Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Apollo Astronauts Visit Planetary Radio

Episode Date: July 19, 2004

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Apollo astronauts, this week on Planetary Radio. Hi everyone, and welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the stars. I'm Matt Kaplan. Happy Apollo 11 35th anniversary. Yes, it's been three and a half decades since the Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility. We'll talk with two of the astronauts who got us there. Bruce Betts drops by with his what's up review of the sky and our latest space trivia contest. Let's get started with Emily.

She has the tale of three planets, one that was too hot, one that was too cold, and one that was just right. And she knows one reason why. I'll be right back. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, If a planet's greenhouse gases won't let its radiated heat escape into space, how does the sun's heat get past them in the first place? If the Earth simply reflected the sun's light,

there would be no greenhouse effect. But that's not what actually happens. The sun's radiation is concentrated at visible and near-infrared wavelengths of light. But the materials on the surface of the Earth absorb this radiation and then re-radiate it at much longer wavelengths of light. But the materials on the surface of the Earth absorb this radiation and then re-radiate it at much longer wavelengths of light called thermal infrared, or heat. There is nearly no overlap between the wavelength of the incoming sunlight and the wavelength of the heat radiated back by the Earth.

Greenhouse gases like water vapor and carbon dioxide act like windows to sunlight but walls to thermal infrared light. This so-called greenhouse effect can be both a blessing and a curse. Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out how. While we celebrate Apollo on this week's show, we're also celebrating a new era for planetary radio. This is the first of our shows to be distributed by the Public Radio Satellite Service, operated by National Public Radio. We hope this will lead to many more radio stations adding us to their schedules.

But let's get back to the moon. We'll start by hearing from one of the last people to visit Earth's satellite. Harrison Schmidt was the only scientist among the 12 moonwalkers. The geologist and accomplished pilot strolled around that magnificent desolation on the Apollo 17 mission. No one knew it would be the last visit for a very long time. Schmidt regrets the extended intermission, but believes the triumph of Apollo created a mindset that is sure to take us back to the moon and beyond. The cultural legacy of Apollo is really quite important

in that for the first time human beings set foot on a planet other than the one that they had evolved on. That really did open up the solar system. It's going to take a while to really get it open. We've had a nearly 40-year hiatus now. But that's not unusual in the movement of the human species into new environments and new places of settlement. The scientific legacy has increasingly matured because of the samples, the observations, and the photography

that came with the Apollo landing missions and subsequent robotic missions, Clementine and Lunar Prospector in particular. We now have a first-order understanding of the evolution of the moon as a small planet. We have a consensus, at least, on its origin. Overall, I think American taxpayers in particular can be very, very proud of the legacy that they paid for and that continues to benefit us today. That's just a taste of the conversation we enjoyed with Harrison Schmidt. We hope you'll be back to hear more in three weeks,

including his plans for what may be the moon's most valuable resource. Rusty Schweikart is another Apollo alumnus. most valuable resource. Rusty Schweikert is another Apollo alumnus. Like Schmidt, his heart and mind are still very much up there beyond Earth's atmosphere. He spoke to us from his home in Northern California about both his exciting past and his current efforts to save humanity from a real space invader. Rusty Schweikert, thanks very much for joining us on Planetary Radio. Well, I'm real happy to be here, Matt.

In 1969, just a few months before Apollo 11, you spent 10 days in space on Apollo 9, and you did an EVA, a spacewalk, you tested the backpack that would later keep Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin alive on the moon. I wish I could think of a new way to phrase this question. I'm sure you have been asked it more than a thousand times. I can't. How did that experience change your life? Well, I think the primary way it changed my life had nothing to do with the flight per se or the technical aspects of the flight, but rather the experience of looking at the Earth

from the perspective of space. On Apollo 9, we didn't go out to the moon. We spent 10 days in low Earth orbit. So I saw the Earth up close, and it's just spectacularly beautiful. Seeing the Earth orbit after orbit again and again and again, you form a different relationship with the planet, which really changes your life. You realize not just how beautiful it is, but how precious it is, how much it means to you. To some extent, you can see some of the pollution and effects of humankind and human activity.

