Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Genesis Rises From the Ashes/Planetary Protection

Episode Date: September 13, 2004

Genesis Rises From the Ashes/Planetary ProtectionLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Genesis crashes and we protect Earth on Planetary Radio. Hello again everyone and welcome back to Public Radio's weekly voyage through the solar system and beyond. I'm Matt Kaplan. Exploring the universe is hard. Sometimes things go wrong. Regular listeners to this show probably know something went very wrong in the Utah desert a few days ago. In a couple of minutes, you'll hear my conversation with Roger Wiens,

a Genesis Mission team member, who is out there hoping for a gentler return of the Genesis sample capsule. We'll also talk with ecologist Margaret Race about this accident and how scientists and engineers work to protect our own and other planets. First, though, here are some other stories from around the universe. A British member of the Cassini team has spotted a new moon and a new ring in images returned by the spacecraft from Saturn. Carl Murray of Queen Mary College in

London says he was just lucky enough to see them first. Cassini remains in excellent health as it circles the beautiful gas giant. Proof that there was once water on the surface of Mars is now old news, but the level of that long-gone water seems to be rising. There probably wasn't just a puddle or a lake, but a vast ocean on the Meridiani Planum where rover Opportunity has been exploring. More than enough water, scientists believe, for the support of long-ago life on the red planet. And with all the votes now counted, we can confidently announce that Pluto really is a planet. At least that's the majority opinion of almost 1,700 readers who responded to the Planetary Society's survey asking whether the cold little sphere should be downgraded to the status of a lesser object. There has been no comment yet from either George Bush

or John Kerry about this vital issue. And you'll find the details of these and other stories on the web at planetary.org. I'll be back with a Genesis status report right after this Q&A session with Emily. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, Would it be better to redirect an incoming asteroid to land in the ocean or on dry land? We are not yet able to redirect a large asteroid on a collision course with the Earth. But if we were, it might be worse to attempt a hasty redirection than to just let the body hit.

Then at least we could predict where it would hit, and we could mitigate the consequences by evacuating the area. We would also avoid worse consequences. For instance, our attempts to change its course could instead break it into several large pieces impacting over a broad area. But if we did have a choice in the matter, which would be worse, an ocean or a land impact? Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out. The helicopters were in the air on September 8, ready to pluck a slowly descending Genesis sample return capsule out of the sky over the

Dugway Proving Grounds in the remote Utah desert. They never got the chance. This was what we heard on NASA TV in the last few moments of flight. And Mission Manager MTC, we advise from our vantage point we do not see a drogue chute, negative drogue. Copy. Pretty good, Mark.

It looks like we have a no chute, sir. Vector 2-0-0,8 miles. Look for an impact. FTC, that's negative growth, negative shoot. Copy. Receive a visual. Impact. Impact at 5-8-5-5-8. We have an impact bearing 2-0-0-8 miles. Copy. You're allowed. You have an altitude.

That's impact, sir, ground level. And there was the 500-pound capsule looking for all the world like a flying saucer half-embedded in the desert floor. Five hours later, I reached Roger Weems of the Los Alamos National Lab. Roger serves as the Genesis Flight Payload Lead and a science co-investigator. First of all, our condolences for the way this ended, but since you are still out there in the desert and are in a great position to tell us how things are going, what is the current status? Well, Matt, I haven't actually seen the capsule.

It's out in the desert about 30 miles from here in the Utah Test and Training Range where it was supposed to land, but we've seen pictures and we've also gotten reports from people who are standing out in the field. And the capsule is essentially in one piece, but it's a bit broken, and it's opened up just a little bit. So it's much better than it could be, actually. We do know that none of the parachutes opened. Much better than it could be, actually. We do know that none of the parachutes opened.

It was supposed to have a sequence in which the drogue chute would open at quite some high altitude, and then the main parachute would open at about 20,000 feet altitude. And none of those parachutes opened. It came to the ground, and in fact, as it was hurtling to the ground, I could even see that the portion that contained the parachutes was still on the capsule. I could even see that the portion that contained the parachutes was still on the capsule. Yeah, I must say that the video coverage, which I was watching live online on NASA TV, was absolutely stunning. Made it that much more of a shock when we saw the Genesis sample return capsule half buried in the desert. But let's go back to what you've said about the capsule being mostly intact. Are you, Don Burnett, the rest of the team, fairly optimistic about still recovering some of those solar wind particles?

