Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Planetary Radio LIVE Continues! With John Callas of the Mars Exploration Rovers and Joy Crisp of the Mars Science Laboratory

Episode Date: January 2, 2012

Here's the second half of our December show recorded in front of a live audience: Mars rover updates, two more spacey songs from KJ Williams, and the big finish of Emily Lakdawalla's proof that she is not covering up evidence of aliens in our solar system! You'll also hear a brand new What's Up segment from Bruce Betts and Mat Kaplan.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Music More rovers on Mars as Planetary Radio Live continues. Music Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. As promised, we've got the second half of our December show recorded in front of a live audience at Southern California Public Radio's Crawford Family Forum.

Back again are Joy Crisp, Deputy Project Scientist for Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory, and John Callis, Project Manager for the Mars Exploration Rovers. Bill Nye, the science and planetary guy, will again join the conversation. More musical treats, too, as we welcome back singer K.J. Williams and guitarist Lawrence Young. Then we'll get a brand new What's Up segment from Bruce Betts. We'll begin where we left off last week with the Planetary Society's science and technology coordinator.

Emily Lakdawalla was in the middle of telling us how she uses a bit of art to reveal beautiful science truths in the images returned from spacecraft around our solar system. Don't forget that there are video slideshows of both parts of Emily's presentation at planetary.org slash blog. Emily, let's start with a quick reminder of where we left off last week. Well, I talked about how spacecraft cameras are usually black and white cameras. They shoot only black and white images, and to get color information, they have to put different color filters in front of the camera.

The same is true of Cassini as it was of the Mars Exploration rovers. This is also a black and white image of Dione and Titan. And you can take lots of images in a row, just like with the rovers, to make color pictures, but there is a problem, and that's that everything in the Saturn system is moving all the time. Cassini is moving. The moons are moving. Saturn is spinning. The rings are spinning.

Everything moves, and so as you go from filter to filter, you get a lot of motion from one frame to the next. So when you try to combine three images taken through red, green, and blue filters into a color photo, you get junk. That looks terrible. There's lots of color fringes. There's weird red stripes and yellow stripes. I can make it slightly better by lining it up on Dione. And you can see there's no more color stripes on Dione,

but Titan still looks terrible. I can try to line up Titan, but Dione looks like a traffic light. It just looks wrong, OK? So here's where we go from science to art. I cannot make this image look good without manipulating the data somewhat. And of course, what I do is I take my pretty picture of Dione,

I cut it out, and I paste it on top of my pretty picture of Titan. It's still not perfect, though. There's still some weird shadow color images of Dione, and that's where I get out my paintbrush. I paint in the background, and there you have it. That is a picture of Titan and Dione from Cassini. And if you would like to ooh and ah along with our studio audience who are getting to see all these beautiful images, just go to planetary.org slash blog, and that's where Emily can be found with this

and lots of other great information about what's happening around our solar system. Thank you so much, Emily. Thank you for having me, Matt. Emily Lakawala is the Science and Technology Coordinator for the Planetary Society and the editor of its very popular blog. Now, over there on the musical side of our stage are singer K.J. Williams and guitarist Lawrence Young. K.J., you are much more than a talented singer getting gigs throughout Southern California. What's your day job? Well, my day job is I work full-time as a robotics engineer

at a little R&D company called Applied Minds here in Glendale. With a PhD from Caltech, so she's Dr. Williams, if you don't mind. And by the way, here's one of her journal articles that she co-wrote, Modeling of Swarm Robotic Systems, a Case Study in Collaborative Distributed Manipulation. And hopefully that explains why Caltech recommended her when I asked them if they could put me in touch with a genius who can sing. What have you got for us? Up next, we're going to do one of my favorite tunes, a pretty ballad called Stardust. And we chose spacey tunes for this show. I kind of like to think about it as when you love something and you have to let

it go like a Mars Rover. You still have those memories. And now the purple dusk of twilight time Steals across the meadows of my heart. High up in the sky the little stars climb always reminding me that we're apart. You wander down the lane and far away Leaving me a song that will not die Love is now the stardust

of yesterday The music of the years gone by Sometimes I wonder why I spend the

lonely night Dreaming of a song. The melody haunts my reverie. And I am once again with you when our love was new. And each kiss an inspiration but that was long ago now my consolation

is in the stardust of a song beside a garden wall When stars are bright You are in my arms The nightingale Tells his fairy tale Of paradise where roses grew

though I dream in vain in my heart you will remain my stardust melody the memory of love's refrain.

