Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - NASA's Chief Scientist on the Vision for Space Exploration

Episode Date: September 26, 2005

NASA's Jim Garvin comments on the agency's just announced plans for human exploration and new spacecraft. Also Lou Friedman, Q&A on craters throughout the solar system, and Bruce Betts with a new What's Up contest.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

NASA's Chief Scientist, 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. The topic of our main segment this week is also our top news story. We're going back to the moon, people, and NASA knows how we're going to get there. The space agency revealed the shape of the crew exploration vehicle last week, and it was a bit of deja vu all over again. No more wings in space, at least not for a while. The CEV looks a whole lot like the Apollo command

and service modules of the 1960s, and with good reason. NASA says the design will be ten times as safe as the space shuttle, which the CEV will replace in just five years. What you can't easily tell from the illustrations is that the CEV is three times the size of Apollo, and it sits on top of proven space shuttle components. Just as important was the announcement of a heavy lift launch vehicle capable of putting enormous amounts of mass into orbit, along with a lander that looks, well, a lot like a ship called Eagle that touched down on the moon 36 years ago.

a ship called Eagle that touched down on the moon 36 years ago. Get more details at planetary.org. And stick around to hear the comments of NASA's chief scientist, Jim Garvin, followed by analysis from Planetary Society Executive Director Lou Friedman. And Bruce Betts will be along shortly, going where no chicken has gone before, in this week's What's Up. There's just one other development we have to mention. High above the Red Planet, Mars Global Surveyor has found that things are really hopping down on the surface.

The orbiter has seen gullies that have formed in just the last two or three years. And something has rolled boulders down hills in the same time span. Now, don't get your hopes up. This doesn't mean running water, but it does add to the growing evidence that Mars is anything but a dead planet. Emily is a bit under the weather this week, so we bring you one of her golden oldie Q&A segments. I'll be right back with NASA's Jim Garvin. 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 Deccan Traps 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. Planetary scientist Dr. James Garvin has been with NASA

ever since he received his Ph.D. He was once the agency's lead scientist for Mars exploration. Now, as chief scientist, he advises the NASA administrator regarding all science operations and the vision for space exploration. Jim Garvin, just under the signature in your email is the motto, To the Stars, By Way of the Moon, and Then Mars. Are we on the right track? Absolutely, Matt. In fact, this is a very special time,

I think, as we look at exploration again, as we often have, because all the stars are aligning, and also the planets. Because as we speak, in fact, we're probing the depths of the universe with many great robotic emissaries. We're on the way to Mars with the greatest reconnaissance step ever in the history of Mars with MRO. And we're getting ready to go back to the moon. And quite frankly, with people and machines working together, we'll be able, if you will, to do the moon right so we can learn to live in space and ultimately to get to those great destinations like Mars and beyond.

So what were your feelings when these announcements were made just a few days ago about the actual shape for how this country will advance manned exploration of the solar system? Well, I was thrilled, Matt, because as one of the people who have been asked over the last, oh, I guess 15 to 20 years, to repeatedly go through the exercise of, well, how are we going to do it this time? And what's it going to take? And all that. Now we have a plan, led by a brilliant technical leader in Mike Griffin,

that has all the piece parts to actually get us there. And it's been frustrating as a child of the Apollo era and an intern of the Viking era and planetary scientists for the last 25 years, to not be going back to these distant shores. As our robotic emissaries have, I think people need to as well. And some would argue, you know, is that really science? And I say absolutely. Us being there doing science is the ultimate form of science that I think the community would embrace.

