Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Moonwalker Harrison Schmitt Visits Planetary Radio

Episode Date: August 9, 2004

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Moonwalker Harrison Schmidt is on Planetary Radio. Hi everyone, I'm Matt Kaplan. Only 12 men walked on the moon. More than three decades ago, he was one of the last two. He came home to a career as scientist, entrepreneur, engineer, and U.S. Senator. Harrison Schmidt returns to our show this week. Later, Bruce Betts treats us to another look at the night sky and a new trivia contest. First, though, Emily tells us how craters help us learn much more about our own planet and others. I'll be right back.

Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, Why are most of the inner planets covered with craters while the Earth has very few relatively small craters? The Earth has very few craters because the Earth is geologically active, which means that craters are destroyed almost as soon as they are created. On Earth, craters can be destroyed in a number of ways. They can be worn away by weathering, the process that has reduced the Appalachian Mountains of the United States from giant rocky peaks into

low rolling hills. Craters can be destroyed by the tectonics of folding and faulting as in the creation of the Himalayan mountains of Asia. Craters can be covered up by the outpouring of volcanic lava as in the decantraps of India. Or, if craters form on the bottom of the ocean, they can be swallowed into the Earth at a subduction zone as under the Andes or Japan. Scientists actually use the number of craters on the

surface of a planet as an index of the planet's geologic activity. What does crater counting teach us about planets other than Earth? Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out. Professor Schmidt, Dr. Schmidt, Senator Schmidt. I wasn't sure how to address one of the last humans to walk on the moon, and the only scientist to have done so. He assured me that Harrison would do just fine. Some of you may have heard the excerpts from our conversation just before the 35th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing last July 20. The Apollo 17 moonwalker had much more to say,

so we promised to present the rest of that interview this week. Among other things, this Caltech and Harvard-trained geologist is now a professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin. That's where he pursues his dream of clean and inexpensive fusion energy, drawing fuel from the very place he strolled in a moon suit 32 years ago. Before getting into that topic, he expanded on the Apollo experience. At every one of these anniversary milestones, there's an increase in interest. I think the highest was probably

around the 20th anniversary. There was quite a bit around the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission because we generated a lot of interest since we put together a very wonderful formal reunion of Apollo people back at the Air and Space Museum. I read a little bit about that event at the Air and Space Museum some time ago where you were joined by Eugene Cernan, the commander of the Apollo 17 mission and I guess the widow of Ronald Evans, the command module pilot. Do you stay in touch with Gene Cernan? We do, not regularly because both of us are very busy and it's hard to catch either one of us, I think, at any given time.

The event at the Air and Space Museum a couple years ago was really a celebration of Apollo. We had representatives from each of the other mission crews. We had a large number of flight controllers and engineers and others who had participated in the Apollo effort. And it just was a wonderful occasion, totally formal. Boeing was the sole and total sponsor, financial sponsor, and they also helped to organize just a very classy affair. We were very proud of it. This would seem to be the right time to ask you the other question that you must be expecting,

and that is about the legacy of Apollo, particularly at a time when the nation may be recommitting itself to a Moon, Mars, and Beyond initiative. Well, the principal legacy for the President's initiative is that we've done it. for the President's initiative is that we've done it. And that ought to generate a great deal of confidence, provided you can understand the ingredients that made that effort successful, particularly the discipline, the competence, the young people, delegation of management responsibility that I think were essential ingredients to make it happen. That's what NASA and the White House should be looking at now,

that in order to duplicate a return to deep space, whether the moon or Mars, you still need those ingredients. Nearer space is pretty much an accessible part of our environment. It's not without risk, as we too often and unfortunately see. It's not without risk, as we too often and unfortunately see. But anyone with a reasonably large rocket and a reasonably confident technology base can now participate in the use of or entry into nearer space. The true long-term historical legacy of Apollo, I think, though, has been made fairly clear now, certainly on the political stage, the success of Americans in going to the moon had a great deal to do not only with the remaining competitive within the Cold War,

