Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Planetary Radio Live at Planetfest 2012!

Episode Date: August 13, 2012

PlanRad Live welcomes space historian and writer Andrew Chaikin, former NASA Mars Czar Scott Hubbard, and Bill Nye the Science Guy to a live conversation at Planetfest: Curiosity Knows No Bounds, just a few hours before the triumphant landing of the big new rover on Mars. Host Mat Kaplan is also joined by Emily Lakdawalla, Bruce Betts and award-winning barbershop quartet Hi-Fidelity.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey podcast listeners, it's another one of our special messages. Wow, what a landing on Mars. I went on vacation immediately after that and our big Planet Fest festival, which is what you'll be hearing this week. It's Planetary Radio Live recorded on the first day, Saturday, the day before the landing at Planet Fest in Pasadena, California. At that point, of course, we still didn't know that Curiosity had landed safely on the Red Planet. You'll only hear a small piece of the

panel discussion we have with Scott Hubbard, Andrew Chaikin, and Bill Nye, but there will be more in next week's show, and a lot more, because we talked for about 45 minutes, I think, pretty much all of that in this online version of the show next week. That's the show for the week of August 20. Here is PlanRad Live at PlanetFest. Go Curiosity! When you wish upon a star From PlanetFest 2012, Curiosity knows no No Bounds, this is Planetary Radio Live. Here is your host, the Planetary Society's Matt Kaplan.

Greetings and happy Mars Day, everyone. Welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. Every now and then we take our quiet little show about space exploration on the road. This time we're in the Pasadena Convention Center with maybe a thousand close friends, all of them in love with space and space science. Am I right, folks? Yes! We are just a few miles from the Jet Propulsion Lab and just a few hours from one of the most

exhilarating yet terrifying experiences of our lives, the landing of Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover on the Red Planet. JPL NASA and thousands of engineers and scientists around the world are going for gold that surpasses any Olympic dream. In a few minutes, we'll welcome three of the most passionate space enthusiasts on our home world. Science journalist and author Andrew Chaikin wrote A Man on the Moon, Voyages to the Apollo Astronauts, and then he worked with Tom Hanks to turn that into the Emmy-winning miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. Scott Hubbard spent a decade as NASA's Mars Czar,

putting our robotic exploration of the Red Planet on track for the mission of Curiosity. They'll be joined by our own Bill Nye, the science guy, CEO of the Planetary Society. Later, it'll be Bruce Betts for a look around the night sky and a chance for our live audience and listeners to win some prizes. That harmonious foursome you hear in the background is High Fidelity, making its triumphant return to our show. We'll hear more from them soon, but first, help me welcome the Planetary Society's Senior Editor and Planetary Evangelist for Space Exploration, Emily Lakdawalla. And I've got to say, Emily, I love your new title, Planetary Evangelist. That's right. I've got to tell people all about the great news from space. I hope you have a proper Martian topic for us today.

I do. I'm going to talk to you about the three ages of Mars. Now, Curiosity is a gigantic rover, but it's standing on the shoulders of giants. And by that I mean the long program of Mars exploration that's unfolded over the last couple of decades. When that started, we only knew that Mars was a dead planet that's cold now, and maybe it had some water in the past, but that wasn't really very fleshed out. Thanks to a long history of several landers and many orbiters, three of which are still active at Mars, we now understand a much more nuanced story about the history of Mars. So let me tell you that story.

It all began in a slightly more Earth-like state. We don't know how warm it was, how thick the atmosphere was, but what we do know is that the chemistry of the water on Mars was much more similar to what it is on Earth today, a fairly pH neutral environment that resulted in the kinds of minerals that we form on Earth today, things like clays. Later on, there was a last burst of volcanic activity that filled the sky with sulfuric acid and other nasty things, and that resulted in the acidic age of Mars,

which produced these very sulfate-rich rocks. Finally, we had the last modern age of Mars, which is what Mars looks like today. It's very cold. It's very oxidizing. It's rusty. That's why Mars looks red. Now, the two Spirit and Opportunity rovers explored