It adds a concern, becomes a lasting part of your personality after that. My impression is that most of the astronauts who've returned to Earth have shared this kind of feeling. You said it's not universal, but it's quite common. That's true. You do have to be open to it, and everyone isn't, but most are. And I think it's been a life-shaping experience for just about everybody who has flown. And you're in a good position to know how other astronauts feel, because you are the founder and the past president of the Association of Space Explorers.

That's right. The Association of Space Explorers is the professional organization of astronauts and cosmonauts from around the world. In fact, indicative of what we've just been talking about, when we finally got the organization put together and held our first Congress, the agreed upon subject of the first Congress, the theme of the Congress, was the home planet. And in fact, we published a book, The Home Planet, out of that. And our first annual award winner was Jacques Cousteau. as all of the award winners have been, the person who has dedicated his or her life to fostering respect and love and care for the planet. Over 360 astronauts, according to your website, astronauts and cosmonauts, I should say, from 30 nations, maybe more than that now.

Is this association still going strong? And can you talk more about the nature of the bond between those of you who have gone where the rest of humanity for all of history is dreamt of going? Matt, it's very interesting, the history of the organization. To be specific, yes, it is still going. And we had our annual Congress last year in Japan. And anywhere from 40 or 50 up to 70 astronauts and cosmonauts generally show up at the annual Congress. Going back to the beginnings, though, and talking about the bond, the very reason that I formed the organization back in the early 80s was because, notwithstanding the Cold War and all of the problems here on the surface of the Earth,

I felt very strongly that there were just a very limited number of people, fortunate, lucky people, us, who had experienced the Earth from outside, had seen the Earth, our home planet, as a single entity, not just our country or our nation or our whatever, but as a whole. And so I felt it was very important, notwithstanding politics, that we get together as an organization to share that experience among ourselves and also to basically witness to the people of the world the fact that there is this one planet that we all live on and all share and have responsibility for. Let's go back to your Apollo 9 mission back in 1969, just like maybe four months before Apollo 11. One of the accomplishments of that mission, something that I had forgotten about until I looked at your online bio, is that you guys were responsible for the first live television from space.

I wonder if any of you up there on that mission realized how important that would become over the following 35 years of our exploration of space, particularly manned exploration. Well, I'm not sure we did. We, of course, understood the power of television and that sort of thing, but I don't think that we understood the degree to which people would participate through the videos in not only the human exploration of space, but even the unmanned explorer, the robotic exploration of space. I mean, all of us sat on the Sojourner running around on Mars, and many of us are following

the current Mars missions and Cassini and all the rest of it. So it's not only the human missions, but through the magic of television, frankly, all of us, all around the world, not just the taxpayers who are paying for it, but all around the world, people are directly or almost directly experiencing what the space environment, other planets, the asteroids, comets and things are like. It's amazing. And so significant that so many people, billions of people, rely on and look forward to these images from flights that have humans and the robotic ones. Absolutely. It's very exciting, and this is really a wonderful shared exploration

brought to us all by the wonders of television. Scientist, entrepreneur, and Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweikert is our special guest today on Planetary Radio. Rusty, we, and Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweikert is our special guest today on Planetary Radio. Rusty, we need to take a quick break. I hope when we come back we can talk about something that you've spent a good deal of your time dealing with in recent years,

and that is a threat that could come from space and what we can do about it near Earth asteroids. And we'll be right back after this message. This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure in the solar system.

That's why I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets. We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first-ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration in The Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine.

It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS. That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, PlanetarySociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Rusty Schweikert was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 9. Didn't go to the moon, but did spend 10 days in orbit around the Earth, paving the way for Apollo 11, which would land on the

moon, of course, about four months later in 1969. And we're celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Apollo program. Rusty, before we move on to talking about some of the things that you've been up to more recently, can you talk a little bit about the lasting legacy of Apollo and what lessons it might still have for us? Well, I can only speak for myself on that, Matt, but to me the really important aspect, looking back on it. This was humankind's first stepping off the planet into the larger cosmos. And it seems to me that that is really what Apollo will be remembered for. It's the first time when human beings left the Earth and landed on and set foot on another body in the solar system. And that will continue.

