Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Humans Orbiting Mars: Report on the Workshop

Episode Date: April 7, 2015

A human mission to orbit Mars might be possible by 2033, and it might be accomplished at reasonable cost and with existing or nearly-ready technology. Three leaders of a recent Washington DC conference on this topic provide a report.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Getting humans to Mars without breaking the bank, 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 it, and we can do it affordably. That was the big question being investigated at the Humans Orbiting Mars workshop. We'll get a report this week from Scott Hubbard, John Logsdon, and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Bruce Betts and I give two thumbs up to the total lunar eclipse, complete with blood moon. And we've got another iTelescope account and planetary radio t-shirt for one of you.

Cassini has returned spectacular new images from Saturn. And Emily Lacauala is here with more than a sneak peek. Emily, we go back out to Saturn this week to check in with Cassini. Lots of terrific images, and you've done some really clever things with many of these. It's so exciting to see all these new images of moons come in, and I can't wait to get my hands on them to process them. And, you know, most of Saturn's moons are sort of bright and white and gray. So when you try to make color composites, nothing terribly exciting happens. But the wonderful exception is Iapetus, which has this really dark leading hemisphere that's kind of reddish, and then an icier trailing hemisphere. And there's quite a sharp boundary in between them. And so

depending on which face Cassini gets to look at, you can see these cool patterns all across Iapetus' surface, and it's just so fun to put the images together. All right, now say something about this animation that you've created. Well, Cassini takes lots of images in order to observe how the surface of a moon changes with different illumination angle. But taking lots of images with a regular cadence means you can also assemble them into an animation. And so Cassini took images of Iapetus over the course of a week, and I was able to put those together into a little animation that bounces back and forth. You can see topography features on the surface.

You can see things rotating into daylight. It's just so much fun. Yes, and really quite lovely as well. There's another animation here if you scroll down a little bit. It's of one of the rings of Saturn. It has a very ethereal, eerie quality. In order to see most of Saturn's rings, Cassini can just use sunlight to shine off of them the way that we see any of the moons in the Saturn system. But the diffuse outer rings, the E ring

and the G ring, there's not very much mass there. And so they're mostly transparent and very difficult to see unless you put the spacecraft in a geometry where you have the rings in between the spacecraft and the sun. And then they light up like dust motes in a geometry where you have the rings in between the spacecraft and the sun. And then they light up like dust motes in a sunbeam. And you can see these beautiful patterns in the rings. And you can actually even see one of the moons go around right in the middle of the E-ring. And that is Enceladus, who's spewing geysers, creates that diffuse E-ring. And watching the stars go by, the star field is moving by in this animation. It really is spectacular, as are just some of the still images like this one where we see the rings edge on. And that really tells you why you can get all of these images of Saturn's moons,

because Cassini has returned to an orbit that is within the ring plane. And when Cassini is in that geometry, it's able to fly past the moons relatively frequently, and we get all of these visual treats. It's an April 3rd entry in the blog at planetary.org. That's Emily Lakdawalla's blog with these beautiful new images from Cassini. They sure make that mission look like it's extremely worthwhile after all these years. And you'll also learn, if you read it, why horizontal stripes are bad for planetary bodies as well as people.

Thanks, Emily. Thank you, Matt. She's our senior editor, the planetary evangelist for the Planetary Society, and a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. We're going to go straight on today into our coverage of the Humans Orbiting Mars workshop that took place recently in Washington, D.C., and that conversation will include Bill Nye taking the place of his regular commentary this week. Can we all agree that getting men and women to Mars will be really, really hard?

Hard and expensive, even if all we do is orbit the red planet and visit a moon. It's far from assured, but a growing number of analysts, engineers, policy experts, and scientists think we may be able to reach this goal and do so within a reasonable budget and with mostly existing or in-development technology. The question was explored over a day and a half in Washington, D.C. last week. Seventy impressive individuals gathered in private to examine the evidence and the options. With sponsorship by the Planetary Society, the Humans Orbiting Mars Workshop was chaired by Scott Hubbard and John Logsdon.

