Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Join Us at the International Space Development Conference

Episode Date: May 8, 2006

Special coverage from the 25th annual ISDC in Los Angeles, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Burt Rutan.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join us at the International Space Development Conference this week on Planetary Radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan. That old final frontier, the one that begins begins just 100 miles or so above your head, was the unifying passion that brought about 1,200 people to the Sheraton Gateway Conference Center in Southern California. Good morning and welcome to the 25th Annual International Space Development Conference. Space Development Conference. My name is George Whitesides. I'm the Executive Director of the National Space Society, and it is a tremendous pleasure

to welcome you all to Los Angeles for this historic event. We have got an amazing four days in store for us all, and it is such a pleasure to have dear friends, new friends, old friends, new potential acquaintances here all gathered in one place. If we are, as a species, to change the path of how humanity explores and settles space, these are the people in this room who will do it. You are the people who will do it. That was the beginning of four packed days of seminars, presentations, panel discussions,

and keynote addresses at the just-completed ISDC. It was an absolute who's who of the space community, where you were as likely to run into an Apollo astronaut like Buzz Aldrin or Rusty Schweikert as a JPL principal investigator, a Virgin Galactic space tourism executive, or an artist specializing in works relying on an interplanetary theme. We can just barely bring you 1% of what was heard in the many meeting rooms. We'll forego Emily Lakdawalla's Q&A segment this week so that we can squeeze in a bit more coverage. You'll still hear Bruce and me with an ISDC edition of What's Up at the end of our half hour. Speaking of Bruce Betts, our boy was one of the three co-chairs of this year's conference.

That fact in itself may say something important about the growing community of space enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and explorers. For the first time, the Planetary Society co-sponsored the annual event with the National Space Society. Bruce followed the NSS's George Whitesides on that first morning, May 4. Thank you very much, George. We are here at the traditional NSS ISDC conference, and this is their 25th anniversary, and I think they deserve a round of applause for that. No small feat to carry out this level of conference year after year, and we were quite honored to be asked to co-host this year's conference here, relatively speaking, in our backyard, being based in Pasadena.

So for those of you from out of town, welcome to Southern California. We've got an amazing program over the next four days, a lot of great talks that will overview so many different aspects of space, and so I'm sure you will enjoy it and have a great time. I also want to thank our presenting sponsor, NASA, and also all of the other sponsors, affiliates, and also all the staff and volunteers who have spent so long in bringing this to fruition. This is a time of great times and a bit of a time of peril in the business of space exploration. You're going to be hearing about, over the next few days, the amazing accomplishments in all the transition areas that George talked about.

You'll be hearing in a few minutes, as well as over the next few days, about the amazing robotic spacecraft activities that are taking place throughout the solar system. A lot of great and exciting things happening, robotic spacecraft activities that are taking place throughout the solar system. A lot of great and exciting things happening, and I'm sure that's one of the reasons you're all here. It's also a time where some of the aspects, the science aspects of the NASA program are looking kind of rough in terms of the budget for this coming year. That's something I encourage you all to learn more about here at the conference.

You'll have a lot of opportunity for that. The Planetary Society's Director of Projects, Bruce Betts, welcoming everyone to the International Space Development Conference. So how do you come up with space topics for up to 13 concurrent sessions over four days with surprising ease? Possible missions to Mars, Venus, and beyond, space elevators, making money in space, goals for upcoming international moon missions,

the economics of space development, protecting ourselves from asteroids, the art of Star Trek, legal issues, the importance of science education, rocket races, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. There must have been a hundred awards presented for everything from space tourism advances to kudos for the Japanese Hayabusa mission. And then there were the space celebrities who delivered lunch and dinner speeches.

One of these was Bert Rutan, designer of Spaceship One, now hard at work on Spaceship Two for Virgin's Richard Branson. Rutan doesn't do interviews and rarely makes formal presentations, but he returned for a second year to the ISDC. Sporting his trademark mutton chop sideburns, Rutan talked about a personal aspiration that reaches about a quarter million miles beyond the suborbital flights he has so far achieved. I want to talk to you about my goal. My goal, and everybody, you know, when you get as old as I am and have all this gray hair and you get 60, you tend to think of, well, what I'm going to do with the rest of my life? What would I like to see happen? What would I like to see occur?

And I've got something pretty ambitious, and that is I do want to go to the moon in my lifetime. And I want to see affordable travel to the moon in my lifetime. I've only got 40, 45 years or so, unless you life extension guys get to work. And I'd like to see my grandchildren go to the more interesting moons of Saturn and Jupiter. And the reason I bring that up is I want to make a point that achieving either one of those will absolutely, positively depend on breakthroughs that we cannot imagine today. This is not going to be done by taking the 60s stuff.

