Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Europa Report--New Science Fiction Film Embraces the Science

Episode Date: July 29, 2013

If you’re willing to accept the premise, the thrilling new independent feature film presents one of the most scientifically and technically accurate tales ever put on screen. We’ll talk with the director and producer, and then ask science advisor Kevin Hand for a reality check. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Science Fiction Embraces Science Fact, 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. Europa Report is the great new movie about a human mission to Jupiter's ice-covered moon. We'll talk to its producer and director. They got a hand in creating the film, Kevin Hand. We'll welcome back this expert on Europa and other worlds suspected of hiding water oceans. Let's begin with Planetary Society senior editor, Emily Lakdawalla.

She just completed another trip. Welcome back, Emily. Tell us, where were you? Well, I was in Laurel, Maryland for most of a week at a meeting of scientists talking about what we can expect when New Horizons flies past Pluto two years from this month. So still two years away, but lots of preparation to be done. That's really what this was about? Absolutely. You know, a flyby mission, it's going to totally revolutionize our view of Pluto, but it's really only going to make sense in the context of the observations that have been done for the decades before and the ones that will

be taken for decades after New Horizons flies by, particularly for a world like Pluto that changes so slowly. We're just going to get a snapshot of its history right after summer has passed and spring is coming to the northern hemisphere. And it's just this one view that we're going to get. And we have to be able to understand what this little snapshot means in terms of Pluto's very variable weather over the course of its very long year. In what, 90 seconds maybe? Tell us about some of the highlights. Well, for me, I think some of the highlights were some of the questions that people really want to see answered as they fly past Pluto. I think two big ones that are very easy to understand. Does Pluto have rings? People have looked very hard to find them. So far,

they have not detected them. But given the number of very small moons that there are and how easy it would be to get dust to come off of those things, there probably ought to be rings. And the test that's really going to tell us is when New Horizons looks back at Pluto after flying past, if they're there, we ought to see them shining, scattering light from the sun. The other big question that for me is more exciting as a geologist is, does Pluto have and has it ever had an internal ocean? And that's a very difficult question to answer if you don't have an orbital mission with a magnetometer on it. But it turns out that the telltale feature that will probably let us know whether Pluto ever had one and whether it does have one now is impact craters and what shapes they take. If they're perfect bowls or,

you know, if they haven't really modified much over time, we're looking at a very, very cold world that hasn't changed. And that means that Pluto is kind of a dead, old, you know, geologically ancient world. But if those craters have relaxed and become flat, it's even possible that we could see craters like the ones that are on Europa that clearly impacted into a thin skin of ice over a subsurface ocean. It's totally possible. We won't know until we get there. So that part of the geology is going to be really exciting. It's totally possible. We won't know until we get there. So that part of the geology

is going to be really exciting. That's just a sample, a taste of what Emily reported on from this conference, preparing for humanity's first mission to Pluto. There's much more at the blog at planetary.org.

Emily, we'll talk to you again next week. Looking forward to it, Matt. She is the senior editor and our planetary evangelist at the Planetary Society and contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. week. Looking forward to it, Matt. She is the senior editor and our planetary evangelist at the Planetary Society and contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. Up next is Bill Nye, the science guy. Bill, I was hoping that maybe I could get your comment on this blog entry from one of our growing stable of bloggers, Van Cain, who writes about the Mars 2020 rover and the

science definition team, which just a couple of weeks ago started to lay out, okay, this is what we want to accomplish with this. For the first time, or at least the first time since Viking, if I'm correct, here in the goals for this mission, it says, seek the signs of life. Seek the signs of life. So for a long time, I guess this is for political reasons, Matt, people have said we're going to follow the water. Yeah. Follow the water. And that presumed would be because that's where you'd find living things.