The important thing to me is this is a moment in history when life is first emerging out of the womb of Earth. I refer to this often in talks that I give as the moment of cosmic birth. This is the beginning of moving out into the universe from this focus of life. And to me, that's the important aspect of it. I couldn't agree with you more. I'm also thinking, though, of something that you have been very busy with in the last few years, that this advancement into space, humankind's ability to work in space, might just save our species from the destruction that has been visited upon this planet. Yes. In fact, of course, everyone knows that the dinosaurs were romping around on the surface 65 to 100 million years ago,

and 65 million years ago were wiped out by a fairly large asteroid that impacted the Earth. Not the largest one that ever hit us, but it was a very large one. That asteroid that hit down in the Yucatan Peninsula had global effects. It eliminated about 70% of the species which lived at that time. And what it enabled was we mammals, who at that time were nothing much larger than mice hidden in holes in the ground, to survive that episode, only to emerge later on as the dominant species on Earth. Now that we're the dominant species, we just as soon not see it happen again. There certainly has been a good deal of discussion, maybe not enough, about what to do about these

near-Earth objects, or as I take it, what you prefer to call the more dangerous among them, NEAs, or near-Earth asteroids. I think that the popular image of what we can do is send an H-bomb out there and blow them to bits, but you seem to be exploring other alternatives. We formed an organization to, frankly, begin seriously looking at trying to do something about these near-Earth asteroids when the day comes that we know of one that's going to be hitting us in several years. know of one that's going to be hitting us in several years. You're right.

The default assumption of most people, brought on partly by Hollywood, is that what you do is send out the biggest bomb you can find and blow the daylights out of it. That's actually not a very smart thing to do. You don't know what's going to happen, and you can actually make things worse. But far more important than that is that you end up then with a rationale that says you've got to keep H-bombs around forever. That's not a very nice thing to think about either. So what we did was look at other technologies, and in fact, we have technologies coming off the production line today, being built into missions for the future, which will actually allow us to go up, land on an asteroid, and simply push on it.

Now, that sounds fantastic, but you have to remember, you're not pushing on something the size of the Earth. And if you push on it steadily, even at a level of a few pounds of force, for something like six months to a year to two years, you can take a fairly sizable asteroid, one that is likely to hit the Earth sometime in the relatively near future, and you can deflect its orbit just enough so that ten years later, when it's destined to hit the Earth, it will just miss it. And that's exactly what you need to do. You don't need to shove it away or blow the daylights out of it. All you need to do

is nudge it so that 10 years later when it was going to hit, it won't. Now, this technique is obviously based on our ability to find these objects well ahead of time. Yes, it is. It is totally dependent on a really high-quality detection program. And that has been started. It was actually started in 1998, I believe, with a thing called the Space Guard program. And that's running for eight years. We're now at 2004, and we've discovered on the order of 70% of the larger near-Earth asteroids, the ones which are in some sense the most dangerous, are the ones which, if they hit us, can have global impact. Not just they go hole in the ground, but they can do something like create extinction events.

However, those are only the largest ones, and frankly, what we need to do now with our detection program is to increase its capabilities so that we can detect, in the same way we have been the larger ones, those down to as small as, say, 100 meters in diameter, which if they hit, are still on the order of 100 megatons of explosive force. We're interested in extending the detection programs to build a catalog which will allow us to project ahead to say, for the next 100 years, we are not going to be hit, or we know that there's going to be one on June the 13th, 2052 or something. Rusty, with only about a minute left here, let's assume that this program is put in place.

