Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Celebrating our Anniversary With Arthur C. Clarke

Episode Date: November 30, 2009

Planetary Radio is seven years old. We'll celebrate by looking back to our beginnings, with science fiction writer and futurist Sir Arthur C. ClarkeLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's our 7th anniversary, this week on Planetary Radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, and it has been my enormous pleasure to greet you with those words for seven years. A special show today as we look back toward our beginnings, and just incidentally, end the Thanksgiving holiday period in the U.S., science fiction writer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke was first heard on our show back in March of 2003, when Planetary Radio was just a few weeks old. We'll reprise that interview today.

We'll also take you back to one of Emily Lakdawalla's very first Q&A segments. We can't really dip into the archives for What's Up with Bruce Betts, so that will be brand new, as will Bill Nye's commentary that is just a few seconds away. The votes are in. We're grateful to all of you who let us know what you'd like to hear from Emily in future PlanRad episodes. Almost all of you told us you love Q&A, but you'd be even more pleased to hear the Planetary Society Science and Technology Coordinator talk with me about the biggest space news story of the week. So that's what we're

going to do beginning with our next episode. Congratulations to the crew of Atlantis back on Earth after a successful trip to the International Space Station. Here's Bill. Hey, hey, Bill Nye the Planetary Guy here, Vice President of the Planetary Society. There's a lot going on in space, as usual. The space shuttle Atlantis went up and back

to the International Space Station without incident. But the space shuttle program is winding down. So the United States is going to have to find a new way to get up and back. Or the commercial sector, which is Buzz Aldrin's idea. The commercial sector will step up and provide transportation. Hire the private sector. Hire a private industry to provide this sort of space transportation. Hire the private sector, hire a private industry to provide this sort of space transportation. And meanwhile, let the other countries like the Indian Space Research Organization and the Chinese Space Agency develop means to get up and back. And I say, let's go up with U.S. astronauts, Russian cosmonauts, and shake hands with Chinese taikonauts on the

International Space Station. So we're not competing for these resources, we're sharing them so we can explore new places in space. So whither human spaceflight? Well, I hope it's to Mars. Meanwhile, the new things that are going on in space are with the Planetary Society. We're building a new solar sail, a spacecraft so low mass that the momentum of photons, the momentum of light from the sun will push it around. If we can get this technology figured out, we'll be able to have station-keeping satellites to keep an eye on the weather on the sun. It's new and cool. It's exciting. So stay tuned to Planetary Radio as we provide podcasts

to keep everybody updated on the progress of our solar sail, which we hope to launch in the next year or so. It's an exciting time in space. I've got to fly. Bill Nye the Planetary Guy. We've had hundreds of wonderful guests on Planetary Radio, but it's difficult to think of anyone I've been more excited to talk with than Sir Arthur Clarke. I began reading his classic science fiction tales when I was a young teen. That's also when I first saw 2001, A Space Odyssey,

which Clarke and my favorite filmmaker Stanley Kubrick created. It was much later that I discovered Arthur was the first to conceive of the synchronous communication satellite and that he speculated on the cultural changes it would generate. A longtime supporter of the Planetary Society, Sir Arthur was happy to receive a phone call at his home in Sri Lanka. I hope you enjoy our March 2003 conversation. Sir Arthur, thanks very much for joining us on Planetary Radio. Nice to talk to you. A couple of your fellow advisory council members for the Planetary Society,

Kim Stanley Robinson and David Brin, have been nominated for a certain British science fiction award. We thought, well, let's bring them on the radio show, and then we thought, well, why not get the award's namesake? So here you are. I wonder, why did you decide to help this award get underway back in 1986? I haven't the faintest idea. Anything beyond last week.

