Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - A Visit With NASA Associate Administrator Ed Weiler

Episode Date: July 12, 2004

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Music The head of NASA science on this week's Planetary Radio. Music Hello again everyone, I'm Matt Kaplan with another chapter in our ongoing story about the exploration of space. Associate Administrator of NASA Ed Weiler is our special guest. Later, Bruce Betts, who once worked for Ed, will be here with the latest What's Up. First up is Emily with this tale of a shrinking comet, if you'll pardon the pun. I'll be right back.

Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, With all the junk that's constantly streaming away from a comet, why doesn't the comet's nucleus eventually shrink down to nothing? Comets are small icy bodies from the outer solar system whose orbits have been perturbed so that they fly into the inner part of the solar system. Once there, solar heating raises their temperatures so that the ices that make them up start to boil. The ice, which could be water, ammonia, carbon dioxide, or other materials, forms a fuzzy transient atmosphere called a coma around the comet's center. When the comet gets close enough to the sun, the solar radiation drives the gases away

from the comet, forming a tail. The blowing gases can carry off dust particles as well, so with every trip around the Sun, a significant amount of a comet's mass is lost. It's certainly possible that some comets just evaporate completely. Some have been observed to pass behind the Sun and disappear, never to be seen again. But comets can meet their ends in a variety of other interesting ways. Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out how. Ed Weiler was at the Jet Propulsion Lab near Pasadena, California, when the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft arrived at Saturn. He was more than an onlooker. As NASA's Associate Administrator

for Space Science Enterprise, Ed represented the agency's headquarters in Washington. But he is also a scientist, with as much reason to be excited about the mission as the team that has worked so hard to reach the ring planet.

Ed Weiler, thanks very much for joining us on Planetary Radio. You're welcome, thanks. I guess it's the calm before the storm because we are just now, what, a couple of hours away from this burn, which will place this huge spacecraft into orbit around Saturn. As we talk, we're about two hours and 20 minutes away from 736 Pacific Daylight Time, a time that's burned into my memory now, no pun intended. Pacific Daylight Time, a time that's burned into my memory now, no pun intended.

But we start a 96-minute burn, which is the longest burn Cassini will have done. A lot of our project people who work on the project every day are exuding confidence, and everything's going well, and I just get nervous when people say things like that. For instance, we fly through the rings twice tonight, and I've heard the comments several times today, oh, well, we flew Voyager through and we flew Pioneer through and we know how to do it. Well, in science, a sample size of three doesn't mean that much, really. I mean, it's like saying, hey, I ran across I-110, Pasadena Freeway, three times and didn't get killed,

so obviously it's safe, right? You know, duh. This is not a trip to grandma's. It all rides at a 96-minute burn tonight. And I'm confident it'll be fine. But I was responsible for Hubble when we discovered Sphera Collaboration. Took over Mars 98 when it was launched. And I didn't know we had two time bombs on those deltas. And so I've learned very much in the last six or seven or ten years

that you don't get the champagne out until it's really time to drink it. But you have been through a lot of these moments, often enough triumphs, and you have been in this position of associate administrator for, what, about six years now? It'll be six years in September, yeah. There is this great thing in your official, I assume it's your official bio on the NASA site, a little factoid that I'd never seen, Science News, annual metric of contributions

to world discoveries and technology achievement. NASA Space Science's contribution rated consistently 5% to 8%. That's amazing. We're talking about the world science output on an annual basis. And this is worldwide science, whether it's biology, physics, chemistry, done at a laboratory or a university or whatever. And that's pretty good. That's something to be proud of. You can speak as both a scientist and an administrator. You're an astrophysicist. I hope so, yeah. Got a PhD in astrophysics from Northwestern University back in 76.

Immediately went to Princeton University in my first research position, and they immediately put me in charge of the Copernicus satellite that Princeton launched, which was operated from Goddard. And so I spent a part of the time at Princeton and a good part of the time at the Goddard Space Flight Center 29 years ago as a young Ph.D. Little did I think then that someday I'd be working in the top of that big six-story building as the center director. Which in one month, you'll be back as the boss.

August 1st, I'll go back to Goddard after 29 years as the boss. Can you talk about these changes that you may be seeing, moving from headquarters, where you have been for a long time, out to a NASA center? Well, you know, being at headquarters, it's not as if I don't know about the NASA centers. In fact, you know, I've spent a good part of my time at NASA centers because I manage them. There is a big difference, though. At NASA headquarters, I give out $4 billion each year to the NASA centers to spend. They give it out to universities and contractors.