but also probably, many emigres say this at least, convinced Soviet leadership of the time that if we could go to the moon and they couldn't, then we probably could achieve a strategic defense, which President Reagan later proposed. That mental or psychological intimidation that Apollo provided was very, very important later on in the actual demise of the Soviet Union. The cultural legacy of Apollo is really quite important in that it, for the first time, human beings set foot on a planet other than the one that they had evolved on, and that really did open up the solar system. It's going to take a while to really get it open. We've had a nearly 40-year hiatus now, but that's not unusual

in the movement of the human species into new environments and new places of settlement. The scientific legacy has increasingly matured because of the samples, the observations, and the photography that came with the Apollo landing missions and subsequent robotic missions, Clementine and Lunar Prospector in particular, we now have a first-order understanding of the evolution of the moon as a small planet. We have a consensus, at least, on its origin. It's not a consensus that I agree with, but nevertheless a consensus is there. And we have a pretty healthy debate on just exactly what that origin is, really, between two primary candidates. And that's an important legacy as well.

Overall, I think Americans and American taxpayers in particular can be very, very proud of the legacy that they paid for and that continues to benefit us today. We definitely want to talk about that science legacy of Apollo and the promise that may still be out there on the moon and beyond for us. You're certainly uniquely qualified to do that as the only scientist, the only geologist who's had the chance to pick up rocks and knock on them somewhere other than Earth. But before we leave the new Moon-Mars initiative,

I just wonder how you feel about the course that has been laid out by the current administration. I think it's going to evolve with time as they study the goals that the president has set for NASA. But I think mainly in terms of what would the private sector do if you were attempting to attract investors to get you back to the moon. And, of course, that would be a resource-oriented effort. And that you would probably almost immediately begin the development of a Saturn-class launch vehicle and not be thinking in terms of a multippurpose set of small launch vehicles and spacecraft. You would really be focused much more so on getting to the moon, getting to resource-rich locations,

and beginning the production of those resources, while simultaneously developing the capability to use the energy resources, which is going to pay for the whole thing anyway, here on Earth. So the private sector would have a very different technical approach to getting back to the moon. That doesn't mean that the approach that NASA is attempting to lay out is the wrong approach. It means it's just policy-driven rather than profit-driven. You mentioned those energy resources, and if we can, after we take a quick break, let's talk more about those because I know that's something you care very deeply about. Harrison Schmidt is our guest on Planetary Radio, United States Senator, astronaut, and now Professor Harrison Schmidt,

and we'll be back with him right after this message. This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure in the solar system. That's why I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets. We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first-ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries

from space exploration in The Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS. That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, PlanetarySociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds.

Planetary Radio continues with our special guest, Harrison Schmidt. Currently, he is an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin. Also is, though, the chairman of something called the Interluna or Interlune, Intermars Initiative Incorporated, which we're going to get into in just a moment. He is also, though, of course, a past U.S. senator and one of the last two human beings to walk on the moon, a situation that hopefully will be remedied in the coming years. Harrison, what is the significance of your interest in this very odd material called helium-3?

Well, helium-3, which is a light isotope of the normal, what we call helium-4, that would fill your birthday balloon, is a nearly ideal, in fact, I would say, ideal fuel for fusion power sometime in the, I hope, not too distant future. When fused with itself, there's absolutely no radioactivity produced, residual radioactivity produced, and you can go to very high efficiency conversions directly to electricity. And so we're very excited about its potential. If we had helium-3 on Earth, I don't think there's any question we would be moving very rapidly to utilize it in fusion reactors. We don't have enough to do that other than that necessary to conduct research programs,

and it fortunately doesn't take very much to do that. The value of this helium-3 from an energy equivalence point of view, if you look at the contracts for coal in 2003 on a BTU equivalent basis, the value of 100 kilograms of helium-3 would be about $70 million. And 75 kilograms of helium-3 is enough to power a 1 gigawatt or 1,000 megawatt electric plant for about a year. That's enough electricity for a city of about a million people for a year. So we're talking about very big numbers and a very great potential. So we're talking about very big numbers and a very great potential. If you look at what the probable cost of industrial coal is going to be in 2010, 2020 timeframe, when all of this may happen, then we're looking at a value of about $140 million per 100 kilograms. Now, I feel obligated to point out something that I'm sure you're well prepared to deal