It's the late Jurassic to me. And I'm involved in quite a number of awards, too, in science facts, science fiction, and elsewhere, but I'm pretty happy to have this one going. In fact, as I was doing research on the web, I found another Arthur C. Clarke award, apparently, that was just handed out for this year, something to do with engineering, so I guess you do have a few out there. are you familiar with the other nominees this year i don't really know what your what's your continuing involvement is with that competition

well uh... they just tell me what's happening in the you know i had i'm sorry to say that i you know reading now i have read a novel i think for a year or so and i still see any of the science fiction magazines all i do see is locusts which keeps me up to date on what is happening in the science fiction field. And, of course, I do read the magazines like Discover, which is sitting on my desk at the moment, and Sky and Telescope, and New Scientist. So I'm fairly well in touch with the real science.

We should say, though, that the fact that you're not reading other people's novels doesn't mean that you've stopped writing them. After we take a break in a few minutes, we hope you'll talk to us about your current project that's underway, a very intriguing title, The Last Theorem. You do occupy an extremely distinguished spot in the world of science fiction, well, in the world, really. And I wonder, when you hear from writers who came to the world of science fiction long after you did,

people like David Brennan, Kim Stanley Robinson, I mean, do they treat you like sort of a, what, a living god, or a mentor, or just one of the guys? Well, I hope they don't. I hope they treat me like an ordinary human being. But I'm sorry to say I haven't had any contact with anyone for a long time. I don't travel anymore. Occasionally, you know, friends come through Sri Lanka. But, you know, talking about the distinguished science fiction writers, I've got a long email about Stanislas Lem.

Now, if Lem wrote in English, none of us would have had a chance. I'm not familiar with his work. Has it been translated? Oh, yes. A bunch of it has been translated. It's been filmed. Solaris. Oh, of course.

Yes. Although I do hear that the original Russian film was far superior to the recent American one. That's what I gather. I've seen Tarkovsky's film, the Russian one, but I haven't seen the American one. I hardly see any films nowadays. I get a few DVDs. I'm happy to say I've got the DVDs of Lord of the Rings, the first two out. I knew Tolkien quite well, well, fairly well.

And I'm very pleased to see this extraordinary revival of interest in his work. Tremendous success. Let me tell you one of my clearest memories of Tolkien. I was sitting next to him at lunch once, and he pointed to his editor at the end of the table, a very small man, and said, that's where I got the idea for The Hobbits. That's a great story. Well, that would make a whole other wonderful interview to do with you sometime. I wonder about the other greats in science fiction, the people who were your contemporaries and colleagues,

the Asimov and Heinlein and Bradbury, who of course is still with us. You do certainly have your place in that pantheon of the greats of science fiction of the 20th century and the 21st. Do you ever ponder that? I mean, these were your friends, weren't they? Oh, yes. You know, one nice thing about the science fiction world, I don't recall any really bad enmities. We all seem possibly because we were a beleaguered minority and had to stand together. has changed over the years, but certainly the character of science fiction has changed a great deal. Well, even the cyberpunk sort of novels

are almost passé now, but a lot has happened since the period that a lot of people still refer to as the Golden Age, when you and the others I mentioned were very active. Yes, and none of us are around now, but the extraordinary exception is Jack Williamson, who's just celebrating not his 75th birthday, but the 75th anniversary of his first published book. Oh, my. That's incredible.

You said you are reading Locus, so you are keeping somewhat abreast of what's happening in the science fiction world. keeping somewhat abreast of what's happening in the science fiction world. Does it seem that it is as lively or as important as it was 30, 40 years ago? Well, it's changed, of course, because so much has happened that we discussed. Much of science fiction I grew up with is no ancient history in the real world. Well, the best of it, of course, still holds up very, very well, I can assure you. And, of course, a lot of your stories have places very, very firmly ensconced in that group. I hate to ask such a cliché question, but before we leave this area of the science fiction of the past and move on to what you're currently up to.

One of those questions that I'm sure you've been asked something like 6.02 times 10 to the 23rd times. What among your works are your favorites? Well, I change from time to time, but the Songs of Distant Earth, I think, is the one I'm fondest of, although my best is probably Childhood's End, is what everybody tells me.

And The City and the Stars, too, is that sort of trio. I wouldn't say I'm fond of one more than the other. My attitude changes from time to time. I suppose that the way most people who would not call themselves science fiction readers, the way that they know you the best, of course, is 2001, followed, at least on the screen, by 2010. And, of course, for those of us who've read them, a couple of other books.

