Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - At Space Symposium With the Leader of the European Space Agency

Episode Date: May 3, 2016

The annual Space Symposium in Colorado is a must-attend event for space leaders from around the world. Our coverage begins with United Arab Emirates Space Agency Director General Mohammed Nasser Al Ahbabi, and then moves to ESA Director General Jan Woerner and Chief Scientist Bernard Foing.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The leader of the European Space Agency and much more, 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 with the first of several great conversations I recorded at the annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We'll meet the Director General of ESA, Jan Werner, and that agency's Chief Scientist, Bernard Foying, will return to Planetary Radio. Bill Nye has just returned from Houston to share his excitement

about an accomplishment by SpaceX and the announcement by that company that it is planning a Mars mission. Later we'll find out with Bruce Betts what a psychopomp is and why it became part of the weekly space trivia contest. You're wondering why the piano sonata number 14 has faded up under my voice, as well you might. Not that anyone ever needs an excuse to play Beethoven, but it just happens that this sublime music provides the soundtrack for something special

we want to talk to senior editor Emily Lakdawalla about. You'll find her April 28th blog post at planetary.org. This is one of those opportunities that we have to sort of integrate art with science. That has to do with these animations you've just posted. Tell us about them. Yeah, these are produced by a Serbian visual artist who based them on real data, on Clementine image data showing the coloration of the surface of the moon, and on Japanese Kaguya data showing the topography of the surface of the moon. And he rendered this beautiful slow animation of the phases of the lunar nearside. You need both the color and the

topography because the moon's topography is fairly significant. And so you can see the shapes of all the craters evolving on the Terminator as it slowly sweeps across the moon all the way across for the entire sequence of lunar phases. It's really quite lovely. And anybody who doesn't have the full eight minutes for the hauntingly beautiful long version of this. There's a quick one that is also set to music. There's a quick one that is also set to music, but it doesn't show the same side of the moon. So I saw this animation and I knew that it was based on a global data set,

that it wasn't just confined to the near side of the moon. And so I asked him, could you do the same thing for the far side? And he agreed and said, absolutely, he could. And so he produced an animation. This one isn't tweened. It doesn't have additional frames manufactured in between the ones that he rendered. So it runs a lot faster. But still, it's very cool to see what the phases of the moon would look like if we gazed upon its far side instead of the near side. This also gave you the opportunity to talk a little bit about the features of the far side.

The features on the far side are a lot less noticeable than the features on the near side, because for reasons that scientists still debate about, there aren't that many maria on the far side of the moon. The maria, the dark spots that give us the man in the moon, or the rabbit in the moon, or whatever different cultures see. On the far side, there's really not a lot on the waxing surface of the moon, except you begin to see this dark stain for the South Pole Aitken Basin as it gets toward full. Only in the waning moon do you begin to see a couple of dark maria that look like holes drilled into the lunar surface. It's a very

different world from the one that we usually see from the surface of Earth. Thank you for sharing it with us, Emily. My pleasure, Matt. And we will talk to you again next week. She is the senior editor for the Planetary Society, our planetary evangelist, a contributing editor as well to Sky and Telescope magazine. Bill Nye, the science guy, is the CEO of the Planetary Society. Bill, I hear you picked up something for the mantle from Rotary, the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement.

Yes, I got the Space Communicator Award. It was very cool. Charles Elachi got the big award, and Charlie Bolden, head of NASA, was there. Many astronauts. It was in Houston, and they've been doing this for, I guess,

since 1987. Charles Elachi, of course, the Alcoyne director of JPL. Of the Jet Propulsion Lab. Yeah, he's a great guy, and he was really choked up. It was really a cool moment. Really cool. Can we turn to SpaceX? Speaking of cool moments, yeah, first of all, they landed on a mobile platform, which looks a lot like a barge.

Don't call it a barge. No, I shan't. Out there at sea, and it's very cool. So they carry a little extra rocket fuel that allows this thing to land on its tail. The first stage is reusable, or that's the goal. It's really a cool idea, spectacular accomplishment. Matt, on top of that, SpaceX announced they're going to go to Mars with one of their dragon capsules, the Red Dragon. They're not going to have any people in it, but they say they're going to land there in the year 2018. It's extremely exciting. I mean, a commercial company on its own now is prepared to send what is at least a human-capable capsule to Mars? I mean, this is

mind-blowing. It's fantastic. Now, so notice that this is how you would want governments to operate in the model of Columbus and Magellan and probably Ptolemy. The government goes out there first, Lewis and Clark, and maps the place. And then other people, other organizations come along later. SpaceX says they're going to adhere to the traditions and requirements of planetary protection. They're going to do all they have to do to keep from contaminating the Martian environment. These are complicated things that add cost. And I won't be shocked if it doesn't go in 2018, if it slips an orbital opportunity and has to go in 2020. But even so, it's so exploration forward. It's so exciting.