Hubbard is a former director of NASA's Ames Research Center and the first so-called Mars Czar at the agency. Logsdon founded and served as the first director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, which hosted the gathering. A few days ago, I got Scott and John on the phone for the conversation you're about to hear. Joining them was Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us on Planetary Radio. Glad to be here, absolutely. We are speaking to you just after you have completed this press conference with a lot of the major aerospace and other media participating,

so we feel pretty fortunate to be able to get the three of you all to ourselves. Everybody, all three of you, seem to be so enthusiastic about this day-and-a-half study and the conclusions that were reached, in progress or conclusions. But I know that you have been to scores of workshops and symposia and conferences about getting to Mars over decades, right? What sets this discussion just completed apart from so many of those? The thing that really impressed me is that I think we have, for the first time ever, maybe, an executable, long-term humans-to-Mars program.

In my experience, people that have planned human exploration of space have generally not taken cost as an input, and this was one of the key inputs to this. The robotic science community, by comparison, has for at least 25 years, had to live under very severe cost constraints. And I think that what we saw here was that if you put cost in as a major factor, you can find a way to get humans orbiting Mars in 2033. And to me, that's significant. That's a breakthrough. That's brand new.

That was Scott Hubbard that we heard. John Logsdon, you and I have talked about this on the radio show in the past. What to you sets this apart? Well, I think one was the focus on an achievable, valuable mission that hasn't gotten very much attention in the past. We've been kind of hung up on the excitement, the adventure of getting humans to the surface of Mars, which is, after all, the ultimate goal of human exploration, at least in our lifetimes.

But this workshop focused on the value to that ultimate end of having humans in orbit around Mars by 2033, which is a particularly good opportunity for Earth-Mars travel, that in addition to the operational value of learning how to get people from Earth into the Mars orbit, you could do a lot of science, looking down, operating robotic systems on the surface, and quite plausibly could visit one of the moons of Mars, Phobos or Deimos, themselves very interesting objects. So it was the focus of the workshop, I think, made it exceedingly valuable. Scott Hubbard, what laid the groundwork for this workshop? There were two things that happened that were key to making this workshop occur.

One was a formal recommendation from the NASA Advisory Council back in July of 2014 to NASA that said, what do you consider NASA to be the minimum path approach for humans to Mars, since that's been a goal of the agency for many decades. The second was the National Academy, National Research Council report on human exploration that also came out in 2014, that when they looked at the current architecture, the current approach that NASA uses, found that either it was A, completely unaffordable, or B, didn't get humans to Mars until almost 2050. Those two things made me want to go and see if you apply principles of cost constraint and more near-term technology and minimize big developments.

If you do that, can't you get there in an affordable way? And it was a marvelous confluence of things. The sponsorship of the Planetary Society, some studies that JPL and their team had already been doing, my experience as part of the NASA Advisory Council, it all came together. Just going to say, Matt, that the Planetary Society goes way back with this, bringing experts together to evaluate technical issues. And so there were 70 people who are just the world's foremost authorities, not only on the technical aspects of a mission to orbit Mars, but in how much it would cost. That to me is the big difference on this one, is keeping it in the, what they like to call

the funding profile. It is, I think, an important step, and I hope it's a turning point for exploration of Mars. This is, as I understand it, still very much a work in progress. We wouldn't want people to get the idea that you've just emerged with the full blueprint for orbiting Mars in 2033. the full blueprint for orbiting Mars in 2033. Well, no. This was the demonstration of one approach that would work in terms of cost and available technology. We kept rejecting the term, maybe for your audience,

that we can use in existence proof, that an approach that is affordable and executable exists. We proved that there is at least one way to do it. It's a work in progress because there are a number, a host of details that have yet to be explored. There is a full report yet to come, right? That's probably some months away. We plan to have a short report to make it easily readable, maybe 15 pages or something by the end of the summer, first of September, with links to the detailed presentations. And that will be the sort of thing that lays out in greater detail what we described, mostly in words today. It's important to recognize that the Planetary Society did not do this study.

It was done by Jet Propulsion Laboratory with the cost work done by the Aerospace Corporation. We used that work as the focal point for the workshop. It's not a Planetary Society study. John, thank you for making that point. Tell me about some of the key elements that this plan is very likely to depend on. For example, the end of support for the International Space Station. Yes, this is a major decision that has political and budgetary and international ramifications. The analysis looked at two possibilities. One, that NASA's support for

the International Space Station ends in 2024. In that case, the budgetary analysis says that this approach fits very nicely with room for margin and reserves. If you extend the station to 2028, and both of these dates have been discussed, by the way, with the international partners, if you extend it to 2028, this approach still fits with maybe less obvious reserves on hand. So the decision about whether the space station is formally ended, is handed off to commercial entities, other partners pick it up, that's a very big decision that's critical to this approach. Well, really any approach. One of the speakers, we were on a no attribution rule for the workshop,

but one of the speakers, I don't think Scott will mind saying it, was he, said the United States cannot afford two human spaceflight programs. Yeah, what I said was it can afford one human spaceflight program, not two. And right now we're talking if the station just keeps going into the future, I don't see any way that you can do both that and the human exploration of Mars. Scott Hubbard, John Logsdon, and Bill Nye will be back in a minute with more of their report on the Humans Orbiting Mars workshop. This is Planetary Radio. Hey, hey, Bill Nye here. I'd like to introduce you to Merck Boyan.

