Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Humans Orbiting Mars!

Episode Date: September 29, 2015

Scott Hubbard and John Logsdon led the Humans Orbiting Mars Workshop last spring. They return with Casey Dreier as the report on that workshop is released to the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Humans orbiting Mars, 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. We can do this thing, and it can be done by 2033 without an increase in the NASA budget. Three leaders of the Humans Orbiting Mars Workshop will tell us why and how their just-released report backs this conclusion. Bill Nye and Bruce Betts are also coming up, but the big news from Mars this week came in a NASA press conference just hours before I spoke to our senior editor and planetary evangelist, Emily Lakdawalla. Emily, little did

we know when we had a Curiosity update on last week's show that we would have very good reason to talk about Mars once again. Tell us what happened, what was announced during the press conference just this morning. NASA discovered water on Mars again. Once again. Once again. But no, this one is cool. And you know, we mock the fact that NASA keeps discovering water on Mars.

But the reason that they keep discovering water on Mars is because water is central to most of our investigations of the planet. We're interested in questions of is there or was there ever life on Mars? And we believe that water and a habitable environment are necessary for that kind of life. So that's exactly that's the focus of all our research. So it's natural that we keep talking about water on Mars. So to get to today's discovery, they're talking about some features that have probably been talked about on planetary radio before, which are these things called recurring slope lineae. They're dark streaks that form on steep slope walls during the warm summer months, and then they fade away during winter months. And it's always been thought that a plausible explanation for that might be that

water was involved. But plausible isn't enough for science. You have to investigate that in more detail with more instruments. And so that's what they did. They looked at spectra from the CRISM instrument on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and found very good evidence for water-bearing salty minerals just at the times when these recurring slope Ligny were formed, which they're arguing is pretty strong evidence that we actually have extant, present-day liquid water, very briny, very slight amounts of liquid water flowing in these locations on Mars. And that brine, which is coming from these famous perchlorates that are these nasty chemicals at the surface, they actually help that water stick around a little bit, don't they? It does. And these minerals are actually very special in the way that they're

capable of drawing water vapor out of the atmosphere and actually pulling water vapor from the atmosphere into the soil. And that's important because these features form in a wide variety of different geologic settings on Mars. And that's really hard to explain if the local geology is what's important. So instead, if you have a mineral that can draw water out of the atmosphere and water is in the atmosphere all over Mars, that makes more sense to have a global distribution of these features. And I don't think that these RSLs actually have come up in the past, but I'm sure glad that you have brought them up now. And no doubt they will arise again in the future. Right now, we're just jumping on the bandwagon because I'm sure this is going to be all over the news this week. Thank you, Emily, for giving us this backgrounder. And we'll talk again soon.

Thank you, Matt. She's our senior editor, planetary evangelist for the Planetary Society, who joins us every week here on Planetary Radio. But you can also read her as a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. Bill Nye is the CEO of the Planetary Society, and he is up next. Bill, we got you on a none-too-great cell phone connection because you are where? I'm en route to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I'll be speaking to University of Alabama, the Crimson Tide. Now, the Crimson Tide is red, as is the red planet.

Coincidence? Perhaps. But it's very exciting news, Matt. We've got more evidence of water on Mars that flows every Martian year. It increases the likelihood that there's something alive on Mars. It's extraordinary. It is also good timing because of the conversation we're about to have that coincides with the release of the Humans Orbiting Mars workshop report. Is it a coincidence? Perhaps. So the Planetary Society has been involved in Martian exploration

for decades, and we are releasing our report that shows that humans could be orbiting Mars in 2033 without increasing the NASA budget. If you just adjust it for inflation, humans could be orbiting Mars, and if we got humans down there, and I say down there, on the surface of Mars, they would go looking for signs of life at an extraordinary rate, and if we find evidence of life there, I claim it will change the course of human history. So is that worth investing in? Yes. A word before I let you go about the three gentlemen we're about to hear from.