with, the fact that no one has yet achieved a self-sustaining, controlled thermonuclear reaction. Well, that's primarily because of the technical approach that governments, including our own, have been taking towards fusion power. That technical approach involves using tritium and deuterium, attempting to create very high temperature plasmas using extremely large and intense magnets to confine that plasma and get fusion to take place in that regard. It doesn't mean that there's not a great deal of interesting science to be done in that

so-called DT fusion effort. that so-called DT fusion effort. But we at Wisconsin and I think others around the country do not see that this has any chance of ever being commercial. With helium-3, because your primary reaction product is a proton instead of a neutron, as is the case of DT fusion, a positively charged proton as well as the ions of helium-3 and deuterium that would be fused, all can be controlled by electrostatic forces. You don't need these extremely expensive, large magnets to confine your plasma. Does this mean the helium-3 fusion reaction is easier to light, basically? There's no question about it.

We have it going routinely at low levels of fusion power in the basement of the Engineering Research Building in Wisconsin. We've been fusing D-helium-3 now for several years, producing now the maximum is probably about 10 to the 8th protons per second. Those are actual fusion protons, and it's a steady-state fusion reaction. Now, 10 to the 8th proton per second isn't very much. It's about a milliwatt of fusion power, but it means that the research is moving forward. We've demonstrated that electrostatic confinement indeed works, and now we're just working up the power curve

and hope to see, in the not-too-distant future much higher power levels. Even at one watt of fusion power, there are commercial applications of a flux of protons. For example, we can produce positron-emitting isotopes that can be used at point of application for PET diagnostics, positron-emitting PET scans. Almost everybody knows what they are, and they're the diagnostic means of choice now in working with cancer, determining the stage of cancer tumors. We think there are a whole series of bridging businesses

that are going to help the private sector get from here to the moon. Then let's talk more about that connection between this new twist on fusion power and the moon. Well, if you want to pay for a return to the moon, then the way to do that is on the back of helium-3 fusion power, using the resources that are locked in the lunar regolith, that debris layer, impact-generated debris layer that covers the moon. And with the kind of numbers that I mentioned, $140 million for 100-kilogram value, we've been working those numbers, and I think I'm convinced that there's a business there.

Now, the problem for investors is that it's a business that doesn't provide a return on investment for 10 to 15 years. that it's a business that doesn't provide a return on investment for 10 to 15 years. So we have to look at these bridging businesses, the application of electrostatic fusion technologies in other areas, such as medical technologies, such as fission waste transmutation and things like that, as a way of bridging our way to the moon from a business point of view. Is this part of the mission of this new group that we mentioned, the Interloon Intermars Initiative Incorporated? We formed about 10 years ago in order to have a vehicle to do things, to do things financially,

to accept investors, to make contributions into the research, and that's what it's done. There are no real employees. contributions into the research, and that's what it's done. There are no real employees. It's a Delaware company fully incorporated, but still it just acts as a vehicle for trying to move this research forward. We have been marketing the business plan for the medical isotope production. We're looking for investors there to get that going. We're very, very hopeful that with the presence initiative of putting the moon back in play, that things will happen a little more quickly now, at least for investors whose interest may be in the near term rather than the longer term of energy production.

I might say that if we are successful in building a technology base to go to the moon to extract energy and bring it back to Earth and use it in fusion reactors, then we have done most of what is necessary to get us to Mars at a much lower cost. And therein lies why we say inter-lune, inter-Mars initiative, because our primary goal long-term, philosophically, is to get to Mars. Harrison, we have only a few seconds left. I want to ask about your newest career as an educator. As we said, you are an adjunct professor of engineering

at the University of Wisconsin, and apparently you share a lot of your experience and your dreams with your students. You said you just wrapped up this class you teach, Resources from Space. What's the reaction you get from young people? Well, the reaction is wonderful. Every time we taught this course, which is about every fourth semester,

we have a large number of graduate students and seniors who take it, who stay with it. We had 37 takers this year, lost only three in the course of the semester, who decided that it was a little tough. It is a tough course. It starts with the origin of the semester who decided that it was a little tough. It is a tough course. It starts with the origin of the universe. It goes through the origin of resources that we find in the moon, Mars, and the asteroids, the engineering required to access those resources, to utilize them. We even get into the business structures required in order to have the private sector involved.

