Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - A Teenager in Space?

Episode Date: May 24, 2004

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Good heavens! Teenagers in space on Planetary Radio. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Matt Kaplan. If all goes according to plan, Justin Houchin will rocket into space before he hits his 20th birthday. We'll meet him on today's show. A big space exploration meeting is underway in China. Planetary Society Executive Director Lou Friedman is attending. He'll tell us why and provide a solar sail update. Don't talk to Bruce Betts about teenagers.

He's more worried about marmots in space on this week's contest. We'll get started by checking in with Emily and her latest Q&A session right now. Don't touch that dial, space cadets. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, what is the solar wind and what do we have to do to protect astronauts from it? The solar wind is a very hot, very thin, very fast-moving sphere of plasma flowing outward from the sun. In a sense, it is the outer atmosphere of the sun expanding into interplanetary space.

The particles in the solar wind move so fast that they reach temperatures of tens to hundreds of thousands of degrees. The force of the expanding solar wind is felt on the atmospheres of all of the planets. Some small planets and moons have lost all of their atmospheres in part because of the force of the solar wind. Having a magnetic field protects a planet's atmosphere from the solar wind, but the upper belts of charged particles surrounding these planets are blown back from the planet into long streams called magnetotails, making every planet a kind of giant comet. If this force is so strong, how do we protect astronauts and spacecraft from the solar wind? Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out.

to find out. Last fall, China became just the third nation to put a human in orbit on its own launch vehicle. Apparently, this milestone wasn't a one-shot program. The world's most populous country has announced an ambitious plan

for exploration. Planetary Society Executive Director Lou Friedman was about to board a plane for China last Friday. He took a break from last-minute preparations to tell us why he was making the trip. Lou Friedman, you are getting on a plane to go to China. That's right. There's a United Nations European Space Agency workshop on basic space science, and the Planetary Society has taken the initiative to organize a special session there on international lunar missions. And we're bringing together China, India, the European Space Agency,

who are conducting a mission to the moon right now, and Japan, all of whom are planning missions to the moon in the next decade, and now the United States. So our goal is to foster international cooperation and to especially focus on this new initiative of the United States, this moon-Mars policy that will see robotic missions to the moon and then a human landing on the moon within the next 10 to 12 years. And we hope to make this an international venture. What is the significance of this taking place in China? The UN ESA workshops are held at different regions around the world once per year,

and so it just happens to be at China. But the Planetary Society recognizes the importance of China as an emerging space power now that they've conducted both a series of robotic missions and now flown their first astronaut in space. So it's clear that China is becoming a major player in the space program. They have a very good launch vehicle, which is very important for space exploration. And they have a committed program for two missions to the moon in this decade in their program called Cheng'e, a lunar orbiter and a lunar lander. So we're

thinking that China will be an important player, and we welcome them, of course, into space-faring nations on behalf of space exploration to look at other worlds. And if we can do this together, we can harness a lot more about our American program and the other programs around the world to make them accomplish more for a less amount of money. the other programs around the world to make them accomplish more for a less amount of money. Have you, has the Planetary Society been forging relationships with officials in the Chinese space program? That's one of the other main points of this visit is to do just that.

We have not got strong contacts in China. We've had a few programs with Chinese over the years. We do have members in China, I'm glad to say. There's an interesting connection that we tried to have with the Beijing Planetarium for a public event that we might be able to do. But it's all just beginning. And I hope that now with them as an emerging space nation and their interest in becoming an international player in the world, that this will develop into something. This isn't a fair question to ask you with only two minutes left in this very brief conversation. But what's up with the solar sail? The solar sail is making great progress.

We're in the final stages of the electronics testing. In fact, you can go to our website right now and see a live web camera of the table. We were just looking at it a few minutes ago, of the table tests that are going on and see the platform moving and going through the sequence that it will be going through in space as we go through the final electronics testing. This is all the electrical components that are on the spacecraft, all the sensors, all the devices, even the motors that turn the solar sail blades. They're going through their final testing.

They will then be assembled on the spacecraft itself for a final mechanical testing, and hopefully the test and integration period in the next couple of months will have us ready for launch this fall. It sounds, therefore, like there is a good chance that this will still be the first solar sail launched by humankind. Well, I am absolutely certain this is the first solar sail spacecraft. By that I mean we will successfully build this spacecraft and we will launch it into space.