Oh, yes, Matt. We're cautiously optimistic. We've gotten reports from out in the field, people who are there, and they say that although the capsule is broken open slightly, that what they can see from the outside is that some of the collection wafers are actually still in their places on the collector arrays. And so there's a fair amount of material that is still where it's supposed to be, and we'll be able to recover this and do the analyses that we wanted to. Now, are you assuming that these samples have now been contaminated by Earth's

atmosphere, or is there still some hope that they are in a pristine state? Well, they're relatively clean. I mean, the first thing that we did not want to happen is to get these wet or briny from the salt flats, and it appears that that's not the case. And so on a relative scale, they're not as clean as we wanted them to come in as, but we're going to take them as they are because we're going to be able to do the analyses. We're still going to be able to do a lot of analyses with this. Now, where are the samples now? Are they still out there in the middle of the desert, or have they been brought to that sort of temporary clean room?

Yes, the reentry from when we're talking now was several hours ago, and there's a crew out there on the ground. They had to, first of all, dismantle the pyrotechnic devices that were to deploy the parachute to make the capsule safe. And then once they've done that, then what they're going to do is take the canister, which holds most of the collection wafers, and remove that and bring that back by helicopter separately and then later follow with the rest of the capsule. So basically from this point on, you'll pretty much follow the protocol that was planned, even if things have gone perfectly?

Well, that's to be determined. We have to see what state things are in once we get it back here and in a controlled area where we can look at it without getting more dust or dirt on it. But we believe a lot of the collection wafers are probably broken, so we will have a lot less material to work with and some forensic jobs to do to put some of these broken pieces back into their context where they should have been. Roger, where do you go from here? Will you be headed to Houston with these samples,

or what will your continuing role be? We're not sure exactly at the moment how this will all flow. Originally, I was supposed to lead a team down to Johnson Space Center in Houston where we were going to characterize the Los Alamos-built instrument, the Solar Wind Concentrator, and extract the targets from that. At this point in time, we'll see what shape it's in and how much of that makes sense. We certainly want to help out in any way we can,

and that may be partially down at Johnson Space Center. We'll have to see. Tell me, after having been a part of this, like so much of the team, for years now, can you characterize how it felt to be out there watching video and listening as things went awry? Oh, I mean, of course, first of all, we had great excitement that we could see the thing coming in. And, of course, as we could see, it was heading for the ground without the parachutes that were supposed to be deployed. Of course, I got a pit in my stomach. But, you know, this is, on a relative terms, this is a partial victory.

And, you know, someone mentioned to me that if this had happened on another planet, if this were a probe to Mars or something, it would be a total loss. But we have the samples out here, and we're picking them up with the helicopter. And so it's really a partial victory, and we're going to get the science out of this. So I'm cautiously optimistic that we will really turn this around and get a lot of useful information out of this. Well, we very much appreciate your taking a few minutes out of this day to share that with us. And that is absolutely the most welcome news that you could have shared. And we will hope that over the next few days that this becomes not just a partial success,

but more than that, if not 100 percent, and that those priceless and unprecedented samples of the solar wind are going to be in Houston waiting for scientists around the world to study. Yes, stay tuned. I think we're going to hear some good results yet. Thanks very much, Roger, and please give our best wishes to Don Burnett as well. Yes, stay tuned. I think we're going to hear some good results yet. Thanks very much, Roger, and please give our best wishes to Don Burnett as well. Okay, will do. Thanks, Matt. That was Roger Wiens, Genesis Flight Payload Lead,

speaking to me just a few hours after the Sapper Returned capsule hit the Utah desert at about 200 miles per hour. We're glad to report that Roger's optimism may have been proven right. The latest reports from NASA indicate that at least some of those solar wind particles collected by Genesis will make it to the containment lab in Houston. But what if that capsule had contained more than harmless bits of the sun? How do we protect the Earth from contamination? And how will we keep Mars and other destinations from being infected by, well, us? Stay tuned for a conversation about planetary protection.