the sulfate age, the sort of middle age of Mars' history. Now that we understand that there's this clay age, this older age of Mars' history, when there was more water running around, we knew that there's this clay age, this older age of Mars' history, when there was more water running around, we knew that that's where we needed to send the next mission. So thanks to this long history of orbiters, particularly the most recent Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Express, with their ability to tell where these minerals are in tiny little exposures on the planet, now we knew where to send Curiosity to explore those most ancient rocks that formed in water that might have provided environments where life could

have begun and even flourished. So that's what we're going to see with Curiosity, and I can't wait to find out what it discovers. So what's the next age of Mars, the biological age? Well, the next age of Mars may be the human age of Mars. When we go and do to Mars, well, what we're doing to Earth, which we can't exactly kill Mars' life, because as far as we can tell, there's not a lot of life there right now. But we could perhaps change it. And as humans are changing Earth today,

we may one day change Mars. Thanks very much, Emily, and I will see you next week. Look forward to it, Matt. She is the Planetary Society's Senior Editor and Planetary Society's senior editor and planetary evangelist. Now, High Fidelity entertained us on one of the very first Planetary Radio Live shows, the award-winning Barbershop Quartet. They've stayed pretty busy since then. You might have caught their hilarious barbershop rap on a recent Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Anybody see that? It was really cute. They were the only funny part of the sketch, actually. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a big space geek welcome to High Fidelity. Out among the stars I sailed way beyond the moon. In my silver ship I sailed in a dream that ended too soon. Now I know exactly who I am and what I'm here for. I am and what I'm here for. And I will go sailing no more, no more. All brave things I've done vanish like a snowflake with the rising of the sun Never more to sail my ship where no man has gone before

Before gone before, before. And I will go sailing no more, no more, no more, no more. But no, it can't be true I could fly if I wanted to Like a bird in the sky If I believed I could fly Why I'd fly I would fly If I tried I could fly Clearly I will go sailing

No more I will sail no more. High Fidelity. They'll be back with another number for us later in the show, and I'll be back with Andrew Chaikin, Scott Hubbard, and Bill Nye, the science guy, in a minute. This is Planetary Radio Live. I'm Robert Picardo. I traveled across the galaxy as the doctor in Star Trek Voyager. Then I joined the Planetary Society to become part of the real adventure of

space exploration. The Society fights for missions that unveil the secrets of the solar system. It searches for other intelligences in the universe, and it built the first solar sail. It also shares the wonder through this radio show, its website, and other exciting projects that reach around the globe. I'm proud to be part of this greatest of all voyages and I hope you'll consider joining 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. Our nearly 100,000 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 Live. I'm Matt Kaplan. We're at PlanetFest 2012, the Planetary Society's celebration of the landing on Mars by Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover. Please welcome the Chief Executive Officer of the Planetary Society, my boss, Bill Nye the Science Guy. Greetings, greetings fellow planetarians. Greetings, fellow planetarians. Bill, as we speak, we need to tell people once again, we don't know what has happened on Mars because it's a few hours away.

But I can't help thinking about that great day when you and Emily and I, we all bundled up in bunny suits, went into the JPL clean room, and engineers were putting the finishing touches on that spacecraft that's going to be on Mars in a few hours. It's quite a thing, you guys, when you look at a piece of hardware that's leaving the Earth forever. It's just unlike your everyday experience. Now you may have thrown things overboard on a boat or a ship, maybe even on purpose. But when you see a spacecraft that's never coming back and you look at the exquisite detail,

all the effort, all the time, effort, and energy that went into creating this thing, all the thought that went into every single piece, you know, architects always admire airplanes because even since World War I, because there's nothing on an airplane that doesn't have to be there. And it's especially true of a spacecraft. It really is inspiring. Let's get to our other special guests. How many of you watched and loved From the Earth to the Moon, that terrific miniseries? One of our special guests today did more than write the book that it was based on. Andrew Chaikin co-wrote all 12 episodes of that.