Are they also sort of up there in your estimation, or do you put them below the childhood? Oh, no, I'm very happy. I've just had an email from Stanley's brother-in-law, and they're planning to get... Let me just check on the screen. Oh, it's switched off. Stanley Kubrick, of course.

Yeah, they're digging up some old black-and-white footage that was made when we were making the film, and the BBC's going to do something on this. You know, I still have a popular science magazine from, must have been about 1967, with wonderful photographs of the sets that Stanley Kubrick built. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, yes, there's a lot of tremendous amount of coverage and there's a book about it called Filming the Future. Look, I'd have to hang up now for a few minutes. Could you call me back in about 10 minutes? Yes, I'd be happy to. We're going to take a break, and then we'll return in just a minute or so with Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

I did call back after Sir Arthur C. Clarke had a chance to catch his breath. You'll hear the rest of our conversation when Planetary Radio continues. I'm Sally Ride. After becoming the first American woman in space, I dedicated myself to supporting space exploration and the education and inspiration of our youth. That's why I formed Sally Ride Science, and that's why I support the Planetary Society. The Society works with space agencies around the world and gets people directly involved with real space missions. It takes a lot to create exciting projects like the first solar sail, informative publications

like an award-winning magazine, and many other outreach efforts like this radio show. Help make space exploration and inspiration happen. Here's how you can join 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. 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. We're celebrating our seventh anniversary by replaying my March 2003 conversation with the late science fiction author and visionary, Arthur C. Clarke. Sir Arthur was at his beloved home in Sri Lanka. His health was not the best, but his enthusiasm for the universe and life were undiminished. So, Arthur, I was hoping that, as I said at the beginning, if we could talk for a couple of minutes. I know you're very busy. We only have a few more that we can speak.

But if we could hear a little bit about what you're up to now. You did send email making some very intriguing comments about the new novel you're working on. Well, I'm always glad to get a commercial. The novel is called The Last Theorem, and it's about, really, Fermat's theorem, which baffled mathematicians for 300 years. It's one of the simplest things you can imagine. Of course, everybody knows the relationship that two squares can be added together to

give us a third square. The best example is, you know, three squared plus four squared equals five squared, okay? But the problem is, does this happen for any higher powers? Can you have two cubes adding up to a third cube? And there seems to be an obvious reason why this shouldn't happen, since there's an infinite number of squares that do this. Well, Fermat himself, about 300 years ago, said he found a wonderful proof that no such relationships could exist. But it was too big to go in the margin of this book.

And for 300 years, mathematicians have been trying to find this proof. And in the last decade, a young Englishman, Andrew Wiles, did discover a proof. His proof is about 150 pages long. Obviously, it couldn't have been the proof that Fermat said he'd got. Anyway, it's a great mystery. And my novel, which takes place in, which opens in Ceylon, it's Sri Lanka, which is unusual for my novels. As you said, in space, it begins here in Sri Lanka, but ends up on Mars. And there's a very young Tamil mathematician who finds

a simple proof from that last theorem. And I've written about a quarter of it now, and that's my main project, the last theorem. You know, I do remember one other novel of yours in which Sri Lanka played a very important part, and it's a concept that you've been very excited about for many years, the space elevator. Yes, that is now taken more and more seriously, particularly since we have the material C60, carbon 60, which would make it possible. And here's an amazing coincidence, which I've mentioned many times already. When I recorded the Founders of Paradise on an old 12-inch record,

you remember then? Sure. Well, the one thing about those records, there was a lot of room on the back for sleeve notes, and the sleeve notes with a picture of the elevator were done by Buckminster Fuller himself. Oh, no kidding. And he never lived to see the discovery of the material named after him

that would make it possible. Isn't that an extraordinary thing? That absolutely is. Of course, the material will be a C would make it possible. Isn't that an extraordinary thing? That absolutely is. Of course, the material will be a C60, also known as fullerenes. Exactly, exactly. That is a nice lead into what maybe can be the last topic that we'll pick up in this short conversation. The last time we spoke, which was during the Planetary Society's Planet Fest in 1999, I closed by asking you, since you have some success as a futurist and visionary, I wondered

where you would point to, what you would have us watch for something that might be truly revolutionary. And at that time, you said, keep an eye on what's happening with vacuum energy, that odd quantum effect. I wonder, do you have any other thoughts you might want to add to that? I still take that quite seriously and think we should keep an eye on it. We know, we're pretty sure energy is there. Whether it can be tapped is another question.

