Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - New Life for Hubble Space Telescope, New Leader for NASA

Episode Date: May 25, 2009

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Hubble is fixed. Can a new boss do the same for NASA? 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 of the Planetary Society. Here's what happened at 0840 local time, Sunday, May 24, Edwards Air Force Base, Southern California. Space shuttle Atlantis is rolling out on runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base, completing 197 orbits of the Earth while traveling 5,276,000 miles. This landing marks the 53rd shuttle mission to end at Edwards Air Force Base. Atlantis spent seven days servicing the Hubble Space Telescope that included five spacewalks totaling a record 37 hours. Atlantis has completed its 30th mission and the 126th

in the history of the Space Shuttle program. The Hubble Space Telescope's final servicing mission is complete, but its mission of discovery is just beginning. Houston, Atlantis, we'll stop Edwards 2-2. Welcome home, Atlantis. Congratulations on a very successful mission, giving Hubble a new set of eyes that will continue to expand our knowledge of the universe. Thank you, Houston. It was a thrill from start to finish. We've had a great ride. It took a whole team across the country to pull it off.

Our hats are off to you all. Thank you so much. What a mission. We'll talk a lot about what it meant on today's show, and we'll talk with Planetary Society Executive Director Lou Friedman about what may be in the future of the space agency that built both the Hubble Space Telescope and the space shuttles that have cared for it. A new NASA administrator has finally been named by President Barack Obama. If confirmed, Charles Bolden will be the second former astronaut put in charge of the agency. Lew has much to say about the nominee,

along with thoughts about the proposed NASA budget just announced by the Obama administration. Bill Nye finds inspiration in the rejuvenated Hubble and has high hopes for the new era at NASA. Later, Bruce Betts and I will monkey around in the night sky as we bring you this week's edition of What's Up. You'll find more news from on high at planetary.org, where you can celebrate the 10th anniversary of the SETI at Home project. Here's Bill. Hey, hey, Bill Nye, the planetary guy here, vice president of the Planetary Society.

And this week, the big news. It's up in space. It's Hubble down here on Earth. Charles Bolden, a veteran of four space shuttle flights, is probably going to be the next administrator of NASA. This is great news. And get this, my friends. Lori Garver, the Planetary Society's very own Washington representative, will probably

be his deputy. This is great. These are like-minded individuals that will help us, dare I say it, change the world. And Lou Friedman, the executive director of the Society, will talk about that a little bit more later in the program. Meanwhile, these two guys, along with all the people on the ground and the commander, John Grunsfeld and Andrew Drew Fustel, went up to the Hubble Space Telescope and gave it yet another upgrade. These are things never really designed to be serviced by humans, but they went up there, changed some insulation, improved the guidance,

improved the computers. Hubble is going to bring back even more spectacular pictures than we've already had being shared all over the world. And this is another example of the upside of human spaceflight, where we find a purpose up there in low Earth orbit, we find this beautiful instrument that's taking these spectacular pictures, and these guys working very carefully were able to make repairs that people didn't really plan on, repairs that were beyond the warranty, if you will. So as many of my colleagues remark, the Hubble Space Telescope has become ours. It's not just a space telescope for NASA or for people in the United States,

it's a telescope for everyone in the world, bringing back these amazing pictures and these remarkable insights into the origin of the universe and then ultimately, my friends, our origins. Where did we come from? Answering the deepest questions in the human experience. Well, let's celebrate. The Hubble's going on a new era. NASA's got new leadership.

And you as Planetary Society members are going to be influencing it because we've got a like-minded individual up high in the world's largest non-military space organization. We're going to change the world. Thanks for listening. I've got to fly. Bill Nye, the Planetary Guy. By the way, how's your algebra? If it's anything like mine, you could use a refresher.

And there's no more refreshing refresher than Bill Nye's new Solving for X online series. You can find it at DisneyEducation.com. So Charles Bolden's name has gone to Congress for confirmation as the next administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, known throughout the solar system as NASA. The former Marine Corps general flew more than 100 combat missions over Vietnam before becoming an astronaut. Bolden flew on the shuttle four times, including two missions as commander. He has also served NASA in administrative capacities.