I'm not 100% confident because things happen in space, as people have noticed over the last few years, but I'm very confident. I'm still very proud of things happen in space, as people have noticed over the last few years. But I'm very confident. I'm still very proud of what we're accomplishing here. I'm sure we'll be the first solar sail spacecraft, and I hope very much and expect very much that we will be the first solar sail mission. That is to actually fly the control solar sail flight. Lou, thanks very much for taking a couple of minutes to join us on Planetary Radio, and have a great trip.

Thank you very much. Lou Friedman is the Executive Director of the Planetary Society and visits us periodically here on the show. This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure in the solar system. That's why I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets.

We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first-ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration in The Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS.

That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, planetarysociety.org. The Planetary Societyciety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Ivor Dawson pops up at schools and special events all over Southern California. He and his largely volunteer crew bring his Traveling Space Museum to thousands of kids, many of whom might otherwise never get to experience such an exciting, hands-on adventure in science and engineering.

I wasn't surprised to hear that one of Ivor's latest projects could provide young people with a space-going role model who is a member of their own generation. The Traveling Space Museum was visiting a local airport when I got Ivor on the phone, along with the young man who may become the first teenager in space. Ivor Dawson, welcome to Planetary Radio. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.

I take it that you are out there, what, in the San Fernando Valley? Is that where this airport is located? We're in the East San Fernando Valley in the city of Pacoima, and we're at a small county-owned airport called Whiteman Airport. This is home to a number of private pilots and also a EAA Chapter 40 and their Young Eagles program. EAA, what is that? That's the Experimental Aircraft Association. And you're out there today with the Traveling Space Museum, which you truck all over Southern California.

But I guess today you had a special guest star. Yes, we did. Almost 50 years ago, a young lady soloed out of this airport named Miss Wally Funk. And Wally Funk later became one of the original Mercury 13 female astronaut trainees back in the 60s. Well, one of the things that we're trying to do is help to publicize that, and that's because Wally Funk is teaming up with one of my newest clients, Justin Houchin, in the X Prize, and Justin Houchin and Wally Funk are going to fly together in a privately built rocket. Now let's talk about Justin, who is, I think, sitting next to you.

I think you're in a car out there at Whiteman Airport. Yes, we are, yes. And Justin is the subject of this effort called First Teenager in Space. How in the world did that get started? Well, we have an annual event in Riverside. We happen to have an astronaut on hand, Rick Searfoss, who is one of the last people to actually land the Columbia Space Shuttle. Rick Searfoss was mentioning the fact that his daughter was very enthusiastic and very excited about hearing Lance Bass and his prospects of going into space. Lance Bass, formerly of NSYNC.

Within NSYNC, absolutely. And one of my associates, Dr. Maureen Clemens, she said, you know what, we've got to do something with that concept. And we started to bat that idea around about having a young person going into space. We thought if young people were excited about Chris McAuliffe and a teacher going into space, they would be even more excited about having a young person like themselves training to go into space. How did you come up with Justin? I mean, this wasn't like a nationwide contest or anything.

No, it wasn't a nationwide contest. One of the things we wanted to do was find someone local who we could work with and have them train to become the first teenager in space. So we ended up starting to look into the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to see if there was a possible candidate there.

And it turned out that we got the name of a young man who had been given awards as a scout who was beginning an Eagle Scout program. We got a copy of a young man who had been given awards as a scout, who was beginning an Eagle Scout program. We got a copy of his resume, and it was almost too good to be true. This was all before Justin knew that you were checking him out? Basically, yeah. We had asked around, and a number of people in scouting had mentioned Justin,

and it turned out to be the same person. So we were looking for every kid. We wanted someone who wasn't just on a particular one track, but someone who was interested in pop culture and the arts, music and sports, and was somebody that every kid could identify with. Ivor, don't go away. I would like to come back to you before we finish the conversation, but I think this might be a good time to pass the phone over to Justin Houchin.

Absolutely. Here you go, Justin. Hello? Hi, Justin. Hey. So you think you might just make it and be this first teenager in space? Yes, sir. Well, we better let that plane go by. Yeah.