We deal with what the government management systems might be to make these things happen. We get into the space law. It just covers a very, very broad spectrum of course material. It's available on the web, and anybody can go there and look and actually participate through the syllabus and the lectures that we provide.

And we'll provide the URL, the web address, for both the class, and it's really within, I guess provide the URL, the web address, for both the class, and it's really within, I guess, the site for this other group you're involved with at the University of Wisconsin, the Fusion Technology Institute. I realize now looking at it, the URL is probably a little too complicated to read on the air, but if people will go to planetary.org slash radio, where you may already be hearing this show, we promise you that we will put the link right there. And probably if you just enter in your search engine resources from space,

you'll probably get, if not the most current course, you'll get one that we gave a few years ago. Excellent. I wish we had more time. Harrison, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to talk with us today on Planetary Radio. Well, thank you, and I appreciate the opportunity. Harrison Schmidt has been our guest, U.S. Senator, one of the last men to walk on the moon, and now imparting a lot of the wisdom gained to young people at the University of Wisconsin. We'll be right back with Bruce Betts and our regular feature, What's Up?, after this return visit from Emily.

I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A. What can we learn about the geology of planets by counting the craters? We can tell that the Earth is young because most of its craters have been destroyed by weathering, volcanism, or tectonics. Mercury, on the other hand, is a very old surface that is nearly completely covered with craters. The Moon has a more interesting story to tell. The bright white lunar highlands must be very old because they are completely covered with craters, but the dark lunar maria must be younger because they have fewer craters. Mars is similar, with southern highlands covered with craters while its northern lowlands have relatively few.

Venus, like the Earth, has only a few hundred known craters, so we know that it must have been geologically active pretty recently. But the prize winner for geologic activity is Jupiter's moon Io, which is now known to have at least 300 active volcanoes. Volcanic eruptions on Io are so large and so continuous that they have obliterated all impact craters on its surface. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org.

And now here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio with Dr. Bruce Spetz, planetary scientist and my compadre, compadre, I didn't take Spanish, on What's Up and by all means try to speak it every week here he is the director of projects for the planetary society bruce what's up well if you're catching this surely surely this surely show this show shortly after we post it we're off to a good start keep going yeah swing and a miss percy and meteors percy and meteor shower august 11th that night peaking into the morning of the 12th you can go out and see uh one of the best meteor showers Going to miss. Perseid meteors. Perseid meteor shower. August 11th. That night.

Peaking into the morning of the 12th. You can go out and see one of the best meteor showers of the year. We talked about it some in last week's show. But I want to make sure if you catch this show early, you still remember. Go out there. See them. Lie around. Stare up at the sky. Look for little streaks of light going by.

Maybe 40 to 60 an hour. What else is going on up there? Nothing. Well, that's it, folks. Oh, you do have more. I do, I do. We've got planets. You know, we always have planets,

but this time we don't have a lot of planets. Jupiter, that pesky Jupiter, getting lower and lower in the evening sky, almost disappearing, but you can still pick it out in the twilight. Very bright, star-like object in the west shortly after sunset. Look for Venus, extremely bright before dawn up in the east.

And to its lower left, you will see Saturn. If you have a small telescope, check out any of these. You can see Jupiter's small moons looking like little dots of light. You can see Saturn's rings. And you can see Venus looking about half lit right now. Medium-sized telescope. You can see Cassini. You can wave Cassini. You

can wave. Just kidding. Yes, medium-sized being measured in thousands of miles. Yeah. On to this week in space history. On August 10th, 1990, Magellan entered orbit around Venus, starting its fabulous radar mapping mission of the surface of Venus, peering through Venus's clouds. Eventually giving us almost a complete map of Venus, almost as if you could look right through them. In fact, that's what it did. It did, using radar. Let's go on to random space bug. Did you know, Matt?