And so we now have a plan with a dose of reality, the technical wherewithal to do it. It's a buy-it-by-the-yard plan. It brings with it opportunities for science. It doesn't pretend to be driven at every step by those great science problems that, you know, grab me and the planetary science community, quite frankly. And I think that gives it the attainability we've all needed so badly. And when the first women and men walk on the moon again, they'll really be a new space-faring generation that will be putting in place the skills,

the tools, the capabilities to get people ultimately to Mars. And you have the impression that we're going to stay this time? Well, I do, and I think one of the keys in all this, Matt, is the robotic precursors. Just as the lunar orbiters and the surveyors led the way for Apollo to land on the moon, our robotic emissaries on the moon, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, just a few years away, the first robotic lunar lander that will follow a year or so later, and others to build the pieces that will allow the people to go somewhere, ultimately to stay as long as needed, I think this is the kind of approach that has maximum opportunity to really excel.

And it may seem obvious, but organizing all that, putting it together, is really a massive engineering feat. And for me as a scientist, the value of the science is informing those engineering decisions. And I believe this architecture, as it's called, has a lot of hooks for those opportunities for science to inform. And so that's why it excites me. How much engineering has already been done to back up the beautiful images that can be seen right now on the NASA webpage of the crew exploration vehicle and the heavy lift launch vehicle? Well, I'm not quite frankly the right guy to ask. I think Dr. Griffin is in that sense. But, you know, the graphics, I think, really do convey some of the thought that's gone

into that. Our industrial colleagues in the aerospace industries across this nation and abroad have been thinking about these building blocks, these engineering systems that would have the reliability to send people into space. And it's really the integration, the systems engineering of putting them together that makes them real, the testing to make them reliable, and the practice, the operational experience to do it. And they've all been waiting. And I believe, really, that our era of waiting is over.

And, you know, from what I've seen of the ideas that have been presented by NASA centers and industry for some of these building blocks, derived vehicles from the shuttle experience, from the old Apollo experience, from other approaches, the X-Series, of course. We really have been ready. It just takes leadership to say, now we're going to do it this way, and this is the path we're going to take. And that's the very same leadership that allowed us to put together the pieces that led to the massively successful Mars Exploration Rovers.

the pieces that led to the massively successful Mars Exploration Rovers. Speaking of those images, I must say that my first impression was the same impression that a lot of people got, that NASA has gone back to the future. It sure looks like a command module. It sure looks like a lunar module. But then as I read more, it seemed more and more that the resemblance to Apollo is really only skin deep. Well, Matt, my comment is this. And, again, as a scientist, not an engineer, the Apollo system worked.

It was a brilliant engineering technical success for this nation, for exploration. One cannot argue with success. The same way that airbag-based landings delivered priceless cargoes to the surface of Mars now three times successfully. You know, people that bat,000 are doing pretty good. Well, Apollo did pretty good even in the face of adversity with $13 and other setbacks. So to evolve that to fit into this context with real cost schedule safety constraints that we have to pay attention to in this current era, I think this is just a wonderful solution. And the fact that it offers a scalability that will get us beyond the moon,

that will get us a sustained presence on the moon, whatever that specifically means is, I think, in the hands of the engineers, that will offer the opportunities for science, as did Apollo. Really, this program is leveraging. science, as did Apollo. Really, this program is leveraging. And the real new wrinkle, in my view, is the vast embracing of new IT information technology solutions to take us from the beachhead of the 70s with primitive early fault-tolerant computing to this new beachhead of these reliable systems, which will have types of integrated vehicle health management and other types of, if you will, IT self-awareness to help head off some of those challenges that the first era of human spaceflight had to circumvent.

Again, one must remember that the legacy of those hundreds of space shuttle flights with those very successful solid rocket motors and the space shuttle main engines, the SSMEs, and the experience there with that level of heavy lift, you put all that together over many years and you let our best and brightest engineers mine from it what we need to assemble, and then it becomes a real big challenge of systems engineering. And that's where our president administrator is, you know, he's the right guy. This is his field.

The components that would seem to be key parts of a Mars mission aren't really there yet. At least we're not seeing them on the website. I mean, I would probably still take the ticket to Mars and ride in that rather cramped quarters for a few months, but it seems to me it's going to have to go considerably beyond what we've seen so far. Well, I think you have to remember first that we are at Mars. We have five spacecraft operating around Mars now. True enough.