It absolutely has to be breakthroughs that we cannot imagine today. And our key is going to be capitalizing and programs that are willing to go out and take the kind of risks that those Apollo guys did take. I'm going to talk a little bit about the U.S. taxpayer-funded program for human space research. space research. I won't mention who they are, but I want to point out that, in my opinion, the CEV program and the return to program, which would put an American on the moon almost exactly 50 years after Buzz Aldrin landed there. Buzz is right here, by the way. Good to see you again here, Buzz. I believe that program as taxpayer-funded research makes absolutely no sense. And the reason that I believe that is that they are forcing the program to be done with technology that we already know works and are not creating an environment where it is possible to have a breakthrough.

case solids, and when you decide that your launch, your landing, your recovery, your reentry, your everything about it is copied from that brilliant work that was done with Apollo guys, you are guaranteeing that you're not going to learn anything new here that is useful for you to go after the other moons. All we're doing is, well, I don't know what we're doing, but it doesn't make sense to. I think a lion's share of the taxpayer R&D money ought to be in other types of programs that are dramatically different and those that encourage risks in order to stumble into breakthroughs. Bert Rutan of Scaled Composites in Mojave, California, where the undercover development of Spaceship Two is underway. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was the featured attraction

at another of the ISDC dinners last week. The director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York has been heard on our show several times, but I've never heard him go to town the way he did this time. In a speech that was equal parts brilliant lecture and stand-up comedy routine, Dr. Tyson put forward a fascinating thesis. Neil's analysis of every great human endeavor found only three motivations powerful enough to build pyramids or send humans to the moon.

Economic gain, praise of power, or defense. Forget about advancing science as a driving force for space exploration. So, how do we go to the moon, Mars, and beyond? Here's the plan, or at least my version of the plan. My version of the plan is, you know why we need to go back into space? Because space inspires people to become scientists. Fact number one, let's put a pin in that. Why is the number of scientists in your culture a good thing? Because the economies

of the 21st century, there's no argument here, will be driven by innovations in science and technology. So I know of no greater, nor do you know of any greater source of inspiration than the prospect of going into space. Now in the old days, it used to be the aerospace engineers, the pilots, but we have a new intellectual frontier now. The whole origins umbrella, funding umbrella that NASA initiated in the 1990s, you know what that did? It brought previously distinct branches of science together. Together.

The search for life in the universe needs more than the astrophysicist. If you send me to look for life, I wouldn't know life if I stepped in it. So I knock on their door and I get a biologist to come with me. And we look together. How about the soils on Mars?

I need the geologist to come with me. I want to learn about the early universe, which is dense and hot. Particles do weird things. I need the particle physicist. And so we now have entire branches of science that are the cross-pollination of other sciences. Astroparticle physics, astrobiology, astrochemistry. And so planetary geologists. Okay?

And so now NASA can serve as a carrot for all the sciences in ways that it could not have done so in the past. So now, watch what happens. So NASA becomes fully funded. We double NASA's budget. The vision goes and it sings into the future. We have scientists as never before. Then, then, the people who don't become aerospace engineers, they just, like, invent stuff. Because now they're just scientists.

They're scientifically literate. They're engineeringly literate. And so they move into culture and they invent stuff. They invent the economies of tomorrow. So it becomes a boost to our economy. Then what kind of war are we fighting? We're not fighting a nuclear war. We've got this war on terrorism.

So what happens if, like, there's a bioterrorism attack in Seattle? Who are you going to call? Are you going to call the Marines? No. What's a Marine going to do with a bacterium? No. Who are you going to call? You're going to get on the phone and you're going to say, I need the best biologist we have.

You know something? We're going to have that best biologist because they got attracted to become one by studying life on Mars. That's the person who was discovering life on Mars. You bring them and say, we've got this problem here. There's a biotechism attack. There's a new strain. So you get them. If there's a chemical attack, you get the best chemist.

That's what happened during the Second World War. The Germans were going to make the bomb. We needed a bomb. So we tapped the physicists that were already in our employ, and they came when called. So I see our investment in space as fulfilling an economic directive, fulfilling a security directive, because it's not how many bombs are in your silo, it's how many scientists and engineers are there, not designing bombs, doing their own creative scientific work advancing that frontier. creative scientific work advancing that frontier. Because while bravery may win a battle, it is,

by and large, technology that wins a war. And so I know of no better solution than that. And so when you run around trying to get your neighbor to say, we need to go into space, you could give him that list and it'd sound all lofty, but those words don't have staying power in Congress. Security does. Economic growth does. And that's just the fact. I wish it were not the case. I wish we would do all of that for science and wonderment, but we don't.