Then now, enough. They're spelling it out. Astrobiology is the goal. And you know what? This is an old thing with me. If we found evidence of life on that other world, it would change this one. It would change this world. that other world, it would change this one. It would change this world. It's going to be on the same chassis, if I can use that term, in rover land as the Curiosity rover. So, you know, Curiosity

landed in a riverbed almost by accident. I mean, they were all hoping to find braided rivers, so-called tributaries joining each other. You could go back to another place with an instrument that's really set up to look for, for lack of a better term, fossil bacteria, fossil microbes, fossil Mars-crobes. I mean, Matt, just think of it. If you showed that there was life on Mars, it would be like discovering the Earth goes around the sun instead of the other way around. I mean, it would just be extraordinary. I just got to say, as the CEO of the Planetary Society, we are fighting the fight. Barbara Mikulski got some Republicans to come along with her, and they proposed that the NASA budget be over $18 billion, not under $16 billion, which is what many of the current conservatives wanted to be in keeping

with the so-called sequester. But she's pushing it or she's trying to push it forward. Senator from Maryland. Yes, to increase the budget for NASA. And of course, we think that's appropriate. But man, it goes back and forth, Matt. The U.S. Senate wants this. The U.S. House of Representatives wants that. The administration puts in this and that and that and this and back and forth. But I just want you to know we are not giving up. We're going to wrestle this thing all the way to the ground. We are going to get this done, restore funding for planetary science and make sure

that that Mars 2020 rover has the capability to change the world. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. You heard it. He's the CEO of the Planetary Society and the science guy. Al Croft was heading for a moon of Jupiter, known as Europa. Yeah, my boy's going to be six when I see him again. I'm super proud of you. Our change flowing real good.

Commencing egress. This is Navigatron. Prep for orbital transfer. We are clear of Jupiter's orbit. Pitching for power descent. Ladies and gentlemen, hold on. Here we go. I can't believe I'm here.

This is incredible. Our best hopes of success lies under the ice. Let's go for a swim. You hear that? Are you guys seeing this? It's beautiful. Come back to the ship now. I want to see if it's reacting to my lights.

I'm going to turn them off. Compared to the breadth of knowledge yet to be known, what does your life actually matter? What was that? I always said it was worth the risk. I'll get you out of this. Talk to me! Forgive me.

Does that trailer for Europa Report make it sound like just another space monster movie? Don't be fooled. This ambitious little indie film is much more than that. It's already available on demand, and on August 2nd, it begins a run in selected major market theaters. It got a good reception at Comic-Con, too. I saw it a couple of weeks ago at the Jet Propulsion Lab, where the film's two science advisors conduct their research and hope for a real mission to Jupiter's enticing moon. Afterward, I stood out in front of the JPL visitors' entrance

for a quick conversation with Europa Reports director Sebastian Cordero and producer Ben Browning. I was thrilled, pretty much literally on the edge of my seat. Well, thank you very much. You know, it's one of the greatest things that could happen with this movie and that is happening is to have this type of response from the scientific community and to screen the film here at JPL and to have people be excited about it here, I think is one of the most rewarding things that could have happened.

You put a very high value on getting things scientifically and technologically right, far more than we're used to in movies of this kind. Why was this such a high priority? I think great science fiction asks the question, what if? And I think our what if became what if in the near future, a group of astronauts went to a planet where real scientists believe there may be life. They went there in a way that we really think they could get there, and they found something that we wonder that they may really find.

And I think that desire to hold ourselves accountable to realism and answer the question in a realistic way also led to great drama. You actually responded to a question during the panel discussion we just had. Somebody said, well, how would this film have been different if Disney had given you the money that they spent and apparently are losing on The Lone Ranger? It didn't seem like maybe you thought it would have been all that different. I don't think so. I don't think that anything about what works or we would have done with the movie is really related to the budget. In fact, I think a great creativity comes out of constraints, whether they're budgetary, timing, or in the case of our movie, the perspective of

the film, which is often appropriated cameras. It's a faux documentary conceit and you don't see everything. But I think there's a real amount of suspense and realism that comes from the fact that you don't. And I think given complete carte blanche budget wise, we probably would not have done anything different. And certainly the things we'd have been tempted to do wouldn't have pleased an audience like the one that we saw here at JPL. Absolutely. I mean, I completely agree with the fact that sometimes you've got to use your limitations as a strength, you know, as something that makes the film special. To be able to integrate all this science data,

all these elements that actually make the story more interesting in the end and more realistic wasn't something that was going to cost us more money. It was a conscious decision from the beginning. I don't think there's many things that I would have changed if we had more time or more money. Perhaps a couple of visual effects here and there I would have gone into more detail, but they're really very small things. General, I just wish you the best of luck with this and great success with Europa

Report. Thank you for making a terrific film. Thank you very much. Thank you. Europa Report Director Sebastian Cordero and Producer Ben Browning. We're going to take a break and then sit down with planetary scientist and Europa expert Kevin Hand. This is Planetary Radio.

