Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Astronaut Rex Walheim: NASA Is Looking for a Few Good Spacemen and Women

Episode Date: December 19, 2011

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Wanted, a few good astronauts, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. NASA has given you until January 27 to apply for work out there in the black. Three-time shuttle astronaut Rex Walheim will tell us how to get our names in the pool. And we've got so much more from all the regular suspects, including my most recent conversation with the editor of the Planetary Society's blog, Emily Lakdawalla. with the editor of the Planetary Society's blog, Emily Lakdawalla.

Emily, we have a nice generational theme as we go through three different topics on your commentary today, beginning with this piece that you've posted about, well, it asks the question, what do we know about planetary rings? Yeah, this is a post about a really big review article written by Matt Tiscarino about rings around every planet, about rings that may exist that we don't know about, about rings about extrasolar planets, just rings everywhere and what we know about them in general. And it's really quite a fascinating paper. And I think one that would be accessible to people who are willing to slog a little bit through technical terminology. And this is a December 15 entry in the blog. Now, the theme enters in here because you were

saying that Matt is a pretty much newly minted PhD. That's right. He's only been a PhD since 2004, which is right around the time that Cassini went into orbit around Saturn. So this is a guy who has basically become a professional and started writing review papers, which really indicates that you've mastered your field in just the few years that Cassini has been in orbit. Let's drop a bit down now to someone a little bit younger, someone that you've been working with for a while that I think I got to meet a while back. Yeah, this is Abby Freeman, who was one of our Red Rover Goes to Mars student astronauts, a very, very long name for a group of students that I worked with

who were able to work inside the Mars Exploration Rover mission operations right around the time that they landed. Again, this is January of 2004. And at that time, she was in high school. And since then, she has gone through college and is now actually a graduate student of Ray Arvidson, one of the main rover guys working on CRISM data on Mars. And she presented a really great poster at AGU. But just to show that she's also got quite a sense of humor,

I posted this week about a little confectionery rover that she created for a competition on the Washington Post and actually won third place for it. It's pretty cute. It's really fun. You should take a look at this, folks. It's a December 16 entry. And I won't give away what the rover is made of, but what is it rolling over? Mellow Mars, of course. Okay, last one. We drop down even further to a certain five-year-old girl who happens to live with you. Yeah, that's right. So there is this lunar eclipse that I really wanted her to see, but it was at a ridiculously early hour of the morning. It started happening at about 4.45 here. I wasn't sure if I wanted to wake up a five-year-old and bear the results of that for the rest of the day. Very dangerous, yeah.

But I got up at 4.30 to look at the eclipse and see if we had good weather. And we did have good weather. And I realized that the best place to watch the eclipse from, from inside our house anyway, was from her bed. And so I crawled into bed with her and we watched the monster eat the moon while we were lying in bed. And then close to the end of the eclipse, just before totality, we actually drove to the beach so we could get a really good view of the end of the eclipse and watch the eclipsed moon set behind the Santa Monica Mountains. It was really pretty. And if you want to see some very nice pictures taken by our friend Doug Ellison there at the Santa Monica Beach looking out over the eclipse. And one more of Emily sitting comfortably on the sand with Anahita.

They're both well bundled. You can take a look at the blog. Emily, thanks so much. Next week we'll be talking to you at Planetary Radio Live. That was fun. Yes, since it has already been recorded. But everybody else, you'll get to experience the first half of Emily's special presentation on next week's show. Emily Lakdawalla is the Science and Technology Coordinator

for the Planetary Society and a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. Bill, welcome back. We never have any shortage of things to talk about, but I think you have something of perhaps greater long-term significance on your mind this time around. I do indeed, Matt. It's the end of the calendar year. And as I remarked to everybody this time of year, it's a time to look back,

a time to think on what happened this year and what's going to happen next year. You know, the 25th of December, along with all the other traditional excitement around that day, was the day that Isaac Newton's mother thought her son was born. That is to say, she thought her son was born on Christmas Day. And that could be true as reckoned in Britain, but as reckoned in Europe under a different calendar, he was born on the 4th of January, 1644, instead of the 25th of December, 1643. And this wouldn't matter, except it does.