Listen, Ivor was just talking about how they came up with your name. How did you find out that they were interested in you for this program? I received an email from Maureen Clements. It mentioned this first teenager in space concept, and I just thought it was awesome. So they had Maureen's phone number, and I called her. To my surprise, they wanted to set up an interview with me. And the rest? Sorry, what?

I'm sorry, I was going to say, and the rest is history. The rest is history. So you are, I think, 16 years old? I'm 17. 17? Mm-hmm. But you've already graduated from high school. I graduated high school when I was 16.

You got through school in three years, apparently. Yeah, I got ahead in high school. I graduated high school when I was 16. You got through school in three years, apparently. Yeah, I got ahead in high school. What makes you particularly interested in being the first teenager in space? Why am I interested? Yeah. First of all, I love the idea of space exploration and exploration itself. The fact that, especially space, there's so much unknown, so much that we haven't seen, I've always been interested in the whole field. And then on top of it, I would be going with a private company, and a private company has not yet launched people into space. And so it would be another first thing.

And I believe that private companies are eventually going to, you know, because NASA won't always be able to meet all the demands for space travel. And I think it's going to come to the private companies. I'm very glad to be a part of Interorbital Systems, which is the XPRIZE team I'm going to be going with. Yeah, we'll hear a little bit more about XPRIZE when we hand the phone back to Ivor in a moment. Oh, okay. Let me ask you how this has gone over with your friends and family. My family, my mom, I must say, was pretty nervous about it.

After we met with Randa and Roderick Millions from Interorbital Systems, and they told us, they gave us the kind of the overview of the design and all of its safety features, my mom was a lot more chilled out on the whole idea. I think at launch date, she's going to be pretty scared. And my dad, but they both totally support me all the way. And all of my friends support me all the way as well. Justin, we've only got a couple minutes left, and I do want to go back to Ivor, but I hope we can check back with you before this flight takes place. When are they hoping to make this flight up to the edge of space?

In two years. In a couple of years. Yeah. Well, we'll wish you luck, and definitely we want to check back with you. All right. Thanks very much, Justin. And if we could talk to Ivor again. Here he is.

Hi there. Ivor sounds like you've got yourself a nice young man there. Oh, he's great. You know, from his very first interviews, you know, he's featured in Popular Science magazine in February. He's featured in Boys Life magazine this month. They did a wonderful spread on Justin. You know, Justin's already begun his astronaut training. In February, he became the first teenager to fly a military jet under the auspices of the National Test Pilot School out here in Mojave. I heard that he got to experience weightlessness during those flights. Moments of it, you know, they can turn some, they can pull Gs, and they can also take a

dive and you'll, deceleration, you get weightless for a few seconds. Now what's coming up, of course, you've talked about the X Prize, which I guess is now the Ansari X Prize, and that is this tremendous competition with a lot of teams working toward the goal of getting a commercially developed small craft up to the edge of space, I think it's 200 kilometers, and then doing it again two weeks later. And so I guess this spacecraft that Justin will ride on a little bit later, if all goes well, is one of those entrants. Yes. Absolutely.

And are these folks, do you have other involvement with this team, this XPRIZE contestant? With Interorbital? Yeah. Well, basically what we've done is we've put down a deposit for Justin's ride. So you're buying him a ticket. What's that? You're buying him a ticket. Yes, we are.

Yes, we are buying him a ticket. We're also trying to train him to become the most accomplished and experienced teenage trainee, and that's basically going to have him going to Russia and cosmonaut training. Fantastic. Now, in the meantime, how is this going with him participating in some of your traveling space museum events? Is he well-received by the kids that show up? Oh, they treat him like a rock star. We've had to have him rehearse his autograph technique, and he's got a speech coach. He just recently opened a program at the Udvar-Hazy Center in the new Smithsonian aeronautical wing in Washington, D.C.

He was the keynote speaker at Space Day, sponsored by the Space Day Foundation and Lockheed Martin Corporation. Got to meet some folks like John Glenn? and Lockheed Martin Corporation. Got to meet some folks like John Glenn? Absolutely. John Glenn and Barbara Morgan, the graduating class of NASA astronauts. The NASA administrator was also there, Sean O'Keefe. And Justin was chosen to do the opening speech and kind of set the stage. From what I hear, they liked Justin's speech actually the best.

