Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, and Your Ticket to Space

Episode Date: December 12, 2005

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NASA's boss, and your ticket to space, this week on Planetary Radio. Hi everyone, I'm Matt Kaplan. Welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. And we mean that almost literally this time, takes you to the final frontier. And we mean that almost literally this time as we present excerpts from a recent panel discussion about the state of space tourism. You'll also hear a bit of what NASA Administrator Mike Griffin

had to say at a recent space conference in Southern California. And Bruce Betts has a commemorative crystal bowl for the lucky winner of this week's space trivia contest. That's a lot to cover, so we'll just glance at space headlines this week, beginning with another major task completed by Cassini as it circles Saturn. The spacecraft has now taken a close look at almost all of the ringed planet's icy moons, passing as close as about 100 miles, or 170 kilometers. Our own Emily Lakdawalla has a travel log at planetary.org.

Over on Mars, Opportunity is still suffering from a sore shoulder. Mission engineers at JPL got the rover's robotic arm to move for the first time in days, but not by much. They're now looking at options. The problem isn't all that surprising. After all, lots of seniors have joint problems, right? Speaking of space tourism, Space.com has learned that Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic may have picked a spot in New Mexico as the spaceport for its planned suborbital flights. We'll hear more about the company later in today's show. All those robotic space explorers of the past and present and not one with a camcorder? Emily tells us why

in this week's Q&A. I'll be right back with NASA Administrator Mike Griffin. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, why don't space missions return video? Many missions have provided motion pictures, but none has yet returned video data in the strictest sense.

A video is nothing more than a stack of still images that are displayed one after another at a high rate, typically 24 to 30 frames per second. Many space missions have returned stacks of images that are designed to be animated into movies. For instance, Cassini captures stacks of images of the gaps within Saturn's rings, searching for the telltale motion of tiny undiscovered moonlets. The Mars exploration rover Spirit stares off into the distance of Gusev Crater,

capturing stacks of images to watch for dust devils moving across the plains. These stacks can be animated into movies, Transcription by CastingWords to capture smooth videos of swirling clouds, dust devils, moving moons, or the rover's wheels. Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out. About a year ago, we reported on the California Space Authority's first-ever Spot Beam Awards Dinner. This is the majority's first ever Spotbeam Awards Dinner. This year, the CSA went one better, adding a comprehensive two-day conference called Transforming Space. The sessions attracted a real space who's who, with representatives from industry, the military, research, and the budding space tourism industry. Leading the bill was NASA Administrator Mike Griffin. Dr. Griffin chose to put the importance of space exploration in a historical perspective.

Here's some of what he said. Throughout history, the great civilizations have always extended the frontiers of their times. Indeed, this is almost a tautology. We define as great only those civilizations which did explore and expand their frontiers, thereby ultimately influencing world culture. And when, inevitably, some societies retreated from the frontiers they had pioneered, their greatness subsided as well. Today, other nations besides our own aspire to leadership on the space frontier.

These nations are making progress, and they will undoubtedly use their advancements in space to influence world affairs. Their activities will earn them the respect, which is both sincere and automatic, that is accorded to nations and societies engaged in pioneering activities. These things are not in doubt, and so the question before us is this. When other nations reach the moon or Mars or the worlds beyond, will they be standing with the United States or will we be watching their exploits on television? While American ingenuity in the form of these quintessentially American inventors, Wilbur and Orville Wright, did lead the way into the era of powered flight, we tend to forget that we squandered our initial leadership in aviation.

World War I was fought almost entirely with European airplanes. And so 90 years ago in 1915, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NASA's major predecessor, was founded precisely because our nation's leaders feared that European nations already had a significant advantage in the development and strategically important aviation systems and technologies just one decade into the age of flight. Because we made a strong commitment at that time to this emerging field, the influence of American air power and aviation technology can, today,

be seen in everything from the fact that we live in a world not dominated by fascism or communism, to the fact that when you fly anywhere in the world, say from Bangalore to Bangkok, the International Civil Aviation Organization dictates that pilots and air traffic controllers speak English. This is a lesson that cannot be learned too thoroughly. If we become complacent, other nations can and will surpass our achievements. As we look forward to the events that will define the 21st century, as viewed by the historians of yet future centuries, there is no doubt that the expansion of human civilization into space

will be among the great achievements of this era. We have the opportunity, and I would say the obligation, to lead this enterprise, to explore worlds beyond our own, to help shape the destiny of this world for centuries to come. I'm convinced that leadership in the world of the 21st century and beyond will go to the nation that seeks to fulfill the dreams of mankind. We know what motivates those dreams. Exploring new territory when it becomes possible to do so has defined human striving ever since our remote ancestors migrated out of the East African plains.