We learned about our place in space. We learned about where we are with respect to the stars by studying them, by studying the earth and the stars and the planets and their motions. And this brought out the best in us. It brought out the best in what humans can do, the best use of our intellect and treasure. And with the world financial situation inducing a lot of people to recommend that we reduce spending in space, I want to say we should at least maintain our spending in space. All the money that's spent in space, by the way, is spent on the earth. And this is not to let the money trickle down. No, this is to let the intellect trickle up. This increases the quality of life for people all over the world

when your society has an investment in space exploration. Many of you are listening on a podcast with computers. All of this wouldn't be possible if we weren't reaching out to the stars, reaching farther and deeper to know more about where we came from and whether or not we're alone. So as the year winds down and a new year begins, I encourage everyone who has an opportunity to vote or have an opinion about the exploration of space to support it. Support space exploration because it changes the world. So happy Isaac Newton's birthday. Happy holidays, whatever your traditions may be. And I look forward to a great 2012. Let's change the world. I got to fly. Bill and I are the planetary guy. And happy holidays to you too, Bill. Sounds like

a great resolution for the new year. He is the planetary guy and the science guy and the CEO of the Planetary Society. Don't go away. I'll be back in just a few moments to tell you how you can apply to be an astronaut. Really. Tired of doing the same old thing every workday? Looking for a position that's a bit more stimulating? Maybe an office with an unbeatable view? Well, does NASA ever have the job for you?

The space agency is now taking applications for the job of astronaut. To get the details, I talked with retired Air Force Colonel Rex Walheim at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. He has been in this line of work for nearly 16 years. Colonel Walheim, thanks so much for joining us on Planetary Radio. It's my pleasure to be with you, Matt. So NASA is looking for a few good men and women. We sure are.

Tell me a little bit about this latest search for the next class of astronauts. Yes, this is one of our periodic selection processes we're going to be starting up here. And we're trying to get the word out because we want the broadest, widest dissemination so we can get the most people we can who are interested in becoming an astronaut. And this would be the selection process for next year, basically. The applications are due January 27th, and we want to encourage everybody to apply. I love the webpage. Fly NASA? I want to encourage everybody to apply. I love the webpage, Fly NASA. I want to fly on that airline.

That's right. It's the best one. It goes 17,000 miles an hour. You can't beat it. The qualifications, this is not for just anybody. I mean, there are some pretty strict qualifications, and I've got to assume, as in the past, that most of the people who apply for this are not going to be going up even as far as low Earth orbit.

They're not going to become astronauts. Yeah, you know, the odds, it does seem daunting at times, but it really is worth a try. You know, my experience is kind of a good example of that. You know, you never know unless you try, and there have been people who tried many times. But I want to dispel some of the myths that it's only for the absolute straight-A student who's got a Ph.D. out of Stanford or some of the top schools. What it is is we're looking for a well-rounded individual with a strong technical background who meets the medical qualifications, who's one of the people who, in an organization, everybody would point to him and say,

that is one of our best men or women in this organization, and they represent us well, and they're going to go a long ways. Well, that's the kind of person we want to recruit. You know, as I read your bio, it occurred to me that you probably don't fit the normal stereotype that many people may have of who becomes an astronaut. I was fascinated to see you were working on shuttle design as an Air Force engineer long before you became a test pilot. You bet. And actually, my original plan was to

become a pilot, a test pilot, and an astronaut. And that whole career path did not work out so well. When I got into the active duty in the Air Force, they found out I had a heart murmur, they thought, and they wouldn't let me become a pilot. So I became an engineer instead. And I found out after years of being an engineer in the Air Force that I didn't have a heart murmur and I could possibly become an astronaut. I never became a pilot. So I became an engineer. I worked at the Johnson Space Center as a flight controller. So I was working in mission control on STS-27 in that era back in the 80s. And then I finally had a chance to get involved in flight tests as a flight test engineer. I wrote as a backseater with the test pilots and helped flight test airplanes.