Hello. He's been making all those fabulous videos, which hundreds of thousands of you have been watching. That's right. We're going to put all the videos in one place, Merk. Is that right? Planetary TV. So I can watch them on my television?

No. So wait a minute. Planetary TV's not on TV? That's the best thing about it. They're all going to be online. You can watch them anytime you want. Where do I watch Planetary TV then, Merk? Well, you can watch it all at

planetary.org slash tv. Random Space Fact! Nothing new about that for you, Planetary Radio fans. Right? Wrong. Random Space Fact is now a video series, too. And it's brilliant, isn't it, Matt? I hate to say it, folks, but

it really is. And 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 planetarysociety. 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. Our conversation with space policy experts Scott Hubbard and John Logsdon continues.

They chaired the Humans Orbiting Mars workshop in Washington, D.C. last week. Actively participating in the workshop, and joining Scott and John on the phone a few days ago, was Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye. The workshop was conducted under what are known as Chatham House rules. This means everyone is now free to talk about what was discussed, but they cannot attribute any comments to other participants. We heard Scott Hubbard take responsibility for one statement just before our break. Bill Nye had another, at least temporarily, anonymous anecdote. And a point made by another member who may or may not choose to accept attribution was that we're not going to have temporarily anonymous anecdote. And a point made by another member

who may or may not choose to accept attribution is that we're not going to have another moment like Kennedy's speech at Rice University. Not Rice University. Congress. Congress. Kennedy proposed going to the moon in a speech before the joint session of Congress

May the 25th, 1961. As he made his first inspection tour in September of 62 of Progress, he was scheduled to give the speech at Rice University to rally support for the program. And that's where we do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are. The people in Houston think that Kennedy announced it there. Bill Nye seems to think so. He was misinformed. Well, read my book. Not just that. Learn what's in the book. Just read it. Yeah, read and remember. So what is the Kennedy moment for you, Doc? Which one? The congressional one or the Rice University one? Which one?

Well, the Kennedy moment, the Rice University one? Which one referred to the Kennedy moment? Well, the Kennedy moment to me lasted two years. It was the decision to propose the commitment to sending people to the moon, and then in at least two successful budget cycles, approving first an 89% and then a 101% increase in the NASA budget to make it possible. Doubling the budget twice. Doubling the budget twice in a two-year period. Which is not going to happen this time around. John, you did make a point during the press conference that you do see some parallels

between this effort that is now under discussion and at least one of the Apollo missions, Apollo 8. What did you mean by that? Well, Apollo 8 went out, went into orbit around the moon, Christmas time, 1968, sent back or brought back the iconic Earthrise picture, changed the way we perceived our place in the solar system, the universe. But it also was a test of all of the things you had to do to get to the moon, short of landing. All the navigation, all the system operations, people on the ground working with crews a quarter of a million miles away. And in the same way,

this Mars orbit mission would allow us to exercise all the elements of a Mars landing mission except the very challenging entry, descent, and landing. So I think it breaks the humans to Mars into two pieces, and I think that is essential to ultimate success. Two manageable pieces. You manage the risk and manage the budget. What are the technical elements that are yet to be developed to achieve a mission plan like the one that seems to be coming together here? There are existing elements that this approach took advantage of, that Orion is proceeding ahead, that the SLS, Space Launch System, is proceeding ahead, that there are at least concepts out there for the deep space habitation module, which would be a new development. The piece that is further in the future that is right now only a paper study

would be an actual Mars lander. So this approach really took pains to eliminate things like nuclear thermal propulsion, like very exotic other types of transfer vehicles, and essentially just is using Orion, a deep space habitation module, the SLS so-called Block II, which is the next upgrade, and then chemical propulsion and solar electric propulsion for transport. One of the elements that's key to the approach that we saw is a 100-kilowatt solar electric system. The asteroid redirect mission, as part of what it's doing, will develop a 50-kilowatt. So that's one way to get that technology developed.