You probably did because you've been talking to Mercury people. But I just think it's so fascinating. I want to mention it again, that Mercury is in a three to two resonance in its orbit. What this means is that Mercury goes around the sun twice as it rotates three times, kind of like three Mercury days equals two Mercury years, that kind of thing going on. So whereas like the moon, the Earth's moon and many moons are tidally locked to the Earth in one to one resonance, where they rotate exactly once for going around their parent body once. That's why the Moon's only one side faces us all the time.

With Mercury, it's in this other stable resonance of three-to-two resonance. Now, to me, the great significance of this is that when I grew up, when I was a kid and looked at astronomy books, it said Mercury is tidally locked. And therefore, one side's always cold, one side is always hot. We could live on the terminator between the lit and unlit sides of Mercury. Not the case, I guess. Not so much. They biffed it. Yeah, that used to be the common thought about Mercury, and then eventually was figured out.

No, it's in this other funky resonance. We're going on to the trivia contest, I think. All righty. Funky resonance. We're going on to the trivia contest, I think. All righty. Last time around, two weeks ago, we asked you what human has spent the most time in space. And this was on three different missions and 747 days in space.

How did we do, Matt? Well, we did well. So did the listeners. We're going far afield for our winner, though, this week. Another one of our international listeners. His name, if I can pronounce it correctly, is Sergio Radelli. And that's interesting because, of course, the answer is a fellow with a similar first name. It is indeed, Sergei Avdeyev. Avdeyev, excuse me. Sergio hails from Venezuela.

He listens to us on the web down there. All right. And Sergio, congratulations. You're going to be the, we hope, happy awardee receiving a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Oh, Matt, who wouldn't be? How about next time? How about next time?

Next time, you can try to win your own Planetary Radio t-shirt or add to your vast collection by answering the following question. What space mission included the first ever space docking? This was a human mission. What was the first space docking mission? And by space docking, the two spacecraft had to actually touch each other to win this contest. Gosh, we seem to trade shows, Matt. It seems like last show you were having some stumbling problems. It's only fair. I'm right there today. I'm just trying to make you feel better. Thank you. So go to planetary.org slash radio. Everybody, please enter our trivia

contest. Try to win the glorious shirt. And when do they have to have their entry in by, Matt? Well, we're going to try and get back on track here. So a little bit less time than we have lately been giving people, now that we're up on the satellite. We're going to actually have two winners next time we are heard, Bruce. We're going to give you the same deadline we gave you on last week's show. And that is Wednesday, August 18 at noon. We know that that's all going to be too late for some of you. We apologize, but that'll help get us back on track.

But just think how exciting it'll be, Bruce. Once we get together again in two weeks, we'll have two winners to announce. Oh, my gosh. That is so exciting. And they will be able to hear us, Matt, just a golden oldie in the meantime. So just because you and I won't be bonding over a radio show, which I'm very sad about, but have a nice trip. Thank you.

Anyway, yeah, but two winners. Of course, really, I think all our listeners are winners, don't you? Of course they are. And I wish we had a shirt for every single one of them. We're really here to make people who listen feel like winners. Wait a second. That didn't quite come out right. Say goodnight, Bruce. Goodnight, Bruce. Thank you, everyone. Go a second. That didn't quite come out right. Say goodnight, Bruce.

Goodnight, Bruce. Thank you, everyone. Go out there, look up at the night sky and think about what it would be like to spend two years of your life in space. Thank you and goodnight. Sounds pretty good to me as long as I've got something to breathe. That was Bruce Fetz. Sounds pretty good to us if you do that too, Matt.

The Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. He's here every week for What's Up. Not next week. Well, you'll hear an old one of him next week, I think. I was a different person back then. Two weeks back with two winners and lots of great new stuff in the sky. That's it for this week. I'm going to take a brief vacation,

so next week we'll bring back one of our most popular past shows. Good timing, too, because it will help us celebrate Ray Bradbury's 84th birthday. Join us as we relive the party we threw for Ray one year ago, just as Mars passed closer to Earth than it had in thousands of years. We'll be back with a brand new Planetary Radio in two weeks. Take care, everyone.