So instead of giving out the money, I will be at a NASA center spending the money. So that will be an interesting perspective. But from 1990 to 1993, I spent many, many, many days there because I was the chief scientist on the Hubble Space Telescope. And although most people forget it now, there was a time when saving the Hubble was really, really important because Hubble was in deep yogurt after it was launched. Interesting, because, I mean, here we are back to talking about saving the Hubble, and that's something I definitely want to come back to. But you have been at headquarters for how long?

26 years. Yeah. NASA is about to go through what the administrator, Sean O'Keefe, is calling a transformation, based at least in part on the recommendations of the President's Commission. Is transformation the right word for this, or is it something less grand? No, it's a pretty dramatic transformation because for more than 10 years, for instance, Earth Science has been a separate organization from Space Science, even though Earth Science is done in space. And it's led to some weird ways of doing things. For instance, if you're working on climate change in an Earth Science organization, obviously

the sun has a major role in climate change, because the climate changed. We had ice ages long before humans were doing things. I mean, we had ice ages hundreds of thousands of years ago. We had warm periods. So clearly the sun has a role in climate change. Clearly, probably humans have a role in it. And real scientists outside the Beltway of Washington take the sun into account when they work on these things because the sun is the energy source for the earth, obviously.

But at NASA, we had an organization separate from another organization and the scientists never really got to work together as strongly as they would normally do in the outside research world so the transformation will lead to the ability to get earth scientists working with solar scientists also for instance there are people working in earth science that understand atmosphere of earth very very well well we've got people in space science who worry about the Mars atmosphere, the Venusian atmosphere. Well, duh, wouldn't it be nice if, you know, a planet is a planet is a planet, and wouldn't it be nice if we put the earth back in the solar system? So those are the kinds of things that are going to happen in the new organization.

It's going to be emerging, but not the classic way organizations tend to merge. You know, if you take two disparate organizations, the temptation is to just take their boxes and add them to your boxes in the organization chart. That would be the wrong thing to do. This is an opportunity to do a true merging of science the way it's done in the real world. So in that sense, it is a real transformation. We need to take a quick break. When we come back, I hope we can continue this talk about where NASA is going in its transformation

and a little bit more about what you may be up to as you make this job change. Our very special guest is Dr. Edward Weiler. He is the Associate Administrator for NASA Space Science Enterprise, at least for another month until he heads for the Goddard Space Flight Center. We'll be right back. 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.

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You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS. That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, planetarysociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. We're back with Ed Weiler, the Associate Administrator for NASA's Space Science Enterprise. He has been there for a long time, two and a half decades, but is about to move out to the Goddard Space Flight Center.

We're speaking in what is not normally a very quiet place, but it is about my favorite place in the world to do these radio interviews. I've done several here. It's von Karman Auditorium at JPL. Is this a special place to you as well, JPL? It sure is because when I was in graduate school at Northwestern, I went through a crisis in my third year of graduate school. I wasn't sure, did I really want to be an astronomer or did I want to try something else?

So somebody encouraged me because I had a lot of experience doing open house with the public at our observatory at Northwestern. I did a lot of speaking to the public. The AAAS, the American Association for the Events in the Science, had this program called Mass Media Internships. And they picked 10 scientists, graduate students, put them in various media locations around the country for a summer of being a media intern. And there were several great things about it, but I got lucky.

Instead of getting Buffalo or Springfield, Illinois, I got San Diego, California, which I had never visited, which I fell in love with immediately and decided I would retire there someday. But anyway, that's another story. But I worked at KPBS-TV, public broadcasting, But anyway, that's another story. But I worked at KPBS-TV, public broadcasting, and one of my first assignments was to cover Mariner 10's encounter with Mercury here in Von Karven Auditorium, JPL, in 1975. Wow.

So 29 years ago, I was sitting in the same room as a graduate student taking notes as a reporter for KPBS-TV. So you keep making all these returns. Here you are headed back to Goddard as well. Let's go back to we were talking before the break about this integration, I guess, is a good word for it, that's taking place at NASA and getting rid of the word that I keep hearing over and over is getting rid of the stovepipes. Well, stovepipes, what's meant there is that when you organize in a certain way, the people that run the organization are really focused on doing things for that organization

and getting money for that organization and pushing that organization. When you've got a massive new thing like the vision, the new vision for exploration, it's time really to focus the whole agency behind that vision. So the idea of enterprises doesn't make a lot of sense. But on the other hand, the enterprises have produced things like the Mars rovers, Cassini, and a few other things. So there are positives and negatives. But in terms of

the vision, you really have to focus the agency toward the President's vision and that's one of the reasons for the transformation of NASA. Is it fair to call the vision that has been set forth by the President the Moon-Mars mission? I mean, there's so much that seems to be focused vision that has been set forth by the president the moon-Mars mission? I mean, there's so much that seems to be focused on that.