It's really a cool time. Cool times indeed. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Matt. That's the CEO of the Planetary Society, Bill Nye, the science guy. We go now to Space Symposium, where he was active, had a panel with some great people. And we will talk with two leaders of the European Space Agency. The conferences I attend are usually focused on space science.

Space Symposium is different. Each spring, it takes over the sprawling, gorgeous Broadmoor Resort, nestled against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The neckties and other business attire you don't see at science conferences are nearly required at this gathering. You also see lots of military uniforms, and they are not just worn by members of the U.S. military. After all, the Space Foundation, which puts on the symposium, says it is the premier global, commercial, civil, military, and emergent space conference. They are almost certainly correct. The heads of most of the world's space agencies attend.

All the major and nearly all the lesser aerospace companies are there, you are likely to rub shoulders with generals, members of Congress, NASA officials, and thousands of corporate executives doing what corporate executives do. So why was I there? Partly to accompany the boss, but mostly because of the outstanding opportunity presented by the symposium to talk with people I wanted to get on planetary radio. And then there were individuals I didn't dream of getting to interview, like Mohamed Nasser Al-Ababi. He is Director General of the United Arab Emirates Space Agency, a relatively new organization that recently announced plans for a Mars mission.

Dr. Al-Ababi had a surprise for me. Well, it's a pleasure, you know, as I mentioned to you, I listen to, you know, Planetary Society every week, especially when I exercise, and especially, you know, the science guy. Well, we are honored to hear that. Now, probably it's worth to mention that UAE now stepped in in space science through its Mars mission. It has science-unique objectives that was well-coordinated with the International Exploration Scientists. When we decided to go to Mars, we went to that group of scientists and we asked, how can we help? to that group of scientists and we ask how can we help? What are the major questions that you need to solve

that we can put in instruments in our Mars mission? And the goal of that mission is actually is just to contribute to the mankind and to improve our and expand our knowledge about our solar system. And the outcome of that mission will be shared with the International Space Society to better understand what happened to Mars. By the way, our mission is an orbiter that will be launched in 2020. It's the first Arab and Islamic mission.

It's called The Hope. There's a story behind The hope. The goal is to inspire and attract young people to STEM education because we do believe that space is one of the bridge for better future. It's also important for our region and our young people, not only in UAE but in the Middle East, to see that through science and technology, the region can be well positioned and contribute to share its responsibility towards mankind challenges. We are proud of

that and we are committed to deliver that project and also it will inspire another emerging space nation to step in to share the journey to space with other nations. Mohamed Nasser Al-Ababi, Director General of the United Arab Emirates Space Agency. It wasn't long before I talked with another Director General. Jan Werner is to the European Space Agency what Charles Bolden is to NASA. He runs the place. When I caught him, he had just finished moderating a unique town hall discussion about his and ESA's proposal for a so-called Moon Village. Also

at the wide-open event was ESA's chief scientist, Bernard Foying. When Bernard last joined us, it was to talk about ESA's brilliantly successful SMART-1 lunar mission that tested many space technologies, including ion propulsion. The three of us talked as other enthusiastic conversations continued around us in the town hall meeting room. You'll hear Jan Werner first. Thank you, first of all, for joining us on Planetary Radio. Thank you, because we would like to communicate about our idea to have a permanent settlement on the moon.

I absolutely want to speak of that because it is an exciting and inspiring concept. You were on stage with all of those other, your colleagues, other heads of agencies. There was a great deal of talk about the need for greater collaboration. And you made a very good point about ESA. ESA is international. So ESA is already 22 member states from Europe plus Canada as a corporate state. So whenever there is a discussion about international collaboration, we can always say we are doing it day by day. Bernard, the state of space science in ESA, in the European community, seems to be a lot of exciting things going on. Yes, we have made a lot

of progress in science of the universe, science of the solar system, science of the Earth, but also the science that you can conduct on board the International Space Station that prepares future endeavors of human and robotic exploration. So we have a series of missions where Europe has made some firsts, but also has worked with strong international partners, the U.S. and other countries, to address some of the important questions. So how the universe was made, how galaxies, solar systems formed, are there other worlds?