The human imperative to explore new territories and to exploit the resources of these territories will surely be satisfied by others, if not by us. What the United States gains from a robust, focused program of human and robotic exploration is the opportunity to define the course along which this human imperative will carry us. The vision for space exploration affords the United States nothing less than the opportunity to take the lead, not only in this century, but in the ones to follow, in advancing those interests of our nation that are very much in harmony with the interests of people throughout the world. Space will be explored and exploited by humans. The question is, which humans, from where, speaking what language?

It's my goal that Americans will be always among them. If this is the future we wish to see, we have a lot of work to do to sustain the vision which takes us there. To me, the choice could not be more compelling. I thank you for your hospitality today, and again, extend my heartfelt thanks to all of you for your commitment to regaining the sense extend my heartfelt thanks to all of you for your commitment to regaining the sense of initiative that has driven our past successes. Thank you.

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin delivering a keynote address at Transforming Space, the recent conference sponsored by the California Space Authority. Are you inspired? Ready to buy a ticket? Then stay with us for excerpts from a panel discussion about how much you'll have to shell out and when you can climb aboard. The State of Space Tourism, right after this. 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're presenting just a taste of the recent Transforming Space Conference, sponsored by the California Space Authority. Much of the conference focused on the business aspects of space, where builders of rockets and Earth satellites have been making a profit for decades. Can't really say space tourism is in the black yet,

but there sure are a lot of entrepreneurs planning to get there. Some of the stars were on a panel led by Peter Diamandis of XPRIZE fame, though he seems to have offered a helping hand to most of those who want to make it possible for you and me to reach space. Except that at this training wheel stage of the effort, Peter likes to call it by another name. I like to use the term personal space flight instead of space tourism. I don't want at this stage in this industry to call the people who are going tourists. We're at a very unique period in time. I look at the last 40 years as really driven by military, by national pride, by government requirements, and the next 40 years being driven by something very different. I think very quickly we'll get to the point where the minority user by far is the government,

and the majority user is the public, just like in every other commercially viable industry. Stacey Ternan is Director of Communications for Space Adventures. That's the company that has put the first three paying customers in orbit on the International Space Station, beginning with Dennis Tito nearly five years ago. Space Adventures was founded in 1997. As Peter said, he was one of the co-founders. The mission of the company then was to open the space frontier to private citizens. And we've opened that door a little bit with the pioneering flights of Tito, Shuttleworth, and Olsen.

We have close to over 200 paid reservations for future suborbital flights, and we have a network of agents all over the world who are selling our ground training and also directing us to interested parties for our orbital space flight. The edge of space one is the most popular with the MiG-25. You reach an altitude of 80,000 feet, and you see the curvature of the Earth, and they say the view is absolutely spectacular. Orbital flights, in this past August, we announced our deep space expeditions with the first mission being a circumlunar,

and those seats will be $100 million for two seats. Alex Tai is vice president of Virgin Galactic, the company created by Sir Richard Branson, now working with Burt Rutan to create Spaceship Two. The company is selling seats and thinking well beyond suborbital flights. Virgin Galactic was set up in the mid-1990s, and the brief that Sir Richard Branson gave us was to look for

the technology that could safely launch a space line. This is really what he wants to do. He wants to set up the first commercially viable space line. We've entered into a joint venture program, set up a company quite obscurely called the Spaceship Company to design and build these spaceships. As soon as it was incepted, Virgin Galactic placed an order for five spaceships with that company. We expect these to be delivered sometime over the next couple of years. So we're at the same time putting in place the operational framework, looking for spaceport destinations, looking for the right people to be operating these ships, and working with our friends at the FAA

to work out some sort of operational structure. Currently, we're deep in the engineering program of developing Spaceship Two. I'm not going to go into too many details, to be honest with you, or in fact, no details at all. We come to a pretty close pact with BERT. We're not going to release any information on what it looks like until it goes out and flies.