Any challenges to the nominee by Congress might be related to his past work for NASA contractors. Lou Friedman is hoping Bolden flies through his confirmation hearings. I caught up with Lou on Sunday, May 24, just just minutes after Space Shuttle Atlantis sailed through the Southern California sky on its way back from repairing and upgrading the Hubble Space Telescope. Happy shuttle landing, Lou. Well, it is a great day. That was a terrific mission that just concluded on the Hubble Space Telescope repair. You know, it reminds me that we always have this some debate about the value of human space

flight versus robots. And of course, with Hubble, we're getting the best of both. But it reminds us that human flight, when it's for something worthwhile, that the people really relate to, that's making discoveries, that's having an adventure, people really resonate very well. And I think that's why we have this great public interest. And NASA did a great job in carrying it out. You know, Andrew Chaikin on his blog said exactly the same thing, that when a mission means as much as one like this, and the other thing that it meant to me is we can do anything. They were fixing stuff that was never meant to be fixed or replaced in space.

So it very much captures the Apollo spirit of can-do, and it captures the Apollo spirit of a meaningful enterprise. That's what's lacking. That's what has been lacking in general in the human space program. The shuttle just going up there routine mission after routine mission has not been very interesting. Even the space station, as glorious an engineering accomplishment as that is, is not very interesting because nobody knows what it's for. But with Hubble, there was no doubt. The people own Hubble. The discoveries that are made are enthralling people. That's my definition of exploration. It's adventure plus discoveries. And so it was the discoveries aspect of Hubble

which has resonated so strongly. I think we're going to come back to this topic. But first, let's talk about the man who delivered Hubble to orbit. Yes, it's a great weekend. NASA has a new administrator, or at least President Obama has selected who he wants as the NASA new administrator. It still has to go through Senate confirmation. And with all the craziness of the political world, who knows what will happen. But I'm assuming he's going to make it. He's an excellent choice. He's an outstanding individual. He has a great history, not only for the country generally, but for NASA.

He was the pilot who delivered the Hubble to orbit. He was the commander on the first crew of Americans and Russians going on the shuttle together in the days of the Shuttle Mirror Rendezvous program. And he's certainly a leader, both in the military and in civilian life. And I think we certainly wish him well. And he has some huge challenges to face, in spite of the fact that the administration has, I guess, recommended a budget that the Planetary Society thinks pretty highly of. has, I guess, recommended a budget that the Planetary Society thinks pretty highly of. Yes, the administration did recommend a good budget, and yes, he has terrific challenges.

But I think too much is made sometimes of the troubles that NASA has, because NASA is really carrying out some great things. So he's also inheriting a program to be leader of the world's greatest exploration of space. And in that sense, he has some huge opportunities as well. I want to mention one other thing that in addition to naming the administrator, President has named the deputy administrator to serve with Bolden. And of course, she will have to go through confirmation too. But it's Lori Garver, who we feel a great deal of kinship to. She was the Planetary Society Washington representative for many years, and she's been a close colleague. And so we're very pleased

with that choice as well. You know, I met Lori, must be over 20 years ago, when she was just an advocate, a grassroots person for another organization, the NSS. And to think that she's now a heartbeat away from the NASA administrator or will be is just amazing to me. She's a great person. Well, that's true, except I think the heartbeat metaphor is figurative, not literal in this case. It doesn't work like that on the succession chain for administrator. But these are important choices. They have to lead the agency through many challenges, not the least of which is the one we talked about, the whole balance of human and robotic exploration. I wrote about Charlie Bolden on my column from the executive director, which is now up on our website just today, as a matter of fact.

And we'll put a link to that as well at planetary.org slash radio, of course. Good, because in it I quote extensively, actually, much more than I intended to, from his statement that he gave to Congress three years ago in the context of the NASA budget. And it's a brilliant statement. And I do urge people not just to read my column but to read his statement because it captured both international cooperation, the balance of science and exploration, the balance of human spaceflight and robotic spaceflight. He dealt with all of those issues. The fact that he got it right when he's out of office bodes well for what's going to come up in the future. Let's talk about this budget that the administration has proposed. It's

certainly not a reality yet. What have you seen that you like? First of all, it's an extraordinarily difficult time. I don't have to tell listeners, I don't have to tell anybody who's alive about the difficult economic times, the stresses on the budget, the enormous pressures on NASA, but on the whole federal government, and trying to build the replacement for the shuttle, get it retired, get a new rocket built, get a new crew exploration vehicle built, and keep up with all the programs they have to do. It's extraordinarily stressful.