A tugboat. develop a 50 kilowatt. So that's one way to get that technology developed. A tugboat. The approach we saw calls for a landing on Phobos. So there's also a Phobos lander still affordable in the particular approach, which is, as we said earlier, just an example that this can be done. I would guess that when this happens, the specific elements will look a little different than what we saw the past couple of days. Without identifying them, you had a lot of scientists involved in this day-and-a-half discussion. Is there also thinking, is there a great confidence that this will be valuable not just for its inspirational value and for the experience that will be gained on getting to places like Mars, but for the science that can be gathered? Well, I'd say that there are

two answers to that, at least. One is there is some science that would probably be unique if you were in orbit around Mars or at Phobos, where the orbit is not quite as good for doing telerobotics. There's a penalty in propulsion and so forth. But in any case, you could, according to one of our science speakers, Steve Squires, who has a lot of experience operating an opportunity, pointed out the enormous increase because of the low latency times, the low transmission times, in being able to get science with a rover on the surface that was designed to be teleoperated. They lose a surprising amount of time waiting for the spin of Mars, the spin of the Earth, the orbits of the two things, and 7-11, 20-minute

time at the speed of light getting signals back and forth. So you're talking about driving a rover, doing science on the surface of Mars from orbit, where the delay times are in the seconds and minutes rather than the days, which it typically takes now, certainly many, many hours. The other type of science is something that plausibly could be done by a relatively inexpensive robotic mission. This is the examination of Phobos and Deimos, trying to understand where they came from. Big science question.

I mean, you've got camps that argue they're captured asteroids. Other groups that say, no, it's material blasted off Mars that are created. Either answer would be fascinating. But with human beings there and the right equipment, you can do the analysis there that would inform you very quickly as to what the origin was and whether those resources could be used for later human exploration. And the more we know about asteroids, the more we know about the only preventable natural

disaster, the Earth getting hit with an asteroid. The scientific benefit is incalculable, but it's big. So what is the most important next step that must be taken? I get the feeling it's not so much technical as one of political will. Yeah, I think it is the embrace by the political leadership in the White House and in Congress to include this idea, this concept of the need for setting out a program with identifiable milestones for two decades, not committing to funding for two decades, but saying, here's our plan. Here's opportunities for international contributions. Here's opportunities for private sector participation

and contribution, so that the world space community can rally around a specific strategy for getting to Mars. We say Mars is our goal, but there is no detail, not even detail, there's no kind of step-by-step strategy of how we're going to go about getting to Mars. This approach that we've been examining, focusing on the critical role of an orbiting mission, is that kind of strategy. And I think getting buy-in first in this country and then maybe in the world will allow the space community to move forward. One of our speakers, Elliot Pullum, of course, is the CEO of the Space Foundation, presented a big picture view of the world space community, and he noted that right now, if you look at the strategic plans of the world's spacefaring nations, or at least the top 20 or so,

NASA's the only one that has Mars listed as a goal. I think the presence of this framework and U.S. leadership will all of a sudden galvanize other nations who do want to go to Mars, I think, to find their place in the framework. And you can begin to see about having them contribute key elements that would reduce NASA's contribution and make the whole program more robust, using, frankly, the International Space Station as somewhat of a political model that everybody accepts. Bill, why was it so important to the Planetary Society to get behind this workshop, put a lot of resources into it? Well, this goes way back with us. When the planetary site was started in

the 1980s, we had a lot of involvement with Russian colleagues. These would be scientists and engineers, rocket scientists in Russia. And we had the space bridge and so on. And as things went, the planetary site supported more robotic exploration because that's where the big discoveries were being made. But it's clear that people want people in space, and people want people near Mars, around Mars. And so we sponsored this workshop, bringing together 70 of the world's experts to see if you really could fulfill this dream. And I cannot emphasize enough, the big thing that impressed me was paying attention to the money, not just declaring that we'll have thermoelectric propulsion in another two weeks or something, just paying attention to what's really possible. And this

changes everything. If we had any sort of moment that's akin to the Apollo 8 Earthrise picture, it will change the world. And as I say all the time, humans are the best explorers we know of. Humans just notice things, just explore better than our very best robots, having people in place. Two things will happen. They will make discoveries, for sure, and the other thing they will have is an adventure, and that will engage people all over the world. This is what we do is we look farther and deeper into space. And I say this all the time. If you stop exploring, if you stop looking up and out,