And we have another bold one on the way, one that many of us have dreamt of for 20 years, a true next-generation reconnaissance step. We're putting in place the first landing in the polar region where we have strong evidence of the presence of frozen water that might tell us about the modern water cycle, climate cycles. And, of course, by the turn of the decade, we're that might tell us about the modern water cycle, climate cycles. And, of course, by the turn of the decade, we're planning to put truly the step beyond Viking, the first biogeochemical lab that will go to the right kind of place, we think, to look for preserved evidence on Mars.

That robotic, if you will, science-driven era that we're in now, as Mars appears brighter in the sky each day, it reminds us that Mars is still a fantastically exciting and also challenging destination. And to get there with people, which I believe personally we have to get women and men there, it's sort of the ultimate exploration quest of this era. We're going to need to train, just as we train for marathons and sports. So that training, in my view, and I think in the administrators and many, is best done in a nearby beachhead or nearby planetary beachhead.

The moon is that. It's a wonderful science target as well. And it's a place to learn. It's a place that's two to four days away. It's a place with a vast array of environments. And the spacecraft that go to the moon don't have to be themselves the ones that go to Mars. The same way the simple caravels that sailed around the Mediterranean, you know, had to be scaled to be the ones that crossed the great Atlantic Pacifics of the Renaissance era of exploration.

So we will learn to walk before we run. We will learn to live and be, as Dr. Griffin would say, spacefarers before we go on those great voyages. And meanwhile, the Mars voyages will be those with the people here and the machines there. And it is my view that, you know, as we go back to the moon, this is my view now as a science guy, of course, that the great step to Mars, the next great step to Mars, will be robotic sample return. And that step, when it comes, will bring with it the round-trip experience that we need. And, you know, the sooner we do that, the more believability, the more credibility we have that

once we learn to be on the moon and work and live there, that we can get on to Mars. So I'm not as worried about the delay because I think Mars is still there. If we drop the ball on the robotic, sustaining the robotic program, I think as a scientist I would be very disappointed, but that's my view. Jim, we can finish as we started because I think it puts it very eloquently. To the stars, by way of the moon, and then Mars. Absolutely, and you haven't seen anything yet. This is quite a voyage.

Well, we, as apparently you are, sure look forward to that first flight of the crew exploration vehicle, which, if all goes according to plan, is just five years away with a manned lunar mission in 2018. Jim Garvin, I wish we had more time. I certainly hope that you'll come back again on Planetary Radio sometime in the near future. Absolutely, Matt. Count me in. Jim Garvin is NASA's chief scientist. As such, he serves the agency and the administrator as the primary advisor for the entire NASA science portfolio. And we've been talking about the vision for space exploration and, specifically, the announcements just a few days ago by NASA, the unveiling of the crew exploration vehicle and other components that will take us back to the moon, and we certainly hope to Mars. We'll be back with more Planetary Radio and a few comments from Lou Friedman,

Executive Director of the Planetary Society, 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. Thank you. We're tempted 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. We're back with Planetary Radio, and our coverage this week of the announcements made just a few days ago by NASA about the future of manned space exploration, at least that which is being pushed by this nation. We spoke with Jim Garvin, chief scientist for NASA. Let's turn now, as promised, to Lou Friedman,

executive director of the Planetary Society. And Lou, the Society has been covering this and also has a position. Well, we're very supportive, of course, of the vision for space exploration. For many years, even for many decades, we've argued for a high purpose for human spaceflight, not to be just caught in low Earth orbit doing things that robotic science could do better and certainly cheaper, but to explore other worlds and the vision of going to Mars, especially where the whole question of life in the solar system or life off of this planet may be answered, is a worthy goal and certainly should be the goal for human spaceflight. So we're quite excited about and positive about the vision for space exploration.