Casey Dreyer, our director of advocacy. Scott Hubbard, the former Mars czar at Stanford University. And John Logsdon, the sort of dean of space policymakers and historians. He is, I think, the most knowledgeable person in history space on Earth. Two of them are on the board. One of them is our policy analyst. We had a huge difference having people working full-time on policy. We were able to engage congressmen and senators here in the United States and influence policy in an extraordinary new way. And so the Seaman's Orbiting Mars Workshop

is part of that effort. And I'm proud to know these guys. Listen to everybody. Tune in. Because these are the world's foremost authorities on what it will really take to really get people to Mars and then eventually onto the surface of Mars. It's an exciting time, Matt. Exciting. And that conversation opens in just a few seconds. We'll let you get on there with the Crimson Tide.

Bill, thank you very much for taking a couple of moments, and we'll talk to you again soon. Once again, Matt. Oh, no. It is I who must thank you. Let's change the worlds. Talk to you soon. Those worlds, they are changing fast. He's the CEO of the Planetary Society, Bill Nye the Science Guy. I know what you're thinking. Why, oh why, would we send people all the way to Mars and not allow them to land?

There are many excellent answers to that question, and you'll find them, along with much more, in the Planetary Society's just-published report on the Humans Orbiting Mars Workshop. Those answers include the opportunity for really outstanding science, reliance on tools that are already in development, and the assumption that NASA will need to achieve this at reasonable cost. Scott Hubbard and John Logsdon co-chaired the workshop last March. They and Casey Dreyer joined me via Skype and phone a few days ago. Gentlemen, it is an honor to get the three of you together. We've had each of you individually, and we had one previous conversation about the Humans Orbiting Mars workshop shortly after the workshop ended.

Now the report is out. It runs about 50 pages. I am one space geek who thinks it's a fun and even an exciting read, lots of great graphs and illustrations. We are obviously not going to be able to do more than entice our listeners in this brief conversation. But Casey, I think I'll start with you. Why should fans of space exploration read this report? Hi, Matt. To me, one of my big goals at the Planetary Society is the idea of empowerment and getting people, particularly in the United States, but around the world, to understand how space works, how to make things happen in space, and how to be part of that.

And reading this report, we actually go into a lot of background. We present this whole narrative of this history of Mars exploration, NASA's past attempts, why it hasn't worked, and then ways that we can try to adjust that to make it work in the future. And that all fits into being just a better space fan and actually turning into a space advocate and an effective space advocate. John Scott, anything to add? I think there's a kind of momentum building, almost a wave of interest and might I say enthusiasm for the notion of going to Mars. That it's a target for it.

Mobilize the support of a broad coalition of people behind the idea that getting to Mars is no longer unaffordable, no longer technically infeasible, that it's really time to start going. And I would like to add, too, about the report itself, that I think that it is, to my biased way of thinking, the best single document that treats the issue of humans to Mars in a very definitive way. You know, I have seen, as many of us have, literally thousands of presentations about this, and often you get many ideas where a thousand flowers bloom, but there's no path ahead, or you get generic statements about what's the best process without any definition and without pulling it together.

And I think this workshop report will give the reader, and particularly the fan of space exploration something solid on which to base the future for going to Mars. We are talking on September 23rd. There was a very interesting development just yesterday, the 22nd. John Logsdon, I think you discovered at first what looks, sure looks like a plan by NASA for taking us to Mars. Can you say something else about what we found? And are we seeing the influence maybe of the Humans Orbiting Mars workshop? Well, the workshop was built in part around a Mars architecture developed by the Jet Propulsion Lab.