That gave me some of the flight test background NASA was looking for. And having the engineering background and working in mission control, I had some of the space ops background. So that's the path that I took. But there's a lot of different paths you can take to become an astronaut. Seems to me you took a really good path. You ended up building stuff up there, right? Yeah, you bet. So then I actually got a chance to, you know, fly in space three times and do five spacewalks and go outside and help build the International Space Station. I couldn't ask for a better job. And got to fly on the very last mission, STS-135, right? Yes.

Let's continue with that theme because the shuttle's gone. Space launch system is at least five years away, and the commercial launch capability, at least for humans, is still a little ways off. What kinds of opportunities are out there for people who go in and maybe, you know, make it through this program and become an astronaut in about a year from now? Sure. The people we're going to select in this selection process, they're going to be astronauts mainly for the International Space Station.

But that's not all. As you said, we're building these other systems that allow us to go into deep space. And that's going to be really exciting, too. Now, you've heard, obviously, the space shuttle is retiring. So we're in a bit of a transition period, which is hard. But we'll get through this. And in the next few years, we'll have our own capability of getting to the International Space Station.

In the meantime, we're going to be relying on the Russians to transport our astronauts to and from the space station. But once you're there, you're at this incredible National Laboratory in space. It's one of the most amazing facilities you'd ever want to see. You get to spend six months up there doing incredible cutting-edge research and then come home and continue to support the space program from down here and get back in line for one of these new vehicles that's coming along. Maybe it has to go beyond Low Earth Over to the Moon and Asteroid and someday we're going to send folks to Mars. Yeah, I sure hope so. And sooner the better.

Since you were up there basically to complete the International Space Station, I wasn't planning to ask this, but I've got to ask. Did you get to go into the so-called cupola? Absolutely. That's one of the things I definitely want to do. I've been to the space station twice before, but I had never seen the cupola. And that was amazing. The cupola, for those who don't know, is basically kind of like a glass-bottom boat for the space station. It's a module made up of windows. And you can look out in all directions, and it's facing NATO right now, so you can see right down to the Earth,

and it's just spectacular to be able to look out in those directions. And it's a lot like doing a spacewalk, getting out there and being able to see so easily, but it's absolutely fantastic, wonderful place to look out at. Well, not that it's going to do me any good, because I'll probably have to buy a ticket someday if I can afford it. But for those people who might be considering this, might be intrigued by all of it, talk a little bit more about the process and what they're going to go through once they turn in their application. And the applications are right there like any other federal job. You bet. You bet. The applications are online so they can get the applications and start that process out.

As with any high-profile job, the application is a little bit long. It's something you've got to think about and work on, but it's worth doing. You get all the application process and the physical questionnaires and all the stuff you need to get sorted out, and you put that in, and let's say you get it all in by January 27. Now, the next part of the selection process is what's called the Astronaut Ratings Board. We get a group of astronauts, several astronauts, that will look through, and technical people here at the Johnson space center and human resources folks. And we comb through the applications and we try to pick what we call the highly qualified applicants. And that'll be about out of maybe 2000 or 3000 applicants and be probably about 400 to 500 applications. And those applications will

now become what we call our highly qualified group. and we'll take those and we'll send out requests for references on those folks so they're old they're old bosses um they're the people they list as references we'll send them out get feedback on them and then we'll look at those uh those responses they come back and from those 400 we'll pick about 120 that we'll start the interview process with and from those 120 we'll they'll come down in in groups of 20 over a period of six weeks so you know you'll interview 20 at those 120, they'll come down in groups of 20 over a period of six weeks. So, you know, you'll interview 20 at a time and they'll get some of a physical, not the detailed physical, they'll get some physical exams, but mostly they're going to get experience at the Johnson Space Center, see what we do, and they're going to go through it.

The interview is only really about an hour long and they'll have some other, you know, team building exercises. And from that week, we'll pick about 50 to 60 of the top people from that interview group, and then we'll interview them again. They'll come back down for a second interview, and those top ones, they will get the full astronaut physical to see if they're qualified for long-duration spaceflight. And from there, we'll pick maybe 9 to 15 people. We'll talk more with NASA astronaut Rex Walheim in a minute. This is Planetary Radio.

