Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Chris Carberry and Getting Humans to Mars

Episode Date: June 2, 2015

Explore Mars revealed the 2015 Humans to Mars Report at a recent conference in Washington. CEO Chris Carberry gives us a quick tour of this inspiring assessment of what it will take to get more than robots to the Red Planet.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A human voyage to Mars in our time, 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. A busy show as we welcome back Chris Carberry, CEO of Explore Mars Incorporated. First, though, we'll check in with Emily, and then get an exciting LightSail solar sail update from embedded reporter Jason Davis. You may have heard that LightSail is back in business after eight nail-biting days when it wasn't talking. We'll wrap up with Bruce Batts

and some very entertaining contest entries, really, and I've got news for our London area listeners at the end of the show. Emily Lakdawalla is the Planetary Society's senior editor. Emily, there is so much going on with planetary science missions, many of them still to come in the years ahead. Let's go through some of these, and if you would, begin with the selection of instruments for the Europa mission just last week. Yeah, I'm pretty excited to see instrument selection going forward for this mission, which will be the next great outer planets mission. There are three different imaging instruments,

my favorite, of course, being the biggest camera. It's being developed by Elizabeth Turtle at the Applied Physics Laboratory. And it's going to be absolutely amazing the photos that this thing can take of Jupiter and its moons. But I'm also excited because three out of the nine principal investigators on the Europa mission instruments are women, which is pretty close to their representation in science careers in space science. So it's pretty nice to see that. There's also possibly the youngest principal investigator on any NASA instrument ever. That's Joe Westlake, also at APL. So it was a pretty good week for APL. Absolutely. And go on to some other missions, which you collected some information about recently in your blog. This year was a sort of slow one for launches, but there's three coming up in 2016 and another early in 2017, sending a whole lot of new spacecraft out into the solar system.

We've got ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which is Europe's next Mars orbiter. There is InSight, the Mars geophysical lander. OSIRIS-REx, which will be launching to do sample return from a comet. And then in January comes BepiColombo, a triple mission to Mercury. So that's going to be really thrilling to see all these spacecraft go up pretty soon. And all the spacecraft are getting built. And that's when it really gets real to me. And I'm just excited to see that progress being made.

And you have photos. There really are some terrific photos of some of these missions under construction. Lots of very happy guys and women in bunny suits who are putting the pieces together. My favorite is the one showing the building inside T-Shield where they're packing stuff onto it. It looks like they're building a sandcastle. It's really awesome. It reminds you that all of these things are hand-built. They're hand-crafted, as advanced as the technology is. They're all one-offs, one-of-a-kind, lovingly crafted by human hands, each of them unique. We're going to be talking more at length very soon about what to look forward to from New Horizons

when it has that close encounter with Pluto on July 14th. Can you give us any kind of update on what's going on there? Yeah, we're seeing some more features in the images of Pluto. They're still only about eight pixels across. They're still pretty small, but you can see these dark and light spots. And it's just really fun to see Pluto beginning to come into focus that way. Although I think it's going to be a long time before we see anything other than, ooh, that's a face. Ooh, it looks like a dog. It's going to be a while. But it's very exciting to see that coming into view. Meanwhile, Cassini is getting toward the end of its mission,

and it's having its last flybys of all of these icy moons, including Hyperion this weekend. And I'm very much looking forward to seeing the images come back from the spacecraft on that one. And how about out at Ceres, where Dawn just keeps getting closer and closer? It keeps getting closer and closer, and the features get more and more intriguing.

We see lots of craters, but also those white spots, and more and more of these kind of enigmatic domes that are popping up from the surface. So it's going to be really curious to see what the scientists have to say about those. And is there any news about those mysterious white spots? No news, except they're still there. All right. Well, obviously, much more to come all over the solar system in the coming years and even decades as we look forward to that Europa mission. As always, Emily, thanks very much. I'll talk to you next week.

Thank you, Matt. She is the senior editor for the Planetary Society, our planetary evangelist, and a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. That's Emily Lakdawalla. Jason, it is great to get you back on for this quick status report on light sail. Now, we've got to make it very clear that we are speaking on the afternoon of Monday, June 1st, afternoon on the west coast of the United States. The big stuff is still ahead of us this week. Tell us what we might be looking forward to. Wednesday morning, we may be looking at solar sail deployment, and that is going to be a big moment.