what does that say about you? Whatever it is, it's not good. This is why we are hoping to energize the space community of the world to send humans in orbit around Mars. Let me just add one quote. One of the attendees, a former astronaut, now professor at the University of Virginia, Kathy Horton, gave me a piece of paper and she said you can use these words. Exploring Mars will inform us about our past, our present, and our future. Absolutely. I hope you'll take it as a compliment if I refer to the three of you as Martians or would-be Martians. Why is it so important, this effort, getting humans out to Mars, to the three of you

personally? Well, Matt, the very first space launch I attended was Apollo 11. I got up early in the morning and watched these three guys walk by me on the way to the moon. I would like to see the next crew, probably four people at least in the approach we saw, walk by me on the way to Mars. What greater human adventure can one imagine than seeing people venture off of this planet and go someplace and then come back and tell us about it? I want to still be around when that happens. For my own part, I was nine years old at the time of Sputnik, growing up in a little tiny town in Kentucky where horse-drawn wagons at that point still pulled up around the courthouse on Saturday to get groceries. I would string a hundred foot wire outside my window to listen to faraway radio stations like WLS in Chicago. At that point,

I was reading science and science fiction and thought, my goodness, the most amazing thing I could ever imagine would be to know if we're alone in the universe. And I've continued that passion through my entire career. And I think that having humans at Mars and on Mars as capable as all of our robotic capabilities are, and I've had something to do with them being there, I think that if we get that answer to are we alone, that having humans exploring really increases the chances to know that. You guys have choked up. But I am.

I am. But along this line, one of the extraordinary insights I got, both from, well, just from being at Cornell University when Carl Sagan was there, and a guy named Hans Bethe, and Kip Thorne came and did a symposium and so on. We are made of stardust. You and I are made of the same stuff as stars. made of the same stuff as stars. So we are at least one of the ways that the universe knows itself. And that to me is just extraordinary. It fills me with reverence. And so I want to know as much about our place in space as I can. And along this line for me is pursuing the possibility that there is life or there once was life on Mars.

I just feel this effort is the best idea we could have to address this problem, to send people out there and have a look around. If we discover life or evidence of life, fossil, bacterial, mats, what have you, on Mars, it would change the course of human history. what have you on Mars, would change the course of human history. And we would have done it in a logical, affordable, sustainable way by a process sponsored by the organization that my old professor Carl Sagan started. So this is part of the biggest picture I can think of. I'm very excited to be part of it.

Gentlemen, thank you so much. We'll look forward to further developments here on Planetary Radio and following them at planetary.org and the other channels available provided by the Planetary Society. Again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. John Logsdon, Scott Hubbard, and Bill Nye reporting on the just-completed Humans Orbiting

Mars workshop. Our complete conversation is at planetary.org slash radio. We'll end this edition of Planetary Radio as we frequently do, talking to our friend and colleague, the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society. That's Bruce Betts. Welcome back.

What's up? Hey, did you see the eclipse, Matt? Did you wake up? I did. I did. I got up? Hey, did you see the eclipse, Matt? Did you wake up? I did. I did. I got up to see it. And blood red. It was beautiful.

And there is an even more beautiful, better than naked eye, which troubles me, video by our colleague, Merk Boyan. I don't know actually if it's posted yet at Planetary TV, but it's a really good video. I hope it will be soon. If it is, we'll put the link on the show page. Did you see it's a really good video. I hope it will be soon. If it is, we'll put the link on the show page. Did you see it? Yes, I did. It was lovely. You can also see a random space fact video we just released telling you why it was reddish. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. I haven't seen that one yet. Planetary.org slash RSF. And we'll put a link to that as well. So what else is up? Well, the easy stuff we got in the early evening, Venus over in the west, the really bright object, Jupiter kind of getting higher overhead in the south. They'll be getting

closer over the coming months. Saturn coming up a little later in the evening in the east. For the challenge, get a really clear view to the western horizon in the next two or three weeks. For Mars, pretty dim. And Mercury, brighter, but they're getting close. They'll be quite close together, low to the western horizon, April 21st and 22nd. And then Mercury will keep getting higher up, be visible roughly through mid-May, and Mars continues dropping away.