Hey, hey, Bill Nye here, CEO of the Planetary Society, speaking to you from PlanetFest 2012, the celebration of the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity landing on the surface of Mars. This is taking us our next steps in following the water in the search for life, to understand those two deep questions. Where did we come from? And are we alone? This is the most exciting thing that people do. And together, we can advocate for planetary science and, dare I say it, change the worlds. Hi, this is Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society. We've spent the last year creating an

informative, exciting, and beautiful new website. Your place in space is now open for business. You'll find a whole new look with lots of images, great stories, my popular blog, and new blogs from my colleagues and expert guests. And as the world becomes more social, we are too, giving you the opportunity to join in through Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and much more. It's all at planetary.org. I hope you'll check it out. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. I hope you'll check it out. the Planetary Radio live shows we produced at the Aquarium of the Pacific exactly one year ago.

Kevin was one of two advisors who worked with the creators of the new indie film Europa Report about a human mission to that moon. I recently talked with him about the movie and the prospects for a real mission, a robotic one. Okay, I have an advantage over you because I've seen the film. Have you even seen footage? Yes, I've seen the sort of extended, somewhat rough cut. I've probably seen everything that's in the film, but some of what I've seen probably didn't make the final cut. Yeah.

I'll tell you, they did a damn good job. Excellent. That's my personal opinion, obviously. But I was thrilled, as I think I was supposed to be. Very exciting. And then as I was leaving, walking away from the lab yesterday, I was talking to people. What are the other movies that paid this kind of attention to getting not just the science but also the technology right? And we thought of 2001 and Apollo 13.

And that was about it. And at least for Apollo 13, they had actual technology to reference. Right, yeah, and primitive technology. And it's funny that you mentioned 2001 because Steve Vance, my friend and colleague who also advised on the film, he and I were both very protective of 2001

and Kubrick's great job with that. In the early stages, we banded around with these guys about if you're going to do it, please try and at least aim for a bar set by Kubrick. And I think they did a really good job with that. The central conceit, of course, sending humans to Europa is a tricky one. And we talked about that in the early stages of the script writing. You know, sending humans to Europa in the early stages of Europa exploration is unlikely to happen. Yeah.

Vanishingly unlikely. Yeah, right. But, of course, you can't make a movie unless it's WALL-E or something like that where the central character is a robot. WALL-E or something like that, where the central character is a robot. Part of what I really enjoyed about the film is that they get the characters right along with the science. And this is a challenge that I always find with science fiction films and trying to provide some advice on the science and understanding the role of science in what the directors, writers, etc. want to achieve. For a movie, the story has to come first. Science is a means to an end. It's a way to motivate a plot.

It's a way to expose certain aspects of the characters. Because for as much as I love Europa and science and all that, people pay the money to go to movies to get told a story. And if you mess up the story, nobody's going to watch it. So I was delighted at the degree to which this team did a really nice job of character development and capturing the challenge and the passion of being a scientist and what that sacrifice in the name of science entails. So for me, that was kind of, along with seeing the cool stuff about radiation

and Europa's surface and all the stuff that Steve and I actually advised on, I was delighted to see that the characters were actually people that you cared about. I'll tell you what else. The characters, their approach to challenges, when they face a lot of challenges in this movie, I thought also really reflected very well on the scientists and engineers and pilots who make these kinds of journeys. Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely right. I'd agree with that. And, you know, you see the family dynamic, you see the decision-making process. Oh, goodness, I forget what – there's a great line towards the end of the movie about

that balance between sacrifice and great discovery. Yeah, yeah. And I think that sort of captures – granted, I'm not going to die on the surface of Europa. Don't give anything away. But these people sacrifice a lot. Right. world, searching for planets beyond our sun, these scientific endeavors that require not just years, but decades of dedication, that's a very real sacrifice that's hard to just convey in the day-to-day life of what we do here.