Well, this is very exciting, and I'm glad that he's able to work with you and all the kids that you inspire around Southern California each year with the Traveling Space Museum. We're just about out of time. Can you give us an idea where people can learn more? Is there a website? Yes, Traveling Space Museum has its own website. It's TravelingSpaceMuseum.org. It's all one word.

It has its own website. It's TravelingSpaceMuseum.org. It's all one word. FirstTeenagerInSpace.org is also a new website devoted to Justin. Is that FirstTeenagerInSpace.org? Dot org, yes. Okay. Ivor, thanks very much for taking some time with us. And as I told Justin, we're definitely going to want to check back with him as he gets closer to this flight,

this first flight ever of a teenager into space, the edge of space, 200 kilometers up. And I'm sure we'll be talking to you again, too. Fantastic. Thanks a lot, Matt. Thank you. We love talking to you. You bet. I love it, too, and we'll let you get out of that hot car.

Thanks a lot. Justin says hi. Tell him we wish him all the best. Thanks a lot. Justin says hi. Tell him we wish him all the best. Ivor Dawson is the founder, director of the Traveling Space Museum in Southern California, and Justin Houchin of Southern California, 17-year-old who may just become in a couple of years the first teenager in space.

We'll be right back with Bruce Betts and what's up after this return visit from Emily. I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A. Although the solar wind is powerful enough to send tails of plasma streaming away from all of the planets, it is far too weak to threaten human spaceflight. The energies of the electrons, protons, and other charged particles that make up the solar wind are much too low to penetrate even the thinnest spacecraft walls or spacesuits. The potential danger to piloted spaceflight comes not from the always-present solar wind, but from the rare, huge bursts of energetic particles

released by unusually large solar flares. These flares, also known as coronal mass ejections, can produce so much lethal radiation that there is no reasonable level of spacecraft shielding that could protect astronauts in certain locations in space. All we can do to protect these astronauts is to forecast the solar storms far enough in advance to get a crew out of harm's way, either behind a planet, inside an atmosphere, or deep underground. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. And now here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. Time for What's Up with Bruce Betts,

the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society, who wanted to be the first teenager in space, but I guess it's too late. You can still be the first, what? I don't know, 30-somethings. Yeah, yeah, because no 30-somethings have ever flown in space. What do you have for us? It's such a rare occurrence.

Night sky. Look up in the night sky and think about the things you can see, like Venus. Venus is going, going, going. Better hurry. Very low on the horizon in the evening after many see, like Venus. Venus is going, going, going. Better hurry. Very low on the horizon in the evening after many months of being stunning. And you listening to me beat you over the head every week telling you that it's the bright object over there in the west. It is descending, approaching the sun as seen from us, leading towards its transit on June 8th, which we'll talk

about more later. But still there. And if you have a telescope, take a look at it, because you'll just see a crescent now of Venus. You can also look to its upper left, and you'll see Mars near Saturn, brighter object. And you can still try to check out comets neat and linear, and we'll talk about their better names a little later in the show. I actually went out and saw a comet neat, finally, doing what I've told the listeners to do, and it was neat. It was! Fuzzy blob, as comets pretty much always are, but saw it from suburban Los Angeles. I'm sorry, you said you had binoculars? I had both naked eye and binoculars. Binoculars are much better. Binoculars are still probably the best thing to go out and try to find comets with. So you can still see it in the southwest, but it's getting

very low, getting lower and lower in the southwest, but it's getting very low, getting lower and lower in the horizon. Linear is up for our southern hemisphere listeners. We'll be coming up in the next week or so for northern hemisphere listeners in the evening in the west, southwest. Go to our website, planetary.org slash radio, and we'll give you some links to places where you can find more specific directions where to look for these comets. All right, good stuff. Now, moving on to this week in space history, May 25th, a big day in space history. It turns out, 1961, John F. Kennedy challenges the nation to a moon landing before 1970. 1966, roll out of the first full-scale Saturn V,

and 1973, the first Skylab crew was launched on their 28-day mission. Big day in space. Indeed. Moving on to random space fact! Now, I just know I've done this one before, and I'm repeating things. We've got those comets up, and I just can't help giving my favorite comet random space facts. So here's another one. Comets' tails always point away from the sun.