They're going to send up the command manually to begin unfurling the sails. If all goes well, that will finish up, and they'll try to start downloading imagery during some subsequent passes on Wednesday. How will we know, how will that crew know that they have successfully deployed the sail? Well, the first indication they're going to get that something is happening is from the telemetry beacons. These are little automated chirps that the spacecraft sends out every 15 seconds. And there's one line that refers to motor count,

and that will start incrementing, telling us that the motor is actually spinning on board the spacecraft. That'll be the first indication. Second will be pictures. While the sail is coming out, the onboard cameras will be staggering images up to 32 each. Then if we can get one of those down, we hope to see that the sail was out.

And the third way is ground-based imaging. We have three different observatories around the world that are poised to help try to capture pictures of it in orbit. So hopefully one, two, or all three of those will come through and show us that the sail's out. And we've also heard about all of the amateur astronomers who want to try and catch light sail when it expands to that 32 square meter area. And all the other folks who just want to see it naked eye, how easy or difficult is it going to be to see light sail if it deploys? Well, it will all depend on where you are in the world

and the way the spacecraft is oriented when it's going overhead. If you get lucky, it should appear very bright. It could be on the order of an ISS pass, if you've ever looked up and seen the station going overhead at night. But the trick will be, the devil will be in the details for that. We're going to try to post regular updates at sail.planetary.org on our Mission Control Center page, showing where it is. When the sails come out, it's going to start dragging through the atmosphere, and that position is going to change faster than we can keep up with it. So it'll take a little bit of luck, but we'll do our best to keep everyone

informed, and hopefully we'll get some people to take a picture of it and send it our way. If the sail deploys as planned, and it definitely is if, that's the operative word, how long can we expect light sail to remain in low Earth orbit? The conservative estimate is just two days, so it won't be up there for very long. But orbital models have shown that it could stay up as long as 10 if we get lucky. If there is one thing that we've come to learn from this mission is that we should expect the unexpected. So at this point, I don't know what to estimate, but hopefully it'll be longer than two days so people will get a chance to see it in the night sky. Space is hard and full of surprises.

Sure is. All right, I think you may have already said, but tell us one more time, what are the best ways for people to continue to track the progress of this spacecraft? Sure. Sail.Planetary.org is our dedicated light sail microsite. We've got a page there called Mission Control, shows you the spacecraft's position in real time, all of our updates and Twitter notifications, and that'll continue to be the best spot to check us out. Thank you, Jason. And best of luck.

Hey, best of luck to you, too. We're all in it. And everybody listening. Jason Davis, he is a digital editor with the Planetary Society, our embedded reporter with the LightSail project, and the person that we're all looking to to keep us informed of what is happening as LightSail attempts to fulfill its destiny. We hope it's its destiny this week. We'll be moving farther out in the solar destiny. We hope it's its destiny this week. We'll be moving farther out in the solar system. We're going to talk with Chris Carberry and get a report on the recent Humans to Mars conference. This is Planetary Radio.

Greetings, Planetary Radio listeners. Bill Nye here, inviting you to become part of our citizen-funded LightSail project. LightSail is at the center of our very first Kickstarter campaign. Help us realize the fantastic potential of this innovative spacecraft for as little as $1. We've got terrific rewards for those who can afford even a little bit more. How about a square centimeter of the sale? Or lunch with me?

Learn more at planetary.org slash kickstarter. Together, we will change the world. Random Space Fact! Together, we will change the world. hilarious. See, Matt would never lie to you, would he? I really wouldn't. A new random space fact video is released each Friday at youtube.com slash Planetary Society. You can subscribe to join our growing community and you'll never miss a fact. Can I go back to my radio now? Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan.

From Edgar Rice Burroughs to Kim Stanley Robinson and Andy Weir, humans have been going to Mars in fiction for a long time. Getting them there for real has proven to be a much bigger challenge than many imagined back in the heady days of Apollo. And yet there is a new sense of optimism coming from both a new generation of space enthusiasts and some old hands who never gave up the dream. Best of all, several groups have joined NASA in analyzing what this monumental task is going to require. One of those groups is Explore Mars, the non-profit headed by CEO

Chris Carberry. The organization brought together scientists, engineers, planners, and policymakers in early May for the release of the first Humans to Mars report. I asked Chris to return to our show with a brief tour of this effort. Chris, welcome back to Planetary Radio. It is a pleasure to get you back on the show to talk about the H2M conference. And I've got to tell you, looking at the report and the people who were involved, it just kills me once again that I could not join this group for this obviously very exciting discussion. Yeah, sorry you couldn't be there.