The future for Galactic, sub-orbit's just a stepping stone. At the moment, we've got 33,000 registered applications. We've taken over $10 million in deposits, and we've not really started to advertise. Although, if you want to go to virgingalactic.com, you can sign up, and I'm sure we'll have someone turn up and talk to you about it. The next stage for us, low-Earth orbit, orbital destinations, in-orbit tourism, science, and government agency work. It's not just tourism that we'll find in orbit that will bring the money

in. Lunar orbits, lunar landings, Richard wants to go interplanetary. The business case of going to Mars eludes me currently, but I'm sure someone can convince me soon. What's an industry without its own association of sorts? John Spencer is president and founder of the Space Tourism Society. He has thought and heard a lot about why people want to go into space and why many of them are willing to pay so much money to do so. It comes down to the experience itself. And what do people want from that experience? They really, really want, I've talked literally over the years to thousands and thousands of

people from many cultures, they want to experience zero gravity. They want to really float, to play, to enjoy that freeness. They want to experiment. Liquids, you know, form a sphere in zero gravity. They want to experiment. Liquids form a sphere in zero gravity. They want to play with that. And, of course, sex in space. Yes, sex in space. Over the years, I've become the Dr. Ruth of outer space, which is never intended,

but we are going to be having sex in space, and damn it, it's a frontier that needs to be explored just as any other frontier. XCOR is just across the road from Bert Rutan's Scaled Composites at the Mojave Spaceport. CEO Jeff Greeson is in the business of building relatively inexpensive rocket-powered planes as a stepping stone to commercial space flights. His high-flying

optimism is tempered by down-to-Earth concerns about establishing an industry, one faced with enormous challenges. We've seen manned rocket vehicle turnarounds go from months to hours, and we've seen the first private company take astronauts into space, and we've seen the first space tourists, and we've seen zero-g flights become a commercial reality. We've seen the first laws passed in the United States that give us a framework for carrying passengers into space.

Things have happened that I wouldn't have believed would happen this soon, six years ago. Because literally generations of people have lived this dream and died never seeing it happen and pass the dream on to the next generation, it is so tempting to look now when things are really popping and say, that's it, we got it, we made it, it's going to happen. And I think it is going to happen. I think that it's so close that the people in this room will get to go.

But let's not kid ourselves. There is at least as much work ahead of us as there is behind us. Why do I say that? Why am I such a downer about that? Why do I want the downside? Well, it's because real industries that make real money actually deliver real results, and they do what they say they can do. And it's very important if we're going to open the frontier to humanity once and for all that we deliver real results.

But look at how much we have left to go. I mean, the first paying passenger is yet to fly out of the United States. The first passenger vehicles haven't been built yet in the United States. In spite of the fact that certainly I believe that all the responsible operators can operate private spacecraft at a hundred times safer than the government spacecraft had been operating, that doesn't change the fact that there's going to be a first accident and a second accident and a third accident. And we're going to have to ride that out as an industry.

But we're finally starting it on a sustainable footing. We might finally see some of those things we've dreamed of for generations actually happening. That's enough to be excited about. We don't have to overpromise. We have plenty of reality to celebrate. Part of that reality, and a profitable part, is taking place well within our planet's atmosphere. Among Peter Diamandis' many ventures, the man must never sleep, is the Zero Gravity Corporation, or Zero-G. Peter was sure people would pay to experience a half-minute of weightlessness, repeated several times in a flight. In principle, it was a simple concept.