And so there again, I think their portrayal in this film helps to capture some of that, what's at stake and the sacrifices made. And the joy of discovery. Yeah, yeah. And how that prospect of discovery and the way the imagination can just get captivated by a seed of an idea,

and then that leads into missions to other worlds, a reel, such as the ones we do here at JPL, and imaginary as depicted on the big screen. All right. Do I need to even ask if you'd like to see a mission to Europa? It's not a question of a mission. It's a matter of how many different missions would I like to see. And hopefully that will become a reality both in the near and the long term.

I was captivated by Europa back in the sort of mid-stages of Galileo when the results were coming back in the late 90s about the the electromagnetic the induced magnetic field and the and the real good signs for that subsurface ocean and and back then i was finishing up undergrad and the pictures that nasa was putting out were of this melt probe coming through the ice shell and finding these hydrothermal vents on the seafloor of Europa. And the date on those images was 2009. So, and here we are, 2009 has come and gone, and we still don't have a mission, not to mention a mission that could actually melt through the ice and really explore the ocean itself. But as the Russians like to say, hope dies last, and we'll keep on pushing forward.

But as the Russians like to say, hope dies last, and we'll keep on pushing forward. And so the next step will hopefully be the Europa Clipper. Coupled with that, we need to start looking at plans for landing on the surface and then melting through and having a submersible that does go and investigate the ocean below. Just a word or two about the Europa Clipper and what it may be able to tell us from orbit, right? That's right. It'll make flybys of Europa. The notional payload will be able to analyze the surface chemistry, take incredible imagery of the surface, and use ice-penetrating radar to investigate ice and liquid water interfaces, be they the ocean ice shell interface or pockets of water trapped in the ice shell itself. So even from orbit, we can do, or even with flybys,

we can do incredibly compelling scientific investigations that can help us better characterize the habitability of Europa and potentially inform us about possible subsurface inhabitants. And part of what I'm working on here at JPL is spectrometer development that could help reveal some of that surface chemistry and help us learn more about the habitability and possible inhabitants of that ocean. In a perfect world, how would you hope that a film like this might affect people's thinking about what you would like to see happen? Well, one of the aspects that never ceases to amaze me, but of course this is an example of how we as the science community just become so embedded in our own knowledge of what's out there. You know, when I talk to people, when I talk to the public or politicians or et cetera

and just mention the simple fact, we know or we have very good reason to believe that vast liquid water oceans exist out there in our solar system. I like how you're a good scientist. You still backed off from we know to we know. We have very good reason to believe that these oceans exist. But just the simple knowledge of the fact that our solar system has other oceans, oceans beyond Earth's ocean, once I communicate that to audiences, you start to see these light bulbs go on.

They start to scratch their heads and be like, wait, like water oceans? I say, yeah, good old-fashioned H2O. That's what we're talking about. Then you can almost see the aha moment of, wait a minute, if liquid water exists out there in our solar system, then we darn well better get out there and start exploring it and searching for life. And that's much of what obviously motivates my interest is the prospect of finding living life, life that's alive today that we can poke and prod at and see whether or not it's running on the DNA, RNA, protein paradigm that we know rules all life on Earth.

Is there a different game in town? Is there a different way to get the business of life done? Is the origin of life easy or hard? Does life arise wherever and whenever the conditions are right? All of these questions converge on Europa. Once people hear that aspect of why we are so fascinated with this world, they're on board. They're excited about getting out there and exploring this curious little moon. Kevin, I hope you don't have to wait too many more years before you can give us that real-world Europa report.

Well, likewise. I hope it's sooner as opposed to later, and I hope that we can get all of this fantastic exploration done in the next few decades. It is a pleasure talking with you, Kevin. Pleasure is mine, and thanks to the Planetary Society for continuing to do great work. Kevin Hand is the Deputy Chief Scientist for Solar System Exploration at JPL. Bruce Betts is next. Bruce Betts is next. It's time for What's Up on Planetary Radio.