The budget is an increase, but it's a temporary increase, and then it goes pretty flat for a few years, and we're worried about that. But in the increase, it has money for exploration and science. It has a reinvigoration of something that's been let go for the last eight years, which is the Earth Science Program. Earth science was decimated in the last several years. It reinvigorates that program with a number of satellites that are urgently needed to replace aging satellites that won't be monitoring Earth anymore. And understanding the Earth is a key contribution of what NASA has provided, both intellectually from all of its enterprises and specifically from the

application satellites that are in Earth orbit. So we're very pleased about that. We're pleased with the commitment to continue the Aries-Orion program. A lot of people in the space community are worried about the new panel that has been convened to review human spaceflight and review both the Constellation program, which is building Aries and Orion, and the future moon and Mars goals. This is under the chairmanship of Norm Augustine, who, by the way, used to be a board member of the Planetary Society. But I'm not worried about this. First of all, Augustine's extraordinarily good. He's done this before.

He's always come up with the right answers. And I'm hopeful that will be an opportunity for reinvigorating exploration program, giving it a sense of purpose, which frankly it's lacked in the last few years. It's become a moon program. I was watching a House budget hearing this past week, and Representative Vern Ellens caught it right. He was asking the NASA acting administrator, Chris Scolese, what's this about exploration of Mars? I see very little of it in the budget, very little going on.

NASA seems to be doing a moon program, not an exploration program. Well, he caught it just right. And I was really interested to see this congressman from Michigan, who doesn't have any vested interest in a state issue being so smart. But, of course, the guy has a degree in nuclear physics from the University of California, so he's probably got it right. More from Planetary Society Executive Director Lou Friedman when we return. This is Planetary Radio.

I'm Sally Ride. After becoming the first American woman in space, I dedicated myself to supporting space exploration and the education and inspiration of our youth. That's why I formed Sally Ride Science, and that's why I support the Planetary Society. The Society works with space agencies around the world and gets people directly involved with real space missions. It takes a lot to create exciting projects like the first solar sail, informative publications like an award-winning magazine, and many other outreach efforts like this radio show. Help make space exploration and inspiration happen.

Here's how you can join us. You can learn more about the Planetary Society at our website, planetary.org slash radio, or by calling 1-800-9-WORLDS. Planetary Radio listeners who aren't yet members can join and receive a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Members receive the internationally acclaimed Planetary Report magazine. That's planetary.org slash radio. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. My guest is Lou Friedman, Executive Director and one of the founders of the Planetary Society,

which produces this radio series. Lou joins us every few months to comment on the current state of space exploration, as he regularly does for media outlets throughout the world. This time he is sharing his thoughts about both the nomination of Charles Bolden as the next NASA administrator and the new budget proposed for the agency by the Obama administration. Both will soon be considered by the U.S. Congress. Lou was telling us before the break about the Planetary Society's interest in keeping Mars as the ultimate goal of human spaceflight.

The Society feels pretty strongly about this. In fact, I've got a sticker I just put up above my computer at home that says, I think it's My Road Leads to Mars. Yes. Mars is the only world that has accessible water and an atmosphere. It's a place that humans will someday be, maybe to stay even. I can't predict that exactly yet, but certainly it's the only destination for humans beyond Earth that we can reach.

And so it is the driving goal for human exploration. That said, there's a whole balance of programs that needs to go into space exploration, including technology, including—and we don't oppose stopovers at the moon, but they always have to be seen as steps toward Mars. Also in the budget, a mission to Europa. That's pretty exciting. Yes, we're finally getting a mission to Europa started. Unfortunately, it's not being launched for a couple of years later than we had wanted,

but we're happy that the administration has finally committed to it. NASA is beginning work on it. It's a joint European and American mission. They'll have orbiters at the outer planets together. Europa is, of course, also another fascinating world, of course, only reached with robots. We're not going to send humans to Europa for a long time. But we're glad about that. We campaigned for it. Speaking of international activities between the United States and Europe and NASA and the European Space Agency, they've also committed to do Mars missions in the future beyond the Mars Science Lab. And both countries want to do large

landers on Mars, and neither one can afford the whole thing by themselves. So this is going to be an important new step, and that was endorsed in the budget as well. So the budget is a very positive sign. It's probably as good as it can get, given all these other constraints I talked about. But we are worried about future years. It doesn't have enough money for Mars sample return that we all want so much.