Oh, you did not? No. He's correcting me. I thought you were on the credit. I'd love to take credit for that, but I really was a consultant on the show, and I read the scripts and gave them feedback. I do know that you spent eight years researching A Man on the Moon, which is the book this was based on.

He interviewed all 22 of the then-surviving Apollo astronauts. He's a member, an original member, I think, of the Mars Underground, who has also written the terrific A Passion for Mars, which is really about that topic. And his newest books, co-written with Victoria Cole, are Voices from the Moon, featuring excerpts from his conversations with the astronauts, and a book for young readers called Mission Control, This is Apollo,

illustrated by Apollo moonwalker Alan Bean, who is a heck of an artist. He's also a popular speaker and essayist. Please help me welcome Andrew Chaikin. Now, how would you like to be known almost officially as the Czar of Mars? Sounds right out of Edgar Rice Burroughs, doesn't it? That's what Scott Hubbard became in the year 2000 when he was named NASA's first Mars Program Director after running the agency's Ames Research Center for five years. Scott and his hand-picked lieutenants oversaw the complete restructuring of the Mars Exploration Program after it had suffered two catastrophic mission failures.

To accomplish this, he had to learn to maneuver the political and bureaucratic backwaters of Washington, D.C. Now there's a task that makes mere rocket science look like child's play. He's now a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University. He's just published the unique and fascinating Exploring Mars about his accomplishments at NASA HQ. Here's what Neil deGrasse Tyson had to say about the book. It's high time somebody revealed the underbelly of why and how we travel to the red planet. Every mission to space is enabled by financial, political, and cultural forces that you never hear about. Leave it to NASA's Mars czar to tell this story. Please welcome Professor Scott Hubbard. Thank you. Thank you. Now, gentlemen, I think it's safe to say that you share a

passion for Mars, but you took such different paths to sort of expressing that. Andy, how did you become a Martian? You know, I'm sure that my brother and sister were convinced that I was a Martian even before I knew it. Well, look at you. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I was like sitting on the floor with space books at age five, and you know, they were off doing other things that kids normally do. So it really was in me from as long as I could remember and my dream of becoming an astronaut drove me forward. I thought I was going to become an astronaut

by way of becoming a planetary geologist. And then I realized that my very imperfect medical history was going to prevent that. And it was only a few years after college that I kind of lucked into a career in journalism, sort of backed into it at Sky and Telescope magazine. And I have turned myself into a space historian, who knew, and a storyteller of space. And to me, I have to say that Mars to me is a story. It's a story that, of course, has just barely been written, but it is one of the most magnificent stories in human history. And it's one of the reasons that I get up in the morning is to see what happens next.

Scott Hubbard, how did you get into this line of work? Well, I had a history that is very much like Homer Hickam and Rocket Boys. That's a great book, by the way. It is a fascinating book and a good movie. I grew up in a little tiny town in Kentucky, a child of the space age. Sputnik went up. I was 9 years old. And I remember going out in the backyard and I had this little refractor, you know, it was about a two inch refractor and looking up at that fuzzy red

spot up there. And then I saw Echo One go over, you know, the one, the big reflector, the first demonstration of what became communication satellite. And I thought, wow, it would be really cool to work on something like that. And so I started off the way you always start off, by blowing up stuff in the basement. And I, right on, rocket boys. And I, you know, burned off my eyebrows. My mother was horrified.

My father thought it was funny. And I was banished to the backyard, terrorized the neighbors by launching rockets over in their direction. And the rest is history. You know, some combination of science fiction and science fact, and I just could never get away very far from wanting to know about life in the universe. And that informed much of the rest of my career, and so I finally did get a chance to design missions. And ran the Ames Research Center, as we said. Yes, indeed.

That was the last stop on my NASA career, 20 years with the agency. And I was very fortunate to get the extraordinary opportunity to take almost a clean shoot of paper in 2000 and redesign the Mars program. And it's lasted for a decade. Now that's where I don't think you're a masochist, are you? To the best of my knowledge. So, you know, why would you voluntarily leave behind this great place, the Ames Research Center, for this completely alien and hostile environment within the Beltway in Washington, D.C.?