They didn't do it for our workshop. They did it as an input into NASA's overall planning. And I think that maybe the quality of the ideas contained in that architecture have been recognized by those at NASA headquarters and the other field centers involved. I think what we're seeing is a number of people from a number of directions converging on something that was the focus of our workshop and is the focus or one of the focuses of our report. Scott, do you see this as evidence that things are going in the right direction? I think there is a building consensus on what needs to be done next. Our workshop is the publication of the study from the JPL people, plus the actions of the NASA

Advisory Council calling on NASA leadership to be clearer about what the plans are. All of this, I think, is causing the people that are putting together the Humans to Mars, the Journey to Mars architecture for NASA, to begin to realize that there are a great many advantages to being a little more specific and to incorporating some of the ideas that were in our workshop and understanding that they don't have to fear any longer the notion that it costs a half a trillion dollars, that here is something that can be done affordably and that it is executable. The pieces are there, and part of the pieces have already been in development, like the SLS and Orion. So let's talk about those big pieces. SLS, of course, the space launch system, this huge rocket being developed right now by NASA, and the Orion capsule already being tested.

Is there anything else that's not in the equation as laid out by the workshop and the other work that's been done at JPL and elsewhere? Space habitat is the main piece that's missing, and that is an engineering development. It needs to be accompanied by good, solid future work on closed-loop life support. We have to have, as a community, a way of ensuring that the astronauts can effectively live in the 69 months it will take to get to Mars. There is another piece that has been called for, which is advanced or higher power solar electric propulsion. That's what would allow the pre-positioning of the life-supporting materials the astronauts will need when they get to orbit around Mars. I would add that one of the

beauties of the architecture that was discussed at the workshop, the JPL architecture, is dividing the mission to Mars into two pieces, one to go into Mars orbit and not landing. And you could do that, as Scott says, if you develop the high-powered solar electric and a deep space habitat, you would not have to go to the expense and the technological challenge of developing the landing system. That would be reserved for the next mission. Four- or five-year lag in the funding profile makes it much more doable. We are nevertheless looking at a program, if it's all implemented, that is going to take many years, decades, to get us into orbit,

to maybe to Phobos, and even longer to get down to the surface. Is there an example that you point to of this kind of successful multi-decade program that maybe could be a model for what is suggested in the report? Well, after all, the space station program was begun in 1984, the space station program was begun in 1984, and here we are in 2015, 31 years later, with the station now in full operation. I mean, there's some reservations about using that as a model, given all the fits and starts in the early years of the program. And the shuttle flew for 30 years. So even in the space program, we're used to long-duration programs lasting over decades. Scott, you were the Mars czar.

Can we look to robotic exploration of Mars as well? I think so. I think that that's a good model of how you do the two important things, create a community and build a consensus. The Mars program started off by being very clear about, in that case, the science requirements, and then step by step, built an architecture, a mission queue, did programs, systems engineering, and then went on a very tiring but nevertheless in the end successful campaign to get all the stakeholders on board. It's my personal opinion that we should no longer seek top-down directives from a presidential candidate or a president as being the keystone to this, but rather build a very solid plan and then get a community that supports that, that can stay over multiple administrations,

and that that consensus is what's going to keep this going for decades. John, no presidential moment, no Kennedy moment ahead of us? Well, people forget what the Kennedy moment really was. Yes, the president got up before the joint session of Congress and said, I believe we should go to the moon. But then he translated that into a warlike but peaceful mobilization of effort that I don't think is going to happen again. NASA budget went up 86% the first year and 101% the second year after Kennedy's speech. To expect that to happen again, I think, is illusory at a minimum. As both Scott and Casey in the report emphasize, this is a long haul. This is not a crash program. This is a sustainable program at an affordable

budget level, and that doesn't require a Kennedy moment. How critical to this plan is the end of support for the International Space Station. There's no way of using the aerospace validated numbers from the study by the JPL folks to achieve the orbit in 2033 or the landing in 2039 without ending the U.S. support for the International Space Station. The two dates that were given were 2024 and 2028. The way to say this, I believe, is that NASA can afford one human spaceflight program, not two. I attended a workshop yesterday here in Washington on commercial space stations. There may well be continued activity in low Earth orbit. It's NASA withdrawing from its $3 billion a year support of the International Space Station that is crucial in having those resources to put against the development of a solid, well-executed Mars plan. This report is so comprehensive. What, if anything, is not in it?