We had a great conference, launched the Humans to Mars, the first annual Humans to Mars report, which we intend to be essentially an annual update on progress towards the goal of getting Humans to Mars, giving updates on architecture, if we've made any progress in that, science, policy, international cooperation, and public perception, so that we can provide a consistent update, an independent update to policymakers, the stakeholders, and to the general public. But the primary focus of this

report are the stakeholders and policymakers to help them understand if we're making progress forward in this goal of getting humans to Mars. And you had a lot of those stakeholders and policymakers, I mean, right up to the NASA administrator, Charlie Bolden. We always have wonderful lineups at our conference, but yeah, first day particularly, which was a big public engagement day, started off with Charlie Bolden, the administrator, and then Scott Hubbard, former Mars czar, spoke. And then we had three associate administrators talking in a panel, talking about the science directorate, human exploration, and technology. But then from there on out, we had wonderful talks

on science and public engagement. We had Janet Ivey from Janet's Planet, just a whole range of different folks that came by. And the great thing is, you know, we had about, for the whole conference, we had around 800 people registered. But what was more impressive was the fact that we had, I got final numbers, we had 3,155 schools that had logged on, that had signed up to watch the webcast. That translates into more than quarter of a million students that actually, you know, watched portions of the conference. So we were extremely pleased with the huge participation, viewership of students around the country. And that was mostly high school, middle school, and some universities.

Nice work. That is very impressive. Let's go into the report, which first of all, I want to say, if I didn't already say it, I definitely recommend people reading. It is extremely informative and thoughtful and quite inspiring and also beautifully designed. So I don't know who you had doing that work for you, but kudos to them. Thank you. Thank you. It was a team effort and we we had a great team, and came up with this idea back in December or January, I can't remember. And so we were very pleased with the results. We got a great team together from experts in architecture and science and policy and international politics as well. And, you know, this is the first step, the first one. So we were very happy with how it came

out, but now we expect each one that comes up to be even better, so it can be more informative. But this version is just a glossy version, and we have actually distributed printed versions of it to every member of Congress already. We're also going to be launching a more detailed web page in August. The annual glossy report will basically be a high-level summary of where we've gone, you know, the progress we need to make with recommendations moving forward. But the website itself will provide the backbone, you know, the basis for the information, reports in which we consulted, you know, other information if they want to go into more depth than what we provide in the actual annual report. So what we're looking at online, people can find it at exploremars.org, is sort of a front end, the pretty front end for all of this data. But there's still a lot of data in this. You talked about the different areas that are considered in the report, and each of those has recommendations, conclusions that were made, right?

Each of those has recommendations that conclusions that were made, right? Yeah, absolutely. And it also lists, for instance, the architecture section. You know, we're not taking sides on which areas, how we go to Mars. However, we do list what current architectures are being currently being built that will help us get to Mars. And as others come online, we will add those as well. Because I know a few people said, well, you're not, you didn't put, although we do mention SpaceX, for instance, for their supersonic retro propulsion. Of course, we don't mention other potential things they might develop in the future. But, you know, I mentioned to them, we're only putting things that are currently being built and are being announced as part of the

Mars architecture. So as other organizations like SpaceX or anybody else come up, start developing hardware, we will actually list that in the report. But we're only going to be listing things that are actually currently in development and have been announced. Now, with our very limited time, I'm going to ask you a really unfair question. What are the recommendations in the report, pick two or three, that really stand out, if any do in your mind, if they're not all equal, that you think are perhaps most important to keep us on target? And that target, of course, is the red planet. Well, I'm going to, there are a number of ones within, you know ones within the science and within the technology, but I'm going to shift over to policy end. And one thing that I think we need to do is to reach beyond

the usual suspects, policy suspects. We do a lot of speaking to the folks in committees and other places that are the natural supporters of space on the key committees. I think one of the important things is identifying and building relationships with the non-traditional supporters. Because what I've found on the Hill, particularly over the last couple of years, there is actually a considerable amount of support for Mars exploration from members of Congress that you wouldn't expect.

They're non-traditional space supporters. They don't have NASA facilities in their districts. They don't have major industries in their districts or their states necessarily. They're based their support on passion, but they also don't know how to show any leadership, because since they're not on the same, the right panels. I've often heard, well, you know, we're supportive, but, you know, we're not on this panel, so we can't really take a leadership role, and perhaps that's correct. But what we want to do is start identifying them and give them a voice to show that the support for Mars exploration goes beyond the traditional supporters.