Well, I had a call. I was investigating an earmark in Montana or someplace near Yellowstone. And I got a call from – Scott, what do you mean an earmark? You know, where a guy writes into a budget bill that they've got to give Bill Nye money because he's such a great guy. Who was that? I think this was Senator Burns. And I was sent up here to find out if this was real stuff or fluff.

And the administrator phoned me, Dan Goldin, a very interesting character. Someone's read Scott's book, The Person Laughing at the... Yes, the person laughing at the... known for his volatility. And for his pronunciation of the word Mars. So... The NASA family is going to Mars. Yeah, no, he asked me to come and meet with him, and he literally and figuratively put his arm around me and said, Son, your country needs you. And he said, No, I want you to come to Washington to fix the mess. And I thought to myself, Well, this could either be completely nuts or a chance to do something that comes once in a career. And I went with the latter, and it worked out.

Although I have to say, it's not science. It's not only engineering. It's a whole bunch of other stuff too. But this other stuff is absolutely vital if we're going to do things like fly to Mars. I spent an enormous amount of shoe leather going between the House appropriations and Senate appropriations and the Office of Management and Budget and all these people with green eye shades who do the arithmetic on NASA's budget and convincing them that an investment in a decade to understand whether there was life on Mars was a really good idea.

You also had to disappoint some people now and then. For example, there were a lot of people back even then who said, we need to have a Mars sample return mission. Were we ready for such a thing? Absolutely not. I remember sitting in a room about this size with hundreds of members of the Mars science community, and I asked them the following question. I said, who out here can give me a good answer, and this was 12 years ago,

why we should go and spend then, it was $3 billion to bring a half a kilogram, 500 grams back from Mars. So these are scientists and engineers in the audience? Mostly scientists, a smattering of engineers, representing the planetary science community. And I did not get a crisp answer. And so I canceled the Mars science, Mars sample return at the time because the risk

of not getting a good sample was simply too high. That must have been about the time they started calling you the Mars czar. Right, because they were wishing that the same thing had happened to Nicholas II, would happen to me. I'm just wondering who your Rasputin was. Gentlemen, we're out of time for this week's portion of our conversation. We will continue it on air and online in next week's episode.

And for listeners, we will have much, much more of the conversation for you online in our show for the week of August 20th. Thank you so much, guys, for joining us and for all you've done to help humanity reach its destiny in the solar system and the universe. Andy, Scott, Andrew Chaikin's Voices from the Moon and Mission Control, This is Apollo are published by Viking. His website is andrewchaikin.com. Scott Hubbard has written Exploring Mars. It's from the University of Arizona Press. He and I will be talking more about that book in an upcoming episode of Planetary

Radio. And Bill, I'll be talking with you again next week. And every week, thanks for being part of the live show today. Our regular listeners know that we always finish each episode by visiting with Dr. Bruce Betts. He's a planetary scientist and the Planetary Society's Director of Projects. Please help me welcome Bruce for this week's edition of What's Up. projects, please help me welcome Bruce for this week's edition of What's Up? All right, so here we are at PlanetFest 2012. Welcome. Thank you. Up in the night sky, you can check out some nice planets, including Mars, appropriately. If you look in the evening sky over low in the west, you will see Mars.

But not only Mars, Mars is hanging out right near Saturn and the bluish star Spica. And they're all in a cluster. And, in fact, right about the time this show will air, around August 13th, 14th, Mars will be going in the sky between Saturn and Spica. So a nice view, Saturn yellowish, Mars, of course, red between Saturn and Spica, so a nice view. Saturn yellowish, Mars of course reddish, and Spica bluish. And in the pre-dawn you can also check out in the low in the east, very bright Jupiter, and below that super bright Venus. And also don't miss the Perseids.

Perseid meteor shower, traditionally second best meteor shower of the year, about 60 meteors per hour from a dark site. So go out, stare up. It peaks right about, again, the time this show's coming out, around the 12th of August. But I mention it anyway because it does have a broad peak. So you can check out increased meteor activity for another week or so afterwards. It's a bell curve. It is. It is. It's a Jim Bell curve.