This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure in the solar system. That's why I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets. We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first-ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration in The Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. Exploring New Worlds For more information, visit our website at www.planetarysociety.org.

The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Margaret Race is an ecologist who has built quite a reputation for her work with NASA through the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. Her specialty is planetary protection, about which she has written extensively, considering both the practical and ethical issues that come up as we humans push out into the solar system. We talked just a couple of days after the impact of the Genesis sample return capsule. Margaret, thank you very much for joining us on Planetary Radio. It's a pleasure.

We had no idea that we would have the Genesis event to serve as a jumping off point for a conversation, a short conversation, about planetary protection. But I don't know if it's kept you awake since that impact, but I bet it's given you a lot to think about. That's for sure. Everyone is watching that and thinking about the implications for other missions because any time there's a problem or even a failure with a NASA mission, we learn from the lessons that it gives us. Fortunately, we hope that this one does have recoverable science, but it's obvious that these missions are difficult things to do. Now, clearly, this would fall under, if there was any problem or challenge regarding planetary protection here,

this would fall under what you call back contamination, although in this case, it wasn't really a problem. I mean, all we were coming back with was a bit of the solar wind, which is something the Earth has been running through for billions of years. But I wonder, here we have obviously a breach of containment. But I wonder, here we have obviously a breach of containment. What if this had been a mission returning from, let's say, Mars or perhaps Europa? This is precisely the kind of thinking that planetary protection folks think about all the time. It is the kind of accident scenario that must be considered in an environmental impact statement. So when you consider United States law, a launch cannot happen unless we go through

the decision-making and think about what kind of risks are involved, divulge them to the public, talk about how they will be mitigated. So already in some of the early discussions of a Mars sample return mission, prior to any mission architecture being laid out, that kind of accident is one of the places where there could be concern. If there were a breach, there would be a question of what to do with the soils around the area, how to contain it, how to clean it up. And I should say, though, that when we're bringing back samples from Mars, the plan is to bring back about 500 grams, which would fit in a coffee cup,

less than a pound of rocks and soil and gases. And so if anything were to be broken out, if the containment didn't hold, it would be localized and could be cleaned up. So that there are steps that are taken and it's not, although bringing back something from another planet or someplace else in the solar system is certainly an unusual thing, it's not unprecedented, and it's not so far out that we haven't thought of how we would deal with it. You mentioned U.S. law, so I guess this is actually on the books, but in addition to that, there is an outer space treaty that deals with this topic?

Yes. People are usually quite surprised to know that discussions about planetary protection started actually at the time of Sputnik's launch. At that time, biologists realized that now that they could reach escape velocity and get something off this planet, it was entirely possible to send microbes from Earth to another location. And likewise, when we go to other locations

and bring back samples, we could be bringing back potential life from someplace else. So in the early 60s, there were lots of discussions internationally that culminated in the United Nations Treaty called the Outer Space Treaty. And Section 9 of that specifically addresses planetary protection. And it calls for space pairing nations to make sure that when they do their space exploration, it's done in a way that avoids harmful cross-contamination. Just like any other law, the definition of harmful is something that changes as our scientific

information progresses, and we're constantly discussing what that would mean. At this point, the concern would be if you bring back anything that could replicate, reproduce. So you know that if you move organisms around on Earth from one place to another, you could have problems. Clearly, if we go to another planet, we don't want to move things around without thinking about environmental impact or how you would contain it or how you would test it. So all of the activities within NASA and other agencies, other countries, do fall in under a treaty that goes back to 1967. What is your reaction to the people who say, basically, look, if Earth organisms get a

toehold, a foothold on Mars, then that's survival of the fittest? It could be one of the possibilities. It's not a likely possibility because, as you recognize the rigors of space getting from launch through the transit time to another planet, the long duration in space, the reentry up there, the landing, all of those things would say that anything that is left on a spacecraft would have a real tough time along the way. And the probability of its landing in a good location to grow and then spread on a new planet is pretty, pretty low. And in fact, before a spacecraft is launched, if it's going to a place like Mars where it has some