It's not just the folks, you know, the members of Congress and Senate. They're in Florida or Texas or California, etc. It's much deeper than that. And I think if we can find a way to show that and give them a voice, I think it'll bolster the support over time and make it easier to maintain a program. Because I think that our biggest hurdle is keeping this momentum going into the next administration. So we need to show there is strong bipartisan support for our humans to Mars so we can get into the next administration without a complete change around again, because what we can't afford is a new reset, hitting the reset button of space policy, starting from scratch again. Yeah, and there have been too many of those in the past. We're almost out of time, I'm sorry to say,

but as you know, the Planetary Society, other organizations have also been talking a lot about Mars and looking for the practical ways for not just exploration of Mars robotically, which is, of course, very important, I think you would agree, but getting humans there. Does it feel like there's a movement starting here? Does it feel like you're, you know, on the crest of a wave? Yes, absolutely. It's never, you know, I've done this Mars advocacy for some time,

and, you know, when I started, you know, there was no support. You went to members of Congress, Congressional office office and you'd see their eyes roll or they'd look at you as though you're wearing Vulcaneers. And so now it is just assumed, it is policy, people assume we're going to Mars. I've never seen as much support for human missions to Mars as we have right now. Is it enough support? I don't know. We definitely need to continue, start building

on what we have, but I have never seen such universal support. You know, it's not complete. There are people who don't support it, but it's never been such strong support. So I think we have an opportunity right now, and it was great to see. I was at the Planetary Society workshop at GW a couple of months ago. It was a great event, and it was great to see Planetary Society embracing human missions to Mars as well. And, you know, there are other groups out there as well that are becoming more vocal in this goal. So I think the whole space community working together can do a remarkable job in trying to advance this goal. All right, Chris. I don't know what's wrong with wearing vulcaneers to a congressional office,

but be that as it may. I never have. Don't trust me. Thank you very much for this. Once again, I highly recommend taking a look at the Humans to Mars 2015 report, at least the front end of it, which is quite lovely, and I think other folks who listen to this show may also find inspiring. Chris, I look forward to talking again sometime, and I sure hope folks who listen to this show may also find inspiring. Chris, I look forward to talking again sometime, and I sure hope I can join you next year.

Great. Thanks for having me on. Chris Carberry, he is the CEO and, I believe, a co-founder, right, Chris, of Explore Mars Incorporated? Explore Mars, which is a 501c3, a non-profit that is working to, as it says on the website, advance the goal of sending humans to Mars within the next two decades. And that clock is ticking. It's also ticking down to our weekly conversation with Bruce Betts, a face-to-face one this time, at the Planetary Society. Let's go to What's Up. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Sitting across from Bruce Betts in the studio.

It's not too cold in here today. Hi, Matt. We're ready for What's Up. And this was important that we're doing this in person because I have a present for you. Yay! So get us started. What's up in the night sky? Going to keep mentioning Venus and Jupiter.

They're super bright. They're over in the west shortly after sunset, and they're getting closer and closer together until they get really close about the end of June. But I also point out this week that Venus is very close, just a few degrees from the Gemini stars, particularly Pollux, as well as Castor, although they will be separating. So check that out. There are the two bright stars near it. And if you want to learn more about Castor and Pollux, as well as meet my evil twin, check out this week's random space fact video at planetary.org slash rsf. But your evil twin is so evil! at planetary.org slash rsf. But your evil twin is so evil.

That's the concept. Fortunately, at least for now, he's in another dimension. Yeah, I'm glad he can't reach us. It's a heck of a mustache he has, too. So anyway, thank you. I mean, for Iker. On to this week in space history. It was 50 years ago, five zero years ago, that there was the first American spacewalk by Edward White. Heroic figure.

Heroic figure. Indeed. And a tragic loss. Yes. All right. On to... Which was not the voice of E-Curb. He's about three octaves higher.

I'm not my evil twin. I know, and I'm glad of it. Although some would argue I'm the evil twin. Yeah, you know, it's hard to tell, you know. Matter, antimatter. Don't bring us together, whatever you do. All right, so here's a random space fact. There are currently thought to be eight white dwarfs among the 100 star systems nearest the sun.