I'm Robert Picardo. I traveled across the galaxy as the doctor in Star Trek Voyager. Then I joined the Planetary Society to become part of the real adventure of space exploration. The Society fights for missions that unveil the secrets of the solar system. It searches for other intelligences in the universe, and it built the first solar sail. It also shares the wonder through this radio show, its website, and other exciting projects

that reach around the globe. I'm proud to be part of this greatest of all voyages, and I hope you'll consider joining us. You can learn more about the Planetary Society at our website, planetary.org slash radio, or by calling 1-800-9-WORLDS. Planetary Radio listeners who aren't yet members can join and receive a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Our nearly 100,000 members receive the internationally acclaimed Planetary Report magazine. That's Planetary.org slash radio. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds.

Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. You may have flown the friendly skies, but what about getting paid to fly above them? Three-time space shuttle veteran Rex Walheim is telling us about NASA's most exciting job opening. Many may apply to become astronauts, but few will be selected. But there are probably other positions people might want to go for that the odds really aren't much better than this. You bet. And I wouldn't dissuade people just because of the odds. This whole process is really interesting. To actually have a chance to put all the application in

and then to go through this process with a few thousand other people. It's kind of a community online where people share information and say, hey, have you heard anything from NASA yet? What are you guys hearing? Did you go down for an interview? And then once you get an interview, that interview week is a really exciting time. You get real great exposure to what we do here at the Johnson Space Center. And you meet some incredible people who have various backgrounds you'd never have a chance

to meet in ordinary life. And so the high quality people you meet during the interview week is just amazing. And even if you don't get picked, it's a process I really do think people are happy that they went through. I know I didn't get picked my first time I applied. And the if you don't get picked, it's a process I really do think people are happy that they went through. I know I didn't get picked my first time I applied, and the whole process was really interesting, and I really enjoyed coming down here and interviewing. Then the next year, I did it again, and I got selected. I find it interesting that, as it has been for many years,

I guess, current astronauts like yourself are still very central to this selection process. And I actually enjoy it. I really do. I was on this last selection process, and I did some of the final interviews. And it was a very rewarding experience. It's very difficult, though, but we take it very seriously. You know, we have thousands of applications. We try to divide them up when we do the first screening. But when I go through them, I go through them carefully

because I know what it meant to me, and I know that person may have wanted to be an astronaut for their entire life. And so you look through it, and you try to find the salient features and figure out, is this a person that we'd like to have here, and really give due consideration, because I know people, it's their life's dream, and you don't want to shortchange that. So let's say you make it through. You're one of those lucky few who, sometime in 2013, you get a letter or you get that call that is maybe the dream of your lifetime. Then what happens? You're a rookie. You bet. Then you come down to the Johnson Space

Center and your training begins. And it's about a year and a half to two years of basic astronaut training. You learn all about the space station, the systems, and you learn some about the Soyuz rocket that we launch people to and from the space station to. And then you'll also do basic training on some of our skill areas like robotics, learn how to use robotic arm spacewalking or EVA as we call it. And after all that basic training, then you graduate from the astronaut candidate program basically, and then you're assignable to a mission. You probably won't get assigned right away. That usually takes a little bit of waiting.

And so after two years, you get your technical job, which is fun because you've been training for two years. It's kind of fun to jump in and support the program somehow. And so you might be assigned to work as a CAPCOM, work in the Mission Control Center talking to the crews. Or you might be working procedures for a new vehicle. Or you might be working the development of the new spacesuit. All these exciting things where you can really get some great experience. And then one day the chief of the astronaut office calls you and says, hey, I got a slot for you. I want to go fly in space.