And also in our solar system, is there another place where you can find life? But also with human spaceflight, these are also places where you could bring life. I wish we had time to review all of the missions you mentioned in that session with Bill Nye and Amy Meinzer, but just a couple of highlights. Rosetta, you have made history with this mission. Clearly we have made history because it was the first rendezvous of a comet and the first time where we deployed a lander on the nucleus of a comet.

And so it was really a technological challenge. We had also a lander built by a space agency that was deployed by ESA with a very complicated operation. And we were able to make some measurements that address some

of the important questions. So our comet can tell us about the origin of the solar system, what are the ingredients that are in a comet in terms of water, organics, that could be ingredients for life. ExoMars, it's well on the way to do some very interesting things including the second attempt by Europe to put a lander on the surface. The first attempt was successful. We only had never a communication with the lander afterwards. But it landed.

That was Beagle 2, of course. That was Beagle 2. Now we are going again to Mars with ExoMars looking for life or something like life on Mars. So the first mission, which is now on its way, will have also a landing demonstrator, a test case for the lander, but it has especially also some instruments on board to measure the trace gases, to look into the atmosphere of Mars in detail, whether there is something like what we know coming from life. So this is step number one.

Step number two will be the second ExoMars mission where we will have a rover on board which will land and which has the possibility to drill holes into the surface of Mars two meters deep to look whether we find something like life over there because the situation of Mars was in the past quite similar to that on Earth. So there is some chance that we will find something. We build on the legacy of what we have done on previous missions, like Mars Express, where we had a suite of instruments, aerosol cameras, spectrometers, where we have been able to, for instance, reconstruct the water history of Mars.

We have been also able to detect, for the first time, subsurface ice. We have been also to look at the condition for the disappearance of the atmosphere. So we have, in the scientific community and the instrument building community, we have made a number of discoveries that prepare us for the next step, which is to look at how Mars was habitable and to look at some of the biomarkers, either in the gas or also under the surface. Just one other mission before we move on. And sadly, it is one that really very few people in my country, America, know about,

and that's Herschel. You made some very interesting comments about it in that panel. Well, Herschel, first, from a technology point of view, it's the largest telescope in space. Bigger than Hubble. Bigger than Hubble. And it was built by a European industry. And it also studied the cold universe.

And you can peer through the dense clouds, for instance, for star-forming regions. We have seen also the inventory of the gas in the interstellar medium with a lot of compounds. Some of them are relevant for ingredients for life. But we have also studied other galaxies. We have studied also the distant universe. It's a project that has generated a lot of new discoveries, which have been also shared with the international community. Chief Scientist for the European Space Agency, Bernard Foyne. Bernard and ESA Director General Jan Werner

will have more to share after our break. This is Planetary Radio. This is Robert Picardo. I've been a member of the Planetary Society since my Star Trek Voyager days. You may have even heard me on several episodes of Planetary Radio. Now I'm proud to be the newest member of the Board of Directors. I'll be able to do even more to help the Society achieve its goals

for space exploration across our solar system and beyond. You can join me in this exciting quest. The journey starts at planetary.org. I'll see you there. The journey starts at Planetary.org. I'll see you there. Do you know what your favorite presidential candidate thinks about space exploration? Hi, I'm Casey Dreyer, the Planetary Society's Director of Space Policy.

You can learn that answer, and what all the other candidates think, at Planetary.org slash election2016. You know what? We could use your help. If you find anything we've missed, you can let us know. It's all at planetary.org slash election2016. Thank you. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, and I've got more of my conversation with European Space Agency Director General Jan Werner and ESA's Chief Scientist Bernard Foying. We talked at the 32nd Space Symposium last month in Colorado Springs. Jan, you surprised me when you said that the entire budget for space science, I hope I have this right, in ESA is the equivalent of about half a billion dollars. It seems that Europe is getting a lot for its investment.

Yes, I think we are efficient. We have per year more or less a stable amount of money for space science, which is what we call a mandatory program. So all member states have to pay for that. They cannot escape from that. And this makes the science budget a very stable budget over years. So we are sometimes slow in our development, but we can do something. And so our plans are now reaching far beyond 2035 already. And sometimes

we have some very nice firsts, but I would like to come back to Rosetta because with Rosetta we had scientifically we had big results so we know now that the water which we found on this comet is not as it's not the same as water on earth so you can produce water out of hydrogen and oxygen but you can do it also out of deuterium and oxygen and the relation between the two is quite different to that one we have on earth so there are some new open questions and another thing which comes from Rosetta because we always ask what is the return of investment on the earth on board of Rosetta is a camera which can make a difference between different shades of gray And this camera was this technology, when it was developed,

is now used on Earth to detect forest fires, because it looks above the forest and if it sees something grey coming out, it can detect whether it's smoke or vapour or what it is. So we have also this return, direct return on Earth, even from a totally scientific-oriented mission. There is also a mandatory science program, but there is also a lot of science needed in the communities that underpins the exploitation of data for Earth observations. Even there is medicine science conducted on board the space station.