Whether it should be tapped is yet another. I'm always fond of quoting, I think it's Larry Niven, I'm not quite sure who said that supernovae are industrial accidents. Well, I hope it's not an inevitable result of civilization. I trust not.

We should let you go. I know that you have many things going on. Would you like to hazard a guess as to when, if all goes well, this new novel, The Last Theorem, might be available to your readers? Oh, dear. Well, certainly in the coming, you know, I hope, in fact,

by about a year from now, if all goes well. I hope to finish it this year, but, of course, the publishing schedules, you know, will determine it. Incidentally, the thing I'm also most involved with now, and I see the new Discover magazine, which I'm not open yet, has got a headline on the subject

Martian life. I'm now fairly convinced as a result of the extraordinary images coming from the Mars orbital camera that Mars doesn't harbor life, it's infested. I certainly hope you're right. Well, I'm not sure.

We may be in trouble when we land. Well, that's, I suppose, in one way, the kind of trouble you'd want. We were, in fact, talking about that on this show just a couple of weeks ago, and, in fact, talking about SETI in just the previous program. It's an interesting time to be alive and watching the world of science, isn't it?

Well, one of my chapter headings in New York is that old Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times. Which I think is a good corollary to any sufficiently advanced technology as indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to join us here on Planetary Radio. We wish you continued great success, particularly with that new novel that we'll be looking forward to.

Thank you very much. Good luck. The late Arthur C. Clarke, a guest on our infant radio show back in 2003. Sir Arthur passed away almost exactly five years later in March of 2008. We'll continue our celebration of Planetary Radio's seventh anniversary with one of Emily Lakdawalla's very first Q&A segments. This January 2003 effort was a two-parter. I'll be right back with Bruce Betts and a new What's Up. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener from Laguna Beach, California

asked, could the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs have sent earthly debris, soil microbes, and dinosaur guts out into the solar system? We asked Dr. Jay Milosz, a planetary geophysicist at the University of Arizona, to answer this excellent question. He explained that the impact, known as the KT impact, blasted debris over the entire Earth. Most of this debris was melt droplets and individual little mineral crystals, but a few rock fragments and even pieces of the asteroid have been found tens of thousands of kilometers from ground zero. Therefore, it's quite plausible that some material

was also blasted entirely free of Earth. The discovery of Martian and moon meteorites in Antarctica makes it clear that impacts can eject material from planets. But could there really be dinosaur guts in space from the KT impact? Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A about whether microbes were sent to space in the KT impact. When asteroids collide with the Earth at speeds of several kilometers per second, the shock of the impact can create tremendous heat and pressures. But in a process called spallation, solid rock can be ejected at very high speed but with little heating or shock damage.

Spallation happens when the shock wave created by the collision reflects from the ground surface near the impact site. Therefore, material located right at the ground surface can be ejected from the earth while staying intact. Based on research that Dr. Malosh performed, it seems very probable that microbes could survive this experience. As for dinosaur guts, they might indeed have graced the moons of the solar system if the KT impact had occurred on land. However, the actual strike appears to have been in a shallow sea, which means that the KT impact probably blasted out mostly seawater and whatever was living in the upper ocean.