My stardust melody, the memory of love's refrain. K.J. Williams and Lawrence Young. Thank you. John Callis, Joy Crisp, and Bill Nye will take us to Mars when Planetary Radio Live continues. 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.

Let's pick up the conversation we began last week with John Callis, project manager for the Mars Exploration Rovers. After eight years, he still has opportunity crawling around Giant Endeavor Crater. Joy Crisp is a deputy project scientist for Curiosity, the Mars science laboratory rover that is headed for an exciting landing on the Red Planet in August of this year. Also rejoining us is Bill Nye the Planetary Guy, CEO of the Planetary Society, who had just asked Joy how long Curiosity is expected to be active on the surface of Mars. So the equipment is built and designed to work for at least two Earth years, which is one

Mars year. Now, if we have the good fortune that Spirit and Opportunity did, then we may last longer than that. But that's how long the engineers think that it will definitely work. John, do you have any advice for Joy and her colleagues about how to live with rovers on Mars for, oh, who knows, five, six, seven, eight years in your case? Yeah, it's to plan for the long haul. You know, you are privileged to work on a mission where you go to work on another planet every day. I mean, the teams that work these rovers really work on Mars. And you get seduced by the opportunity to come in each day and see something that no one else has seen before, and you're the first to see those images, and then to decide what to explore next.

It's captivating. It's a great thrill. Joy, your instruments, where do they build on what John's rovers have been able to do? And in particular, I'm thinking of all the people I've talked to with your mission who say, no, no, no, it's not a life detection mission. That's correct. Instead, what we're doing is going beyond following the water. We are doing a lot of the things that Spirit and Opportunity do, but then doing more. So we're doing a more comprehensive characterization of the environment.

We're looking at other things such as radiation, water in the ground, that is bound water and minerals, and monitoring weather, today's weather, that we're not doing on Spirit and Opportunity. And we're looking for the building blocks that are necessary for life. This is something new compared to Spirit and Opportunity. So you have these laboratories built into the spacecraft. Is it anything like Phoenix, the Mars Polar Lander? It's a little like Phoenix, but with the additional capability of being able to drill into rocks and analyze rock powder.

Phoenix had a scoop for soil. We have something like that. You have a rock hammer. We have a rock hammer. Geologists walk around and they smack rocks all the time. Correct. It's always dangerous to ask a scientist to speculate about what they hope for. But what would really make you be able to say this has been as incredibly successful a mission as John has had with Spirit and Opportunity?

Well, first of all, we have this set of tools that will tell us information. But what makes it a really complete mission is if we can interpret that data and really understand what the environment was like billions of years ago on Mars and how the environment changed and whether those environments, any of them, were suitable for life or suitable for preserving evidence of life. So where the little bit of luck factor comes in is how diagnostic are the clues and can we put them all together and understand what it was like on Mars. Can I ask specifically, what's the deal with sterols? I don't know what the deal is.

Because I heard this that if you could find sterols with some sort of assay instrument, that would show that these things were, like it's the same word as cholesterol. Well, we have an organic analyzer instrument. That's one of the ones that we can feed the rock powder in the scoop soils to. And it can characterize what kinds of organic compounds are present and what their abundances are. So I'm not an organic chemist myself. I'm a volcanologist. I study volcanic rocks. But it sounds to me like serols may be one of these organic compounds that perhaps this instrument could identify. Because there's methane in the

atmosphere, right? Tiny amount. Correct. And we will be able to sniff the atmosphere with this instrument for the methane. And I hope we discover soon where that methane is coming from or who is making it. That would really be cool. Whoa. You know, the coolest instrument that I think is on Curiosity, say just a couple of words about ChemCam. All right.

ChemCam is probably the coolest instrument, especially to kids when they find out what it does. It's a laser instrument. So on the top of the mast, about seven feet up high off the ground, we can fire this laser at rocks and soils and generate a little plasma spark. It's a heat ray. Yeah. Do you get this, folks?

We are sending a ray gun to Mars, not the other way around. It's so cool. So then the instrument looks at that spark with a spectrometer, and we can determine what the chemistry is of that soil or rock from a distance. Now, Cole, I've had a spectrometer, or who hasn't? But you hold it up to your eye like a telescope, like a microscope. This ray gun you're sending, we're sending, how far away is it from the chassis? It's 10 meters, 30 feet or something, right?