The implementation plan announced by NASA is also quite good because it's going to build a new crew exploration vehicle and replace the shuttle. And if there's one thing that is urgently needed now, it is time to retire the shuttle. It is time to get on with the capabilities for human spaceflight beyond Earth orbit, and that's critical. In fact, I think there may even be some suggestion that the shuttle should be retired earlier. You know it's not going to fly for more than a year from now. There was a lot of emphasis in that announcement, however, also on permanent presence on the moon and use of lunar resources, which is strange.

First of all, the permanent presence goal has no rationale that I can think of, and the lunar resources idea is totally hypothetical. To base a program on that, or to get bogged down on the moon as we've been bogged down in Earth orbit, would be a tragedy. There are enthusiasts, mostly engineers, I must say, who want to do big macro-engineering projects on the moon. They want to mine the moon as if there were some resources there that would be helpful to us either on Earth, which is patently ridiculous due to the transportation costs, or in space.

The idea of exploration is to keep moving outward and to get at that fundamental question about humans' adaptability. And that's not going to be on the moon. There's no air, no water on the moon. The idea is to go to other worlds like Mars and see if there is an adaptability. If we lose that focus, I think it'll be a tragedy. Furthermore, even if there is some water on the moon, it's incredibly hard to get to. The poles, which are terribly frigid regions, you know there's a reason the Apollo missions went to the equator. It wasn't because they liked the equator better than the poles in any mission sense.

It was because the poles are very hostile areas. They're frigid or they're bathed in sunlight. In either case, they're hard to work at and they're hard to reach. What little amounts of water might be there, it isn't going to be a reservoir. It isn't going to be a lake. It isn't going to be the great copious amounts of water that we have on Mars. You, the society, I should say, would like to see more focus on Mars. Well, certainly the society is about exploration and not about these macroengineering projects.

And, yes, we definitely want to see humans going out to Mars. Of course, the society would support the stepping stone at the moon. humans going out to Mars. Of course, the society would support the stepping stone at the moon. Just as the Apollo program had stepping stones in Earth orbit with rendezvous between spacecraft, the moon could be a very useful place to do operational testing. So I think the human move to the moon and the interim step would be very good. But just as that, don't let's get bogged down there. I've also heard comments made about the lack of much mention of international participation in this new plan put forward by NASA.

It's a serious lack because the political will, the political reason to do such a rather expensive and, of course, longuration initiative like this has to be international. It's very little national sentiment to do it alone, and it would be very wasteful to do it that way. We could not take advantage of the resources and capabilities. As the International Space Station proves, being international is very, very valuable and very important. And if we're not going to be international, it's probably not going to get the political support that this initiative needs.

So I think we've identified, Matt, two critical lacks in the plan. There needs to be more international political planning, and there needs to be a greater focus on the vision itself on Mars. Having said that, let's not lose sight that this is a very welcome change. It's time to work out all of these things. site that this is a very welcome change, it's time to work out all of these things, we really do applaud the NASA determination to get on with the new crew exploration vehicle, to move beyond the shuttle, to move out of Earth orbit, and to build a new heavy lift launch capability that does allow us to have humans explore other worlds. So I think, you know, in total, we're very happy with the initiative, but we don't want

to get bogged down in science fiction, and we don't want to get bogged down without political support. Thanks very much, Lou. Lou Friedman is executive director of the Planetary Society. He joins us periodically for commentary and analysis on what's happening in the world of space exploration. And I'm sure we'll be talking to him again before long. I'm going to come back with Bruce and this week's edition of What's Up.

But first, here's Emily and the second half of Q&A. 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 with Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. He's going to tell us all about the night sky and the latest trivia contest. Welcome back.

Thank you. Thank you very much. What do you got? Hey, I got Venus and Mars, both looking spectacular. Venus in that evening sky. Look in the west. It's the brightest star-like object. And Mars now rising about 9.30 p.m., depending on your location, and looking bright and orange.

And it will double in brightness again over the next month or so and also rise earlier and earlier each night. And as it grows to closest approach at the end of October. Double what it is now? Double what it is now. It's going to shimmy on closer. Pretty cool, huh? Well, we'll keep talking about it. Approximately double.