All right, on to this week in space history. It was 1961 that Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. In 1970, Apollo 13 was launched. One of the most exciting stories ever in space. On to random space fact! You're giddy with excitement. And I think I know why. It's because we're headed to Italy in the next few days for the Planetary Defense Conference, which people here on the show will hear more about in a couple of weeks after we return. Italy, planetary defense, asteroid threat, saving the world. And having a good time doing it. I doubt that, but at least

we'll be saving the world. I'm going to have a good time at the Planetary Radio Live show that we record there. We can't stream it, unfortunately, but we'll be doing it at the headquarters of the Italian Space Agency, so it should make for a great show. We've got a terrific panel lined up, including the Director of Science and Technology, Bruce Betts. Yay! I mean, it's a great panel. That's good. Collectively. All right. A random space fact, which I suppose you can pronounce with an Italian accent, a Plutino.

A Plutino is a trans-Neptunian object in a 3-to-2 or 2-to-3, depending on how you look at it, mean motion resonance with Neptune. So for every two orbits that a Plutino makes, Neptune makes three orbits. It's, of course, named after the first discovered Plutino, which is Pluto. Would make a wonderful breakfast cereal, too. Ooh, that's a great idea. Here, don't air that part. We'll make a great breakfast cereal. We'll make a fortune on Plutinos. Alright, I'll try to remember to cut it out, but you know my memory is not what it used to be. Yeah, oh well. Speaking of memory, we'll go on to the trivia contest.

And we asked you, what is the approximate latitude of the roughly center of Jupiter's great red spot, which has stayed pretty constant over the decades and centuries? How'd we do? We had a couple of people

pointing out that it's the same latitude, if you look at the Earth, the southern latitudes, as portions of Brazil, as Queensland, Australia. But the answer came from a previous winner, a guy who has not won in nearly two years now in St. Paul, Minnesota. That's Luca Roscino. Luca said that it's at 22 degrees south, which he said, I suppose, makes it a tropical storm. And he's correct?

He is indeed. Here we go. Did we say he'd get a shirt as well? No, I don't think we did. Because he said that when he won his Planetary Radio t-shirt in 2013, he said he gave it to his wife as an anniversary gift. He says, well, we'll see how things go this time. My son's first birthday is coming up.

Well, happy birthday to your son, Luca, and congratulations on winning. We don't have a shirt for your son, but we've got a book I think he's going to love. Maybe not at one, but I'll bet he'll start at two. That is Max Goes to the Space Station from our friend Jeffrey Bennett. Jeff Bennett, the terrific author, mathematician. He's traveling the country right now telling people about the wonders of general relativity on its 100th anniversary. But this is part of this Indiegogo campaign for stories from space, science and stories on the space station. We'll put a link to the Indiegogo campaign.

It's this nonprofit that is trying to fire up kids by having astronauts read stories to them from, yes, outer space. It's pretty cool. The actual thing is story time from space, as I said. I think they're worthy of support. By the way, this copy of the book is going to be signed by Jeffrey Bennett and an astronaut yet to be named. Well, let's go on to the next trivia contest, shall we? Why not? In the spirit of Plutinos and trans-Neptunian objects, what are trans-Neptunian objects in a 2 to 1, or 1 to 2 depending on how you look at it, orbital resonance with Neptune called, so two orbits of Neptune, one orbit of the body in question. It's

perhaps not a totally official name, but it's certainly a utilized name in the science community. Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. And it amuses me. And you're going to have to dig for this one. We're going to give away a Planetary Radio t-shirt to the winner with the correct answer who's chosen by random.org. And another one of those itelescope.net accounts. A free account worth a couple of hundred dollars, U.S., to use their network of robotic telescopes around the world.

And this is the best part. The winner will be announced on stage at the Planetary Defense Conference by Bruce and me as we do what's up on the stage. Pretty cool, huh? That is pretty cool. I got one more thing here I forgot to mention. Eric O'Day in Massachusetts about the Great Red Spot. He says it's been storming for

over 300 years, and I thought we had a rough winter here in Boston. Ah! All right, now we're done. All right, everybody, go out there, look up at the night sky, and think about lip balm. Thank you, and good night. You know, for years I thought people were saying lip bomb.

And I thought, why would people want to, I mean, is that like an explosion in your mouth? Some candies. I think it's foul language. Lip bomb. Okay, well, he's Bruce Betts, who delivers sweet language to us every week here as part of What's Up. The contest deadline is Tuesday, April 14, at 8 a.m. Pacific time. Thank you.