Scott, you mentioned one area just before we started recording. Yes, the one piece that we didn't include was the biomedical piece. Frankly, I have been very surprised and pleased by recent statements by NASA's Chief Medical Officer, Rich Williams. Dr. Williams said in a presentation to the NASA Advisory Council, a human journey to Mars is moved from being a big unknown, biomedically speaking, to an ethical question. And what he meant by that was that enough data has been accumulated that the medical experts, the flight surgeons and their community can now say

there is a significantly increased risk of mortality, maybe 10% or so, by taking this journey. But that used to be completely unknown, and now it's something where you give informed consent and it would be a decision by the administrator and the individual astronauts as to whether they were willing to take that risk. To me, that's a huge step forward in that particular area. That's Scott Hubbard. He, Casey Dreyer, and John Logsdon will return to continue our conversation about the Humans Orbiting Mars workshop report. This is Planetary Radio.

Bill Nye the Planetary Guy here inviting you to the Planetary Society's 35th anniversary celebration. It's Saturday, October 24th in our hometown of Pasadena, California. I'll lead the party with special guests, a great many of them. No kidding, these people are the real deals. You can't believe how much fun this is going to be. The details are at planetary.org slash 35th. That's easy, right? Planetary.org slash 35th. Join us as we change the world. My refrigerator magnets have clumped together again. Mary, you need magnetic monopole refrigerator magnets from the Roswell Wonder Company.

They're guaranteed to never clump. Gee, thanks, Marge. I'll order my magnetic monopole refrigerator magnets today. The Roswell Wonder Company, putting alien technology to work for you. Not an actual company. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. Casey Dreyer is the Planetary Society's Director of Advocacy. Scott Hubbard of Stanford University is the former NASA Mars Czar and Director of its Ames Research Center.

And John Logsdon founded the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. They are three of the authors of the just-released Humans Orbiting Mars Workshop Report, an effort by the Planetary Society to explore a plausible, practical, and exciting path for sending women and men to the Red Planet. There's a link to the full report and much more on the show page. You'll find it at planetary.org slash radio. Scott Hubbard told us what's not in the report just before the break. John Logsdon wanted to note one more non-appearance.

Matt, the other thing that's not in the report is an argument of why we should go to Mars. We start the assumption that we, the society, the world, at some point would like to go to Mars, would like to see humans standing on the surface of Mars. And the report outlines a path to achieve that goal. It doesn't debate the wisdom of the goal. When we were crafting our workshop, we said, let's just take the Academy's conclusion for human spaceflight and start there and then see what needs to be done to make it executable. It's a well footnoted report. And one of our footnotes talks about it is the National Academy's

claims in their pathways report last year. It's the horizon goal. It was the goal stated in the Augustine Commission's report in 2009. It's Mars. The president's national space policy in 2010 declares Mars orbit actually as the ultimate goal for human space policy in 2010 declares Mars orbit, actually, as the ultimate goal for human spaceflight in the 2030s. You have multiple organizations devoted to Mars, Mars Society, Explore Mars. The Planetary Society has supported the Mars goal for a long time. And then you have people like Elon Musk, who are saying Mars is the goal. To me, we wanted to focus the workshop on the idea that we don't have to re-debate Mars. As far as I'm concerned, Mars is pretty much overall seen as the ultimate goal for human spaceflight. The question is, how do we make it a reality? And that's what becomes a really

compelling solution that we can find here through a very pragmatic approach. What I really like about this JPL plan is the starting point. And I think any plan or why Orbit First is such a compelling answer to this problem of how do we make Mars happen is that you have to accept a certain set of constraints. And this is what we laid out in the workshop. But the constraints being you have to accept a certain level of budget. You have to accept that if you're saying we're going to do something in 10 years, a crash course to Mars, I just do not think that's a realistic way to approach this anymore. You look