Also we have this technology transfer program, which encourages entrepreneurs to make use of some technologies that were developed for space, but also for Earth's benefit. And so we have started to create a network of space business incubators where people with ideas and entrepreneurship can exploit some of the technology development we have made for really down-to-earth benefit. I think our audience is very aware of the key role that ESA and the individual European partners have played in the International Space Station. The aspect of human spaceflight I want to address is, at this moment, the inspirational

side. There was a mention earlier today from your UK colleague about how Tim Peake, the British astronaut, has electrified... Not a British astronaut. He is not a British astronaut. He is a European astronaut of British accent or British nationality. That's very important for us as an understanding. It's right.

Tim Peake is doing a great job, as the other astronauts as well. Tim Peake made a very big wave of inspiration in the UK, but also in other member states of ESA. And this is what I'm always trying to support, that the astronauts are really European astronauts and they can inspire people in all the different member states of ESA very well. And what we need really these days is inspiration for the future. We have to give the youth the feeling that it makes sense to dream, that dreams can be realized. And I mean, I'm

always for return of investment in products and processes. I'm happy with that. But at the same time, we should look to more these societal effects. If we can inspire young people and fascinate young people, then they are motivated to create the future. We can just prepare it. They have to do it then. Let's now then get into what may be the most inspirational thing, and it was the topic of this town hall that you hosted in the last few minutes here at Space Symposium. This concept of a moon village, a lunar village, which you said it's not a project yet, but it is something that has received great attention around the world, including here in the U.S. Yeah, in fact, I was surprised that the attention was so huge. I got always different requests.

The first thing was I got some emails asking whether one can be the mayor of that village and I had to explain that what I mean with village is a different thing. It's not some houses, a church and a city hall but the idea of a village is an analogy to an earth village where an earth village is where people are coming together with different interests, different capabilities and then they form a community. And this I copied to the Moon and said, okay, let's have different interest organizations, either private or public, to put their interests together on one place over there, to combine their capabilities, and then to have really something what is called a village, a moon village then.

And we heard in this session a lot of reasons why we should do this and also what might happen if we go there. Did it achieve what you were hoping for? Yes, it was an experiment. I called it a jam session, which is known from jazz, so that it's not a presentation from my side but that the people should give their input to it to make it even better and I got a lot of different inputs ranging from how to finance such an activity to legal aspects how to what about the rights to use and material on the moon to some very practical technological aspects and also scientific ideas so it was

really a broad things i could listen and now we will take care that all of these are considered in the village we will have all type of professions to support it so you will need okay house builders you will need a scientist that will study this place, the moon, which tells us about our own Earth, a place where we can place telescopes to observe the universe, also a place where you can learn how to live off the land in another planet. But we need also other professions, humanities, all types of communities that make a village. Do you know the phrase? It's connected in this country with a certain presidential candidate.

It takes a village to educate a child. Perhaps it takes a lunar village or a moon village. Yeah, it might be. So we are ready. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. Got Bruce Betts on the line.

He is the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society, who joins us every week for What's Up. We start with the Mercury transit occurring on May 9th. Mercury transits in front of the sun over a period of several hours, appearing as a small dot moving across the sun. Best way to observe it is a telescope with proper solar filters so you don't fry your eyes out. Or you can watch, I'm sure a lot of solar telescope sites will have it online. And then just on the horizon and already looking awfully cool is Mars. Mars is at opposition, the horizon and already looking awfully cool is Mars. Mars is at opposition, so opposite side of the Earth from the Sun on May 22nd, and it's growing in brightness. It is right now as bright

as the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, but looking quite reddish instead of bluish like Sirius. You will find it rising in the east around 10 p.m. and then up after that looking like a bright reddish orangish star brighter than the nearby star that's also red called Antares and also in that same neck of the woods is yellowish Saturn which is significantly dimmer at this point. On to this week in space history it was 55 years ago 1961 Alan Shepard became the first American in space. That's a great landmark there, and that's getting some attention this week in the news. Richly deserved. We move on, but something special, right?