There certainly is much more going on in the universe. Yeah, I think that's a good point, and I think that's got the science community a little worried, and I have to spend a lot of my time working with my science community to make them understand that the president clearly said the moon, Mars, and beyond. Okay. Well, beyond is a big place. It's Mars to 13 billion light years. That'll do, I would say.

So I think when they say moon, Mars, and beyond, they're really talking about the human part of the vision, and that is obviously the moon is the first place we need to go back to, and then obviously the ultimate destination, especially when you take science into account, is Mars. I mean, we've got to send humans to Mars eventually. And beyond that, we'll see how it goes. But until we make that first step to going back to the moon, all the rest of it's, you know, just talk. You ran the Hubble Space Telescope for so many years.

You must have had, at the very least, mixed emotions when you learned that the previously scheduled shuttle mission to keep Hubble alive had been canceled. I had a lot of mixed emotions because I can sit here today and justify a shuttle mission to service Hubble based on science easily. But what I said is what I can justify is no amount of science to take more risk. And that's where the other side of NASA said this is more risky than a standard shuttle mission to the station. And I said, well, I can't, you know, push on that issue. You know, I took a position that was slightly different than perhaps some of my astronomer colleagues out there in the community. On the other hand, I'm pretty close to what's going on in the shuttle and the engineering problems of return to flight.

And I've read the CABE report, and I sit down on shuttle return to flight meetings, and I may have a little bit more information than the average astronomer out at a university as to the difficulties of flying a mission to Hubble where there is no safe haven. There's no place to go if something goes wrong. So in the meantime, while a lot of my colleagues are out there doing interviews and complaining about how terrible NASA was, we at NASA and at Goddard especially, we're finding ways to do this servicing mission without humans. And we're pretty confident now that we have a way to do the servicing mission with a robot. And we'll know that for sure, hopefully by the end of September when our contractors

have submitted proposals and we've evaluated them. This certainly seems, though, like a very ambitious mission for a robot. Well, after watching the two Mars rovers do what they did, I'm not so sure. Okay. Has it ever been done? No. On the other hand, the technology exists. I've seen it sitting at Goddard, an actual robotic arm, going up to an actual mock-up

of Hubble and pulling bolts out, putting them back in, all by itself. We can put humans in the loop, but then it takes twice as long. The robot does it better without the humans in the loop, but the humans are a good backup. Even if the robotic mission doesn't fly, so to speak, or fails, this is hardly the end of astronomy in space. That's absolutely true. I mean, a lot of attention is focused on Hubble because it produces, you know, beautiful pictures that people can really relate to because they're visible light. We've got a great observatory up there called Spitzer, which is a space infrared observatory,

and it's eventually, I think, going to rival Hubble in the science it produces over its lifetime. We have Chandra up there, which is the X-ray equivalent of Hubble. This is the golden age of astronomy. I mean, we've got three great observatories. And I think the other issue that was misrepresented a little bit is that it's not as if NASA's pulling the plug on Hubble tomorrow. Hubble's going to keep doing science at least until 07 or 08, maybe even longer, even if we do nothing.

A lot of people also forget Hubble was sold as a 15-year mission to Congress, and we hit that 15 years in 05. Everything after 05 is gravy. But on the other hand, let me be perfectly clear, we're going to pursue this robotic option because the science return will be well worth the expenditure to keep it going. Just a couple of minutes left. Let's turn to your new job, and maybe more broadly than just Goddard. How is the role of the NASA centers going to change in this NASA transformation? The NASA centers will have to get more focused,

and I think one of the problems we have with some of the NASA centers is there's a lot of duplication of effort, you know, centers doing the same kind of thing. We can't afford that if we're going to try to send humans to Moon and Mars. So one of the first things we have to do is do a better job of really focusing each center on what they do best and making sure that's all they do. So that's job number one.

The commission also recommended looking at other possible models in civil service, for instance, so-called FFRDCs, which are federally funded research centers. Which is the JPL model, right? Right. That's one model. The commission didn't say that was the only model. There are other models.

And something like that may make a lot of sense for some centers. Does it make sense for every single NASA center? You know, we don't know at this point. But in the near term, I think the agency is going to go out with a request for information from the world to see who's interested, what are the near term, I think the agency is going to go out with a request for information from the world to see who's interested, what are the ideas out there of running the NASA centers differently, etc. So Mr. O'Keefe, the administrator, is very open to seeing what's out there in terms of interest. And again, it may work for some research centers.