at the history of human spaceflight, and you've got the Apollo program, but then you've got 40 years of everything else. And people tend to fixate on the 10 years of Apollo and ignore the actual vast majority of history of human spaceflight. And that history, as John pointed out, is a history of multi-decade programs that work within and deal with a certain budget and do what they can within that. And I think that's where you start from. You can build something really compelling, as Scott has said, based on that, as long as you plan forward and articulate a real vision for that. Wrapped up in these answers you've just given to this question of why Mars, is something that you've addressed.

There's an entire section of the report dedicated to public engagement. Why did you see this as important enough to include? We recognize that a critical element for the long haul is to create a community and build a consensus. And the only way you do that is by having something that reaches out broadly. I don't think this is a sustainable program if it just involves a few major aerospace contractors or a few NASA centers. I think that broadly- based support is critical. And that was an element of the workshop. After all, this workshop was organized by the Planetary Society. What is the society's goal is to engage the public in the adventure of space exploration. The fact that we paid attention to that aspect of the overall effort, I think, is totally

understandable given who put the workshop together. Thank you for that, John. Casey, I know this is something you care deeply about. Yeah, we teased this idea of orbiting first as a solution to the problem of getting humans to Mars in the last issue of the Planetary Report. And I invited readers to email me with their thoughts on the idea. And this was, you know, the report wasn't out at that point, so it was just kind of a broad outline of what we had talked about.

And I received more email on this topic than I have cumulatively from my entire past three years as advocacy director at the Planetary Society. This touches a nerve with people. And most of the feedback we got was very positive. I think most people realize that they've wanted Mars for so long, they're willing to accept here's what it takes to get there, or here's a smart strategy to get there. That's the way we should be pursuing this. Engaging the public is really important. but also there's an interesting tension with it too, because as presented at the workshop by Roger Lanius, who's now at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, public attitudes on space tend to be really

mixed. Last year's National Academy's report on human spaceflight delved into this quite a bit, and we mention it too and talk about this, where there is a generally a very positive support for NASA in the public, but that support tends to be shallow. And so that, again, kind of drives home where the public is very supportive, as long as we're not demanding too much. And I think that is another sobering reminder that we cannot be going out and expecting to get huge increases in budget. We need to kind of work within this magic area where we are, get the inflationary growth, get what we can, but then plan for constrained funding because there's not going to be an overwhelming public demand for funding for space. One thing that struck me as I read the report is that it contains pretty sound advice for, me as I read the report is that it contains pretty sound advice for, seems to me, NASA or any space agency that goes well beyond this goal of sending humans to Mars.

And an example is what is called the four Cs, Clarity, Coalition, Convergence, and Commerce. Scott, I'm told that you're the one who introduced this. Yes, it was built on the work I did 15 years ago now in restructuring the Mars program, the robotic science Mars program. And I found that, first of all, it's extremely, it's absolutely crucial you be clear about what you're trying to accomplish. It can't be all things to all people. And NASA in the human spaceflight realm has struggled to find its clarity there.

I think explore deep space, of which the next step, as defined by the National Academy, is Mars. Coalition means you're not going to do all of this alone. You're going to need to have international partners, other groups that are part of this grand adventure. Convergence is another way of saying build a consensus and have this basket of pebbles of all these different good ideas converge on a plan or at least the skeleton of a plan that we can all agree on. Then commerce I think is just acknowledging that there are now, as a result of the NASA commercial cargo and crew programs,

ways of getting to space that at least have the promise, and with delivery thus far of cargo, of achieving that at a much lower cost than if NASA owns its own services. at a much lower cost than if NASA owns its own services. So that was the overarching umbrella of the structure of the program that we'd like to see going forward. John Logsdon, do you also see wisdom in this report that goes well beyond its stated goal of humans getting to Mars? I think the report in its specifics carries with it a general message that the future in space is not some great mystery, not some unachievable effort,

that with focus we can do wonderful things in space. Yeah, one of them is getting people to Mars, but there's lots more to do. There are planets to explore. There's lots of knowledge to be gained. And a lot of the principles that are laid out in this report specific to the mission to Mars, I think, can have very broad applicability. Casey Dreyer, where can our listeners find the report and what comes next?