In reality, the legal and bureaucratic obstacles were almost insurmountable. Almost. Now, for a little more than a year, it has been a reality. In the last year, we've done 50, actually 55 flights now and flown 1,500 people into weightlessness. An overnight success after a decade of hard work. It is operating beautifully. We've gotten the motion sickness down to zero. We've cracked that code. And we have just been given permission to operate out of the Kennedy Space Center. We've cracked that code, and we have just been given permission to operate out of the Kennedy Space Center. We've done four flights off the shuttle landing facility, and look for us to

be flying out of KSC, out of the Las Vegas-LA corridor, and hopefully in Houston in the near future. Peter hardly stops there. His next project? Think of it as NASCAR in the sky. NASCAR is a multi-billion dollar industry, $1.5 billion in merchandise alone. The TV rights for NASCAR are $600 million sold every year. Formula One, equally big or bigger across the world, it is a huge area. What do they have that we don't have? It's speed, noise, high technology. We are taking NASCAR into the space age.

We are building a series of 10 of these X-Racers. The business model is very clear. Sponsorship dollars, ticket sales, a media play. Since we announced it, we've been approached by, I don't know, dozens of TV shows from reality to broadcast rights, a dozen toy companies. We have three video games in development right now. Imagine these things. They have four minutes of in development right now. Imagine these things. They have four minutes of burn time plus about eight minutes of glide. So imagine you taking off,

flying their own track in this three-dimensional course. The key thing is you land and refuel this thing in five to eight minutes. So we're going to be looking at really doing a pit stop, refueling these things, and then going. So we expect great things. We're going to be flying these in cities around the country. The Reno Air Races have agreed to do the semifinals in Reno and the finals each year at the XPRIZE Cup. So look for these flights next summer, fall. And the first race season will be 2007. So we're on the verge of really tying together entertainment, tourism, at planetary.org. Emily is back with more about making movies on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

I'll welcome Bruce Betts for this week's What's Up Madness in just a minute. I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A. Why aren't space missions designed to return video? There are many technical challenges, but the most limiting factor is one of bandwidth. Video images require a lot of storage space and take a long time to transmit across interplanetary space to Earth. From more than a billion kilometers away,

Cassini transmits data at about 50 kilobits per second, about the rate of a dial-up modem, and that bandwidth must be shared among 12 science instruments. The rovers can transmit data via orbiters at a slightly higher rate of about 128 kilobits per second, but again this bandwidth must be shared among many instruments. True video will not be possible from space missions until there are communications satellites in deep space that are capable of much higher data rates.

One such satellite, the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, was slated for launch in 2009 and would have permitted broadband data rates of 10 to 30 megabits per second. However, as NASA has shuffled its Mars program, it appears that Mars Telecommunications Orbiter has been canceled, so movie buffs will have to wait a bit longer

to see video from Mars. 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. Bruce Betts is here. He's the

director of projects for the Planetary Society. And every week he tells us what's going on in the night sky and all kinds of other fun stuff, including the winner of projects for the Planetary Society. And every week he tells us what's going on in the night sky and all kinds of other fun stuff, including the winner of our special trivia contest prize this week, or prizes, I should say, plural. How do you do? How do you do, Matt?

I'm doing quite well, thank you. I'm doing okay. I hope it improves. You know what would probably make you feel better? What? Look up in the night sky. Don't just think this time. Look around.

After sunset, go ahead and look in the east. You'll see Mars up looking orange and bright and Mars-like. And we've also got Venus still very bright and low in the west just after sunset. A gleaming beacon. As well, you can see Saturn, not quite as much of a gleaming beacon, but really cool, especially on a small telescope, but quite visible to the naked eye, and it's rising in the east around 9 or so.

And we've also got in the pre-dawn sky, you've got Jupiter in the east-southeast, and if you look down below it, you might even catch Mercury in kind of this mid-December period, both of them looking like bright stars. Jupiter very bright and Mercury less so, but still quite bright. And in meteor shower land, we've got the Geminids on December 14th with full mood, but as I've been promising, we also have the Quatrantids. You said that there was another shower. There's something else.

Well, now I'm telling you. I can't pronounce it, but I'm telling you about it. The quadrant tids, which are peaking January 3rd or 4th. Not much moon at that time. It is traditionally a pretty darn good meteor shower. Now, remember, pretty darn good means from a dark site that you're seeing 40, maybe 60 meteors. But that's almost one a minute. And if you lie down, stare up at the sky or sit and stare, you'll see some probably if

you've got clear skies. Excellent. Okay. I'm going to try and do it. Good for you, Matt. Thank you. You're welcome. This week in space history, we have the one Martian year anniversary of the Opportunity

rover. We've already passed the one Martian year anniversary of the Spirit Rover. Coming up on the two year anniversary of two Earth years, right, for Spirit? Yes, indeed. Beginning of January and then mid to late January is Opportunity. Yeah. They were promised for 90 days.