The history of the human species says that we don't. So stop lying to ourselves. Get real. And most of you are. Most of you are. Okay. Most of the sessions of this conference are about the economics of the future of space.

That's how it should be. Because without the economic case, kiss it all goodbye. There's not a natural extension of what happened in the 1960s. Thank you for your attention. of what happened in the 1960s. Thank you for your attention.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium and chairman of the Planetary Society Board. He spoke during one evening of the International Space Development Conference just a few days ago. And you can hear more of what Neil had to say at our website, planetary.org. When Planetary Radio returns, we'll hear from Bill Nye the Science Guy, and take a few What's Up Minutes with Bruce Betts at the ISDC. 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. We didn't just build it. We attempted to put that first solar sail in orbit, and we're going to try again. You can read about all our exciting projects and get the latest space exploration news in depth at the Society's exciting and informative website, planetary.org. You can also preview our full-color magazine, The Planetary Report. It's just one of our many member benefits. Want to learn more?

Call us at 1-877-PLANETS. That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Welcome back to Planetary Radio, where we are giving you just the briefest taste of what may prove to be the biggest space conference of the year, the 25th Annual International Space Development Conference. Co-sponsored by the National Space Society and the Planetary Society,

the ISDC filled four days in May with hundreds of individual presentations. Not surprisingly, one of the most popular of those was provided by Vice President of the Planetary Society, Bill Nye the Science Guy. Bill covered a lot of ground as well as a lot of sky. He managed to relate windmills and other alternative energy sources to the value of space exploration. When I was young, when I was really young, there was the doo-wop era, but sort of in the beginning of the rock and roll era, the red spot on Jupiter was a spot. It was a spot with no detail, no interest, no whirlpools, no vortices. And now we know the thing is this swirling, crazy, gigantic storm.

And I cannot help but think that everything we know about the weather on Jupiter and Europa and Enceladus is going to help us understand the weather on Earth. Furthermore, as we all come to understand the chemistry on these other worlds, I argue we will understand chemistry on Earth better. Whoever comes up with the better battery is going to get rich. battery is going to get rich. Right now, our very best batteries move big molecules through goo. And I love molecules, and I love moving them through goo. I'm kooky for it. But with fuel cells, and I'm not saying fuel cells are the answer, but something akin to fuel cell technology, where you're only moving protons, happy little protons.

The thing is twice or three times or three and a half times as efficient as our best batteries. Someone is going to get rich. Someone is going to get rich. Now, that someone has to have a vision, has to believe in this optimistic future. Now, I had a couple of remarkable things happen to me, and through a fabulous, I think, clerical error, I had Carl Sagan for astronomy. They let me in. They didn't realize. And look how young the guy was, you know.

He's a visionary. And he is holding the Pioneer plaque. Pioneer plaque. And the Pioneer plaque, everybody, is on the two Pioneer spacecraft which were launched during the first disco era. We're kind of in another disco era, which I can't fully explain. The shoes, people, come on, really. I mean, live your life. But that's, why do you, the 70s show, you want to relive that?

Are you high? What happened? No, no. But this was good. And I just noticed, note well, that Pluto is featured on there as a planet. And someone remarked, you know, that future, when the aliens find it, they won't be able to find us because the Pluto will throw them off. But, you know, any alien, come on, anybody can walk up, look at the hyperfine resonance of hydrogen and compute the distance to pulsars and binary and find the Earth. What? Look at the plaque. Come on. And they will say, you know, why are you guys naked on there?

Well, it was the disco era and the clothes. Oh, well. Enough said. Good. Right. No, in those days, you know, we're sending pornography into space. But this was a reflection of this optimism. When you throw a bottle in the ocean with a note in it, just remember that you're doing it for you. I mean, sure, it'd be cool

if somebody found it. And I was in elementary school with a guy who had one come back from down the coast. It was in the Atlantic. It came back from one of the Carolinas to Washington, D.C. And that was cool. But you're really doing it for you. And so when we put this plaque on it and send this thing into space, you know, it probably will never be found. But it does give you this optimism about we are space-faring people,

and we can go, we can understand the stars, and we can know our place in the universe. I hope that all of you will see or embrace that it's science that's really at the heart of all this. We have to explore space, and we have to develop new materials so that we can do more with less. space and we have to develop new materials so that we can do more with less. When NASA cuts our budget, we are losing a perspective like this. This is the famous, famous pale blue dot. And I meet many, many school kids who've never seen this image, never heard of it. And it is really a sobering thing that everyone you've ever met, blue state or red state, everyone you've ever met, speaking English or not, has conducted his or her entire life on this one, what became this one pixel from the Voyager spacecraft.