So the report we've posted online, we've actually made a whole special section of our website. It's hom.planetary.org, Humans Orbiting Mars, hom.planetary.org, and we have a really nice typeset. PDF people can download. We have more information. We have our previous interview with you, Matt, posted up there.

We have video. We have pictures. we have background reading further reading it's a way to really level up your experience in the policy of human space flight and start becoming a real empowered space advocate what's next well the way that i see this is that this report is going to serve as the cornerstone of the society's re-engagement with the human spaceflight question in terms of our policy and advocacy work. So we did this workshop. We did this report. We really sat down.

We looked at this problem. We thought about this problem. And it's going to really inform where we go. So what are we going to be working towards? We're going to be working toward getting humans to Mars in an affordable, sustainable, and executable way. getting humans to Mars in an affordable, sustainable, and executable way. Orbiting first seems a critical step in doing that if you expect to have limited funding,

if you expect to use the tools that NASA is developing right now, if you expect to drive science and to drive investments in technology now, you need this goal and an articulated path to get there. And that's going to serve as our forking of our advocacy program. Planetary exploration is the overall goal for the Planetary Society. We have our robotic side of things that we will continue to work on. And now we will have a clearer path and a clearer definition to base our human spaceflight side of our advocacy program around. So you'll be hearing a lot more about this for the next few years until we get to Mars, I expect. Including on Planetary Radio. Once again, you were reminding me of how fortunate I am that I

get to talk to visionaries who see our future in the solar system, and hopefully before too terribly long out at the red planet, circling and then eventually landing on Mars. Thank you so much for joining us again on the show. Thank you, Matt. Thank you. We've been talking about the Humans Orbiting Mars Workshop Report, which, as you heard, is now available at the Planetary Society website. The workshop itself, which took place at the very end of March and the very beginning of April of this year, was co-chaired by two of our guests, Planetary Society Board members Scott Hubbard, the first Mars czar at NASA and a former director of NASA's Ames Research Center,

and John Logsdon, preeminent space historian and founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. Casey Dreyer, of course, is the Planetary Society's Director of Advocacy, and we will give credit also to his colleague, Jason Callahan, the only major report author who didn't join our conversation today. Joining us in a moment or two, Bruce Betts with this week's edition of What's Up. Wrapping up a big show today, lots of red planet stuff. Moving on now to Bruce Betts, the director of science and technology for the Planetary Society, who I bet was out watching the eclipse last night as we speak.

I was indeed. It was teasing with going behind clouds and coming out from clouds and took a lot of pictures. I had the same experience. Mostly of clouds. I was at a pier in a coastal city very close to where I live, and there was a tremendous turnout. All the parking lots were full. I hear that they had to close the Griffith Observatory area in Los Angeles because it was just massively crowded. So a lot of people wanted to join in on this phenomenon.

They actually closed the moon for a part of it. Just overcrowded, right? So anyway, what's left up in the sky? Well, sadly, not another lunar eclipse. But we've got some cool planets, particularly in the pre-dawn there's venus super bright there's mars that for the next week or so is very close to the star regulus which is actually a little bit brighter and less red than mars and then farther down towards the horizon and the pre-dawn east is very bright jupiter and saturn hanging out in the evening sky in the pre-dawn east is very bright Jupiter. And Saturn hanging out in the evening sky in the southwest.