It doesn't have money to restore to the Mars program the preparations for sending humans there. Some $600 million has been taken out of the Mars programs over the last couple of years. That has to still be done. So we're happy, but we're not satisfied, I guess, is the right way to conclude. You want to speculate about what this budget's chances of making it through Congress relatively intact? It's a little dangerous to speculate. I think there's great support for it, Matt, and I think therefore that is a good chance that the budget will go through. Congress has been very supportive of NASA, and we can't complain about Congress's attitude toward either the

vision for space exploration, about Mars, about space science, about earth science. I think it will get a very good consideration in Congress. But the politics and the economics of the country are so volatile now, and there's so many pressures from so many directions that knowing exactly how it's going to come out or trying to predict exactly how it's come out. We've been wrong the last couple of years. It's always gone in. Budgets pass.

They make it through committee, and then they get caught up in politics and the continuing resolution. They come out differently than everybody else thought they had voted on it. So I'm a little afraid to speculate on it, but I think the forces are much better this year because I think there's more unity behind it. So I'm a little afraid to speculate on it, but I think the forces are much better this year because I think there's more unity behind it. Well, whatever happens in Congress and elsewhere in D.C. and around the world, the society is certainly going to continue its role of advocacy that I alluded to when I mentioned that cool sticker that I've got now up by my computer,

My Road Leads to Mars. What else is happening? Exactly. We'll be petitioning the president to restore some of that money in the Mars program and to make that the purpose of human and robotic exploration. If we can put a little muscle behind the Mars image, we think we'll get more public support because they'll know what the purpose of exploration is again. And it's a much more exciting and challenging goal. It brings together the whole world.

It brings together the different parts of NASA. It is an enormous challenge for science and robotic missions. And of course, it then gives a great purpose to human spaceflight for great achievements of the next generation. So yes, our road does lead to Mars. We're going to be petitioning the president about it, and we invite members, all the members of the Planetary Society and everybody who's listening to click on My Road Leads to Mars

and help sign that petition and get it sent in. And that, of course, is at planetary.org, where you can also catch Lou's thoughts about the selection of Charles Bolden for NASA administrator and coverage of the NASA budget. Get the background on that as well at planetary.org or planetary.org slash radio. If you prefer, we'll have the links there as well. Lou, as always, thanks very much. Thank you.

Lou Friedman is the executive director of the Planetary Society, Executive Director of the Planetary Society, and he will check in with us periodically, as he always has on this radio show, to give us some thoughts about what's going on with space exploration, not just in the U.S., but around the world. And beyond the world, up there in the sky, Bruce Betts is waiting for us to tell us about the night sky this week and much more. He'll be with us in just a few seconds. It is time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Dr. Bruce Batts is the director of projects for the Planetary Society. He's sitting across from me, and we're ready to talk to you about the night sky. How's it looking? Oh, it's lovely.

There are a lot of stars. Tons. Tons. Can't see many of them from here because we have our nearly June gloom time in Southern California. But even if it was clear, we wouldn't see very many. But there are a lot of stars. We know they're out there. I take it on faith.

Good. I'm glad you do. There are also planets, in fact. Evening sky, we've just got Saturn. But it's lovely. It's yellowish, kind of bright in Leo. Kinding sky, we've just got Saturn. But it's lovely. It's yellowish, kind of bright in Leo. Kind of edgy. High in the southeast.

Kind of edgy, yeah. Yeah. Check out edgy Saturn. I'm sorry, southwest. I'm not sure what I said before. In the evening sky and then setting later in the evening. In the pre-dawn is where it's really spectacular. Jupiter way totally extremely bright in the southeast pretty high up

these days and then to its far lower left extremely extremely bright venus hanging out in the east and kind of below a little to the left of venus is much dimmer reddish mars which is gonna start moving more upwards over the coming weeks and months. My road leads to Mars. So does mine. As long as there's a rest stop on the way. Yeah. Maybe some fast food.

All right, let's go on to this week in space history. A lot of groovy stuff. And, of course, you are going to love 50 years ago this week, monkeys Abel and Baker take their suborbital flight were they on the same flight we stumped you didn't i yes yeah they were i forget yeah they were playing poker i've seen that that's the best painting on velvet uh that you can pick up for a song in tijuana monkeys playing poker in space in space black velvet so anyway other stuff happened oh i want to mention mariner 9 because uh told us a lot about mars it was launched this week in 1971 that was a big deal right that was the one that said, okay, Mars actually is an interesting place.