It can fire at 7 meters. That's about 21 feet away. And then this detector can measure the smoke, if you will. Crazy. That is cool. I'm glad I've grown out of it. Are you at all envious of these latter-day, these 21st century instruments, John? Because you had to put yours together, oh, all the way back into the previous century, ages ago. Yeah. Curiosity can do everything that Spirit and Opportunity can do. So we are looking forward to the kind of abilities that Curiosity has.

Another way to think about it is Spirit and Opportunity were the geology rovers for Mars. They were like robotic field geologists. Curiosity is the analytical chemistry lab for Mars. So we've done the geology. We have these questions that can only be answered by examining the chemistry. So this is the right next mission. And so we are very excited about looking forward to having company on the surface. And you will have company. Your little geologist opportunity is, we hope, far from done. I mean, what's still ahead? Well, we feel like we have

a brand new mission, even after almost eight years on the surface. We've traveled kilometers across these plains of Meridiani, the place where we landed. And most of what we found are related to sulfates. So this is a later epoch in Mars. We've now transitioned into an area that's dominated by this giant crater Endeavour, which is much older material. And so it's like we've gone a step back in time. How do you know it's older? Well, from orbital evidence, we can look down and use instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance

Orbiter to look at what kind of mineralogy and morphology, the shape and structure of things. And we can determine that from that, this must be Noachian, from that early period on Mars. Noachian is from the same word as Noah. Noah, which is the era of the Great Flood. A flood. So that's when we think Mars was very wet and that there was persistent water on the surface, lakes, perhaps even oceans. And so we've gone back in time. So we've gone into it. It's like going through a time tunnel, if you will. And so now we have an opportunity to examine earlier

periods when there was this abundant water on the surface and see what that tells us about what happened to Mars and not only what happened, but where's it going? Why did Mars change? Because it used to be wet and now it's not wet, not on the surface. Not unless you dig down a little bit. We have saved a couple of minutes here for our studio audience to join in a little bit. Hi there, what's your name? My name is Liam Kennedy and my question is about the amount of data that is being collected on Curiosity and the challenges of getting that huge amount of data that is being collected on Curiosity and the challenges of getting

that huge amount of data back to the Earth. I'm just interested to find out how that's improved or what are the challenges you're getting there. Are you going to have a higher data rate than Spirit and Opportunity? We – I don't – I can't remember what the data rate is for Spirit and Opportunity, but what we will get back is on the order of 250 megabits a day. How does that compare? Yeah, it's about twice what we get with Spirit and Opportunity.

Okay. How did you do that? Two ways. One, we go through, most of our data will come back through Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. And today, are you doing that? Yeah, Curiosity uses a smarter radio. Just like you get a new cell phone and it's 4G instead of 3G. Well, Curiosity's got the 4G system.

We still have the 3G system. But you also relay through Mars condensates orbit? Yeah, this has turned out to be a very efficient way of getting data back, because if we were to transmit from the surface of Mars all the way back to Earth, the data rates would be equivalent to almost like Morse code, whereas when we use the orbiting spacecraft to relay them back, they have a lot more power on these spacecraft and bigger antennas to focus it back to the Earth, and there the data rates are more like DSL. So it's a lot better to go through the orbiters to get the data back rather than Morse code.

Don't you love that we have like a whole network of human objects on and circling Mars? Can we have another question? Here's a hand over this way. Hi, sir. What's your name? John from Huntington Beach. Your instruments, do they rely at all on atmospheric pressure? Did you test them for those kinds of things?

Yes, we definitely test them for that. So we put them in system thermal tests where we bring them to Mars temperatures and pressures, check them over a range of temperatures. And then the follow-up would be what about the chemicals in the atmosphere? Are those going to affect those at all? They affect some of the instruments as well. And so, for instance, the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer comes to mind where the carbon dioxide definitely affects the measurements. And they do testing in a carbon dioxide Mars-like atmosphere to check that. So for those things that depend on the Mars atmosphere composition, we do test that as

well. And, John, what do they put you through in your day and now, I guess, with curiosity before it left, just to make those spacecraft as clean as possible, get it past the planetary protection officer? Well, many people have probably seen pictures of the clean rooms where we assemble our spacecraft. And we do that for a number of reasons. You know, these vehicles will be going up into space where it's a weightless environment. So if you had any dirt or debris on it, it would float around inside. And we actually, early spacecraft actually shorted out because of that. The other thing is, is we have sensitive instruments on these spacecraft and you don't want them contaminated. You know, just like you have a lens cap on your camera and you take it off just before you take a picture. We don't want contaminants on the instruments. But the main reason, with Curiosity now especially, is we're going down to the surface and one day we hope to look for life directly on Mars. And we want to make sure we don't accidentally bring it with us. And so we build these vehicles in very clean environments where things are sterilized and they're carefully monitored to make sure that we minimize whatever

biological material might actually go to Mars because we don't want to contaminate Mars. Because if we find a signal there, we want to make sure that we didn't accidentally bring it with us. Can't violate the prime directive. Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callis. We also talked with Joy Crisp, Deputy Project Scientist for Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover, now headed for the Red Planet.