Yeah, you remember the Possum Kingdom Ramblers? How could I forget something called the Possum Kingdom, much less Ramblers? I think it shook up my dogs. They heard the word possum, and they started going nuts. I think it shook up my dogs. They heard the word possum and they started going nuts. Yes. Well, I forgot that they had other little random space fact intros for us.

Here's one of them now. Some fun. That is very fun. Thank you very much for that. The U.S. Revolutionary War. It seems like just yesterday. Well, if you're on Pluto, it seems like less than a year ago, because one Pluto year ago, which would be 1768, the U.S. didn't exist, and the American colonies belonged to the U.K. So one Plutonian year later, we're good friends with England again.

One Plutonian year later, we're good friends with England again. We are. In fact, it probably only took more like a Saturnian or maybe Uranian year to get there. Oh, yeah. I like this. Well, I'll get you more in the future. It'll be good. Thank you. All right.

On to our trivia contest. And I asked you about the trans-Neptunian object Orcus. What is the name of Orcus's moon? How do we do? Really good response to this, as usual nowadays. We got a first-time winner, if you got it right. Chosen by random.org was Hudson Ansley, long-time listener but first-time winner, out of Bloomfield, New Jersey. He says, Vanth. It actually goes on from there. Officially 90482 Orcus 1 Vanth. Goes by Van with his friends.

Named after, he adds, the winged Etruscan psychopomp who guides the souls of the dead to the underworld. Thank you, Hudson. Psychopomp, who guides the souls of the dead to the underworld. Thank you, Hudson. Psychopomp. When you stop being the director of science and technology, that should be your new title. Psychopomp! It's the name of my new band. I know that.

Wow. Okay. This really explains that there is good reason why I've always been terrified by the names Orcus and Vanth. Now we know I'm God of the Underworld and Etruscan and more terrifyingly, the Psycho Pump. Bruce Cordell in Covington, Washington, he also got it right with Vanth. He says, by the by, Orcus was also the internal code name we used while designing the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons when I worked at Wizards of the Coast. You're a D&D guy, right? I am.

That is quite awesome. And I've communicated with Bruce Cordell. He's now created a whole new role-playing game called The Strange. And I'm sure we could put an orcus into that, too. Maybe even a vanth. Or a psychopomp. Hudson, thank you very much for the entry and congratulations.

You are the winner of this week's Planetary Radio t-shirt, a 200-point itelescope.net astronomy account, and a Planetary Society rubber asteroid. Rubber asteroid. Are we ready to move on? We are. After May 9th, 2016, what is the date of the next Mercury transit of the sun as seen from Earth?

Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. Get us your entry. We'll award some more of those beautiful Tyler Nordgren posters. National Park posters, Night Sky posters, Department of the Exterior posters. I think we have some of those. I'm not sure. The ones he did as if they were posters for national parks on other worlds, which are really clever. We love those at the Society.

Is the Department of the Exterior a cabinet-level position? It is then. Oh, okay. TylerNordgren.com is where you can see some of these. We'll have those and an itelescope.net account. And what the heck, we'll throw in an asteroid. How's that? A rubber asteroid.

You are a generous man. I am to a fault. You have until Tuesday the 10th this time. That would be Tuesday, May 10th at 8 a.m. Pacific time to get us the answer. All right, everybody, go out there, look up in the night sky, and think about Frisbees. Thank you, and good night. Would you believe I have a Frisbee with Bill Nye's face on it right behind me at the moment?

I was just giving it to my wife to take to her school. Whoa, this is so trippy, our connection separated by these miles, but still connected in Bill Nye Frisbee land. In a kind of weird Frisbee quantum way. And I suppose we should say Frisbee is a trademark of the, is it still the Wham-O Corporation? We're really talking about flying discs. Exactly. And we're done. He's Bruce Betts, the Director of Science and Technology,

and soon to be the psychopomp for the Planetary Society, conducting souls to the underworld. He does it every week here on What's Up. More from Space Symposium next week, when we'll talk with Mark Serangelo of the Sierra Nevada Corporation

about that company's Dream Chaser spacecraft. By the way, I'll be at the Humans to Mars Summit, May 17 to 19, in Washington, D.C., with a lot of amazing men and women. You can learn more at h2mexploremars.org or just search for 2016 Humans to Mars. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California and is made possible by its mythic members. Josh Goyle created our theme music. I'm Matt Kaplan.

Clear skies.