Oh, that's it, huh? Yeah, eight white dwarf stars out of the 100 closest. All right, we move on to the trivia contest. And we asked you, what is an analogy for the 32 square meter sail area of the light sail spacecraft? And I know we did well because I reviewed these with you. Cher, tell us. We did so well. Listen, I'm sorry that we can't read all of these, both hilarious and instructive analogies for the area of light sail, 32 square meters, by the way, because so many of them are so good. But we have some runners up to start out with. And then we've got, is it four? It might be five winners because there were just some that were just so too good to decide one over the other. So here's a runner up. Ilya Schwartz.

He said that using photos, he'd approximate 16.8 Mac Kaplans in a light sale, plus or minus a Bruce Betts. I'm an error bar. Yeah. An uncertainty. Torsten Zimmer, 78.41 Mona Lisa's. Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you. It's too much. People are swooning.

Douglas Friday, about 300,000 light sails to cover one side of a Borg cube. So thank you. Thank you, Trekkies. Trekkies everywhere. Let's go into the winners now. Here's one that you really liked, and you said you checked this out. The light sail is not the only thing 32 meters squared, says Victor Underwood. The human gut has the average surface area of about 32 square meters, which is uncanny. This amazed me. And indeed, there was a study in Sweden by some doctors who you have to take in the V-Li or micro

V-Li, all the little surface area increasing nodules inside the gut to get up to that. But it was exactly 32 square meters, they estimated, for the average gut surface area. Nature just repeats itself over and over. Here's another one you like, just as an instructive one. Equivalent to 10 queen-size beds. Yeah, I thought that was something one could actually envision. Actually less comfy, but yeah. That from Robert Lee in Brewster, New York, by the way.

So congratulations, Robert. This one from Mark Schindler in Honolulu, a particular favorite of yours. 12 large rolls of duct tape. Anything involving duct tape. I, of course, like the image of rolling it out to make your sail. And the great news is it's self-repairing. And Mark added to it, coming up on the next Mythbusters duct tape light sail. We'll suggest that to the guys. A particular favorite

of mine and a large part, at least of the male side of the Planetary Society staff, from Alex Roop, 4,960 strips of cooked bacon. That's a lot of bacon. And here's an interesting one from Martin Harjofsky. equivalent to approximately 6.89 standard boxes of kitchen aluminum foil, which will allow you to wrap and cook just over 296.2 baked potatoes. He adds, instructive or funny? I report, you decide.

All right, I just want to close with this one. Not a winner, Dan, but we sure appreciate it. It's only fitting that the area of light sail sail be expressed as 438 Voyager Golden Records taking humanity another step closer to the stars. Aww. We have for our winners not just the Planetary

Radio t-shirt mentioned a couple of weeks ago, but some light sail swag. A tote bag with some swag, and we'll stuff your t-shirt in there as well. Thank you, everyone. Yes, that was great. Thank you. I think we'll give away a light sail tote bag and swag and a T-shirt again for this next contest that you're about to announce. Soviet Alexei Leonov performed the first spacewalk, first extravehicular activity.

What chronological number was the next Soviet spacewalk? So in terms of the number of spacewalks that had occurred, was it the second, the third, the fifth, the next Soviet spacewalk after Leonov? What number spacewalk was it? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. All right, everybody go out there, look up at the night sky, and think about the most disappointing duct tape sound ever.

Really? I was expecting so much more. This will make you feel better. Here is your gift from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center Gift Store. Oh, cool, a micro rocket. It's time to be a rocket scientist. Just add vinegar and baking soda but be very careful really it's so tiny it's just a few centimeters tall it's a micro rocket maybe we'll do analogies

for the size of the micro rocket i'd say maybe a lipstick case yeah it does kind of look that way actually all right thank you and good night he He is Bruce Betts, the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society. He joins us every week here for What's Up. Don't point that thing at me. The contest deadline is Tuesday, June 9th at 8 a.m. Pacific. Okay, London area listeners, here's the scoop about my Friday, June 19th visit. I'll look for you at the Hereford Arms in South Kensington at 7 o'clock, or, if you prefer, 1900 hours. The pub has reserved space for a few of us, and the light appetizers

will be on the Planetary Society. Space is limited, so please, please let me know if you hope to join us by writing to planetaryradio at planetary.org. There's a link to additional information on this week's show page that you'll find at the top of planetary.org slash radio. As always, Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by our Jolly Good members. Daniel Gunn is the associate producer. Josh Doyle created our theme. I'm Matt Kaplan. Clear skies.