You also heard Bill Nye the Planetary Guy, CEO of the Planetary Society. He'll be back next week with his regular commentary. I want to thank Southern California Public Radio for once again allowing us to rely on the Crawford Family Forum and its great staff. They made this edition

of Planetary Radio Live possible. Don't leave us. Bruce Betts will be here with What's Up after we fly you to the moon And let me play among the stars Let me see what spring is like On Jupiter and Mars. In other words, hold my hand. In other words, darling, kiss me. Fill my heart with song and let me sing forevermore. You are all I long for, all I worship and adore. In other words, please be true.

In other words I love you fly me to the moon show me Jupiter in June I wanna see the stars sunset on Mars

while you hold my hand the stars sunset on Mars while you hold my hand oh while you kiss me fill

my heart with song you are all I long for Take me there I won't need air You're all I need It's true Oh

Yes indeed I love you So Fly me to the moon and let me swing among those stars let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars oh won't you please hold my hand

I'll come right out and beg you, baby Kiss me, fill my heart with song And let me sing forevermore You are all I long for All I worship and adore In other words, say you do too. In other words, in other words, in other words, I love you. I love you KJ Williams and Lawrence Young

Happy New Year, Bruce. Happy New Year, Bruce. Happy New Year, Matt. All right, we have a super abbreviated what's up. So roll on in. Tell us what's going on. All right, abbreviated form, the two planets dominating the evening sky, Venus over in the west after sunset, Jupiter high overhead. We move on to random space fact.

And when we say abbreviated, we mean abbreviated. Go for it. White dwarfs? And we're not talking about Gimli here. 97% of the stars in our galaxy will end their lives as white dwarfs. We move on to the trivia contest. And we asked you on the Curiosity rover,

they have actually put Morse code into it. They've encoded a message that will leave itself in the sands of Mars. And we asked you, and it's in Morse code, what is that message? How do we do, Matt? What a huge response. This really took off. And so many people said that they were just thrilled to learn about this. It was like getting in on some inside information. Well, not surprisingly, with our creative audience, we got some very creative and pretty funny answers. We won't be able to go through all of those. I'm sorry about that. But here's one from Bruce Cordell. Here it is. He says that in Morse code, it's going to say, John Carter was, which I just love since I just finally finished the books. Here's the actual Morse code. Here's my interpretation. This one came from Ilya Schwartz,

who's a ham radio operator, but a couple of other people offered this. You ready? Yes. Dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dash, dash, dot, dot, dash, dot, dot. That was brilliant. Thank you. It was my own rendering. You should be a telegraph someday. You know who won? I do not.

He interpreted that correctly as JPL. Steve Schultz of Chandler, Arizona, a first-time winner, is going to get a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Can I tell you two others? These are so good. Go. Kamil Stefaniak in Poland.

He came up with the same thing, except he was a little more creative with how he wrote it out. Ready? JPL, JPL, JPL, JPL, JPL, JPL, JPL, JPL, JPL, JPL, JPL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get the idea. I do. Finally, Torsten Zimmer said, yes, it's JPL, but it actually stands for just plain lonely. I don't think that's true. No, I don't think it is either. It's Jet Propulsion Lab. But it will be for just plain lonely. I don't think that's true.

No, I don't think it is either. It's Jet Propulsion Lab. But it will be up there by itself. It won't even have a sister on the other side of the planet. Anyway, thanks, everybody, for doing this. What are we going to do for next time? Measured in the units of solar masses, what is the largest mass a white dwarf can attain?

Go to planetary.org slash radio, find out how to enter. And you have until the 9th, Monday, January 9th at 2 p.m. Pacific time to get us that answer. All right, everybody, go out there, look up in the night sky, and think about what shapes ice cream containers should take. Happy New Year, everybody. Ice cream containers? I thought you were going to do something with white dwarfs. Every time I hear that, I can't help but think, white dwarfs on dope. For those of you who go back that far to the immortal tubes.

He's Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. He joins us every week and hopefully all throughout this brand new year here on What's Up. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California and made possible by a grant from the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation and by the members of the Planetary Society. Clear skies and Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you.