Dr. Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society, is sitting across from me in the conference room slash library here at the Planetary Society in beautiful Pasadena, California. Hello. Welcome. What's up? Planet craziness. Planet craziness, my friend. Five, all five planets you can see with just your eyes are visible. Now, you have to catch two of them in the evening. So Venus, low in the west after sunset.

Also, we've got Saturn, yellowish, in the south. But in the pre-dawn, we've got three planets hanging out in the east not too long before sunrise. We've got super bright Jupiter, we've got reddish Mars near it, and low down, we've got Mercury for the next week or so. So, go see some planets. August 4th, we actually add the crescent moon in the pre-dawn sky along with the three planets. Anywhere nearby? Right nearby. Cool. It's hanging out in the pre-dawn sky for the whole week, but it goes and plays on the third and fourth with the planets.

Get yourself a telescope or get out somebody who has one, and you'll see that moon Europa that we talked about this week. But only if you look at the planet Jupiter. That's right. Won't you help to look at the crescent moon? No, no, not at all. All right, we move on to this week in space history. It was 2004 that the MESSENGER spacecraft launched to Mercury, and it is busily orbiting Mercury and returning great data mapping the planet.

And 2007, Phoenix launched this week, headed to Mars to the near polar regions and had a very successful mission. All right, on to... That was painful. That was painful. You okay? No, not really. Pluto. Pluto's largest No, not really. Pluto. Pluto's largest moon, Charon.

Eris. And six other trans-Neptunian objects, all larger than the largest asteroid, Ceres. And so just something to keep in mind. Significantly larger. Pluto and Eris are around 2,300 kilometers kilometers and Ceres are a little over 900 kilometers. For those who want to call Ceres a dwarf planet, they can call it that or Pluto or Eris. And more to come. Do you know anything about this moon of Neptune that was just discovered? Yeah, we go way back. I went to grade school with his brother. Yeah, it's really, really small. It's the 14th moon discovered at Neptune.

Well, it's really small, but my little random space fact about that is it's about the size of Mars' moon Phobos. So it's a tiny moon for Neptune, but it's the size of a Mars moon. We move on to the trivia contest. of a Mars moon. We move on to the trivia contest. I asked you, how long were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin separated from the command module? In other words, how long was their jaunt down to the moon's surface and back? How did we do, Matt? Good response, as usual, to this, but some disagreement about the answer. My theory is, because I didn't look it up, that the people who were not on the money, or on the shirt, I guess I should say, were looking at the amount of time on the surface

of the moon. Because the majority of people, and our winner today, came up with about 27 hours and 40 to 50 minutes, give or take. Indeed. So they spent a little over a full day off on their journey. It was a day trip. Kind of a significant day. The guy who won, first-time winner out of St. Paul, Minnesota, Luca Ruscino, who, in fact, said 27 hours and 49 minutes, which seemed to be the plurality of answers, 1.46 p.m. July 20 and redocked with the command module at 5.35 p.m. July 21.

He was struck by how little time Armstrong and Aldrin actually spent walking around on the surface, just about two and a half hours, a single excursion. And my theory is that NASA cared a lot more about getting them home than having them spend much time strolling. Well, that's definitely true. The whole goal was get there, grab some stuff, and get out of there on the first one. By the time they went to Apollo 17, then they had three excursions and many hours and a lunar rover and all sorts of good stuff. It was clearly a good plan. Luca, we're going to send you the brand new, redesigned Planetary Radio t-shirt. All right, everybody, here's a new question.

Listen carefully. What does the mission insignia, for example, it was used on a patch, what did the mission insignia for Skylab 2 say on it, besides having the crew members' names? So other than the crew members' names, what did the mission insignia for Skylab 2 say on it? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. You have until Monday, August 5th at 2 p.m. Pacific time to get us the answer to this one. All right, everybody, go up there.

Go up there. Go out there. Why not? I want to go up there. Go up there. Go out there. Why not? I want to go up there. Look out in the night sky and think about whether you'd use a coaster for your drink in space. Thank you. Good night. I'll tell you, if Bill Nye's there, you're going to use a coaster. Bruce Betts is 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 is made possible by a grant from the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation

and by the probing members of the Planetary Society. Clear skies and ice. Редактор субтитров А.Семкин Корректор А.Егорова