biological potential, these spacecraft are cleaned extremely well. And the cleaning and sterilization that is done and documented is something that is quite impressive. It's far cleaner than any clean room, far cleaner than any surgical suite. So we clean things down to very, very low levels of contaminants before it's launched. So you reduce the probability that anything has a chance to leave. But there are many more challenges, I would think, with a human mission. For example, human waste. Do you take it back up in orbit with you, or do you leave it in a container on Mars? People are already beginning to talk about the human missions

because the president and his commission looked back to the moon and on to Mars and beyond. And you can begin to outline what you might do about it, but we still have to solve the questions when we look at, say, just Mars robotic missions. If one of our scientific objectives when we go to Mars is to look for life on Mars, the last thing you would want to do is deposit microbes from Earth and then rediscover them. So you need to be careful about forward contamination because of the science as well.

That means that before you can even send humans, you have to have answered many of those questions with robotic missions because we do know that as you and I breathe out or lose skin cells or drop hairs, we are constantly contaminating all around us. And even the spacesuits vent to the outside. A habitat would vent to the outside. And the question is, could that be considered harmful cross-contamination? We can't answer that until we know whether or not there's life on Mars

and whether we might interfere with the life on another planet. The evolution of these policies and techniques for preventing this contamination, this is an ongoing process, I know, that you are very much a part of. Do you have confidence that we will be able to deal with these adequately, both from a practical and an ethical point of view, before those first sample return missions begin, and certainly before human missions? I really have confidence in the process, and that doesn't mean we have all the answers just yet. The process for even thinking about human missions, which wouldn't launch until, say, 2030, has already started now.

The process involves university scientists, NASA people, engineers, ethicists, and others who ask lots of very big questions because it's important to make sure that we don't go and make a wrong move as we explore another planet. I really like what I see in the process. And as someone who works with NASA but is not part of NASA, I look at it as seeing how science plays out in the real world. And this is science playing out in a very public process that's overseen by laws, that does the best that we can with the information that we have now.

And so if we're going to decide to go to Mars, we're doing it in what I think is a very responsible way. Could we have accidents? Sure. Are we preparing for them, and could we find ourselves faced with opposition that we might have to then explain our position and how decisions were made? Yes, but that's how the American system works, how our democratic system works. Planetary protection lets us see not only how we do good science, but also how we all can see how decisions are made about science. Margaret, we're out of time.

I think we should definitely bring this topic up again when we have a little bit more time that we can devote to it. So I hope you'll return another day to Planetary Radio. I would love to. Margaret Race has been our guest. She is an ecologist working with NASA through the SETI Institute, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, in Mountain View, California. She has an article in the current issue of the Planetary Report from the Planetary Society. It goes to our members. We will be talking again because this issue of the Planetary Report from the Planetary Society goes to our members. We will be talking

again because this issue of planetary protection is surely one that is not going to go away. And I will be back with Bruce Betts and what's up right after this return visit from Emily. I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A. An ocean or land asteroid impact, which could have worse consequences? Relatively small rocks, about 100 meters in size,

like the one that caused the Tunguska explosion in Siberia, have much worse effects on land than they would in the ocean. Such an impact could be catastrophic to a metropolitan area, but minor if it happened in the open ocean. A water impact by a kilometer-sized object could generate tsunamis that could be devastating across the shores of an entire ocean. A land impact by the same object could, if it struck a populous country or province, produce horrifying regional consequences, but global effect would be minimal.

For very large asteroids, such as the one that's been implicated in the death of the dinosaurs, it hardly matters where they hit. The oceans are thin to impactors 10 kilometers in size, and the material they throw around the Earth would come from deep beneath the ocean floor. Of course, we must keep a sense of perspective. The chances of a damaging impact by an intermediate or large-sized asteroid are very small. Tunguska-sized bodies do impact with relative frequency,

something like once every hundred years. But other natural hazards that are just as deadly, like earthquakes, floods, and epidemic disease, happen at least a hundred times more often. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. And now here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio.

We are visited once again by Bruce Betts, Dr. Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society, who will once again, I'm sure, Dr. Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society, who will once again, I'm sure, tell us what's up. I will indeed. Well, we continue with those planets in the morning sky. That's what's up, besides all those pesky stars and satellites. So if you want to see planets, wake up early or stay up late. And before dawn, look in the east, and there you will see three.