90 day warranty. Yeah, so they're way past the warranty. If they break now, you might as well just buy a new one. On to Random space facts! Wow, you're really projecting that one. I'm trying. In 2029, you may know this. You may know that there's this asteroid, Apophis, a few hundred meters wide, planetary society.

Hey, we're paying attention to it, including with our near-Earth object programs. But Apophis is not only going to have a close flyby of Earth, it actually will come closer to Earth than the distance to geostationary satellites, like our TV and communications satellites. 22,000 miles. Exactly. It will be within 22,000 miles when it passes by the Earth in 2029. How big is this puppy?

It's about 300, 400 meters. Wow. Enough to cause major regional destruction if it hits us. So it really stressed people out about a year ago when it was first discovered until they narrowed the orbit down. And in fact, still, if it passes through the right few hundred meters, so-called keyhole, it will be put into a collision course with Earth for 2036. My goodness.

That is a one in a few thousand chance, but something that a lot of people are paying some close attention to. Wow. Okay, 24 years. I'll start getting ready. And there will be more observations in the Planetary Society. Look for something new we'll be doing probably in the next few months to help the Apophis hunt. Thank you.

You're welcome, Matt. the Apophis hunt, but... Thank you. You're welcome, Matt. On to our trivia contest with the exciting 25th anniversary Crystal Bowl surprise, in addition to the T-shirt. We asked you who is the only astronaut

to fly as part of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. How did we do? We got a surprising variety of answers, some terrific astronauts, but only one that, to our knowledge, was actually on missions, flying missions in all three of those programs. He actually flew in all three programs. He was also one of the funnest astronauts ever.

Wally Schirra, Walter Schirra, was the guy who flew on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. That's what we heard from Kyle Good. Kyle Good of Delaware, Ohio, is our winner of this special prize package, the T-shirt, and the beautiful 25th anniversary crystal bowl provided by our presenting sponsor, Northrop Grumman. Yeah. So, you know, it's the 40th anniversary this week of Wally Schirra's Gemini 6 flight with Tom Stafford. I didn't know that, but I did mention a few weeks ago that he got a special Ambassador of Space award from NASA. He did indeed.

Let's go on to the new trivia contest. For the new trivia contest. Ambassador of Exploration, sorry. Okay. New trivia contest. New trivia contest. Here's your question, and I'll tell you about your prize. What was the first wheeled vehicle on the moon?

Oh, you know, I'll never learn. I almost said, because I think I know. Okay. First wheeled vehicle on the moon, go to planetary.org slash radio to find out how to enter. Send us your response. When do they need to get that in, and then I'll tell them about the prize. They need to get it to us by the 19th of December, December 19 at 2pm Pacific Time and

we'll make sure that you're eligible, okay? And if you win this in honor of the Spirit and Opportunity One Mars Year Anniversaries we'll be giving away a Mars mug with a beautiful panoram on one side. Here it is Matt. I'm showing it to them in the studio with the Spirit landing site on one

side and on the flip side the top three reasons why I want to move to Mars. That's right, because I'd weigh 62% less, I'd be half as old, and I'd have 39 more minutes each day. Boy, all that and a cup of coffee. Exactly. Well, we won't send you the cup of coffee, but you can add coffee not included. Right. Contents.

So enter the contest, win a cool mug. You can also find these on the Planetary Society website if you don't win. Add coffee not included. Right. Contest. So enter the contest, win a cool mug. You can also find these on the Planetary Society website if you don't win. We're done and we're out of time. All right, everybody go out there, look up in the night sky, and think about coffee mugs. Thanks and good night. Bruce Betts, grabbing a mug there, having a cup of Joe. He joins us every week for What's Up.

That will help him stay up and watch all those cool things in the night sky. He's the director of projects for the Planetary Society. Come on back next week. Have another cup. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. Have a great week, everyone. Thank you.