Even if it doesn't find an immediate threat, your group, which is called the B612 Foundation, believes that this technology, this deflection technology, is something that we need to start putting in place now? Yes. Our particular objective is really to demonstrate that the technologies which we are developing give humanity this capability. We want to actually go up and push on an asteroid enough to say that we definitely moved it, that we can measure that change, that we can see that it's controlled, etc. This then will convince humanity that, in fact, we can assume responsibility for sustaining life on the Earth,

even though 50 years, 100 years, 200 years from now, we discover that one is going to impact us. It's very important that this is not just something that we throw up our hands at, but that we realize that we can do this, that we should prepare for it, and that we can protect life by doing it. Rusty, we are out of time, I'm afraid. I wish we had another hour and a half to talk, but people can visit your website for the B612 Foundation, which is at b612foundation.org. You have to tell people how it got that name.

That's a common question, and it's one that we had fun developing. B612, for those of you who think back to your childhood, is the name of the asteroid on which the little prince and his rose, the book written by Antoine Saint-Exupéry, was the asteroid in that childhood story. A great bit of fiction. And it has been wonderful to talk to you about science fact here today, both stretching back to the Apollo program and to your activities today with the B612 Foundation.

Rusty Schweikert, thanks very much for joining us on Planetary Radio. Matt, I've enjoyed it, and best of wishes to everyone. And we will be back with Bruce Betts and What's Up right after this return visit from Emily. I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A. Most Earthlings in the know are rightly concerned about the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases, which allow sunlight to pass to the surface but trap re-radiated infrared light, are increasing in the Earth's atmosphere at a rapid rate, which could lead to catastrophic effects on our global climate. Earth's sister planet, Venus, represents a greenhouse run amok. There is so much carbon

dioxide in the atmosphere that the surface of the whole planet is hot enough to melt lead, and all of the water on the planet has been lost. But without the greenhouse effect, Earth would not be a habitable place. Mars has carbon dioxide and a surface that can reach above freezing during the day. But the carbon dioxide is too thin to act as a greenhouse and keep Mars warm overnight. What's interesting about Mars is that it wouldn't take a lot more carbon dioxide to warm Mars up and make it a nice place to live,

a fact that has inspired countless science fiction stories about terraforming Mars and turning it into a new Earth. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. And now here's Matt segment on Planetary Radio. We get to it at the end of each show with our regular What's Up commentator, Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society. Bruce, happy 35th moon landing anniversary. Oh, happy anniversary to you, too, as well, Matt.

Did you get me anything? I got some cake for us later. We're going to have cake. Excellent. Cake in the shape of the lunar module. Baker really gave me a funny look. That is impressive. Wow. Well, while we eat that cake, we can see what's up in the night sky. Yay. a funny look. That is impressive. Wow.

Well, while we eat that cake, we can see what's up in the night sky. Yay. Let's look. What's up? Two very bright planets, one in the evening and one before dawn. You've got Jupiter looking like the brightest star-like object if you look in the west shortly after sunset. And if you're up before dawn, you can see Venus looking extremely bright as by far the brightest star-like object, in this case, in the east before dawn.

So west at sunset, east before dawn. Jupiter, Venus, go out, see them. Good times. Not as much as we were able to talk about a few weeks ago. You should have been there, folks. The sky was nasty with planets. Yeah, it'll never happen again. Well, okay, actually it will.

Right now, yeah, the other naked-eye, okay, actually it will. Right now, yeah, the other naked-eye planets are off playing with the sun right now, from where we see it. Anyway, let's move on to this week in space history. Of course, you've referred to one big anniversary this week, July 20th, 1969, Apollo 11 lands on the moon. Yay! Seven years later, July 20th, 1976, Viking 1 robotic lander landed on the surface of Mars, starting its successful multi-year mission. And then 10 years ago, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter as the many, many fragments and the last fragment hitting on July 22nd of that year. 10 years ago. To sort of honor that, we've tied the latest announcement of the Planetary Society Shoemaker NEO grant awards to that 10th anniversary. NEO, as in near-Earth objects,

these are comets or asteroids that pass kind of close to the Earth so that we at least have to pay attention to them. This prize is named after Gene Shoemaker, one of the two shoemakers that were part of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 discovery, noted planetary geologist. And basically, they are a set of awards that amateur astronomers and professionals can apply for from throughout the world to get funding to help them in their search for NEOs and better understanding of their positions so that we know whether they are a danger to Earth or not. So long as I know it has nothing to do with that character in the Matrix movies. Well, turns out we actually do give extra credit on the proposal grant applications if they can give some insight into that character or not.