Hey, saw a rocket launch last night. I was going to mention that you encouraged those of us in Southern California who could have gone out to watch that launch from Vandenberg. I didn't get to, but I did get to enjoy the really great picture you took of it. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Yes, yeah, so that doesn't affect a lot of you out there in the world, but if you're anywhere near a rocket launch site, I was amazed how well we could see it from a very long, you know, 100 miles away probably. And it was a gorgeous Minotaur rocket launching in the night sky, particularly great because it was lit up by the sun while it was dark here. Bruce's photo showed the stage separation, and it was quite spectacular. We ought to post it,

but I don't know if we can convince anybody to do that for us. Well, we'll think about it. Check planetary.org slash radio because they may let us bury it there. On to something else. How about this week in space history? Why not? 1958, NASA was founded.

1958? Yes. Prior to that, it was NACA? N-A-C-A? Yeah. Yeah, something like that. NACA, NACA. NACA, NACA.

Then they became NASA, NASA. Well, that's good. Not that significant. So let's move on to random space fact. Jupiter. Jupiter is more massive than all of the other planets combined, even if you throw in comets and asteroids and moons and everything else. I didn't know that.

I thought I knew that you could stuff, what, a thousand Earths into it? Isn't that what they say? You sure can. But I did not know that it had the mass of all the other stuff in the solar system, excluding... With the elastic waistband, you can get 50 or 100 in. Yeah, Jupiter wears boxers. Yep, yep, yep, yep. More exciting results from the space program you'll hear in future editions of this show.

That's exciting. It is. Meanwhile, let's move on to the trivia contest. We asked you what was the second largest moon of Neptune. The first largest, of course, being Triton. And then you drop a long ways down. Before the Voyager 2 flew by, we actually did not even know about this moon. It was discovered by Voyager, pre-Voyager. Nereid seemed to be the second largest. But then

we discovered what, Matt? What did we discover? Well, Michael Fitzmaurice of Mullaloo, Perth, Western Australia. Mullaloo! Mullaloo! Isn't that great? That is great. Well, Michael says that it was Proteus. Proteus, which we now know to be, at least as far as we know, the second largest moon of Neptune. So, Michael, congratulations.

We're going to get one of those Planetary Radio t-shirts out to you out there in, say it again, Malibu. They have the coolest names. They really do. Well, they're cool people. They are cool people. Hey, how about another trivia contest? Why not? More cool people.

There are so many cool people that enter that don't get randomly selected. There really are. It's a shame we can't do something for everyone. It gets so popular, I feel kind of badly. Not badly enough to do anything for them, but... They just got to hang in. Hang in there. You know, the laws of probability. It's going to come.

What goes around comes around. Exactly. So, enter again this week. Try to win your Planetary Radio t-shirt by answering this question tied to last week's show involving Hayabusa, the first Japanese deep space probe visiting an asteroid these days. In this case, I'm asking you, what was the name of the first Japanese Earth-orbiting satellite? First Japanese Earth-orbiting spacecraft. What was its name?

Go to planetary.org slash radio to find out how to enter and get your chance to win the T-shirt. And what I want to know is, what year was that? But maybe that would be telling too much. Yeah, we should leave that for them to figure out. Let's cover that when we give the answer.

We'll also talk about what year it was. Okay. But I do know. I believe you. Okay. Get I do know. I believe you. Okay. Get that entry into us by Monday, October 3rd, 2 p.m. Pacific time. Monday, October 3rd, 2 p.m. Pacific. We will make sure that you get every possible opportunity to win that Planetary Radio t-shirt.

Get stochastic, people. Okay, everybody, go out there, look up at the night sky and think about flying rubber chickens. Thank you, and good night. He's Bruce Betts. He's the Director of Projects at the Planetary Society. He joins us every week here for What's Up.

Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. Thanks for listening. We welcome your thoughts. Write to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. Join us next time for another light jog around the solar system. Till then, have a great week, everyone.