And I encourage you, as always, get out a telescope or go hang out with people with a telescope so you can see those rings of Saturn. On to this week in space history. It was 1957, Sputnik was launched, first satellite in space. And 1958, this week, NASA was launched. First satellite in space. And 1958, this week, NASA was founded. On to random space facts. You'll like this, Matt. The TARDIS from Doctor Who fame,

or equivalently an old style police box, would actually fit. If you turned it on its side, you could put it on the Curiosity rover and drive it around Mars. That's great. Wouldn't that have been handy for the astronaut in The Martian? He'd have had a lot more room. Exactly. It would have been a lot more spacious. Anyway, I find that to be an amusing visual image. Okay, we move on. I know you've got a lot of feedback for us from the question, who played the voice of the robot in Lost in Space? The person who said, Danger, Walt Robinson. Get this.

We had a bigger response to this. I think the biggest we have ever had. Nearly double a typical week's response to the space trivia contest. Was it lost in space? Was it the fact that we were giving away that prototype of Extronaut, the board game from Dante Loretta? You get the prototype, you get to be in on a call with Dante about the OSIRIS-REx mission and the game, and then eventually get the final version of the game as well. We heard from all these people it was a guy named Dick Tufeld. Well, it was Leonard Sojka of Troy, Virginia, a first-time winner. And so, Leonard, you are the winner of that Extronaut prototype game.

Dante's Kickstarter is going very well, by the way. I think it's got a couple more weeks to run. If anybody wants to check out the game, you can go to Kickstarter and just put in Extronaut. Start with an X, X-T-R-O-N-A-U-T, and you can check it out. We did get a bunch of other very entertaining entries. A lot of people who pointed out that the Spanish-language version of the robot's voice was Jorge Arvizu, of the robot's voice was Jorge Arvizu, and that it was Bob,

there was an actor named Bob May who was actually in the robot suit. Dustin Hess of West Toluca Lake, California. He had an interesting way to put this. I think you'll like it. Dick Tufeld was the James Earl Jones to Bob May's David Prowse. Indeed. Setting the precedent for robot actors. Yeah, a duopoly, I guess. Did you know

that the robot actually had a classification? I did not recall that. We got this from a bunch of people. B9 class M3 general utility non-theorizing environmental control robot. environmental control robot. Oh, now it all comes back to me. I also enjoyed this one from Randy Bottom very much up in Ontario. The robot's sidekick, Jonathan Harris, right? A.K.A. Dr. Smith. You're going to like this.

Jonathan Harris was the voice of the Cylon robot Lucifer in the original Battlestar Galactica series. It makes so much sense. They were both really irritating in, I guess, the way they were supposed to be. Right. Okay, finally this from Eric Velde. And I'm not sure Eric is entirely in touch with the reality or lack of it in television. He says about the Robinson family,

gosh, I sure hope we find them someday. We're still looking. The Jupiter II is out there somewhere where no family has gone before. We're ready for next week. Shifting gears completely, who is the only woman to perform a solo spaceflight? The only female solo spaceflight.

Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. And you guys, you should not have any problem with this one, right? You need to get it to us, though, by Tuesday, October 6th at 8 a.m. Pacific time. And the prize, a lovely Planetary Radio t-shirt and 200-point account on itelescope.net, the worldwide nonprofit network of telescopes used for astrophotography or just, you know, pointed at Saturn, as Bruce has been recommending to you for lo these many weeks. All right, everybody, go out there, look up at the night sky and think about ketchup. Yummy. Thank you and good night.

I wonder if they have ketchup on the International Space Station. Look up in the night sky and think about ketchup. Yummy. Thank you, and good night. I wonder if they have ketchup on the International Space Station. It has natural mellowing qualities, you know. He's Bruce Betts. He's mellow. He's the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society, who 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 its visionary members.

Danielle Gunn is our associate producer. Josh Doyle created the theme music. I'm Matt Kaplan. Clear skies.