It may not work for spaceflight centers because NASA's got a wide variety of centers. Some build spacecraft and do science like Goddard and JPL. Some do research primarily like the Ames Research Center or Langley Research Center. Some are involved in operations in human spaceflight like Johnson. So you can't really have a cookie cutter. One thing I'm really against is a cookie cutter approach to life in general because life is not generalistic in that sense. Scientists hate to project based on no data, but I guess you have a little bit of data to

extrapolate from. Where do you see NASA in five years? I hope in five years that the Moon, Mars, and Beyond initiative is fully funded. In five years, that's 2009, we hopefully will have a lunar orbiter circling the moon, taking a high-resolution digital map for the first time ever, starting to look for resources on the moon. 2009, we should have a nuclear rover launched by then on its way to Mars. And in that case, we'll be looking forward to five years of operations, 24-7, hundreds of kilometers of capability. By then, we will have fixed a Hubble Space Telescope with a robot looking forward to five years of operations 24-7, hundreds of kilometers of capability. By then we will have fixed a Hubble Space Telescope with a robot and look forward to another five or six or seven years of Hubble science.

So even though we're in the golden age now of science and exploration, I think the future is even brighter. I guess I better let you go. We've just about used up our time here. I'll throw one other question at you here. Are you prepared to be surprised by what we hope to see of Saturn's rings tonight? I am sure we will be surprised because I like to constantly remind people we humans tend to write textbooks and the universe tends to erase them because the universe decides

how it's going to behave. And I guarantee you we'll be surprised. Ed Weiler, thanks very much for joining us on Planetary Radio. You're welcome. Ed Weiler is the Associate Administrator for NASA's Space Science Enterprise, soon to become the Director of the Goddard Space Flight Center. I'll be back with Bruce Betts and what's up right after this return visit from Emily. I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A. How do comets die

if they don't waste away to nothing? Some comets end their lives in dramatic fashion by striking the solid or gas planets. But before they hit a planet, they may first be torn to bits. Near every planet is a region called the Roche Limit. Outside the Roche Limit, small objects that pass by keep themselves together under the force of their own self-gravity. But inside a planet's Roche limit, tidal forces can overcome a comet's self-gravity and tear the fragile body apart. That happened to Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which was ripped into at least 26 pieces before it plunged into Jupiter in 1994. Other comets don't die. They become transformed into asteroids.

With the ices and gas escaping off the surface, more and more dust is left behind. Finally, there is a thick, lagged deposit of dark, fused crust that seals off the comet's vents, and though it remains in a comet-like orbit around the Sun, it never again develops a tail. Not a lot is known for sure about comets, but the Stardust mission has recently returned stunning photos of an active comet, VILD-2, and in early 2006, the mission will return samples of VILD-2's coma to the Earth. 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 on Planetary Radio. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. So we are joined by the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society, Bruce Betts. Bruce, hi. Hey there, hi there, ho there, Matt. How's it going? Oh, it's going well.

What's in the sky? All right, well, in the evening sky, we've got our friend Jupiter, although it's starting to get lower. But still, the brightest star-like looking object in the west in the evening is Jupiter. And if you're up before dawn, take a look in the east, and the brightest star-like object there will be Venus. If you're up for a challenge, you can try to pick out Mars and Mercury low on the horizon in the west about 30, 40 minutes after sunset. Try looking over there maybe with some binoculars.

But it's a bit tough these days. So it's basically Jupiter in the evening, Venus in the morning. And no Saturn? Definitely no Saturn. Saturn is pretty much on the other side of the sun from us right now. And, in fact, they are not receiving communications from the Cassini spacecraft right now because of that. So no Saturn. So probably the closest people can get is planetary.org slash Saturn.

Exactly. And there you'll see far more spectacular pictures of Saturn and much more information than you'd get from staring through your telescope and not seeing it at night. Anyway, yeah, yeah, good stuff. All sorts of great stuff, of course, coming from the Cassini mission to Saturn, including now data from its first flyby of Saturn's giant moon Titan with its giant atmosphere. All sorts of mysteries and puzzles with the rings and Titan,

and much more coming in the next four years of the mission. Four years. Okay, what's next? All right, well, this week in space history, it was ten years ago that comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter. How can that have been 10 years? Time relativity? 3,650 days.