Little reference to our Mars scientist, president of the Planetary Society Board. We move on, and I'd like to get the audience's help. One, two, three. Random space facts! Well done. Well done. That was brilliant. So thank you. Thank you all. And here is your random space fact. Mars, which we keep talking about, has only about 11% of the mass of the Earth.

Boy, that much smaller. And yet, what about the surface area? Well, the surface area is my favorite random space fact, which is why I keep saying it periodically, which is the surface area is about equivalent to the land surface area of Earth. So if you don't count the oceans, it's about the same as the land surface area. You like how I fed you that? I do. I appreciate that. It wasn't obvious at all. We go on to the contest,

except that we don't have a listener contest to award or to pick a winner for this week. It has to do with the timing of this show and Planet Fest and all that. But can we go on to the question that we're going to ask listeners for next time, and then we're going to give our audience a chance to play the game. All right, listeners out there. How many kilograms of plutonium dioxide are carried by the Curiosity rover? Go to planetary.org slash radio.

Find out how to enter planetary.org slash radio. Enter our contest. That's dilithium? No, no, that's a different spacecraft. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm a Trekkie. What can I say? You have until the 20th, that is August 20th, Monday at 2 p.m. Pacific time, to get us that answer.

And now that we've done that, let's start throwing some hug-a-Marses out to the folks in the audience here. But you've got to earn it. Sorry, with a reminder, not counting Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity, how many active spacecraft are there at Mars right now? Your first, Mitch. Three? That is incorrect. Number of active spacecraft at Mars.

Both in orbit and on the surface. That is correct. Okay. Active spacecraft. Yes, sir. Is it four? It is indeed four. It is four. You know what that means. It's time to throw the hug of Mars. All right. Let's see if he can get it out to this guy at the microphone. Yeah! All right, let's see if he can get it out to this guy at the microphone. Yeah! Mars is mine.

So, yeah, people often forget there's a lot going on there. Even before Curiosity getting there, you've got Mars Odyssey. It got there in 2001. Mars Express and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter from the 2005 launch frame. And, of course, Opportunity, still cruising around since 2004. It's a human invasion fleet, and now we're sending the battleship with a ray gun. All right, everybody, go out there, look up at the night sky, and think about articulated joints.

Thank you, and good night. Mine are kind of sore right now. He's Bruce Betts. He's Bruce Betts. I'm throwing a hug at planets. He's Bruce Betts, the Planetary Society's Director of Projects. He joins me each week for What's Up. Let's welcome back High Fidelity to end our show with a song. You can learn more about the guys and hear more of their terrific music online at highfidelityquartet.com.

Clear skies, everyone. Here is High Fidelity. When you wish upon a star Makes no difference who you are Anything your heart desires will come to you If your heart is in your dream no request is too extreme

when you wish upon a star as dreamers do fate is kind she brings to those who love the sweet Fate is kind She brings to those who love The sweet fulfillment of Their secret longing

Just like a bolt out of the blue Fate steps in and sees you through when you wish upon a star. Your dreams come true. This is my quest to follow that star no matter how hopeless no matter how far to fight for the right

with a question or pause to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause and I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest

then my heart will I be full and calm when I'm laid to my rest and the world will be better for this That one man scorned and covered with scars

Still strong with his last ounce of courage To reach the unreachable star Reach the unreachable star Thank you to all of our generous Planet Fest sponsors, including NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, bringing the universe to you, along with landing Curiosity on Mars. Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX, designs, manufactures, and launches the world's most advanced rocket and spacecraft. And XCOR Aerospace, new technology of space,

exhibiting a full-size model of the Lynx suborbital spaceship. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California and made possible by a grant from the Kenneth T. and Ellen L. Norris Foundation and by members of the Planetary Society. Our audio engineer is Eric Balani. I'm Abigail Freeman, graduate student

and member of Curiosity Science team. applause applause applause