So even when that comet is heading away from the sun, the comet tail is pointing away and therefore is in front of the comet, leading the comet as it goes away from the sun, something that many don't realize and I think is just a spiffy key in random space fact. And it's in front because it's being pushed away from the sun, right? Exactly. By forces from the sun pushing out its two tails or more, as we discussed last week, out in front of it. And you don't have any of the atmospheric drag that tends to make us think that a tail would follow something going through space in this case. And so it's actually

the forces from the sun pushing stuff out away, no matter which way it's going. So think of your dog walking backwards. With two tails. And with that image, let's move on to the wackiness of last week's trivia contest. Last week, we asked you to provide us with better names for Comet Neat and Linear. And I won't include all of the rest of their designations. The ones that are up right now, how do we do? How do people do? Well, when we have a special one like this that's not trivia, but people have to be creative, understandably, we get fewer entries.

But, you know, we still had a great representation of you folks out there, of the audience, and you can be proud of your colleagues who submitted this week. We got a lot of nice names for these two comets that need them. And we decided, the judging committee, Bruce and me, decided that we would have two winners. One sort of just for the, what, the aesthetic sense communicated by the names. Yeah, that was one Matt liked. And one because it's just flat out funny. That's the one we both like.

There we go. So here's our first winner, and this is the one for beauty. This is from Nicole Long, a regular who has entered and I think won in the recent past, but that's okay with us. Here it is. Two new comets. A good name for neat

C2001Q4 would be Amani, which is Swahili, the Swahili word for peace. And a good name for linear C2002002T7, would be esperanza, which is the Spanish word for hope. So Nicole of Montgomery, Alabama, thank you very much for entering. We like those names. Of course, nobody listens to us, so they're going to stay pretty much what they are for

the time being. But if we had our way, well, I don't know. Would we go with those names? Or would we go with the name from Christopher Raygun? Christopher who? That's true. There's no blood relation. I've met this guy before.

Christopher writes in now and then. While there is a bit of a relationship here, what can we say? He's damn funny. And he has come up with some names. Oh, that Chris. He's so funny. And when we learned that he has not yet won a Planetary Radio t-shirt, then we realized, well, we have to have two winners, right? And we don't have that rule so far that says, you know, friends and family of Planetary Society staff can't enter the contest. So what the heck?

But after mentioning this on the air, I'm sure we will. Yeah, we probably will have to. There's probably a law that we're ignoring, and the FCC is going to come down on us. Good. Let's discuss this as much as we possibly can. Well, you know, they're an easygoing bunch, the FCC. That's what I hear. Can I read this one from the sky who you don't have any relationship to?

Yes, please do. This is wonderful. Star, planet, and comet gazing should be fun. There's no joy to be had uttering the phrase, did you see neat C2001Q4 last night? But imagine the giddiness at being able to intone, look, up over the telephone lines, it's a bucket full of marmots.

Yes, a bucket full of marmots would be the perfect name for a comet. How else would we be able to hear such musings as, quick, Harvey, go tell Auntie Jane we can see a bucket full of marmots, or at first I thought it was an airplane, but soon I realized it was actually a bucket full of marmots. Years from now, grandparents will be telling their grandchildren, you know, Nigel, when I was your age, I spent countless hours staring at a bucket full of marmots. As for Linear C2002-T7, well, for obvious reasons, it should just be called Bob. So, Chris Reagan, congratulations. You've won that Planetary Radio t-shirt that you have coveted for so long.

And congratulations to all of our listeners who submitted entries to this week's trivia contest. They make us happy. But to go back to getting lots of entries, I'm going to ask a factual question this time. Not that marmots aren't factual, because they are. How many orbits did Apollo 8 make around the moon? How many orbits around the moon did Apollo 8 make? How can people enter our contest? Go to planetary.org slash radio.

Follow the instructions for entering the contest, and you too can win one of our glorious Planetary Radio t-shirts. And do try to get that into us by Thursday noon Pacific time. That would be the 27th of May, Thursday noon Pacific time, so that we can make sure that you're included in next week's contest. Bruce, thanks very much. Are we done? We are done. Sorry. You've got to get one of those cough buttons. Yeah, we should. Anyway, yes, we're done. Thank you, everyone.

Look up at the night sky and imagine marmots falling from giant buckets. Thank you. Good night. Bruce Betts is the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. He joins us each week here for What's Up. We're out of time. Join us for

the next edition of Planetary Radio. Have a great week.