Venus looking extremely bright, like a very, very very bright star can't miss it look above venus a little bit to see saturn looking like a fairly bright star and far to the lower left of venus to see mercury low on the horizon it's one of those things you need to really take a look at in the next next few days next week or two because it'll it'll set again. And between Mercury and Venus, the star Regulus. It's just a whole lineup of festive fun in those pre-dawn hours. I feel compelled to mention the noise that's reaching the living room here at the Planetary Society where we're recording. It's the Planetary Society Protection Program.

we're recording. It's the Planetary Society Protection Program. There's a guy outside whacking weeds and protecting us from, you know, unwanted life forms. Exactly. It's important. And, you know, it's perhaps in the scope of the human species it's not as important, but in terms of the practical everyday living and keeping your planetary radio host and hostette happy. And the neighbors of the Planetary Society. Well, I don't know that it...

Yeah, I suppose so. Well, anyway, that's what you hear going on. Anyway, and this week in space history, September 17th, 1789. Do you remember what happened on that day, Matt? 1789, the Constitution was signed. That was a great day in planetary exploration history. Yes, and right after William Herschel signed it, he went off and discovered Saturn's moon Mimas. Of course, the moon most famous for looking like the Death Star.

Really? 1789? He did not know that at the time, however. On to Random Space Fact! And we have a great weed whacker echo there. Please tell us, what is today's random space fact? You threw me with that one. The Soviets had three successful sample return missions from the moon, all of them robotic. Luna 16, 20, and 24.

We might come back to that in our trivia contest, Matt. I think you'll need to speak louder, Bruce. The leaf blower is on now. Before we asked you what was the last mission before Genesis to return samples from deep space. In other words, beyond low Earth orbit. How'd we do? You keep blowing those leaves, he's right outside the window now.

Dominic Turley, one of our regulars, Bruce, did a great job. He gave us this week's winning answer. Luna 24, a Russian spacecraft, landed on the moon, returned samples of the lunar surface in

1976. Dominic, a regular listener, hails from Vancouver, British Columbia, Bruce. Yay! Congratulations, Dominic. Of course, the last Apollo, 1973. Interestingly enough, it took off from the moon, lifted off from the moon with a rocket motor with the power of one of these leaf blowers. On to the new trivia contest.

Please. How powerful was the leaf blower that powered... Not really. But we are going to talk about organisms that live inside not our grass, but rocks. Yes, an example of extremophiles,

animal life that's designed to live in really nasty places. NASA scientist type people study these things, wondering if this could happen on other planets like Mars. Here's my question for you. What do you call organisms that live within rocks? Extremophiles. Oh, no, it must be something else. That would be an example.

A little more specific to living within rocks, but not so specific that you give us their actual names. Fred is not an example of what I'm looking for. Stonophile? Stonophile. Darn! We're going to need a new question. No, that's not it. Okay.

How do people enter, Bruce? Go to planetary.org slash radio and find out how to send us an email with your answer. Win a Planetary Radio t-shirt and get your answer in by? By September 20, Monday, September 20, 2004, at noon. That'll be our deadline for the contest this week. Yes, that's a couple of days earlier than some of our most recent contests, but it's going to make it a little bit easier for us. So we appreciate the help.

Get those entries in. Which really is what it's all about. That's right. It's for us. Bruce, I think we're done. All right, everyone, go out there, look up in the night sky, and think about coconut shrimp. Thank you, and good night.

I thought he was going to say leaf blowers in space. They can't stop thinking about that, Matt. We've said it so many times, they're going to have nightmares about it. In space, no one can hear your leaf blower. Bruce Betts is the director of projects. You know, actually in space there are no leaves to blow. Anyway, we can discuss this afterwards. Thank you, everybody.

Bruce Betts is the director of projects for the Planetary Society, and he joins us each week on What's Up, where we don't normally have to yell over the gardener. We're out of time. Join us next week as we learn more about that tantalizing signal recently received from deep space. How do we know the search for extraterrestrial intelligence hasn't hit the jackpot? Till then, have a great week.