So, my friends, while we are concerned about the future and while we are concerned about what the shuttle program, how it may be affecting us, I encourage everyone here to take action. On your way out, please pick up a Save Our Science petition so that we can, dare I say it, change the world. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Good morning. Let's have a good conference. We finished this week's coverage from the International Space Development Conference. How else with What's Up? Dr. Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society

and a frequent moderator here over the last four days. Welcome back. Thank you very much. It's been a fun conference. Yeah, this has been great. Any highlights that stand out in your mind? Oh, I think it would be insulting to all the great highlights to try to summarize them in the few minutes we have here, Matt.

How political of you. Why, thank you. For me, I think a lot of the highlights revolve around we've had updates from many of the active spacecraft throughout our solar system and cutting-edge stuff happening from deep impact and stardust and updates on the Mars missions. You name it, if there's a mission out there, we probably had a well-esteemed speaker talking about it. It's all been great. So what's up?

Well, we've still got those planets hanging out in the sky. You can see Jupiter looking bright and easy to find in the west shortly after. I'm sorry, not in the west. Try in the east. I'm so tired, Matt. Okay, in the east shortly after sunset, you'll see Jupiter. It should be up there a little ways, looking really, really bright, like a bright star. You've also got in the west some dimmer planets. We've got Mars and we've got Saturn.

Mars kind of orangish, Saturn kind of yellowish, getting very close together. And we also have Mercury kind of ready to pop up very, very low on the horizon there. And in the pre-dawn sky, Venus looking like a really, really, really bright star over there in the east. And Jupiter by that point way over in the west. And I'll bet with all of the great speakers here, you're just chock full of, you know, those things. What do you call them? Random Space Fact! Nobody even turned around.

I guess the chicken is really good. Wow, this is a loud lunchroom. Yes, I have a ton of them. I'll be sharing them with speakers over the near term. This one I could have figured out, but I just never thought to, as with so many good random space facts. It has to do with Venus. You can actually walk, a little bit of a brisk walk,

but you can actually walk as fast as Venus rotates. If you're walking around even the equator, much less the higher latitudes, it rotates so slowly that you can actually walk at about the same pace as the planet rotates. Wouldn't that be fun to do that thing we all did as kids on the escalator, except you could do it on a planet? That'd be totally cool. You know, for a few minutes, kind of like the escalator. And it'd be hot, so.

You'd be dead, but other than that, it'd be great. What else? Are we going on to trivia? We are. We're going on to trivia. We asked you what moon of Neptune was observed to have geysers by Voyager? We were giving your brain a little rest. Most of you probably knew it right offhand. How'd we do? An incredible number of answers.

You know, people hang in there. We get people to enter every week. What's more interesting to me is that we get new people every week. I've even seen a couple of winners here at the show. They were wearing the T-shirt. I said, hey, nice shirt. Matt Connery. Matt Connery had the correct answer.

Triton is the moon of Neptune, upon which geysers have been found. Bruce, I think for the first time we've got a winner from the Planetary Society's hometown of Pasadena. Wow. How ironic that we're hometown of Pasadena. Wow. How ironic that we're not in Pasadena right now. But, yeah, well, congratulations to him. Let's move on. For those in Pasadena and throughout the world, whether you're in Pasadena, California, Pasadena, Texas, or Pasadena, Indonesia, well, if there's not one, there should be, answer the following question.

We're going stellar. Not quite the focus of this conference. I love this. It's so weird. Hence the reason I love it so much. Neutron stars always have almost the same mass. It doesn't matter how big the star starts out that blows off its mass. When it's done blowing off the mass, it gets down to a very similar mass.

What is that mass? off the mass, it gets down to a very similar mass. What is that mass? And, you know, get it within, you know, preferably a tenth of a solar mass. Express it in solar masses. So one solar mass, two, three, or 2.3 or 3.1415, whatever. Well, I can't wait to hear not only the answer to that, but also why in the world that would be. But I guess you'll tell us next week.

The deadline is the 15th, May 15, 2006, at 2 p.m. Pacific time. Get your answer in, your number of solar masses, and you might get that Planetary Radio t-shirt. Go to planetary.org slash radio and find out how to email us your answer and compete so you too can show up at conferences wearing a Planetary Radio t-shirt. You want to get back to lunch, don't you? Oh, I sure do. I can hardly wait. So everybody, go out there, look up in the night sky, and think hard about the color red.

That's Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society, coming to you rather red-shifted because things are moving fast, from the International Space Development Conference closing out in Los Angeles, California. We'll have even more from the ISDC next week as we bring you a conversation with Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweiker. Rusty will give us an update on the effort to save humanity from big, big rocks that want to kill us all. Space Headlines and Emily Lakdawalla's Q&A will also be back in their usual slots.

Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. Have a great week, everyone. Thank you.