Yeah, anyway, go to planetary.org if you're interested in learning more about that and about the grant application process. Let's go on to Random Space Fact! During its nominal mission, the Cassini spacecraft will fly by Saturn's large moon Titan 45 times. We're going to get to bond with that very interesting moon. And already getting some interesting pictures, but I guess they're going to get much better. Yes, we've had one flyby so far, but the next flyby, which will be in late October,

will be much, much closer to the moon. It should be fascinating. Let's go on to our trivia contest. Let's do that. You asked last week, what are the n-dimensional challenges to Einstein's general theory of relativity? Yes, and I hear for the first time we had absolutely no entries. Actually, you didn't ask that, but you might as well have as far as some people were concerned. You have to understand, folks, those of you who are new to the show, we usually ask a question that, gee, just about

anybody can figure out, and we pretty much thought that this time, but some people did have some difficulty with it. On the other hand, some people did great. What was your question? Question last week was, what is the mathematical constant that is the multiplicative factor between the circular orbital velocity for a given body and the escape velocity? There you go again. You scientists, you just don't know how to communicate with the public. All right, let's try again. If you're in a little spacecraft and you're going around the Earth in a circular kind of way, then you end up having the orbital circular velocity, magic velocity. having the orbital circular velocity, magic velocity.

And then if you say, hey, I'm done with this place, I'm out of here, the escape velocity is how fast you have to go to get away from that planet and escapes gravitational well. And there is a spiffy number that connects the two. How did we do, Matt? Well, we, or rather our listeners, did remarkably well on what proved to be one of the more difficult questions, judging from how it was received. We got a lot of correct answers, but only one that actually gave us not just the answer,

but how he reached it, the derivation. He has all the formulas here. So our hats, if we had any on, would be off to Paul Boucher of Lebanon, Maine. Paul, I'm going to have to turn this over to you, Bruce, because you're the scientist. You'll have to tell me that he derived this correctly. But he did come up with the right answer, square root of two. So Paul is going to be getting that Planetary Radio t-shirt that he can proudly wear as he walks up and down the streets of Lebanon, Maine. For this week, for those of you who want to win that

spiffy Planetary Radio t-shirt, I'm going to ask you something that doesn't involve numbers, but does involve gravity. What was the first spacecraft to use a gravity assist to get from one planet to another? This is where spacecraft flies near one planet, fires its thrusters when it's nearby, and it helps it pick up speed and also change direction. And we want to know what spacecraft did that first. A lot have done it recently, such as Cassini, the Voyager spacecraft. It's very, very common now. Go to planetary.org slash radio. Find out how to enter our contest.

How quickly do they have to enter, Matt? Not as quickly as they used to in the past, Bruce, because with Planetary Radio now available via the public radio satellite service, we realize that some radio stations may not be able to run the show quite as soon after we create it. So we're going to give people more time from now on to answer the trivia question. This time around, you've got until Wednesday, July 28. And what that means is that you're going to have to wait two shows,

a couple of weeks, until we can provide you with the answer to this trivia question and let you know who won. Go out there. Enter the contest. Have fun and win that T-shirt that will make you the envy of everyone. Bruce, we're out of time. Oh. Well, everyone, I want to encourage you to go out there, look up in the night sky, and think about the square root of two. Thank you, and good night.

Well, that's the always rational, except when he's not. Look out in the night sky and think about the square root of 2. Thank you and good night. Well, that's the always rational, except when he's not, Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society, who joins us each week here for What's Up. That's it for this edition of Planetary Radio. Join us next time as we return to Saturn and its new neighbor, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft. Have a great week.