Yeah, it was a big old hanging deal. The first flybys for 4, 6, and 7 of the Mariner series just happened to show us the heavily cratered southern highlands. And so it seemed like, ooh, it's boring, it's moon-like. And then Mariner 9 went into orbit and started finding all sorts of things, like Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris and monkeys playing poker. Alright, not really. Not really on that last part. Not yet, anyway. On to

random space fact! You are back! You are back, buddy! I spoke too soon. back all right hey you know hubble hubble space telescope just got fixed i'll say new and improved new and improved spiffy hubble space telescope uh i'll give you a couple i'll give you a bonus space fact some of the the pr stuff they're putting out with hubble they say one of the great things it did was point out that there are black holes in the center of all large galaxies.

All of them. All of them, yes. It's just the rule. And monkeys playing poker. Don't even show up if you don't have a black hole in the center and monkeys playing poker. Don't come to the annual convention, darn it. Hey, but also, its mirror, astronomical mirror's smoothness always amazes me. The mirror of Hubble.

The whole thing is ground so smoothly, it's within one eight hundred thousandths of an inch of a perfect curve. Wow. Wow. That's very impressive. It is. And that's kind of characteristic of all astronomical telescopes. And yet light enough to go up into orbit, you know, and just stay up there for 20 years. Hey, let's go on to trivia.

Why not? Because I don't remember the question. Oh, come on. We were just talking about this. It's out there. Out in Andromeda. Yes, right. Gosh. Okay. Okay.

We asked you how far away is the Andromeda galaxy? Today. Because it'll be closer tomorrow. Yes, yes. It'll be closer tomorrow. It'll be closer the day after that. And yes, eventually it will collide with the Milky Way galaxy. Although, you know, they're both so empty that very few things will actually hit each other.

I don't care. I'm still carrying an umbrella. Okay. It's billions of years away. You're still carrying an umbrella. I wondered why you carried the umbrella. Well, it's good for defense as well. How'd we do on the distance? Trivia question. Everybody got it. Everybody who wrote in, lots of entries. Around, right around two and a5 million light years. There were small quibbles about that,

like are we measuring to the edge of the galaxy? Are we measuring to the center where the black hole in the monkeys are? But it was 2.5, and that is what we got from Luke Johnson, I think a first-time winner, in, get this, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Another one of our Down Under listeners who did say 2.5 million. Actually, 2.54 is what Luke came up with, and everybody was pretty close to that. I liked Avin Winther's answer.

He had it right, too. He's not the winner. But he said 655 years to get there at warp 9.9. Wow. Yeah, that's pretty far. But the wild thing about the Andromeda Galaxy and how far away it is, is on your run-of-the-mill night in the dark sky, it's the farthest thing you can see with the unaided eye. I'm so glad you mentioned that, because that is such a cool fact. It is. It's over farthest thing you can see with the unaided eye. I'm so glad you mentioned that because that is such a cool fact.

It is. It's over 2 million light years, 2.5 million light years away. You can see it with the unaided eye. I mean, it looks like a fuzzy patch like most good astronomical objects. But still, that's wild. That's like three random space facts so far this time. Wow. All right.

Well, we're going to have none on the next few shows just to make up for it. By the way, Luke, we're going to send you a Planetary Radio t-shirt and, if you'd like, an Oceanside photo and telescope rewards card, which is a pretty cool thing, too. Okay, what's next? John Glenn. You've heard of him, right? Yeah, he's a senator.

Yeah, he was the oldest person in space when he flew. Yeah. His last flight. I remember that. Here's the question. Who was the second oldest person ever to fly in space? Okay. Go to planetary.org slash radio.

Find out how to enter. Gee, I have no idea. And no counting in monkey years or dog years. We're talking people here. And you've got until Monday, June 1st at 2 p.m. Pacific time to get us that answer. Okay, this was fun. Thanks.

All right, thank you. Everyone go out there, look up at the night sky, and think about playing poker with monkeys and how you would tell if they're bluffing. I could never tell. They'd own me by the end of the game. You call it a game? He's Bruce Betts.

He's the director of projects for the Planetary Society. He joins us every week here. What's up? Put down that black hole! Don't blame them, but this monkey business is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. Have a great week. Thank you.