And that's it. You say, I'll think about it. Yeah, I'll think about it. Yeah. So then you start mission-specific training. And for the space station, it takes about two and a half years. So it is a long process, but I don't want that to dissuade anybody either because I loved my job here as an astronaut even before I flew. I just loved training for the initial training, and getting the technical jobs was really great. It was hard to wait sometimes like, is this ever

going to really happen? But then you look, just take a step back and say, hey, look at the great things I've been doing for the last five years that I've been an astronaut, since I got here as an astronaut candidate. And I wouldn't have traded that for the world. How much of the job for a lot, maybe all the astronauts, is what you're doing right now, this kind of public outreach? A little bit. We do it every, we go off-site sometimes and go off to a contractor who helps build the space station parts or space shuttle parts and do trips like that maybe once a month or once every month. And then we do interviews like this, you know, every so often, every several weeks or so.

And for me, this is one I really have a passion about because I really do care about the selection process. And when they asked if I'd be willing to do this, I jumped at the chance because I really think it's important to get the word out that it's not a select few who can become astronauts. There's really a lot of people in a lot of organizations that may not have considered trying to apply to be an astronaut who can end up being some of the best astronauts we've had. And, Matt, your audience is the perfect audience. You have the people out there who have the sharp technical backgrounds. And I want to really encourage all of them to apply because they have the skills that we need as astronauts. And like I say, not just the people who are thinking about applying,

I want to reach out to. I want to reach out to the employers and some of the people up in the higher management to say, you know, there's this one man, this one woman that is one of the best people we have. I'd really hate to lose him, but man, I would be proud to have that person be representing us in the space program. So I want to encourage that too, because like I say, we're not looking for the absolute perfect person. We're looking for the person who has the most well-rounded background, the strong academic background, a little bit of an adventurous person, but one of those people that's great to work with and you say, you know, I'd follow that person anywhere. Last question, how's the pay?

The pay's great. You're not going to get rich being an astronaut, but the basic pay is starting, you know, close to $100,000 and it goes up as you get more experience. So we try to make it commensurous with what pay they were getting before they came here, but we can't always match that, obviously. But there's nothing wrong with the pay and you're living in Houston, which is not an expensive place to live, so you can live just fine down here on astronaut pay. And that was a half-joking question, because I doubt that that's much of an issue for anybody who really wants to pursue this dream. You bet. You bet. Rex, Colonel, it has

been a delight talking to you, and I will simply say that we will put up the website, a link to that website as well, on our page for this radio show. But I discovered that anybody can Google or Bing Fly NASA, and they'll be taken right to the page where the process starts.

That's great, Matt. And I hope your listeners are listening and they're thinking, you know, that's something I want to do. And I hope I see them down here and they can come up to me and say, hey, Rex, I heard you on Matt's show, and I decided to apply, and hopefully we're interviewing some of them. Well, I won't be in the class, but I would love to visit sometime and meet some of those people that you bring down to Houston to lead our continuing discovery of what's out there in the unknown. Thanks so much, Rex. My pleasure, Matt. Thank you.

Colonel Rex Walheim, the retired Colonel Rex Walheim, was in the Air Force for many years, but in 1996 was selected, as you heard. He's made three trips, and now he's part of this effort to bring in the next group that may get the opportunity to do the kind of thing that he has gotten to do up there in low Earth orbit. And let's hope not long from now, well beyond that. We'll move on to Bruce Betts for this week's this is What's Up? And we are coming to you from the Crawford Family Forum, where not this week, but next week, people will be able to hear the new Planetary Radio Live. Who says there's no time travel?

He's Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society, and he's going to tell us what's up in the night sky this week, and we'll have some other fun, I think, like we just did recording the show. We did. It was big fun. Everyone come back, listen for it in the next couple weeks. It's going to be cool. So, what's up? All right, we've got bright planets in the evening sky.

Love the bright planets in the evening sky. Got Venus over in the west, super bright after sunset. Turn your head around to the other part of the sky. The other super bright star-like object is Jupiter over towards the east. And in the middle of the night, we've got both Mars and Saturn coming up. Mars looking reddish, Saturn looking yellowish, both high up in the pre-dawn. We also, you can check out the moon near Venus making for a lovely picture on December 27th. Nice and bright.