It just flew by. That's amazing. It seems to me like it was just a few years ago we were watching those images of this string of objects headed toward that big planet. It was spectacular. It really was, yeah. Quite spectacular. So yeah, 10 years ago, turns out. On to Random Space Fact!

Speaking of Cassini and Titan, it turns out that all of the Titan close passes, the closest passes, this one was not one of those, but there will be one in October, are scheduled higher than about 950 kilometers altitude from the moon because of trying to get away from that big extended atmosphere. If they get any closer, they're concerned it will actually affect the speed of the spacecraft. And so all the close passes are 950 kilometers or more. That's amazing considering that people don't, you can get a lot closer to Earth, right, before you have to worry about our atmosphere.

Yes, indeed you do, you can. That Titan atmosphere goes way out there, partly due to the lower gravity. It allows it to inflate. It also has a higher surface pressure. I mean, there's more gas there than on Earth. But interesting place. It's mostly the same stuff, nitrogen. So Titan viewed as a kind of prebiotic version of Earth, where you have much colder, but same type of stuff you might have had in a prebiotic soup here on Earth. So we have those close flybys to look forward to. and then, of course, Huygens, early 2005. Yes, the European Huygens probe released from the Cassini spacecraft in late December

and going into the Titan atmosphere January 14th. Very much to look forward to. Let's move on to the trivia contest, Matt. Last week we asked our listeners about Saturn's rings, and we asked them what the names of the shepherding moons of Saturn's F-ring are. These are the little moons that keep the F-ring in check and keep it in place. How'd we do, Matt?

We did great. So did the listeners. Everybody, yeah, everybody got it right. Everybody came up with the right answers. And shall I go ahead and give it away right now? Oh, please do. Please do, Matt. Tell us.

Prometheus and Pandora are the ones who keep that F ring in shape, give it that sharp edge that makes it so attractive to all the women. And men, for that matter. Yes, although it turns out that it actually, we see it's a little bit wispy from the Cassini images. So there's actually, although sharp, it's also got a, it actually has a bit of a soft edge to it. Oh, well, that's good. People like that, too. It's a nice combination.

It's perfect. All the moons love it. Can I tell you who won? Oh, please, please do. John Jaksic of Carmichael, California. Yes, Virginia. There is a town inic of Carmichael, California. Yes, Virginia. There is a town in California called Carmichael. And John lives there.

And pretty soon he'll be strolling the streets of Carmichael in his Planetary Radio t-shirt. There's not only a town. I went to high school there. Are you kidding me? No, I'm not. Oh, I'll be darned. What high school? Jesuit High School of Sacramento.

But it's technically basically in Carmichael, which is east of the city limits of Sacramento. So who knows? Maybe John was one of your classmates. No, I would remember that. But he could have gone there, or we could have just crossed each other's path. Small school. Small school, yeah. Yeah, okay.

But we undoubtedly saw each other at the Burger King down the street. Is this a town that people cruise a lot at night? Oh, yeah. No. Next trivia question. You know, if you're not careful, we're going to lose all our Carmichael listeners. Well, John's got his shirt now. He has nothing else to listen to.

Before you've insulted the entire country. So at least we're doing better this time. All right. For next week, we've got a tricky one where I take you to the land of orbital mechanics. The orbital velocity for a given body is one speed you need to go in a circular orbit. The escape velocity is how fast you need to go to escape the gravitational well of a body. What is the relationship between those two? They are related by a number.

A factor separates them. How much faster is the escape velocity than the orbital velocity? Wow. So this has a name. It's kind of like Hubble constant or something like that. No, it's actually a number. Just a number. What is the constant?

You multiply this number times the orbital velocity, and you'll get the escape velocity for that same body. Okay, now that everyone knows that I know nothing about orbital mechanics except that to slow down your speed up or something like that. Anyway, how do people enter the contest? Please go quickly to planetary.org slash radio, enter our trivia contest, win a glorious Planetary Radio t-shirt, be the envy of all your friends. All right, Matt. Are we done? I sure hope so.

I'm just sillier than ever today, and I apologize for that to you and our listeners. And I promise to do a better job when you come back next week for the next edition of What's Up here on Planetary Radio. Oh, you're putting yourself down too much. But go out there, people. Look up in the night sky and think about how we can improve Matt Kaplan. Thank you. Shouldn't be too difficult. He is the director of projects for the Planetary Society.

Bruce Betts joins us each week here on the show. Next week, we'll celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Here at Planetary Radio, we'll also be celebrating the inauguration of our availability via satellite to public radio stations all over the United States. Let us know if we should be in contact with your local station. Drop us a line at planetaryradio at planetary.org. Thanks for listening and have a great week.