So instead of vacuum-dried dinosaur parts, future astronauts should probably be looking for broken ammonite shells in space. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org, and you may hear it answered by a leading space scientist or expert. And now, here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. scientist or expert. And now, here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Here'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. And I think we have another huggable Mars, hug-a-Mars to give away. And we're going to give one away, in fact, today

to a lucky winner. Welcome back. Thank you. Hug-a-Mars, to give away. And we're going to give one away, in fact, today to a lucky winner. Welcome back. Thank you. Hug-a-Mars. They're so snuggly. They really are. I have one sitting behind me where I put the radio show together. So tell us, how's that night sky? Well, you can see the considerably less huggable Mars, the actual one in the night sky rising around 10 p.m. or so in the east and high overhead after that. It is looking reddish. It is about zero magnitude now for those playing the magnitude game, so similar to the star Vega getting basically a very bright star-like object. It'll keep getting brighter through the end of January.

It's dirty. If you hugged it, you'd have to take a shower. And you need a really large arm span. Jupiter is the brightest star-like object still dominating the early evening over there, hanging out high in the south after sunset and moving west as things will have wanted to do. And in the pre-dawn, we've got Saturn high up in the southeast, yellowish about first magnitude, getting higher and higher as the weeks continue to pass. We also have the Geminid meteor shower, traditionally the best of the year, with more than 60 meteors per hour from a dark site. And it is peaking on December 14th. But it's kind of a broad shower so anytime a few days

before or after that go out stare up at the night sky give yourself a while and enjoy hopefully you'll see some streaks of light representing dust sand or hair follicles burning up high in the atmosphere. Martian hair follicles. On to this week in space history it was a big week for uh the pioneers headed out to jupiter and such we had pioneer 10 in 1973 flew past jupiter pioneer 11 almost exactly one year to the day later in 74 flying past jupiter on to random space fact. Launched in 2006, New Horizons will not be the closest spacecraft to Pluto until December 2011. When it will be closer than Voyager 1 got, still well over 1 billion miles or a billion and a half kilometers away. Can you hear the leaf blower?

I can. I could see you starting to twitch as the leaf blower started outside, too. They're tidying up Planetary Society headquarters outside. We'll just keep trucking on through this. Yeah, well, don't blow it. On to the trivia contest. Don't blow it. On to the trivia contest. So the trivia contest, which we had taken this question from a planetary radio listener.

By the way, we should have some specific name for the planetary radio listeners. The radio head, I guess, has kind of taken. The crowd, the fans, the space heads. The most awesome radio listeners in the whole wide world. Well, that's a given. The space heads. The most awesome radio listeners in the whole wide world. Well, that's a given. Anyway, the question was, what was the last mission for which NASA assigned a backup crew?

This got tricky because it was, in some respects, one of the third shuttle mission, STS-3. But NASA, along with its international partners, continues to assign backup individuals, forming a backup crew, for the International Space Station expeditions. In fact, even off a year from now, they already have backup crews assigned. So basically, my figuring, even though NASA doesn't assign the whole crew per se,

is that we'd give it to you either way depending on whether random.org smiled upon you. Random.org picked for us someone who came up with both. Not the latest of the International Space Station Expedition crews. He came up with Expedition 12, but did mention, he actually says, on the other hand, if you intended the answer to be about STS missions, then it would be, just as you said, STS-3, which had the last named backup crew. And what an interesting and distinguished crew. Thomas K. Mattingly and Henry Hartsfield backing up Luzma and Gordon Fullerton. Pretty high-class stuff.

They didn't get to fly, which maybe is just as well, because the toilet broke on that flight. Phew. But we're going to send Steve Castleman. Steve Castleman in Memphis, Tennessee. A huggable Mars. So congratulations, Steve. If you'd like to win a hug-a-planet, a hug-a-Mars,

answer the following question. About how far away from Earth is the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrangian point? Something that's been coming up lately as we ponder the Planetary Society solar sail mission since we're looking for LightSail 3 to head out towards this gravitational balance point between the Earth and the Sun. Go to planetary.org slash radio. Find out how to enter. And you have until December 7, a date that will live in infamy, except this time, December 7, Monday at 2 p.m. Pacific time,

to get us your answer. And that's it. All right, everybody, go out there, look up in the night sky, and think about blowing leaves, floating lovely and quietly through the atmosphere. Thank you and good night. In space, no one can hear you blow leaves.

He's Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. He joins us every week here for What's Up. Thank you for seven glorious years of space and radio. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California.

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