Very bright. Very, very bright. All right, let's move on to this week in space history. It was this week in 1968 when Apollo 8 took the first astronauts around the moon, they went into lunar orbit this week, 1968. Great story. Wasn't supposed to happen that way, right? But the lunar module was not ready to do a low Earth orbit thing. Yes, although there are rumors that one of the astronauts kicked it.

That is so not true. I'm just kidding. Yeah, how else do they explain that dent? It could have been a wrench. We now move on to our next segment. We've got a few people to help us introduce it. Ready? One, two, three.

Run, Spacebat! Which is like nothing. That's a tiny, tiny portion of the people that we had here about a half hour ago who were actually watching us record Planetary Radio Live. But, yeah, it's our story, and we're sticking to it. We had a much bigger crowd. These are the diehards, friends and family. Thank you all very much.

The Mars Science Laboratory will generate 2.5 kilowatt hours per day. That's compared to the Mars Exploration Rovers that were solar powered instead of nuclear-ish powered. And they generated about 0.6 kilowatt hours per day, 0.6 versus 2.5. What a nice week early segue into a lot of what we'll be talking about next week with folks from Mars Exploration Rovers and Mars Science Laboratory. Yes, it never dawned on me there was that connection. All right, we move on to the trivia contest. And I asked you, how many SARS are there in a SOROS? This was after explaining that a SOROS, one won Saros after an eclipse. The Earth, Sun, and Moon returned to approximately the same relative geometry. How'd we do?

The unit is Sar. You know what? The surprising thing to me is that we got any responses to this. We got a lot of responses to this. I'm going to tell you our winner first of all. He's a past winner. It's Ed Lupin. Ed Lupin of San Diego, California, who said this. Just like raisins, there are two SARS in every package of Kellogg's Raisin Saros. Why, yes. Yes, there are. You want to explain this to us again?

Sure. So one Saros after an eclipse is when you once again get those bodies back in relatively pretty much the same alignment. You get another eclipse. So if you have a solar eclipse, one Saros later, which is a little over 11 years, you get a similar geometry. One Sar, after a total lunar eclipse, which is about five and a half years, you will get a total solar eclipse. So you get kind of the similar but reverse geometry. Hence the reason someone actually decided to create a unit of SAR being half a Saros. Not to be confused with one ring to rule them all, which is what Sauron is looking for.

I know. I get those confused. And there's all kinds of other crazy stuff here, like what we got from Randy Bottom about things he learned because he was trying to figure out this question. Crazy stuff about lunar months with these weird names. Synodic, draconic, anomalistic. There's just crazy stuff going on out there. There are, and I use many of them in my Dungeons & Dragons game. Did you see the total lunar eclipse a couple weeks ago, by the way?

No, no, I didn't get up. Okay, I did wake up and see some of it, and suddenly, for no apparent reason, yelled, My precious! What do you got for next time? Back to those rovers. I can't get enough. This entertains me. The Curiosity, so the Mars Science Laboratory rover, the Curiosity wheels have a message on them in Morse codes, in the tread pattern.

So I'm not making this up. When they drive along the surface, they will leave messages in Morse code. Tell me, what, in Morse code, what does the message say? Go to planetary.org slash radio, find out how to enter. They do this on the beach near us, and it just says drink Pepsi or something like that. It's probably not drink Pepsi. I can't say that would be unfair. So you have until January 2nd, January 2nd, Monday at 2 p.m. Pacific time to get us this answer. And we're done. You know, we sent codes to Mars with MER on the DVDs. And they said, one of them on Spirit said, Bruce rules. And on Opportunity, it said, Matt, well, it's at something. He's a liar. Good night, Bruce.

Good night. Thank you, everyone. Go out there, look up at the night sky, and think about what code you would put in the regolith of Mars. Thank you, and good night. We are leaving graffiti on the Martian surface. We are so cool. We are such a species. He's Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society, and he joins us every week here for What's Up. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California,

and made possible by a grant from the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation, and by the members of the Planetary Society. Clear skies. Thank you.