatic tomatoes. I believe that's tomatoes.

You say, yeah, never mind. Light scale schematic. Really, none of this matters. The real gift has been unmatched talent of the ultimate host of Plan Rat. I just wish I could remember his name right now. Thank you. Wow. That's very impressive.

Yeah. You take the next one. We move on to this one from Mel Powell in California. He suggests a T-shirt that says in big letters, go out there, look up in the night sky and think about. us a t-shirt that says in big letters go out there look up in the night sky and think about and then in smaller print every single one of the things i have told people to go out there look up in the night sky and think about for 20 years but wait he didn't forget you and a planetary society themed door mat because you know matt you probably have never heard that before. You know, what's cool about this? I have a doormat that says, hi, I'm Matt.

Thanks, Mel. All right. Here's the last of the ones that we'll read. And it happens to come from our poet laureate in Kansas, Dave Fairchild. Back in the decades, 2002, that's back before podcasts were cool, a guy named Matt Kaplan decided to host a session that took us to school. We learned about planets and random space facts with Bruce as his trusty sidekick. So if you are thinking appropriate gift, I'd go with engraving a brick.

if you are thinking appropriate gift, I'd go with engraving a brick. And why, why have we chosen this for self-serving reasons? You want to explain? Yes. If you'd like to memorialize someone like Matt or someone you actually like, you could,

I kind of make up for saying nice things earlier. You can go to somewhere on planetary.org. You can probably put a link in, but go check out how to buy a brick that will be installed with your words on it and probably at Planetary Society headquarters, either that or Matt's backyard. Now, I think we'll stick with headquarters. I got one for my family. Yeah, there are a whole bunch of them out there. Walk all over them. We're going to get, for all three of these guys, we set up a Voyager T-shirt from Chop Shop, chopshopstore.com, where all the Planetary Society merch is. Great place. We're going to give each one of them, all three of these guys, a Voyager Mission T-shirt. So congratulations, one and all.

Congratulations. Shall we move on to the next contest, yeah let's do that I wouldn't want to leave the 20th anniversary behind quite yet planetary radio is now I can't believe it 20 years old earth years how old is planetary radio in mercury years in mercury years any approximately you don't have to get the fraction of a year but like we say It's Planetary Radio in Mercury Years. In Mercury Years. I mean, approximately. You don't have to get the fraction of a year. But like we say, ages on Earth. In Mercury Years.

Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. Get us your entry. Bye. Let's say by December 7. Wednesday, December 7 at 8 a.m. Pacific time. And you might just win yourself. Hey, we've only got a few more of these to go, at least during my tenure here. How about a rubber asteroid, a kick asteroid, rubber asteroid from the Planetary Society? Oh, very traditional. Very nice. I like it very much. Bruce has already given me the greatest anniversary prize anybody could hope to get.

He gave me, and I think some other people may have been involved, correct me if I'm wrong, a montage, a whole bunch of wonderful still photos from my 20 years of Planetary Radio. And you are featured in many of them. And there is a story behind almost every one of them. Maybe we'll figure out a way to present this in a tangible way online. I absolutely love it. And I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, from the top to the bottom of my heart.

I really loved it. I have a 20th anniversary gift for you, but it's taking longer to get it made than I thought it would. So it may end up being a last show Matt Hose gift at the end of December. In the meantime, I hope you will accept this bar of meteor shower soap that I am showing to Bruce right now. It says, get impact crater clean, feel airburst fresh fresh scrubs away particles of halley's comet and in the ingredient list after all the legitimate ingredients it says may contain material from the quadrantids lyrids at aqua at aquarids perseids orionids leonids and our geminids

bionids, leonids, and orgeminids. Wow. Happy anniversary. Thank you. I am both touched and a little bit scared what actually is in that. But for you, I will consider taking a shower at some point. No promises. I'm glad to hear that. And so is everybody else who comes in contact with you.

Our audience doesn't need to worry about you showering, but you should probably call this to a close. All right, everybody, go out there, look out at the night sky, and think about 20 years of planetary radio. Thank you, and good night. That's what I'm thinking about, and 20 years of doing What's Up with the chief scientist of the Planetary Society, Dr. Bruce Betts. Bruce Betts with What's Up, what we hope will be a regular feature here on Planetary Radio.

We'll end as we began this special 20th anniversary episode with the close of that first show. By the way, the woman you'll hear was my then 17-year-old daughter, Laura. Thanks so much for joining me on this 20-year trek across the solar system and beyond. I'll be back next week with astronaut and former head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, John Grunsfeld. Ad Astra. Thanks for listening. Have a great week, everyone. Planetary Radio is a production of the Planetary Society, which is solely responsible for its content. Our producer is Matt Kaplan. Other contributors include Charlene Anderson, Monica Lopez, and Jennifer Vaughn. The executive producer is Dr. Louis Friedman.

The opinions expressed are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of the Society or this station. This edition of Planetary Radio is program number 0201 and is copyrighted by the Planetary Society. All rights are reserved. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Write to planetaryradio at planetary.org.